LONDON– Two and a half years ago France’s minister for overseas development, Jacques Godfrain, startled an international conference suggesting that “Africa is on the way to becoming the tiger of the twentyfirst century–following the pattern of the tiger economies of east Asia 30 years ago”.

Few people predicted their fabulous growth rates, he observed, “Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia were at war. Malaysia and Cambodia were battling communist insurrection. South Korea was still emerging from a debilitating war…but look what they achieved and now it is going to be the same story with Africa.”

At the time Mr Godfrain was widely disparaged. Today, it seems, half the world is jumping on the African bandwagon. What was yesterday’s disaster continent is tomorrow’s tropical repository of unrealized, latent possibilities. President Bill Clinton may have his own reasons for taking such a long trip to Africa but his troubles at home rebound to Africa’s advantage. It gives Africa the break and boost it is ready for.

No country illustrates Africa’s potential more than the desert democracy of Botswana, a well-chosen stop on Mr Clinton’s itinerary, one that would not have even been considered for such a visit 20 years ago. These days it has growth rates that make even (pre-crash) east Asia look slow off the mark–16% a year in the 1970s and in the 1980s 11%. In the nineties, hit by drought and the collapse of the diamond market, which accounts for a third of the national income, it still managed a healthy 6 to 7%.

It is no use blaming Botswana’s success on diamonds. Of course it helps. But Nigeria has been swimming in oil for decades and has nothing to show for it. The Congo under Mobutu and now under Kabila remains “the heart of darkness”, despite its fabulous deposits of not just diamonds, but copper, bauxite and gold. At least half the African continent has something the world desperately wants. In fact the remarkable thing about Botswana’s development is that once the shine was off the diamond market it successfully re-directed its energy and resources into non-traditional exports–vehicle assembly, textiles and food processing.

The rewards for the people of Botswana are tangible–life expectancy, school enrollment and health care have improved dramatically. And now Botswana is cutting its tax rates, privatising government departments, eliminating crop subsidies and turning its attention to the plight of rural and low income urban households.

Botswana is undoubtedly Africa’s flag ship but boats are leaving port all over the continent–countries as diverse as the (violence-free) Ivory Coast, (war-torn) Angola, (once-run-by-mad-man) Uganda, (land- locked, eroded, mineral-poor) Lesotho and (ex-private fiefdom) Malawi have all thrown off the shackles, economic and political, of the past and have hit growth rates of tiger proportions. And over half of sub-Saharan African countries have averaged economic growth rates of 4% in recent years–not enough to erase the decline and damage of the last two decades any time soon, but nevertheless giving hope for the next generation that they have a future.

A telling sign of Africa’s new maturity was the extraordinary reception for the two white men who visited Africa this week, Pope John Paul II and Bill Clinton. There was no sign of what would be more than understandable, a current of hostility to what Mr Clinton had the courage to be open and contrite about–a history of exploitation from the days of slavery right up to the recent past when “during the Cold War … we dealt with countries in Africa based more on how they stood in the struggle between the U.S. and the Soviet Union than how they stood in the struggle for their own people’s aspirations.”

The African character remains as it always was, the most generous and least-complicated in the best sense, the people most ready to turn a new leaf and let bygones be bygones.

If only Nigeria, Africa’s most populated–and potentially wealthiest–country, could become part of the new Africa the continent then could be said to have truly broken with its own bad past, of despotic tyranny and gross economic mismanagement. In Nigeria a cruel and vicious military regime continues to hold unchallenged sway, its political opponents all under lock and key. The Pope rightly decided to concentrate his energies there. Mr Clinton took the easy option and gave the country a pass. But only when mighty Nigeria takes the same walk in the sun as modest Botswana has done will the continent be assured of the future it deserves.