Another week and another refugee crisis in Africa, this time Somalis in Kenya. Independence from colonial powers should have resulted in peace and progress, instead corruption, civil war and AIDS are taking the continent backwards. What makes conflict so brutal in Africa? From Charles Taylor chopping the limbs of infants, to mass rapes in Darfur and cannibalism by the Mau Mau in the Congo the barbaric cruelty seems to surpass medieval times. Omar Bashir is black and indistinguishable from any other African but claims to be Arab as do most Somalis. I do not know if Charles Taylor claims to be caucasian as Liberia because Liberia was established by freed slaves from the US. Why are Africans reluctant to be Africans? I feel this is becuse none of the African languages had a written script. Phoenicians developed hieroglyphs in ancient Egypt but this did not sprad to the rest of Africa. Without writing it is possible to pass on tales of kings and battles by story telling or ballads but it is not possible to develop philosophy, science or literature. Thus I have not heard of any African Confucius or Socrates, any Vedas or Das Kapital, any Shakespeare or Newton. Without written language it is impossible to transmit ideas and impossible to develop a peaceful intellectual dialogue across races and distances and develop a cultural identity. African Americans are a case in point. Brought in as slaves they have adopted the religion and culture of their masters. They are the biggest group in the armed forces and follow orders to commit genocide in Vietnam and Iraq. Only Muhammed Ali had the guts to say that the Vietnam war was not his fight. If Africa is to progress Africans must develop cultural identity and not just nationalistic ones.