TRANSCRIPT
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The Rabbi Daniel Lapin Podcast
Episode: Eyes on Africa – Ten Reasons
Date: 6/14/24 Length: 1:10:15
Daniel Lapin 0:00
Greetings, happy warriors and welcome to the Rabbi Daniel Lapin show, where I your rabbi, reveal how the world really works. And it was during this week, - there were several things on my mind. One of them was, of course, that Thursday of this week was the 80th anniversary of the sixth of June, 1944 the 80th anniversary that was the Normandy landings. That was D-Day. And there's a movie that my family used to screen every sixth of June was called The Longest Day. I think it's one of the biggest major movies that I don't recall had a woman. Well, there were, there weren't too many women in the cast. But then, when you think about the invasion of Europe in 1944, Yeah, in those days, armies were male, just the way they are supposed to be. If you know how the world really works, then if you're a soldier, you want your women safely at home with you, fighting tooth and nail, ready to shed blood, to defend them and protect them. What you don't want is a woman fighting alongside of you being captured or being injured and distracting you from the main purpose for which you are there back in 1944 under the Supreme Allied Commander Dwight Eisenhower, General Eisenhower, no, there weren't too many women landing on the beaches of Juno or Omaha or sword on those beaches of Normandy. No, that was men. So that was one of the things that had me very aware this week. And I remembered, as our children were growing up, every sixth of June, we used to we'd invite some of their friends over, and we'd make a showing on the afternoon of June the sixth, everybody would gather around, and we'd plug in that old, yes, the VHS, VHS tape we owned of the grand, wonderful movie The Longest Day.
Daniel Lapin 2:34
The other thing that happened was that the General Council, the Conference of The United Methodist Church met in South Carolina, I believe it was in the United States, I think, and made a decision that henceforth homosexuality was not an obstacle to professional progress in the church, and so it was now going to be possible for overt homosexuals to play leadership roles in the church. Well, guess what happened. The Methodist Church of Ivory Coast, big country on the west coast of Africa, just next to Ghana, not far from Liberia and Ivory Coast Methodist Church said, adios, goodbye, folks. Enjoy the rest of your lives. The United Methodist Church of Ivory Coast, a mere million and a quarter members said, we're out of here. And similar noises coming from Zimbabwe and Kenya and many, many, many other African countries. And I thought, gosh, that's interesting. And so leaving D-Day aside and focusing just on Africa, there, you've got these African countries saying, Look, we don't hate anybody, but the Bible says no to homosexuality. Therefore, as Christians we cannot say yes. That's all there is to it. If you take religion seriously, if you take your relationship with God seriously, that's all, that's all there is to it doesn't mean you have to be mean and nasty to to people who practice homosexuality, but it also doesn't mean that you have to be forced to accept it and venerate it and praise it. It's seen as an unnatural act, it's against God's wishes, and those folks in Africa see it that way, very, very clear.
Daniel Lapin 4:32
So that was interesting, coupled with the facts all of this happening in the same week, the African National Congress, which has been the dominant force in South African politics for many, many years, lost an election. They've always won elections with some question, by the way, about fairness, lot of intimidation always going on. You might remember Nelson Mandela's wife whom he had the wisdom to divorce, named Winnie Mandela. She used to be in charge of torturing people who did not vote the party line and support the African National Congress. Well, for the first time, they lost the election, and they are going to have to now be part of a coalition government, which will be in the process of being formed in South Africa in the weeks ahead. So, okay, interesting thing, African National Congress fails, and it's a socialistic organization that has dominated South African politics. Well, no more; and the African, many African churches are saying, wait a sec. We may have to dissociate from the European or the central authorities of these churches, because they are all turning woke. Africa is not a woke place. So I decided that as an African-American, a Jewish, African-American with white skin, I thought I should tell you a little bit about my homeland. I should talk a little about the African continent. Because the more I thought about it, the more I looked into it, and the more I read on it this week, the more clear it became to me that that's one of the places our eyes should be focused. All eyes on Africa. That's the theme of today's show, and one I definitely want to -- I've never done anything like this at all on any previous show. But it is time, and I think you will find that these words that I am going to impart today are prophetic, and I will show you why that is.
