AFRICA: year zero
From rumour to affirmation

A long period of transition starting at the end of the cold war after the fall of the Berlin Wall, ended, against a backdrop of social disaster, in the failure of plans for severe economic measures initiated by international organisations (IMF, World Bank) and rich developed countries. At the dawning of the 21st century Sub-Saharan Africa took a historic change of direction in every aspect: in economy, naturally enough, but also politically, socially and culturally. More than anywhere else the Black sub-continent is today the most spectacular theatre of change in world globalisation. If these changes sometimes take on a dramatic form (famine riots, coups d'état, wars, claims for identity, diseases, etc), giving the impression of huge chaos, what is happening here is no less understandable than elsewhere. Moreover it is often media dumbing down and derogatory prejudice that create what certain commentators call " the insoluble complexity" of the sub-continent.
In twelve chapters interweaving narrative and analysis, Afriques année zéro surveys the situation in this New Year zero with as much an air of descending rapidly into hell as leaping with boundless energy through the stages and steps of development. At the very moment when more than ever it is walking a tightrope of razor wire, journalists Anne-Cécile Robert and Jean-Christophe Servant show that Black Africa contains both the poison and the antidote for its destiny. Above all, they tell us that what is now being played out there will inevitably have consequences for the rest of the planet. A magnifying mirror of the globalised world, Sub-Saharan Africa could in fact be the historic laboratory for the crises that lie in wait for the rich slopes of the planet (increasing social inequality, the middle classes becoming poorer, public power and the role of the State refused).