Same Continent But Further South and to the Left A Bit

It's obviously Africa's moment in the Sun. A rather facile statement you will agree when one considers the average temperature. What I'm referring to is the sudden rash of stories emanating from that continent. Of course North Africa has been ablaze for a while what with the recently granted constitution in Morocco, revolts in Tunisia and Egypt and the ongoing whatever the hell in Libya. Now Southern Africa or, at least, somewhat more southern than hitherto has stepped forward to snatch a little of the limelight. In the past week or so not one but two stories have emanated from Equatorial Guinea.

Has anybody ever heard of Equatorial Guinea? Put your hand down if you're the son of a former British prime minister. For those who simply cannot live another moment without knowing a little more about this neglected jewel of Africa's west coast here is a brief precis.

Equatorial Guinea is an unspoiled natural paradise where carbon emissions are kept low by the unreliability of the electricity supply. After centuries of inefficient colonial rule by the Spanish (who governed the place from Buenos Aires for some reason) the people of EG finally threw off the shackles of colonial oppression in 1968 and replaced them with all new locally created shackles of oppression. The president, one Francisco Macias Nguema, turned out to be a demented psychopath and the (surviving) population heaved a huge sigh of relief when his nephew ousted him in a coup d'etat in 1979. By contrast with his ghastly predecessor the new president turned out to be merely brutal, ruthless and venal.

Accompanying this dramatic improvement in the quality of governance was the discovery of oil, the exploitation of which greatly raised the standard of living of everyone in the country who happened to be related to the president. For those without such fortunate genetics life is less than stellar but the church is no longer banned (as it was under Macias) and most of the roads are paved allowing the sewage to flow more freely down them. Obviously EG is a nation on the way up. There is, of course, that awkward border dispute with Gabon to sort out. This could be difficult as a measure of the efficiency of EG's armed forces can be found in the fact that the presidential guard is recruited from Moroccans. Still a bright future beckons, possibly involving an animal shaped capital city.

Now EG gets its fifteen minutes of fame as the leaders of the African Union (in a move which shows that they have absolutely no sense of irony) chose the capital Malabo as the place to condemn the International Criminal Court's issuing of an arrest warrant for Moamar Qaddafi. I was pleased to see that Botswana (one of Africa's few functioning democracies) publicly dissented from this announcement.

Far more important than this brief cameo on the international stage is the fact that EG's women's football team got beaten 3-2 by Australia in their world cup match in Germany. Assuming that the Australians knew the nationality of the team they were playing this means that, briefly at least, more Australians had heard of Equatorial Guinea than ever before. Fame at last. I wonder if any of them have heard of Australia?