Daniel Lapin 4:47
First of all, let's take a look at this country, firstly, geographically, it is far larger, way larger than it, than it looks in the way we think. And here's why, it's very difficult to decide how you're going to depict a the globe of the earth, which is a sphere? How are you going to depict that on a flat surface of a map? That is the problem. And I'm hoping that for this part of the discussion, in your home, you possess two absolutely essential things in any in any serious happy warriors home, and that is, you need an atlas. You need a book of maps of the world, and you need a globe. Why isn't one enough? Because they don't look the same for a very good reason. You see, how are you going to depict the objects on the surface of a sphere on a flat piece of paper. Well, I really ought to do a show and tell here. I ought to really get an orange and peel it. But I'm going to make this a thought experiment, and I'm going to lean on your powers of imagination, if you don't mind, and I'm going to ask you to imagine that I'm going to take an orange and I am going to make two cuts from equator over the North Pole to the equator, and then at 90 degrees to that, I'm going to do that Again, just through the peel, then I'm going to peel back
Daniel Lapin 8:45
these four points. And you can now imagine that what we have is an orange where I've not done anything to the southern hemisphere, but on the northern hemisphere, you've now got four sort of roughly triangular shaped leaves sticking up and and now, in order to make those appear horizontal, we will lay them out flat. And so you've now got the all the skin that, all the peel that was on the northern hemisphere of the orange now looks like this, a sort of a triangle, slightly curved, and another one and a fourth one laid out flat. But you can't leave gaps on a map, so we've got to make the empty space between the four triangles join. How do we do that? We spread each triangle till they meet the adjacent one. And this is called mercator's projection. It's a standard way of depicting that. But look what happens. The further you are towards the North Pole, the more your land needs to be expanded. Uh, artificially, to meet up with the land next to it. So as you end up with a piece of paper that has all the the objects on the Earth's surface. So what this means is that all land masses are towards the northern part of the hemisphere, are greatly expanded. They look much bigger than they really are because they're expanded. They're the the the peel is stretched, as it were to meet. It's adjacent. It's a good thought experiment. I hope your imagination holds up. I hope I described it well enough that your imagination can see it. But what it boils down to is that the further north you are, the more false, the more inaccurate is the depiction of the landmass. So Greenland looks huge on a mercator's projection. Now go look at it on your globe, and you'll see how small Greenland is, Northern Europe and Northern Asia. It's not nearly as big as it looks, and the closer you come to the tropics, the less expansion there is. So by contrast with the northern hemisphere, Africa kind of looks almost petite, but it isn't. When you compare it to everything north of it. It's huge, and this is not clearly understood at all.
Daniel Lapin 11:29
The area of Africa is about 30 million square kilometers. It's the second biggest continent after Asia. So It's way bigger than the North America or South America. The the the continent of Africa is about 30 million square kilometers. What do you think the area of the United States is? It's about 10 million square kilometers. So is China, by the way, India is about is it 7 million No, India's 4 million square kilometers. Mexico is about two. So that means that if you put the United States into Africa and China and India and Mexico, you've still got room for France and Germany and Norway and the United Kingdom all fitting into the area that people don't realize that, because when you look at a flat Atlas, it's distorted. Those other countries all look bigger than they really are, and Africa doesn't. And so you don't now you should go and look at your atlas, your, excuse me, your globe. Look on your globe, and you'll have a much better sense, and you'll see that I'm telling you the truth when I tell you, add China to India, to the United States of America. Pop them into Africa. There's still plenty room left over. That's That's how big that continent is. It's absolutely huge. The distance from Cairo to Cape Town, Cairo at the northeast tip and on the Mediterranean and Cape Town at the southern tip, where the Indian and the Atlantic Oceans meet. It's about 6000 miles, all right, it's only 3000 miles across the United States, and much less than that, from north to south. It's huge. Africa is very, very big.
Daniel Lapin 13:39
And now I want to tell you a little bit about the population of Africa and but before I do that usual reminder, please, I ask you help me here and go ahead and subscribe. Let's, let's nudge those subscription numbers up. That's very, very helpful to me. And number two, I want to also recommend that you visit the website at www.RabbiDanielLapin.com and we have a Father's Day sale going on, and I think you will benefit from that. We also have a few more signed copies. In other words, you can order a copy signed, or you can even order a copy that I will personalize to you, and you'll see all of that. We have a certain number of them left, I think maybe 50, and all of that at RabbiDanielLapin.com Also, I got a wonderful letter today from a happy warrior in Germany who's become a an official member of the Happy Warrior community. And I want to ask you to do that as well. Please, do join us, become part of the community and and that way, not only will you have immediate access to a vast library of resources that has been created. Over the years, but also, you will be in a position to receive inspiration and guidance and encouragement from other happy warriors, and even more importantly, you will be able to provide that for other people. And so please do that. Also, if you haven't yet taken a look at our newest book, The Holistic You, you will find that at, you know, either at online booksellers, but also you could read about it on our website. The Holistic You, integrating your family, your finance, your faith, your fitness and your friendships, the five crucial zones for completion in life, all of that. Read about it at RabbiDanielLapin.com, okay, so taking care of business there. I hope that you will subscribe. I hope that you will visit the the website and take a look at resources. Become a member of the Happy Warrior community. Take a look at whether you want a signed, personalized Business Secrets from the Bible. Happy to get that to you, if you would like that. And take a look at The Holistic You our newest book. Okay, that's that's business.
Daniel Lapin 16:24
Now, I said we're going to having taken a look at just how big Africa is. Let's take a look at the population of Africa. Should we do that so the population of China, give or take, about 1.4 billion people, 1400 million people. Okay, that's China. Now Africa, just about the same, about 1.4 billion people.
