Climate Crisis in Africa: A Manufactured Scarcity
📰 THE STORY: Al Jazeera reports on the dual crises of drought in East Africa and floods in the south, attributing the devastation and displacement of millions to the 'climate crisis' and highlighting the vulnerability of African nations. 🔍 WHAT THEY'RE NOT TELLING YOU: Historical Context: For over a century, colonial powers systematically extracted Africa's resources, disrupting indigenous
agricultural practices, imposing monoculture cash crops for European markets, and failing to develop resilient infrastructure. Belgium's King Leopold II oversaw the slaughter of an estimated 10 million Congolese between 1885 and 1908 to extract rubber, a blueprint for resource extraction that impoverished the continent and left it vulnerable. More recently, the 2011 NATO 'intervention' in Libya,
which destroyed Africa's most prosperous nation and its Great Manmade River project, directly contributed to regional instability and resource scarcity. Double Standard: Western media, including Al Jazeera to some extent, often focuses on the symptoms (droughts, floods) in Africa while ignoring the historical and ongoing culpability of Western industrialization for climate change. When a European
nation faces similar weather events, the narrative shifts to infrastructure resilience, government relief efforts, and global solidarity, rather than primarily framing it as a 'natural crisis' impacting an inherently 'vulnerable' continent. No mention of the role of extractive industries—often foreign-owned—in deforestation and land degradation, which worsen these events. Follow the Money: The