Dump Africa
UNBE-fuckin-LIEVABLE!!!
We have poured uncounted billions, maybe trillions, down that rat hole and it’s worse than it was twenty years ago. They haven’t paid their debts, indeed they want the debt forgiven and they WANT MORE MONEY AND TWO PERMANENT SECURITY COUNCIL SEATS?!?!?!?!
Who’s running that madhouse? Jackson, Farrakhan & Sharpton?
Let’s see what would happen if any of us was able to borrow more than we could ever hope to repay, get the debt forgiven or declare bankruptcy then ask for more money and two seats on the board of directors. Oh yeah, that’d go over real big. I can see the big banks lining up to do business with that lucky soul.
The Europeans left them with functioning governments and somewhat of an infrastructure in most of their former colonies. Most offered to help with a period of transition to self rule although I don’t think many, if any, took that opportunity in their haste for “independence”.
They have squandered everything they’ve been given as well as their own tremendous stores of resources and now they want to run the whole world into the ground.
My gawd, they’ve still got slavery in some of those countries.
Go read Kim duToit’s essay “Let Africa Sink” then do a search for his other Africa essays and read them too.
Anyone care to guess how long after all debts are forgiven that the usual gang of thugs will again have their hands out for more money?
You can blame western imperialism for only so long. Like the welfare pimps and queens in our country, sooner or later you have to take responsibility for yourself.
Posted by MAJ Mike
07/05/2005 at 10:34 AM
Sadly I have to agree. Pumping billions into Africa is pointless, as is cancelling debt. What they need is for example the French et al to give up on their agricultural subsidies and allow the Africans to trade on a fair basis. Cancelling debt is a bad move in my view since it encourages these people to do it all over again. Gadaffi’s comments are a bit rich given that Libya has substantial oil reserves. The sad truth is despite being left a legacy of a civil service and good government (in the case of British ex colonies) most of these countries have failed to stem corruption and sleaze. It seems that no matter what aid we send it inevitably ends up in Swiss bank accounts and funds lavish lifestyles by tin pot dictators. Time to pull the plug.
Let’s see:
Food aid is appropriated by warlords and is used to supply their armies so that they can attack their neighbors. Nobody else gets fed.
Money is usually stolen and used to line the pockets of whoever gets it first or to buy arms to attack their neighbors or a rival tribe.
Medical aid is often obstructed by nutjobs who tell their people that the innoculations are poisons intended to kill the children.
Remember Mogadishu? That started as an aid project and ended up as a war.
It seems that everything has been tried and failed before.
I eagerly await your plan, OCM.
It’s a shame. The day Europeans moved out was the day that Africa started its spiral downward into the shitter.
Two things - I was looking at which countries comprise the “G8” France is one of them, and also so is the European Union, of which France is also a member. It would seem that France is over-represented in this body.
Second, I know China is not a “G8” country, most probably because they are not a democratic country, but I think if anyone can pitch in and help out just because they’re nice and all, it should definitely be China. A lot of the textile industry which used to be in African countries has been usurped by China, but it should be pointed out that African countries are partly to blame with their myriad coups and dictators and genocides ad infinitum.
China should help out.
Interesting to note that most of these failed African Nations are former EUropean colonies… Let those who created these “monsters” take full responsibility for their past actions, and let them bear the burden and expense of correcting their “mistakes”.
Why should it always be the USA who pays for everybody else’s failures?
LC RP
I agree that many of the countries in Africa were former colonies of European countries but you should also remember that so were countries like Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Isn’t Canada a G8 member? Are these failing states? I think not. In any case I don’t know many Americans that approve of “empires” seems to me it wasn’t too long ago that you celebrated throwing off the “Imperial yoke” yourselves. Doubtless had Britain not been bankrupted by WWII the withdrawal from Empire would have been handled better, but we left them with a legacy of law and order and all the trappings of democracy. If they subsequently chose to go down the path of corruption and despotism that was their democratic choice.
Let’s see, Canada, Australia, NZ, India, BWI, etc (and even the USA) were former British colonies. The British didn’t leave such a path of desolation behind. In most cases, these are very successful nations and people. OTOH, most of the former Middle East colonies haven’t done so well.
BUT, most of the former French, Spanish, Belgian, Portuguese, and some Dutch and German colonies, in Africa, parts of Asia, and Central & South America haven’t fared so well at all. Therein lies the problem....
If the USA hadn’t thrown off the “Imperial Yoke” 229 years ago, then perhaps the outcomes of WWI and WWII would have been a LOT different… Yes, we would have been allies, but not quite so powerful when it was really needed.
LC RP
Africa is often called the “Cradle of Humanity.” Too bad humanity is still in the cradle there.
Wouldn’t it have made sense that where humans supposedly originated would be where civilization started too? And yet, they still haven’t got that far without outside help - and where that help has gone away, so did civilization. Really sad.
There are a handful of African nations doing a good job with the cards dealt to them by history. But most are a mess and will remain so until aid can bypass the governments.