Daniel Lapin 16:56
Now, be aware, obviously I'm not making a mistake here. China is basically one country, again, with certain challenges in integrating it all into one country, and certain approaches in in in cases verging on the totalitarian, if not crossing the line in terms of keeping it unified. Is one nation. Africa is 54 separate nations. But as you will see, as we go further into this, that is not quite as bad as it looks. In other words, the European Union, lot of different languages, lot of different languages there, but they're sort of cobbling together some kind of unity. Africa stands a better chance of unity, in my view, than the European Union does, in spite of the fact that it's 54 different nations, and we'll take a look at that. But by contrast, the United States is about a third of a billion. So 1.4 billion, China, 1.4 billion, all of Africa a third of a billion. So in other words, China four times as many people as United States, Africa, four times as many people as United States and and that's a very big deal, because all things being equal, the gross domestic product, the economic capability of a country, is proportional to its population, all things being equal. And so, as I've often pointed out, in the United States of America, Rhode Island is a small state, about 1/8 the size of Georgia, and if you examine the GDP of both Georgia and Rhode Island, you're not shocked to discover that Georgia produces about eight times more economic output than does Rhode Island. Size of population really matters now, clearly you cannot compare the infrastructure for economic creativity of the United States of America, with the infrastructure for economic creativity in Africa, however, and this is the big thing, America's Economic creativity and America's infrastructure capacity for economic creativity, and I'm sorry to just say this, it's my adopted country, and it hurts me to say it, but I'm above all about telling the truth and being a realist and knowing how the world really works. At the moment, it is clear that America's sun is setting, America's economic capacity is heading downwards, Africa heading upwards. Very different. And so we have to take these facts. Into consideration as we weigh up what is really happening on that huge continent that we call Africa. It's got, it's got, it's got problems. Obviously some of them are geographic in the sense that communication is absolutely essential for economic creativity, we've got to be able to connect with others. This is one of the reasons that people flock to cities. It's one of the reasons that cities are far more economically productive than rural areas, because it's a lot of people in proximity.
Daniel Lapin 20:36
So whether it is Hong Kong or whether it's Manhattan or whether it's Israel, you've got a small area with a huge population of people, and they're rubbing up against each other all the time. There's lots of opportunity for connection and contact and communication and collaboration and creativity, that's right. And so in Europe, for instance, rivers and canals. First rivers and then canals played a huge part in the forming of early economic bonds going back more than 1000 years the Hanseatic League, a connection of trading cities that were connected to one another, that goes back to about 1100 you know, talking about a long time ago. So one of the advantages Europe had was rivers connected. So for instance, you have the mighty river Rhine, which empties into the North Sea, but it runs kind of like a belt across Europe, roughly speaking, shall we say, east to west. And then you've got the Danube, another mighty river, flowing eastwards towards the Black Sea. And guess what? They're connected with, the canals they're joined. So you can actually travel the entire breadth of Europe, from the Atlantic, from the North Sea to the Black Sea, on rivers and canals. The that system that I've just mentioned that's connected to the Mediterranean, they built a canal again a long time ago already. How long ago? I think, the Rhone, the canal du Midi taking connecting with the river system all the way to the Mediterranean. I'm not 100% sure, but I'm thinking about 500 years ago somewhere. It's quite a while. And so Europe has had this huge head start of connectivity. By contrast, there are great rivers in Africa. There's the Zambezi and there's the Nile, and there's the Niger River and there's the Congo River. They're great rivers, but they're not very navigable. Let me tell you why, because a large part of Africa. In the middle is a very high plateau. I, for example, was born in Johannesburg, South Africa. The nearest water, the nearest ocean, is, shall we say, Durban on the Indian Ocean. It's about 300 miles away. And so the railway, or the road from Durban to Johannesburg is only 300 miles long, but it climbs nearly 6000 feet, say 20 feet a mile. It's a decent gradient, because Johannesburg is part of the inner plateau, sitting about 6000 miles high going further north, a very important commercial corridor, Mombasa, on the Indian Ocean in Kenya, linked to the main city of Kenya, called Nairobi. Nairobi sits at about the same height as Johannesburg, close to 6000 feet. It's about 400 miles from Mombasa to Nairobi, very important that the connection for business, for making money, that's a connection that needs to be available to people. And so when the British were running Kenya, one of the first things they did was build a railway. And that railway lasted and served as the main artery between Nairobi and the coast until about 2018 when Guess who built a brand new, modern, high speed rail connection between Mombasa and Nairobi? That's absolutely right. You smart Happy Warriors. You got it right. It is China who built that. But again, the point speaking about the rivers is that, you know the Zambezi River, fantastic River. It's only got a bunch of problems. One of the big ones is called Victoria Falls. You see, because the inside is very often the inner part, or in a plateau very high as the river makes its way to the ocean, there are series of waterfalls and rapids, and so you cannot travel to the interior on the Zambezi River. And the rivers aren't connected to each other. Now, the Nile is navigable for a while, and so Egypt did build something of a functioning society. The first few 100 miles of the Nile are navigable. But then, then it ends. The Nile goes all the way into near Uganda, I think, but again, absolutely not navigable. There are pockets of economic productivity around some of the Great Lakes, like Victoria. Now there's Lake Kariba, which is which was man-made. And there are a few other big lakes that also created because there was movement and transport around the lakes on the East Coast, on the west coast of Africa, the Niger River, the Conga River, navigable for short distances, but again, pretty soon you hit rapids and waterfalls. The rivers are not connected. There are no canals. The the inner part of Africa is is very, very impenetrable. It's hard to get through. And so, yeah, not, not nature was not kind to Africa in terms of providing the basis.
