Nuclear Energy Challenges Western Colonial Mind-Set: Cheikh Anta Diop & John Kennedy Would Concur

Cheikh Anta Diop, IFAN laboratory, Dakar, 1976. Photo by Jake Scott,

The article below by my colleague, Nancy Spannaus, creator of the website americansystemnow.com provides a useful up-date on momentum for expanding the world’s production of nuclear energy. This is of vital importance for the future of the African continent, and its growing population. Almost one third of African nations are involved  in some stage of acquiring nuclear energy. A growing number of African leaders are pushing back against the Western dictates, that Africa nations must forgo the use of their own natural energy resources in order to “save the planet” from climate change. These demands are dripping with a racist-colonial mentality that demands Africans cannot use their natural hydrocarbon resources to generate electricity for their people. On a continent with over 600 million without access to electricity and over 450 million Africans living in poverty; this is criminal and immoral.

Nuclear energy must become an increasing portion of energy consumption for African nations. It provides abundant long term energy, it is ideal for desalination, and produces important medical isotopes. On a continent starved for energy, nuclear fission and ultimately fusion, are essential. As importantly, African nations that embrace nuclear energy will lift their economic mode of production to a more advanced energy infrastructure platform. This will prepare these economies to operate an even higher level of technology in the future; fusion power. The application of nuclear technologies, along with space exploration, will force an upshift in the skill level of the labor force, requiring more scientists, engineers, and training centers.

This concept was understood by the great Senegalese scholar, Cheikh Anta Diop more than six decades ago. He optimistically wrote in his renowned book, Black Africa: The Economic and Cultural Basis for a Federated State:

“If we wish to see the African Nation everyone is talking about these days adapt itself to the needs of a modern technical world, we have from its very beginnings to provide those technical institutions that guarantee the life of a modern nation . We should forthwith create the following institutions:  

A) an institute of nuclear chemistry and physics;

B) an electronic institute;

C) an aeronautics and astronautics institute;

D) an institute of applied chemistry for industry and agriculture;

E) an institute of tropical agronomy and biochemistry

F) an institute of health, specialized in the study tropical diseases.”

Diop strongly believed it was important for African nations to be engaged in the development of thermonuclear (fusion) energy, which is orders of magnitude more powerful than fission. He wrote, “…Africa should be following: first, to bank on the triumph of thermonuclear energy and immediately create a pilot fusion center in an appropriate African country open to all African researchers willing to follow this line of pursuit…”

President John Kennedy also reflected the same technological optimism of Diop. He supported the right of African nations to developing their economies by utilizing their natural resources and having access to technology. Speaking in 1960, Kennedy said:

“Call it nationalism, call it anti-colonialism, Africa is going through  a revolution…Africans want a higher standard of living. Seventy-five percent of the population now lives by subsistence agriculture. They  want an opportunity to manage and benefit directly from their resources in, on, and under the land…The African peoples believe that the science, technology, and education available in the modern world can overcome their struggle for existence, that their poverty, squalor, and disease can be conquered.” (Emphasis added)

Should we do less than emulate the thinking of Kennedy and Diop, today?

Read below my earlier posts on nuclear energy for Africa:

Nuclear Power A Necessity for Africa’s Economic Growth

Mozambique is Obligated to Exploit Its Resources For the Development of Its Economy

Nigerian VP: Osinbajo “Climate Justice Must Include Ending Energy Poverty” Especially for Sub-Saharan Africa

Lawrence Freeman is a Political-Economic Analyst for Africa, who has been involved in economic development policies for Africa for over 30 years. He is the creator of the blog: lawrencefreemanafricaandtheworld.com. Mr. Freeman’s stated personal mission is; to eliminate poverty and hunger in Africa by applying the scientific economic principles of Alexander Hamilton.

Africa Needs A Nuclear Power Visionary Like President Kennedy

South Africa has the only nuclear power plant on the the African continent. There should be 1,000 more.

May 31, 2021

President  John F Kennedy was the last great U.S. President.  He had a vision for developing the U.S.  As a student of President Franklin Roosevelt, President Kennedy understood how to create a more prosperous economic future by using the most advanced form of energy; nuclear. (see below).  It is no coincident that the U.S. experienced its greatest technologically driven increase in productivity as a result of of his “Man on the Moon” space exploration initiative.  President Kennedy was also the last U.S. president who enthusiastically supported the development of Africa. His partnership with Ghanaian President, Kwame Nkrumah, to build the Volta Dam energy and industrial complex, stands out as the high point in U.S.-Africa relations.  It is the lack of a U.S. development perspective for Africa over the last six decades that has led to the failures of U.S. to respond to Africa’s vital needs for energy infrastructure.