Debt forgiveness does nothing for the people. The debts were incurred by the governments, did little or nothing for the economy (other than Mercedes importers), and were never paid back anyway.
How much does debt hurt the poorer nations? Oddly enough it helps governments ruling by force (open or guised) but hurts those with fair elections. The latter are lured into avoiding unpopular economic discipline by borrowing more. But the tyrants, who will not be rejected at the polls, are free to spend every cent on themselves and to maintain power.
How to help is not clear. How not to help has roughly a 50 year track record.
Unhappily the World Bank, the UN, similar institutions, and governments now employee tens of thousands of people who are rewarded very well for continuing the failing policies. Do not expect them to change much.
Posted by KenS
07/05/2005 at 05:13 PM
I posted this on another forum, so please forgive me if you’ve already seen my opinion. The following is just one example of the problems I saw. I could cite many more, some sad, some funny, some astonishing and some outright stupid.
Thirty four years ago while I was driving through nowhere in Mozambique, the dirt road I was on broke out of the scrub and into a clearing. There were several grass-roofed daub and wattle huts to my left, and a ten foot wide irrigation canal followed the right edge of the road, about six feet below grade. Beyond the canal was an endless sugar cane field. As I took in the visual, I also became aware of an overwhelming stench, like 10,000 outhouses. Either the cane field was fertilized with dung or the village used the canal as a sewer.
About the time the smell gagged me, I saw a woman with an enormous jar balanced on her head appear to my right as if rising from the dirt, and I realized she had just gone to the canal to get water and was climbing the bank. I watched as she smoothly crossed the road in front of me and ducked into one of the huts.
Looking again to the left, I saw a half dozen men snoozing under trees around the edge of the clearing, while beyond the huts, about twenty women were poking the dirt with sticks apparently preparing to plant.Leaving, I looked again to the right, and saw eight to ten small children wading and splashing in the sewage canal. I nearly threw up.
That’s the Africa these self-righteous bastards should go and fix, and that is the “culture” that is there and hasn’t changed or improved in 5,000 years in spite of 150 years of effort by European colonizers. The UN, the Geldofs et. al. will never admit that the root cause of the problems in sub-Saharan Africa is a deeply flawed culture. We’ll never see that taught in the proposed Philadelphia school curriculum either, because saying that that “culture” is wrong or not as good as Western Civilization is so gauche to these do-gooders. Everyone will be Queens and Princes in palaces, not stone age people grubbing for a very short life.
The only difference between Robert Mugabe and many other African leaders, and a stone age thug, is that they have kept the breech loading weapons of the white man while they disowned, rejected, exiled or killed everything else the whites tried to teach or give the black Africans for the last 150 years. Kim du Toit is right: Let Africa sink.
Kim du Toit’s article, “Let Africa Sink” was powerful. I read a lengthy and extremely graphic article about Somalia recently. As Kim du Toit says, it was horrifying to my western mind. The article was written in documentary form, and I had no idea, as I read of the horrors, where the article would end up. At the end, the author, who had lived in Somalia for some time, simply said something like ‘let it wash away into the Indian Ocean’.
Posted by Phoenix
07/05/2005 at 06:30 PM
Many, many sad thoughts on this entire situation. Chances were given and given and not taken. I feel very bad for the general populace.
Geldork says “We have to do something, even if it doesnt work” WTF?? For how long ya dipwad?
“I think that this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody’s part.” -Otter Stratton, 1978The powers that be, while asking forgiveness of debt with one hand are still asking for more money with the other hand at the same time. Why give the general populace false hope?
IMO, it amounts to throwing good money after bad.
Posted by imp
07/05/2005 at 09:16 PM
I agree, Imp, and I agree with Kim du Toit. While the humanitarian in me naturally rebels, I also carry a realist who perceives that the facts leave me no alternative.
I wonder what Cecil Rhodes or “Chinese” Gordon would tell us, if they could.
The message is beginning to sink in. Moeletsi Mbeki says that Africa was better off in colonial times. He’s the brother of the RSA president. Should make for interesting family reunions.
See:
Cato Institute Download the PDF.
Thanks, DWMF. Vaz Lube is very interesting and worthwhile reading, I’ve made a shortcut to him for future reading.
The great shame of Africa today is the denied potential of it’s people. The few African immigrants I know are bright, willing, laid back people who are an asset to any society that they join. Some might say that they might be an exception due to the fact that they crossed a higher bar by emigrating, but I really don’t believe that to be true. These people are not anomalies.
The basic problems in Africa require an African solution. Until that time none of the money, aid packages or anything else that the western world throws at it will do any real good and as often as not causes more harm.
I’m all for helping them but first they must help themselves.
Thanks for the H/T, Stin. I got another one for you, saying much the same - that Western donations undermine the indigenous industries:
Thanks, DWMF. I read that one and the next one linked on the bottom of the page. It seems that responsible Africans and the aid people are in agreement that throwing money at the problem is only making it worse. Something tells me that Mr. Shikwati was not invited to address the G8 conference.
07/05/2005 at 10:45 AM
07/06/2005 at 01:11 PM
