Africans have become used to exploitation. Most people in Senegal are just surviving day to day. Just staying alive, literally. They don’t have the opportunity for education to gain the ability and influence to go through the proper political channels for change. Indeed, the government is so bribe-based there are no proper channels other than cold cash. When no one is interested in the plight of one African, or one village, or one region, what are your options? To band together and make a voice that will be hard to ignore?

I asked a Sengalese/Kenyan today over lunch his take on the topic of rioting and he told me this story. He is a pacifist by the way.

A farmer had a goat that he fed three times a day. Times were hard and he had to cut back so he started feeding his goat only twice a day. Months went by and life was still hard and not getting easier so he started to feed his goat only once a day. The goat died and the farmer exclaimed, why did he have to die just as I was getting him accustomed to not having to eat at all.

As he said, people in Africa are squeezed until they have nothing to lose. What is the solution? I wish I knew.