AFRICA is not a country. It is a vast continent of some 54 nations. It is also a continent that is rising phoenix-like from the ashes of neocolonialism.

Aside from being the literal birthplace of humanity, it is in fact a continent that has hosted great civilisations.

Not just the Egyptian one that appears to be the only one allowed to be taught in our schools. But also the likes of Mali, Great Zimbabwe, Kush, Carthage, Axum, Numidia, Ashanti and Kongo, to name but a few.

These great civilisations were brutally overcome and colonised by a small rump of the planet’s population who possessed the military hardware and know-how to subjugate and enslave Africans.

It is also a vast continent of enormous wealth.

The fact is that the overwhelming number of people on the planet live neither within the borders or under the formal control of the former colonial rulers. But they have been nevertheless dominated by them for most of the last 500 years.

The good news is that we are now at a major geopolitical tipping point and Africa is at the heart of the construction of a new multilateral world order.

No part of Africa is asking permission to leave the plantation. Many on the continent — and many of us linked by blood — are fighting back and determined to build something new.

This minority, once led by Britain, Spain, Portugal and France — and now themselves overtaken and largely colonised by the US — are facing a challenge it has never before experienced.

New global alliances, such as the Brics bloc and the Group of 77 plus China know that the prospects for successfully navigating what will inevitably be a dangerous route out of colonial subjugation depends heavily on Africa.

Trade and the development of new win-win relationships will be at the heart of the arduous road ahead for Africa.

It will be a dangerous journey because there has never been a time when people in power have simply stepped aside and ended their exploitation out of the goodness of their heart. But their power is vanishing in front of our very eyes.

Alliances such as Brics explicitly counter the small number of powerful warlike nations that have cast themselves as “masters of the universe.”

These wannabe political “geniuses” regard Africa, in a mixture of arrogance and racism, as mere collateral damage in their quest to boost the profits of the already unimaginably wealthy puppet masters.

The largely faceless oligarchs who control how high, when and where politicians jump, are not used to being challenged so will demand swift and brutal action against anyone daring to question their authority.

All of this provided me with the impetus to write The Rebirth of the African Phoenix — A View from Babylon.

It is a book of both geopolitical analysis and personal reflections on how this descendant of Africa has been impacted by the trials and tribulations of this magnificent continent.

I set out some of the main challenges that Africa faces in forging a new path that removes the dominance of the former colonial powers once and for all.

I look at the crippling debt burden faced by African nations and make the case for a payment strike. I also argue for reparations to be paid to Africans across the globe for the evils committed during the transatlantic slave trade and under colonialism.

Land holds a spiritual value to Africans. This relationship was disrupted by enslavement and colonialism. I argue that re-establishing this relationship is critical to the rebirth of the continent.

I question how a continent so abundant in food is now forced to import most of its sustenance from abroad and, at times, reduced to begging for emergency food rations when famine hits.

This leads into a discussion about the impact on the continent of the largely Western-caused climate emergency.

I discuss how the availability of water is likely to be even more of a flashpoint than it already is.

I explore the centrality of the trade union movement in Africa’s anti-colonial movement and offer some pointers towards how this can play out again in future struggles.

Migration is a key factor in any discussions around work. While most migration across the globe takes place within national borders, the book explores the drivers behind why some Africans attempt to reach Europe and why the former colonial rulers attempt to stop them.

The wars instigated and sustained by the former colonial powers have had a major role to play in creating a desire for migration from Africa. I look at the way the military-industrial complex continues to make huge profits out of African misery.

I use the examples of the Suez crisis, the Congo and Libya and the current conflict in Sudan to point the finger at the continuing damage caused by the interference of Western powers in African affairs.

The resilience and adaptation of African culture has enabled us as Africans to survive, I would argue, against all the odds.

I contend that, rather than a quaint relic of the past, African culture will play a central role in the 21st century African renaissance.

As we people of African descent find ourselves in all parts of the globe, the building of the new African century requires the participation of the ancestors of those forcibly removed from the continent during the periods of enslavement and colonialism.

But this is also a very personal book. I begin it by looking back at my first physical encounter with Africa when I visited Ghana in the early 1990s.

Throughout I talk about some of my experiences of racism in the heart of “Babylon” — the term historically used by Rastafarians to describe corrupt capitalist governments and institutions, as well as the colonial world.

I end the book with some proposals for a new movement for African unity that celebrates our past, draws strength from our trials and tribulations but recognises that there is a bright future ahead.

The book was written from the relative comfort of the beast known as Britain. The beast is one of a herd that has tormented Africa for centuries but whose influence is now thankfully coming to end.

This is an optimistic book with the foundational premise that Africans, wherever we are on the globe, must stand up as one people if Africa is to ever rise phoenix-like as a continent to herald in a new world.

What that world will look like does not just depend on the people of Africa and its diaspora. It also relies heavily on unity of the working class and peasant communities — black or white — across the globe.

But I wrote this book with the firm conviction that another world is already emerging.

As the great Arundhati Roy once said: “Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.”

The Rebirth of the African Phoenix - A View from Babylon is available from www.manifestopress.coop.