Posted: Fri 15 Jul 2005 20:30 Post subject: Africa Lost
Quote:
Africa Lost
by Charley Reese
7/15/05
President George Bush is right to balk at doubling foreign aid to Africa and to demand of the African countries that they do something about the corruption that nearly all are riddled with.
White Europeans need to get over their guilt trip and recognize that the problems facing sub-Saharan Africa are caused by the Africans themselves. In Africa you have a land rich in resources, with a surplus of labor, a largely benign climate and fertile soil. What Africa lacks are honest, competent leaders who care about their own people. If any such leaders have emerged since the colonial period, nearly all have been murdered by the thugs who ended up running most of the countries.
Nobody has shown more cruelty toward Africans than Africans. Practically every conflict they have turns into an orgy of mutilation, rape and mass murder. I confess that I don't understand it. To an outsider, it seems like a self-evident case of uncivilized savagery. Whatever the reason, no outsider can save another person from his or her own self-destructive tendencies.
Pouring foreign aid into Africa is like trying to irrigate a desert with spit. Billions and billions of dollars have been poured into that rathole, with virtually no visible results. Africa has a problem with AIDS because it has a problem with widespread promiscuity. You aren't going to make any headway with the disease without changing the behavior that is spreading it. African poverty is a result of overpopulation, corruption and inefficiency.
If the Europeans and Americans really want to help Africa, they should ban all sales of armaments. No country that lacks a decent education system, clean water, sanitary sewers and health care should be allowed to waste money on tanks, armored cars and other weaponry. Last year armament sales worldwide totaled $1 trillion.
Second, the American and European governments should vigorously pursue and prosecute any and all multinational corporations that pay bribes to African leaders in lieu of a fair market price for natural resources.
Third, they should insist on total transparency and total accountability from the African governments for every penny of income and aid as the minimum price for receiving even one bag of flour. It is stupid, wasteful and immoral to feed people whose government leaders are amassing fortunes in Swiss bank accounts.
This might appear to be an overly harsh assessment of Africa, but I believe that far too many Europeans and North Americans prefer the comfort of living with delusions rather than honestly assessing problems. Dumping money and food on the African problem has more to do with people trying to feel good about themselves than with solving the problems facing the African people.
Real solutions to Africa's problems must come from the Africans themselves, and they are unlikely to produce any as long as their leaders can get away with begging and borrowing from the industrialized north. There is no useful point in our caring about them as long as they don't care about each other. Why should we share with them when they refuse to share with each other? What can we do about a people who seem to see every conflict as an excuse to inflict unspeakable atrocities against their fellow Africans?
People who think we can end hunger in Africa with gifts of food and money are wrong. Without systemic reform of Africa's agriculture, without honest governments willing to invest in the people, without an end to the tribal wars, no permanent good can be achieved.
Keeping people alive today so they can die in misery tomorrow is hardly a humane gesture. Several pounds of books have been written about the failures of foreign aid and foreign development in Africa. One common problem is that the provider of aid is often more interested in his own selfish objectives than in the African people. Another problem has been unforeseen consequences of poorly thought-out plans.
Joined: 04 May 2005 {Posts: 2021 } Location: santiago, chile
Posted: Fri 15 Jul 2005 21:25 Post subject: Begging will not help Africa's future
Published: 5/7/2005, 07:56 (UAE)
Begging will not help Africa's future, Gaddafi tells summit
AP
Sirte:
Amid global calls to combat poverty in Africa, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi called on African nations to stop "begging" during the opening yesterday of an African summit attended by more than 50 leaders from this crisis-wracked continent.
Gaddafi also urged African countries to overcome past failures during a speech that lasted more than 30 minutes, which received muted applause from leaders of African states.
"Pleading to the G-8 to lift debts won't make a future for Africa," said Gaddafi, wearing his traditional African dress while praising Africa's natural resources and treasures.
"We need cooperation between the big and the small countries in the world."
"Begging won't make a future for Africa," he added.
United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Arab League Secretary-General Amr Mousa also attended the opening of the two-day meeting, held during a series of international protests and Live-8 concerts ahead of Wednesday's Group of Eight meeting of wealthy nations at the Gleneagles resort in Scotland
African leaders meeting in Sirte, a coastal city on Libya's Mediterranean coast, are expected to try unite and push for at least one permanent seat on the UN Security Council.
The summit is also expected to discuss conflicts in Africa, particularly the Darfur crisis, and issue and international appeal to help the continent battle disease and famine during the two-day summit.
The 53-nation African Union was created in 2002 as the successor to the Organisation of African Unity.
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