🔅 Africa’s Chief Library-Breaker Has Left the Building
The Bugs Saving a Country's Palm Oil Boom
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Africa’s Chief Library-Breaker Has Left the Building
Valentin-Yves Mudimbe, the Congolese-American philosopher, cultural historian and novelist whose work dismantled the West’s intellectual scaffolding for understanding Africa, died on April 21 in Chapel Hill, N.C. He was 83.
Best known for his 1988 classic The Invention of Africa, Mudimbe argued that 19th- and 20th-century European missionaries, explorers and anthropologists built a “colonial library,” a body of knowledge that justified domination by framing Africans as objects of study rather than subjects of their own histories.
Educated by Benedictine monks in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mudimbe earned his doctorate in Belgium before returning home to teach. In 1980 he declined dictator Mobutu Sese Seko’s offer of a seat on the ruling Central Committee, left on a Fulbright fellowship, and he went on to teach at Haverford College, Stanford and finally Duke University, where he became emeritus professor of literature.
Mudimbe’s intellectual project (extended in The Idea of Africa - 1994) was to expose how European “common sense” had erased African epistemologies, while inviting Africans to forge new ways of knowing themselves beyond colonial categories. Admirers praised his sweeping erudition; critics noted that he relied heavily on European theory to critique European thought.
The author of several acclaimed novels in the 1970s, Mudimbe spent his later decades unpacking the entanglement of knowledge and power in Africa’s representation. Though he lamented that African thinkers remained trapped in the “colonial library,” his own work gave generations of scholars the tools (and the courage) to begin writing alternative shelves.
Given his impact, we are surprised by how little coverage his passing has garnered, though The New York Times unpacks his life and work in detail, which you can access here.
Why Indonesia’s Counting on Tiny African Bugs to Save Its Palm Oil Boom
You’ve heard of worker bees, but have you ever heard of “worker weevils”? Indonesia apparently has, and it’s rolling out the welcome mat for around 1 million of these minuscule pollinators from Tanzania. The aim is to rescue Indonesia’s palm oil output before old, unproductive trees (and a surging biofuel program) choke the supply chain – and keep global prices sky-high.
A Wee Problem Gets a Weevil Solution: Palm oil is a big deal; it’s in everything from your chocolate bars to your shampoo – and increasingly, in your car’s gas tank. Trouble is, many plantations in Indonesia are, well, ancient by tree standards and haven’t been re-planted because that takes forever to pay off. Meanwhile, prices keep climbing, because supply isn’t matching demand.
Introducing the African Elaeidobius weevils. They’re about the size of a pinhead with a phenomenal work ethic for pollen transfer. Since palm oil hails originally from Africa, these Tanzanian bugs are a perfect match for Indonesian plantations, says Gapki (Indonesia’s palm oil association). Think of them as a highly specialized dating service: palm trees meet their ideal pollinators, sparks (or pollen) fly, and fruit production soars.
This isn’t the first time Indonesia has used weevils for a quick fix. Back in the 1980s, the country released a smaller weevil “squad,” which boosted fruit formation from 40% to 75%. Now, the plan is to replicate that success on a massive scale, giving away these microscopic pollinators to about 20 large palm companies, all eager for a production jump.
Of course, cynics say the weevils are just a band-aid on a deeper issue. The real solution, they argue, is to rip out those geriatric palm trees and plant brand-new ones. That involves waiting about three years for the newbies to bear fruit, whereas sprinkling weevils around might boost yields in a mere 12 months. So guess which option seems more popular?
In the end, these insects are only part of the solution: Better seedlings, more fertilizer, robust disease management, and (sigh) eventually replanting remain essential for sustainable growth. But if one weevil can do the work of dozens of manual pollination attempts, who can resist?
Tariffs Tantrums: Why the IMF Just Trimmed Africa’s Growth Outlook
Just as Africa was dusting itself off from the pandemic (debt stabilizing, budgets slimming, growth topping forecasts) along came President Donald Trump with a new round of global turbulence. His revived trade war and sudden freeze of U.S. aid (about $13.6 billion last year) have prompted the IMF to downgrade sub-Saharan Africa’s prospects.
Growth is now pegged at 3.8 percent for 2025 and 4.2 percent for 2026, shaving roughly half a percentage point off earlier projections.
Abebe Selassie, who heads the IMF’s Africa Department, insists the Fund is ready to play paramedic: “We were created for shocks like this,” he told reporters. Since Covid struck, the IMF has already funneled more than $65 billion into the region, with nearly two-dozen African nations still tapped in.
But cheap IMF money matters even more now: Trump’s tariffs have spooked global investors, sent commodity prices sliding (bad news for oil-reliant Nigeria and Angola), and nudged borrowing costs higher just when African governments finally tiptoed back to bond markets. As a result, Selassie says sub-Saharan African economies should work to increase their domestic revenue collection to avoid having to take on external debt.
It’s not all gloom and doom, however: Cheaper crude gives energy-importing nations some breathing space, cooling inflation and letting their central banks contemplate rate cuts. Selassie cautions against pure doom-scrolling: “Pockets of resilience” remain, he says. Yet the overarching question – how long African finance ministers must endure elevated borrowing costs – hangs unanswered. For now, Africa’s growth story has hit another speed bump, courtesy of tariffs, turbulence, and a sudden aid vacuum.
Food for Thought
“If the father wants a huge dowry, the daughters grow old without husbands.”
— Rwanda Proverb
And the Answer is…
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