Daniel Lapin 26:29
I mean, look at the United States of America. The Mississippi River navigable. Now we've put in locks to make it even more navigable. But the Mississippi River, the Great Lake System, the Saint Lawrence River, the Hudson River, the Lake Champlain up in Vermont. And that's not even talking about the great rivers in the West. When you when you think of the Columbia River, when you think of the the Great River in British Columbia. North America is beautifully supplied with fantastic rivers that are navigable for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of miles, thousands. It's extraordinary. So North America very blessed in the way of water transport, which was hugely important in the beginning. In fact, even when the railways came, they very often were built following the existing water transport systems. The Erie Canal was built to connect the Great Lakes to the Hudson River, making New York the most important commercial city on the United States. East Coast wasn't always like that. There was Philadelphia, there was Baltimore, but New York came because the interior, the whole Midwest, with all its huge farming and agricultural resources, were able to make their way to the market of New York through the Erie Canal running east to west, horizontally from the Great Lakes all the way to the Hudson River. When the railways, this was built in the very early years of the 1800s very early 1800s very soon after that came the railways. And the railway, initial railway in Northern New York was built following the line of the Erie Canal, which was a huge feat of engineering, but this idea of communication very important for economic growth.
Daniel Lapin 28:36
What else did...I made some notes that I wanted to be sure that I told you about. So anyway, that is why, although Africa has the same population as China and a bigger population, a bigger population than India, you know what India's population is, I don't think I told you, India. Oh, India is approximately the same. So roughly speaking, Africa, India and China, about 1.4 billion people. And United States, one quarter of that amount, only a quarter a third of a billion. And so those things are very real. India is struggling to break through to kind of develop the economic unity and creativity found in China. China made it happen, and Africa, it's waiting, but once and I will explain to you shortly why there is reason to be optimistic. Will they build canals connecting all the rivers? No. In the same way that canal transport has been totally superseded in Europe and North America by the railways, and similarly, the railways are coming to Africa big time, by courtesy of who? well Happy Warriors as enthusiastic observers of how the world really works, you won't be shocked to hear China is building Africa's railways. Why not the United States of America? Well, because the United States of America is having trouble building its own railways, right? You think about it, the United States of America doesn't have a high-speed railway system anywhere. Doesn't exist. It's tragic. It's like watching the decline of a great power in real-time. Sad, but it is real. It doesn't mean it's all over. Doesn't mean everything's finished. Doesn't mean it's not still going to be a country with considerable capability. All of that is true, but not what it was in the past, not by any means. A little bit more about China's involvement in Africa. China owns about 7% of Africa's land mass. Literally owns it in terms of harbors, in terms of industrial areas, in terms of areas that have been ceded to China for the construction of industrial enterprises. So I mean, it's an extraordinary thing, but yes, China owns about 7% of Africa's land mass, which is extraordinary, more than 10,000 Chinese companies operate in Africa. That number is growing quite rapidly. 10,000 Chinese companies operating in Africa. How many American companies operating in Africa? About a 10th of that, about 1000 American companies are operating in Africa at the present time. How many Chinese companies in the United States of America? Remember, 10,000 Chinese companies operating in Africa, about 5000 Chinese companies operating in America. So you can see that China is very, very aware of where the future lies. Twice as much involvement in Africa than in the United States, although at the present time, the United States still remains a bigger market. But I'll tell you a little bit more about that.
Daniel Lapin 32:42
And so China's companies, 10,000 of them and growing, operate in all kinds of industries, technology, manufacturing, real estate, finance, a whole lot of stuff all going on in Africa. China has a quasi-company called the BRI Belt and Road Initiative. It's about 10 years, 11 years old. Xi Jinping started it with the idea of building infrastructure for the developing world. So is that they will be linked to China with their vast emerging markets and their vast availability of raw materials, brilliant move. And so the Belt and Road Initiative, you can think of it as a massive, admittedly state-owned construction company, and they do highways, bridges, dams, hydroelectric projects, fossil fuel generating plants, mines. Did I say bridges? They do. How about harbors? They build harbors and ports. They build communication networks. They build electrical generation and distribution networks. You want, anything you want. The Bri the Belt and Road Initiative will do it for you. Not only do it for you, but they will finance it take, for instance, what I told you the Mombasa Nairobi railway line. Look at this on your atlas, a very important railway line China's now built this fast train, and it cost $4 billion 90% of that loaned to Kenya by China, 10% paid by the Chinese government, right and now the out of the proceeds of the railway line, the loan is being repaid. Fantastic business for China. They're doing very, very well on this now there have been instances, let's face it, where repayment has not worked and borrowers have fallen into default, and according to the terms of the loan, China then. Takes possession of the underlying collateral, whatever was the infrastructure development. But I've seen highways through the Republic of the Congo. I've seen a bridge highway connection, all of them built by China's BRI Belt & Road initiative, and this is going on all over the continent. What do I Oh, here's, here's an interesting thing. I told you, there's 54 countries in Africa. 52 of them have signed deals with BRI. 52 out of 54 countries are engaged in business with China's Belt and Road Initiative. They own China. They own their own they own Africa. And so what happened was that is during, I mean, the luckiest countries in Africa are the ones that were British colonies because the British left behind hospitals, postal systems, administrative systems, railways, all of that was left behind by the British. Well, the British stole the wealth of these colonies. Look, we're not economists, we're not geographers, we're not historians. Let's just be sensible, happy warriors. If for many, many years, England stole the wealth of Kenya and Ghana, and, you know, any number of other countries. Then when England left them in 19 early 60s, and they became independent. Shouldn't they all be now wealthier than they used to be under colonial rule? Because now the British are not stealing their wealth. They got it themselves. How come none of them are wealthier now than they were under British colonial rule? Think about it. Countries in Africa that were under the British are far more successful today than those countries that were never under British colonial rule. I know I'm telling you something that is contrary to everything you've been told, but you've been lied to the the reality is that British colonial rule, I'm not saying it was not it was flawless and was not without pain, but compared to many of those countries in the years following, people were very nostalgic for British colonial times, and so during that period, British are building infrastructure, the hospitals, the roads, the railways. Then comes independence. The winds of change blow through Africa, the 1960s and in many of those cases, guess who took over these countries? The benign Russians, who everybody loves. And then they took over, although they did precious little, but they took over any building that was going to be done was done by Cuban or Russian companies, and now the the Russians are long gone, and Cuba is has got its own problems. So who's building infrastructure in Africa today? Not the British, not the Russians, not the Cubans. Guess who's building infrastructure? And the amount of infrastructure that is built in the last five years exceeds everything that was done in aggregate up till then, all done by China. That's right. China is now building all the African infrastructure.