Consider this optimistic outlook for the people living in Africa. To industrialize African nations, eliminate poverty and hunger, the continent needs a minimum of an additional 1,000 gigawatts of electricity.  Why not build. one thousand nuclear power plants, each generating 1,000 megawatts of electricity. 

President Kennedy: “All this means that we put science to work, science to work in improving our environment and making this country a better place in which to live. I want us to stay ahead. Do you know that in the next 10 years, I hope the people of the United States realize it – we double the need for electric power every 10 years? We need the equivalent of a new Grand Coulee Dam every 60 days. In the next 20 years we are going to have to put in the electric industry $125 billion of investment, and when we do that, this country will be richer, and our children will enjoy a higher standard of living.” (emphasis. added)

President Kennedy: Nuclear Power Visionary

Read my earlier post: Nuclearize Africa: It Is Necessary To End Poverty and Hunger

Lawrence Freeman is a Political-Economic Analyst for Africa, who has been involved in economic development policies for Africa for over 30 years. He is the creator of the blog: lawrencefreemanafricaandtheworld.com. Mr. Freeman’s stated personal mission is; to eliminate poverty and hunger in Africa by applying the scientific economic principles of Alexander Hamilton

There Are No Limitations to Mankind’s Growth: “It’s In Humanity’s DNA to Move Outwards for A Better Life

July 26, 2019

As we continue to celebrate the 50th anniversary of man landing on the Moon, we should reflect on how our optimistic science driven culture led by President John Kennedy has shrunk over the last five decades. It has the reached the absurd level, where CO2, a building block of life, is now alleged to be a pollutant. Let us hope that over the next 50 years mankind will demonstrate  its “extraterrestrial imperative,” by industrializing the Moon and colonizing Mars. This mission will also provide us with the science and technologies to eliminate poverty, hunger, and disease across out planet.

The great space visionary, Krafft Ehricke, summarized his philosophy of astronautics in three laws (1957), to which I subscribe.

First Law. Nobody and nothing under the natural laws of this universe impose any limitations on man except man himself.

Second Law. Not only the Earth, but the entire Solar System, and as much of the universe as he can reach under the laws of nature, are man’s rightful field of activity.

Third Law. By expanding through the universe, man fulfills his destiny as an element of life, endowed with the power of reason and the wisdom of the moral law within himself.

Jack Schmitt collecting Moon rocks in 1972
Jack Schmitt collecting Moon rocks in 1972 (courtesy Getty)

Astronaut Schmitt: It’s In Humanity’s DNA to Move Outwards for A Better Life

“Humanity has always moved outwards over the last two or three million years to find resources and really to better their existence, and I think space is a part of that,” he said.

“It’s probably in our DNA, it’s probably an evolutionary thing, in order to survive, you can’t stay in one place forever, whether you’re a family, or a tribe, or an entire civilization.

“Moon and Mars settlement is extremely important for the dispersal of the human species throughout the solar system and possibly beyond.”

“You can get there and learn how to do things that are going to be important for enabling Mars exploration. But the generation that was part of Apollo is passing very quickly. Another generation are going to have to learn.”(Former Senator and Apollo 17 astronaut Harrison Schmitt told London’s {Telegraph}, published July 21).

Harrison Jack Schmitt taking samples from a boulder which never saw sunlight
Schmitt taking samples from a boulder which never saw sunlight (courtesy NASA)

“I think 50 years from now, at the 100th anniversary of Apollo, there will be settlements on the Moon, people living there permanently,  producing the resources of the Moon,” he predicted.

“Not only that will assist a Mars mission but Helium 3 that is an ideal fuel for electric power generation because it creates no radioactive waste and demands for electrical power are not going to decrease, civilization depends on it, and this is one of the major potential and long-term sources

Not surprisingly, with his optimistic scientific mindset, Schmitt has been outspoken against the fraud of man-made climate change, unimpressed by the resulting flack fired at him by the green ideologues. He joined William Happer in founding the CO2 Coalition, and serves on its board of experts. In a 2016 {Wall Street Journal} op-ed co-authored with Rodney Nichols titled “The Phony War Against CO2,” Schmitt wrote that it is “both unscientific and immoral” to treat beneficial carbon dioxide gas as a hazardous pollutant.

Read: Mining the Moon Could Help Save Humanity