African Diaspora
By Amb. Galal Abdel Moez

Historically speaking, the term "Diaspora" was used in particular to refer to the Jewish Diaspora. Nowadays, it is used to refer to foreigners expelled from their ancestral homelands, political refugees, emigrants and ethnic minorities.

The Jewish Diaspora is considered the most famous example of diasporism despite the fact that there are the Moroccan, the American, the Turkish, the Palestinian Diaspora; each reflects a certain type of Diaspora.

A research program for African Diaspora in the 19th Century (ADRF) was established at Michigan University, USA in 1989.

This program also covers voluntary emigration by the Africans. Diaspora has acquired some political and economic motives as people left their countries in search of a better life. So, emigrants of Diaspora contributed to family income at homelands.

African Diaspora in the 19th Century Slave trade in the 19th century paved new ways for African Diaspora. It directly led to establishing new settlements in Sierra Leone and Liberia through resettling the Africans who were evacuated from Britain, Jamaica and the US.

In 1830, some slave-descendant Africans were evacuated from Brazil to the west of Africa who lived in some cities in Ghana, Togo, Benin and Nigeria.

Colonialism & Metropolis

Traveling between African colonies and the metropolis took place during the colonial era in the form of transit. This era witnessed too many students traveling to the metropolis for study. Besides, emigration of African labor force to the metropolis was recorded in this era.

Diaspora of Lebanese Merchants in West Africa

The Lebanese Diaspora in Africa spread out through vendors from Ghana to Cote D'Ivoire and Nigeria in the beginning of the 20th Century. The Lebanese sang and presented theatrical performances in Nigeria. They also snatched cola and rice trade from Sierra Leonean merchants, thus igniting violence in the streets. The Lebanese constituted a well-built economic power as owning more than 50 % of modern buildings in Cote D'Ivoire and Sierra Leone. They further focused on diamond-related activities in Sierra Leone.

The Lebanese "Anton Ghoury" was the owner of the largest transportation corporation in Senegal.

Emigration of Africans after Independence The independence of Africa has positive repercussions for Africans on the international arena reflected in the establishment of African diplomatic missions in Europe, Asia and the Americas.

Those missions were entrusted with providing a correct image on their respective countries.

There was satisfaction with the political independence, but not that much on the economic level. So, the first military coup was erupted in Nigeria and Ghana in 1966 leading to new waves of refugees for political and economic reasons. They headed to the West. This wave of African emigrants did not necessarily head for the old metropolis.

Sweden, for example, allured many Eritrean, Ethiopians, Somalis and Ugandans due to its liberal policies towards political refugees.

The adoption of unified immigration laws by the European Union (EU) turned some coasts of south Italy and Spain into main points for African immigration to the European continent through small boats. This contributed to increasing the number of African communities in cities like Rome in addition to existing Somali communities.