Daniel Lapin 38:37
Part of the thing that handicaps American companies that there are countries that the American government feels do not extend sufficient rights to homosexuals or not governed democratically enough and so those countries it becomes very difficult for American companies to build infrastructure. And there was a time, there was a short window, when American companies like Turner Construction, the giant or Bechtel, the next biggest construction company, they used to do quite a lot of stuff in Africa, but those days are gone. Alright, it's all it's all China now. So I am in as a Jewish African-American, right? I'm an African-American. I'm born in Africa, immigrated and became an American. I'm an African-American. I'm a Jewish African-American, I'm a Jewish African-American with a white skin. And so I'm going to give you now 10 reasons. 10 count them. 10 Reasons why I am so optimistic about the future of Africa. Okay, here we go.
Daniel Lapin 39:52
Number one, most importantly, Christianity is growing in Africa, and Islam is on the retreat. There was a time not that long ago when the numbers for Islamic devotees were higher than those of Christians. That's no longer the case, and the numbers are changing quite rapidly in favor of Christianity, the growth of Protestantism, particularly non-denominational evangelical Christianity growing like crazy through Africa, huge churches. I spoke at a church of 30,000 not 30,000 members, many more members, 30,000 people present, present when I spoke to them. Do you know how intoxicating it is to speak live to an audience of 30,000 people that was in in Ghana, in Accra, in Ghana. So yeah, it's and that's very, very important, and you only have to look at the economic development of Protestant countries, like, shall we say, Holland to and compare it with Muslim countries, and you'll see that it's not an accident that the fact that Africa is becoming more Protestant and less Islamic is a huge sign of economic progress and optimism. As a matter of fact, do what I once did, which is and the information is really easy to get. You can get mylar sheets, a map of the continent of Africa, and another mylar sheet with pockets of huge resurgence of evangelical Christianity from literally between between Cape Town and the Sahara Desert, north of the Sahara Desert, mostly moslem. And if you look at one of those nighttime photographs of the continent of Africa from space and you see where the light is, literally the light is south of the Sahara, much more than north of the Sahara and then, if you get a third mylar sheet with pockets of Protestantism, explosion growth of promintism, and you overlay them all, you will see extraordinarily that wherever Protestantism is expanding, Economic and entrepreneurial growth is also expanding. Not an accident. Read my material, read my books, and you'll understand how and why that works. I'm thinking most of you probably already understand that. So anyway, it's not it's not surprising then that under those circumstances, Ivory Coast walked out of the Methodist Church. They took a million and a quarter members with them, and they said that we're not part of that woke form of of modernized Christianity. We're not going there very, very good signs a number of other Methodist churches throughout Africa, Kenya, Zimbabwe, bailing out. So South Africa in general, very traditional.
Daniel Lapin 43:12
Now think about when America was more economically productive, when it was religiously traditional. Or now, there's no question about it, no matter what propaganda you get from the White House, America's financial condition not nearly as good today as when the country was traditional. Take the state of California used to be a very conservative state. It isn't anymore. What about the finances today, California is close to bankruptcy, not the way it used to be. Used to be the Golden State. Traditional values are good for the economy. It's worthwhile remembering that Africa is moving in that direction. I'll tell you. One of the reasons that China is beating out the United States when it comes to doing business in Africa is you might remember, during the Obama years, 2008 to 2016 he made a couple of visits to Kenya, and all he spoke about was homosexual rights. He lectured the Kenyans didn't go down well. They really don't believe they need to be lectured by America on how to organize their society. They only look at America, and their view is, hey, you got nothing to teach us, really. And so it becomes more difficult for countries that America looks on with political disfavor countries that the State Department doesn't approve of because of their homosexual rights record becomes harder for American companies to do business there. China dives right and you've heard me say many times China is a serious country. America, a silly country, perceived that way. And most of Africa, pretty serious, as I'm going to show you. And so what I I'm hoping you'll you'll see as clearly as I do, that in Africa, things seem to be very much on the upward trend, positive direction, and so, number one, the fact that Christianity, in a conservative sense, is growing and and growing spectacularly well. That's a very positive thing.
