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What could we have done in Africa for Africa? What are Africans doing in Europe? Can someone tell me, please? I was brought here as a four-year-old child. If you are reading this and you are an African in Europe, I ask you this: Why are you here? Why did you come? Why did you stay? What are you doing?

Article Excerpt
Black flight. Time to go back. What are we doing here? Get the hell out. Stayed too long. What a waste of time and talent. Waited too long. Paid too many dues. Watched too long as others pay none. Get back in our prime and get working for us. What am I talking about? Let me start somewhere else and tell you a little story.

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I met a man in October called Eddie. I asked him for a date. And very nice it was too. Eddie is an old man, now. He was young, very well educated, highly skilled, and good looking when he left West Africa for London. These days, Eddie is still well educated (even more so), highly skilled (even more so), and good looking (wow!). But Eddie is old, now: it's 30 years on. He's spent his active youth and prime middle years in England, planning, building, and engineering England's future through his designs, blueprints, bricks and mortar. Eddie was, is, a civil engineer.

Over our dates, Eddie told me that, looking back, he had creeping regrets. What, he wondered, could he have done in his own country with his skills over all those years? What could he have done in Africa for Africa?

What is it you feel when you feel nothing but stark reality?

Eddie...