The End Is Not Near

Two years ago Sierra Leone was a symbol of everything that was wrong in Africa. It was suffering through a civil war that was notable, in its brutality, for the prevalance of men, women and children whose arms were chopped off by doped-up rebels wearing tutus and wigs. U.N. peacekeepers were nearly wiped out by the rebels—this was front-page news for a while—but held on, barely.

It was buried in most papers, if reported at all, but Sierra Leone just had an election in which the rebels, whose death grip on the country seemed invincible, were trounced at the ballot box. This is startling enough to merit page-one treatment. What does it say about Africa, and our notions of Africa, when a country as hopeless as Sierra Leone begins to climb out of the abyss, especially as Sudan and Angola begin stepping away from their civil wars, too?