Daniel Lapin 45:35
Number two, connectivity. Look at its most basic. I mean, I can talk about technology and connectivity. Africa's cell phone coverage is remarkable, and so quickly done. So quickly, they jumped over copper wire. You won't see in Africa. You don't see a lot of poles with copper wires running. You know, in many American cities, they haven't even put the wires underground. They're still running over here. No, not in Africa, because they use cellular technology, but even at its most basic level. And here I want to tell you something that is, is cultural and really important, and something that I'm I'm really very conscious of, and that is that in Africa, strangers talk to each other when you're sitting in a waiting room, either in a doctor's office, or you're waiting for a meeting to begin, or you're with a bunch of strangers in a railway station waiting room, there's a babble of conversation. Strangers talk to each other all the time. They really do. It's, it's part of an African tradition, by the way. I, to some extent, I see it in the United States of America, in some parts of the country, more than others. But if, if I sit in a waiting room populated mostly by Caucasian Americans, pretty much everybody's reading their magazine or looking at their phone and keeping quiet. But I've noticed that if I'm in a waiting room with my African American brethren, strangers talk to each other. It happens all the time. It's it's so often I've I've often mentioned this to friends. Happens all the time. It's part of African culture, and parts of it have lingered even through the hundreds of years and many painful years. It's lingered to the present day, where African Americans do have much more of a comfortable tendency to connect with people they don't know. The strangers will greet strangers, and they'll start talking to each other. In Africa all the time, you know, you sit down, a bunch of strangers sitting down, nobody. They don't sort of bury their faces in phones or in book. Dumela, you know, Hi. How you doing? Is the greeting. It's very noticeable, and that is hugely important, because connectivity is at the core of economic development. Business is done between people who know each other and who like each other and who trust each other, and that becomes hugely important. So couple the connectivity with the growth of Christianity, and you're up and running. It's It's remarkable. And so the capacity to make friends. And, you know, I speak about this all the time, even in our book the holistic you, one of the five F's is friendship and and we speak, Susan and I write in their instructions and ideas and advice on how to expand your friendships and how to connect with other people. Obviously hugely important. And I will, I will tell you again, something that people loved when I spoke about this in on my last visit to Africa, people really love this. I pointed out that in the book of Job, right, chapter one, verses verse 12, that Satan comes to to God and says, you know, you think he's such a good guy. You let me take away all his stuff, and we'll see how much, how true he is to you. God says, Go ahead, but you can't kill him. Chapter two, verse eight, same thing you know, go ahead. No, not a two, six, go ahead. Says, God, you can afflict him, give him painful afflictions, but as long as you don't kill him, you may not kill him, and you'll see he'll stay faithful. To me, Job stays faithful. Chapter two, verse 11, a funny thing happens. Meanwhile, you gotta realize that Satan has taken Job's health. He's taken his children, He's taken his wife, He's taken his business, He's taken his land, He's taken his possessions. He's taken everything that brought meaning to Job's life, hasn't he hasn't lost his faith. Chapter two, verse in. 11, I think or 12, three of Job's friends show up to comfort him, and they sit with him and they talk to him. But wait a second, why didn't Satan take the friends? Satan has been pretty diligent about stripping away from Job's life everything that was part of his life. Why didn't Satan take away his friends as well. But we see in chapter two, verse 11, of the book of Job, the friends are there. Ancient Jewish wisdom is powerful on this that Satan was prohibited from taking Job's friends under the overall instruction of God, do not kill him, because a man can live without children and a man can live without a wife, and a man can live without wealth, and a man can live without land, but a man cannot live without Friends. Really important. And so Africa's tendency and ability to comfortably connect and build friendly relations hugely important and very much a part of what lies ahead for the continent of Africa.
Daniel Lapin 51:16
And so it's not by the way, this is another big, big, big topic, but I'll just touch on it here, and that is that Africa just doesn't have anywhere close to the figures of mental distress that Americans have, anxiety, depression, disorder, not there. It isn't there. Why not? Because of connection. That's why the human connection. It is hard to be an African and not have friends. Unfortunately, in America today, people thought that Facebook friends take the place of real friends, but they don't. In Africa, that mistake has never been made. So whether it's alienation and loneliness, all of these things that cause psychological disintegration doesn't happen in Africa. They are not African conditions. And so we looked at Christianity and we looked at connectivity. Number three, Africans take their work seriously. How do I know by how they dress? It's so noticeable. People who are poor, people who have much less than anyone else you know, they turn themselves out with pride and care and they look well put together. Africans show up for interviews in suits. The women show up dressed beautifully in church on Sunday morning in Africa, the average churchgoer in churches I've spoken at in Africa look better than the pastor looks in American churches. Sorry, Pastor, I know, I know we're friends, but and in certain ways, I admire the casualness with which you can appear before your congregation, jeans and a Hawaiian shirt, you know? And I get it, but in Africa, no, it doesn't. Doesn't work that way. And many of them wear traditional African suits, which, by the way, are beautiful. I really like them. I brought home an African suit from my last visit. And I enjoy it. I like it very, very much indeed. I like it's airy and even more, but the jacket is long. I like a long jacket, and it's aristocratic. When you think about it, it's not an accident that English people in the aristocracy, especially, you know, look at the photographs of any royal wedding. The men all turn up with what are called tail coats, jackets that are long. And there's a reason for it has to do with covering your rear end more discreetly. All of this is part of the spiritual nature of clothing. But regardless, Africans dress. Seriously, that's a huge sign. They take themselves seriously, and they take their work seriously. And so you've got to know that that that on this metric Africa, looks really good. Yes, it really does matter. When you show up for a Zoom meeting in a pair of cut-off shorts and a T-shirt, it's just not the same. They wouldn't fly in Africa. It doesn't work that way. Africans have a much better sense of how the world really works. When it comes to clothing.
