Scramble for Europe (eBook)

Stephen Smith is a leading expert on contemporary Africa. After thirty years as a journalist at Libération and Le Monde, he is now Professor of African Studies at Duke University.

Acknowledgements

Introduction: A View from the Top of the Population Pyramid

Africa: The Mexico of Europe

A 'stress test' between generations

Africa Has Not Yet Taken Off

The Kingdom of Lies

Chapter One: The Law of Large Numbers

Africa: The World's Youth

Nigeria: Take it or Leave It

Lagos: Half Paradise, Half Slum

The Chinese Model

Demographic Governance

Chapter Two: The Island-Continent of Peter Pan

Empty Granaries, Coveted Land

The 'Birth' of Youth

Suicides in a blue frock coat

Brothers and Sisters in Faith

Democracy, a Barmecide feast

Chapter Three - Emerging Africa

Trade secrets

The 'gatekeeper state'

'A Billion Good Reasons'

Identity as a repertoire

Musa Wo, the legendary 'enfant terrible'

Chapter Four: A Cascade of Departures

The dilemma of development aid

The Draining of Lake Chad

To Live the 'White Man's Life'

The repertoire of rejection

Zooming in on the Mare nostrum

Chapter Five: Europe as Destination and Destiny

Don't reckon without your host

Plugging a Leaky Dike with Sandbags of Euros

'Bowling Alone'

Smashing the actuarial tables

Beware of 'transfers'

'A Rancour Sharpened by the Winter'

By Way of Conclusion: Some Plausible Scenarios for the Future

The Obsession with 'Scenes and Types'

Go See the Other Side!

Notes

Bibliography

"The Scramble for Europe is a calm, measured book that aims to take the emotion out of the debate about immigration from Africa, while at the same time not avoiding the difficult issues by pretending that the situation is under control. It is an approach that runs against the grain of politics. Hence the enormous importance of this book at a time when Old Europe is trying to make allies on the young continent in the hope that these inescapable movements of people will remain an African affair."
Le Monde

"A must-read for anyone who wants to understand today's perilous migration flows."
Midi Libre

"An indispensable book for understanding the key challenges of the coming decades."
Le Point

"Stephen Smith has written a remarkably dispassionate, factual and insightful analysis of the Europe-Africa predicament. He succeeds in stepping back from fearful, moralized narratives and short-term perspectives in order to grasp the bigger social, cultural and political implications of Africa's demographic abundance and the vast migrations it undoubtedly entails. He poses questions that Europeans and Africans can no longer afford to ignore."
--Alex De Waal, Tufts University

"Provocative and well-researched...."
Digital Insider

"Stephen Smith is at his best."
Financial Times

"... absorbing."
Middle East Quarterly