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Black China: Africa's First Superpower Is Coming Sooner Than You Think
黑人中國:非洲第一個超級大國的到來比你想象的要快
By Sam Hill
作者：薩姆·希爾
It's midnight in a medieval palace in the oldest city in West Africa: Kano, Nigeria.
午夜時分，在西非最古老的城市——尼日利亞卡諾的一座中世紀宮殿里。
A thousand years ago, this was one of the richest cities in the world, the terminus of the cross-Saharan trade that brought salt to exchange for slaves, gold and ivory. The palace has 5-foot thick walls, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, stone pathways and ornate mosaic domes. On the walls are large color photographs of a serious-looking man wearing a white turban with a veil across the bottom of his face. The two tails of the ceremonial knot that holds the veil in place look like bunny ears.
一千年前，這里曾是世界上最富裕的城市之一，是撒哈拉以南地區的貿易樞紐，這里用鹽交換奴隸、黃金和象牙。宮殿有5英尺厚的墻壁，從地板到天花板的書架，石徑和華麗的馬賽克圓頂。墻上掛著一幅很大的彩色照片，照片上是一個表情嚴肅的男人，他戴著一條白色的頭巾，臉上蒙著面紗。用來固定面紗的儀式結的兩端看起來就像兔子耳朵。
The man is Muhammadu Sanusi II, the 14th emir of Kano, the second most important religious position in Nigeria. I watch as his assistant crawls across the carpet on his hands and knees. Bowing his head to the floor, he hands my business card up to the emir, then crawls away backward. Sanusi motions me to sit.
這個人就是穆罕默德·薩努西二世，卡諾的第14位埃米爾，尼日利亞第二重要的宗教地位。我看著他的助手用手和膝蓋爬過地毯。他低下頭，把我的名片遞給埃米爾，然后向后爬去。薩努西示意我坐下。
I'm here to find out what the future holds for Nigeria. I've been told the emir is one of the "three or four" people who may know the answer. It's an important question, and not just for Nigerians. In 30 years, Nigeria will be, by population, larger than the U.S. By the end of the century it will be the third largest nation in the world, behind India and China, and the most densely populated large country, with more people per square mile than even India. It will have more Muslims than any other country in the world, and more Christians. And if it can get its socioeconomic act together, it may also be the continent's first superpower. It's got a tremendous number of advantages that should help it do that: resources, scale, talent, work ethic and a democratic government, but it has an equally long list of challenges.
我來這里是為了了解尼日利亞的未來。有人告訴我，埃米爾是知道答案的“三、四個人”之一。這是一個重要的問題，不僅僅是對尼日利亞人來說。30年后，尼日利亞的人口將超過美國。到本世紀末，中國將成為世界第三大國，僅次于印度和中國，也是人口最稠密的大國，每平方英里的人口甚至超過印度。它將擁有世界上最多的穆斯林和更多的基督徒。如果它能使其社會經濟行動協調一致，它也可能成為歐洲大陸的第一個超級大國。它有大量的優勢可以幫助它做到這一點:資源、規模、人才、職業道德和民主政府，但它同樣面臨著一長串的挑戰。
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