Daniel Lapin 55:02
Reason number four that all eyes need to be on Africa-China collaboration. I've spoken a little bit about that, but I want you to really understand the depth of what this means. This is a genuine economic collaboration between two countries that are both benefiting, China is able to project a good deal of what you might think of as its excess manufacturing and engineering ability and steel and concrete to Africa. Africa is in desperate need for expanded infrastructure, right communication, railways, power communication, telephone systems. I'll come to that all of that China is supplying. What is China getting in return? Raw materials, minerals. Zambia is a huge producer of lithium. Did you know that Zimbabwe a huge miner of lithium. And the the the mines are being built by, would you believe Chinese companies who are at the moment building lithium production plants in Zambia and Zimbabwe, in Mali Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Namibia, all of these places, vast quantities of lithium are being produced, and then they go by Chinese. Built railways to Chinese, built harbors from where they get onto Chinese ships and taken back to China, where they become car batteries and many other things. So just note that the West is totally left out of the story. It's Africa and China benefiting one another, mutually by means of this trade, America out of the picture, Europe out of the picture. That's how it is. The the output of lithium from Africa is tripling, tripling every three years. Remember Huawei, h, u, a, W, E, I, Chinese, huge Chinese telecommunications company America put the kibosh on dealings with Huawei. Never mind. Huawei is installing in China, in Africa, more 5g capacity than America has in total, every year China's just Huawei company. They are racing through Africa installing huge setups of 5g communication. That's right, that's not happening in Pasadena, California. That's not having in happening in Boston, Massachusetts. That's not happening in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. It's not happening in Austin, Texas. It's happening in Africa.
Daniel Lapin 58:07
Number five reason why eyes should be on Africa, English is spreading. More and more people are learning to speak English. There are many countries in Africa, particularly former English colonies. For English is the official language-wise move, so people speak their various dialects, and there are 1000s of them in Africa, but English is spreading as lingua franca, as a language that looks as if it will unify Africa in terms of communication ability. And I think that's very important. Number where we up to where that was?
Daniel Lapin 58:41
Number five, number six. There's no way of saying this discreetly. It's very straightforward. Fertility Africa is growing. China has fertility problems, let alone the West. I don't think, I don't believe, there are many NATO countries, if any, that are reproducing at a replacement rate, minimum replacement rate. Come on, do me a favor. Think about what that means. I I don't think, I don't think there's a NATO country that is maintaining its population. Africa, growing population, that's a good thing. Very good thing. Now it's going to put huge emigration and immigration pressure on Europe, and that the Europeans are going to have to figure out a solution to. But in terms of growing population, which means growing economic possibility, means growing security, it means growing market. It's all good. The problem is not overpopulation. The problem in the West is underpopulation, huge problem. So Africa, don't worry. You want to know why your eyes need to be on Africa. Fertility is in good shape. There. You don't have to worry.
Daniel Lapin 59:59
Number seven. Seven very important one you don't you've seen how wokeism has spread through the West, Europe, United Kingdom, America, Canada, for heaven's sake. We all thought the Canadians were so sensible. Look how wokeism is taking apart and dismantling that country. Africa is blessedly immune to the pseudo-intellectualism of the American university-based system. It's a pleasure. Africans laugh at that stuff. Really go to an African and tell him that a man can be a woman, and you'll get a hearty belly laugh. It's nonsense. Africans are beautifully immune to a lot of this garbage. And there are reasons for that, again, that's, you know, a full analysis of why Africa is much more immune than America to it. I can tell you, maybe even figure out yourself. You are, after all, a Happy Warrior, right? So that's a huge thing. And as part of that, by the way, and I've spoken about this before on this show, part of it is that in Africa, what's so interesting is that in Africa, the population is much more comfortable with things rather than ideas, as in America, more and more people in America make their living with ideas and words. More people in Africa make their living with things in America, particularly as you move up the affluence scale, when something breaks, what do you do? You call the guy, right? Doesn't everybody do that? Something that you know, your father or your grandfather used to go to his toolbox and he take out the tools and he'd fix it himself, right? The garbage disposal needs to be replaced. Do it? It's not that big a deal. No, we call the guy whatever it is you need to put up a shelf. Better call the guy. That's what's happened in the West. But in Africa, they don't call the guy. They are the guy. Africans just do it happens again and again and again. I remember on my motorcycle trip through Africa. I don't want to delve deeply into it but, but I will tell you that repairs in small villages, African mechanics affected the most ingenious repairs with no access to factory authorized spare parts, but they were able. They they did repairs, they fixed things and and, you know, when I lived in Africa, I did the same thing. Once out in the in the bush, the fuel pump of a car broke, and I'm proud to say I fixed it. To this day, I get a bit of a you'll pardon me, I'm not boasting about it, but I get a surge of satisfaction when I remember how I fixed this was an old type, not an electrical fuel pump for this car. It was an old Ford, and it had a displacement fuel pump where a piece of rubber is pulled back and compressed by means of a drive off the camshaft and the area that the volume of space above the rubber membrane expands and contracts, and with a system of valves, it moves fuel from the tank. Anyway, this membrane of rubber broke and at all, and I replaced it. How did I replace that? We were out in the sticks, no spare parts. I took the inner tube out of the spare tire, and I cut a disc out of the inner tube worked perfectly, and it worked so well that the it didn't even get replaced when the car returned to civilization. It just kept on working in Africa. The spirit is, just do it. Just fix it. Make it work. That's a very big reason. So all of these things Africa less susceptible to some of the silliness found in the West.
Daniel Lapin 1:04:16
And number eight, eight, the eight reason, number eight reason for why all eyes should be on Africa, because the direction in which Africa go is going is up, not down, and that is that the old socialism, power system of Africa is dying. Remember I told you the beginning that the African National Congress just lost its first election ever in South Africa. The ANC is a communistic organization, heavily socialist. Always has been, and its dream has always been to impose the socialist solution and for the nomenclature in the upper echelons of the ANC, like the late Winnie Mandela un lamented, they live pretty well. Now, but ANC is going and all the old countries that after the British left, floated with socialism under the Russians and the Cubans, Senegal and and Nyasaland or Tanzania Malawi, all of these countries, Guinea, even Ghana, under Nkrumah, yeah, that's right, big, big socialist countries. These were, were very, very hard on, on, on socialism during the last decades of the 20th century. Comes the 21st century these, it's all gone, right? No more socialism. In Ghana, it's gone. South Africa now, with the ANC, it's going to be very different. Socialism is dying there, whereas in the West, I'm afraid, what's It's craziness, another topic for discussion. But socialism is not dying yet in America, it is dying in Africa, and that is the eighth, fantastically good reason to be optimistic about Africa.
Daniel Lapin 1:06:08
And number nine, tourism to Africa is on the increase. That's always a good sign. Means people feel comfortable. Means the locals have learned the value in providing customer service. Tourism a great sign, very, very positive. Tourism is growing like crazy in Africa. So that is another excellent sign.
Daniel Lapin 1:06:30
That's number nine and number 10. Finally, the rapid improvement in communication in Africa rapidly increasing, not just digital and cellular and internet, all of that's also happening. But travel throughout Africa is very different from what it was 30 years ago, very different today. You go in Johannesburg and you're going to meet people from Nigeria and people from Kenya. You go to Accra in Ghana, you're going to meet people from Republic of the Congo or Burkina Faso, whose capital is wagadugu. That's right, people travel now. In other words, in some in Africa, communication is rapidly improving. Used to be that to try and travel from Johannesburg to Nairobi was quite a difficult trip. If you weren't going to fly, very difficult trip. No more today you can fly. It's safe, quick, comfortable. Is very soon. Thank you to you know who there's going to be reliable train service between Johannesburg and Nairobi, very important stuff. So all of this is happening so that ladies and gentlemen comprise the 10 reasons why all eyes should be on Africa. Should I tell you what they are?
Daniel Lapin 1:07:51
One more time, quickly. Number one, Christianity growing. Islam is in retreat. Number two, connectivity. They talk to each other, everything's improving. Number three, Africans take their work seriously. And if you don't believe me, look at how Africans dress compared to how Americans dress. Number four, growing collaboration with China. China and Africa are becoming very close. Big positive. Don't mock that. Don't listen to some of the anti Chinese propaganda you get from the American administration. Not true. It's working pretty well for everybody concerned. Number five, English is spreading as the language. Number six, fertility not a problem in Africa. Number seven, much less susceptible to western style. So pseudo intellectualism and wokeism Much less susceptible. Number eight connected with number seven. Socialism is on the decline in Africa. That's big. Tourism in Africa is on the increase. That's number nine and number 10. Communication is rapidly increasing. And again, there are overlaps here. You know fact that more people are speaking English make communication possible, Chinese involvement, building infrastructure, all of these things into play with one another, but those are the 10 basic reasons why I am so optimistic about the future of the continent of Africa. So as a Jewish African American with white skin, I urge you to keep your eyes on the African continent. Very interesting things are happening there and and as soon as I realized that the that there are good reasons to believe that the sun is rising on Africa and setting on the west I decided that, number one, I did need to tell you about it, and number two, I realized that it actually was making me happy to see some of these facts playing out. So with very best wishes for another wonderful, productive week of growth. In your five F's onwards and upwards with your family, your finances, your friendships, your fitness and your faith. I'm Rabbi. Daniel Lapin, God bless you.
