Lebell

This was a brutal assessment that frankly, I agree with.

Africa as a whole is a failed continent. Peacekeepers fail, aid fails, governements are corrupt, and life is brutally short. AIDS is rampent and men rape babies thinking it will cure them.

I don't think 15$ billion is even a drop in the bucket needed to help Africa and the money would be better spent on our own needs.



LINK
---------------------------------
Let Africa Sink

Kim du Toit
May 26, 2002



When it comes to any analysis of the problems facing Africa, Western society, and particularly people from the United States, encounter a logical disconnect that makes clear analysis impossible. That disconnect is the way life is regarded in the West (it's precious, must be protected at all costs etc.), compared to the way life, and death, are regarded in Africa. Let me try to quantify this statement.

In Africa, life is cheap. There are so many ways to die in Africa that death is far more commonplace than in the West. You can die from so many things--snakebite, insect bite, wild animal attack, disease, starvation, food poisoning... the list goes on and on. At one time, crocodiles accounted for more deaths in sub-Saharan Africa than gunfire, for example. Now add the usual human tragedy (murder, assault, warfare and the rest), and you can begin to understand why the life expectancy for an African is low--in fact, horrifyingly low, if you remove White Africans from the statistics (they tend to be more urbanized, and more Western in behavior and outlook). Finally, if you add the horrifying spread of AIDS into the equation, anyone born in sub-Saharan Africa this century will be lucky to reach age forty.

I lived in Africa for over thirty years. Growing up there, I was infused with several African traits--traits which are not common in Western civilization. The almost-casual attitude towards death was one. (Another is a morbid fear of snakes.)

So because of my African background, I am seldom moved at the sight of death, unless it's accidental, or it affects someone close to me. (Death which strikes at strangers, of course, is mostly ignored.) Of my circle of about eighteen or so friends with whom I grew up, and whom I would consider "close", only about ten survive today--and not one of the survivors is over the age of fifty.

Two friends died from stepping on landmines while on Army duty in Namibia. Three died in horrific car accidents (and lest one thinks that this is not confined to Africa, one was caused by a kudu flying through a windshield and impaling the guy through the chest with its hoof--not your everyday traffic accident in, say, Florida). One was bitten by a snake, and died from heart failure. Another also died of heart failure, but he was a hopeless drunkard. Two were shot by muggers. The last went out on his surfboard one day and was never seen again (did I mention that sharks are plentiful off the African coasts and in the major rivers?). My situation is not uncommon in South Africa--and north of the Limpopo River (the border with Zimbabwe), I suspect that others would show worse statistics.

The death toll wasn't just confined to my friends. When I was still living in Johannesburg, the newspaper carried daily stories of people mauled by lions, or attacked by rival tribesmen, or dying from some unspeakable disease (and this was pre-AIDS Africa too) and in general, succumbing to some of Africa's many answers to the population explosion. Add to that the normal death toll from rampant crime, illness, poverty, flood, famine, traffic, and the police, and you'll begin to get the idea.

My favorite African story actually happened after I left the country. An American executive took a job over there, and on his very first day, the newspaper headlines read: "Three Headless Bodies Found".

The next day: "Three Heads Found".

The third day: "Heads Don't Match Bodies".

You can't make this stuff up.

As a result, death is treated more casually by Africans than by Westerners. I, and I suspect most Africans, am completely inured to reports of African suffering, for whatever cause. Drought causes crops to fail, thousands face starvation? Yup, that happened many times while I was growing up. Inter-tribal rivalry and warfare causes wholesale slaughter? Yep, been happening there for millennia, long before Whitey got there. Governments becoming rich and corrupt while their populations starved? Not more than nine or ten of those. In my lifetime, the following tragedies have occurred, causing untold millions of deaths: famine in Biafra, genocide in Rwanda, civil war in Angola, floods in South Africa, famine in Somalia, civil war in Sudan, famine in Ethiopia, floods in Mozambique, wholesale slaughter in Uganda, and tribal warfare in every single country. There are others, but you get the point.

Yes, all this was also true in Europe--maybe a thousand years ago. But not any more. And Europe doesn't teem with crocodiles, ultra-venomous snakes and so on.

The Dutch controlled the floods. All of Europe controls famine--it's non-existent now. Apart from a couple of examples of massive, state-sponsored slaughter (Nazi Germany, Communist Russia), Europe since 1700 doesn't even begin to compare to Africa today. Casual slaughter is another thing altogether--rare in Europe, common in Africa.

More to the point, the West has evolved into a society with a stable system of government, which follows the rule of law, and has respect for the rights and life of the individual--none of which is true in Africa.

Among old Africa hands, we have a saying, usually accompanied by a shrug: "Africa wins again." This is usually said after an incident such as:

a beloved missionary is butchered by his congregation, for no apparent reason

a tribal chief prefers to let his tribe starve to death rather than accepting food from the Red Cross (would mean he wasn't all-powerful, you see)

an entire nation starves to death, while its ruler accumulates wealth in foreign banks

a new government comes into power, promising democracy, free elections etc., provided that the freedom doesn't extend to the other tribe

the other tribe comes to power in a bloody coup, then promptly sets about slaughtering the first tribe

etc, etc, etc, ad nauseam, ad infinitum.

The prognosis is bleak, because none of this mayhem shows any sign of ending. The conclusions are equally bleak, because, quite frankly, there is no answer to Africa's problems, no solution that hasn't been tried before, and failed.

Just go to the CIA World Fact Book, pick any of the African countries (Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, Malawi etc.), and compare the statistics to any Western country (eg. Portugal, Italy, Spain, Ireland). The disparities are appalling--and it's going to get worse, not better. It has certainly got worse since 1960, when most African countries achieved independence. We, and by this I mean the West, have tried many ways to help Africa. All such attempts have failed.

1. Charity is no answer. Money simply gets appropriated by the first, or second, or third person to touch it (17 countries saw a decline in real per capita GNP between 1970 and 1999, despite receiving well over $100 billion in World Bank assistance).

2. Food isn't distributed. This happens either because there is no transportation infrastructure (bad), or the local leader deliberately withholds the supplies to starve people into submission (worse).

3. Materiel is broken, stolen or sold off for a fraction of its worth. The result of decades of "foreign aid" has resulted in a continental infrastructure which, if one excludes South Africa, couldn't support Pittsburgh.

Add to this, as I mentioned above, the endless cycle of Nature's little bag of tricks--persistent drought followed by violent flooding, a plethora of animals, reptiles and insects so dangerous that life is already cheap before Man starts playing his little reindeer games with his fellow Man--and what you are left with is: catastrophe.

The inescapable conclusion is simply one of resignation. This goes against the grain of our humanity--we are accustomed to ridding the world of this or that problem (smallpox, polio, whatever), and accepting failure is anathema to us. But, to give a classic African scenario, a polio vaccine won't work if the kids are prevented from getting the vaccine by a venal overlord, or a frightened chieftain, or a lack of roads, or by criminals who steal the vaccine and sell it to someone else. If a cure for AIDS was found tomorrow, and offered to every African nation free of charge, the growth of the disease would scarcely be checked, let alone reversed. Basically, you'd have to try to inoculate as many two-year old children as possible, and write off the two older generations.

So that is the only one response, and it's a brutal one: accept that we are powerless to change Africa, and leave them to sink or swim, by themselves.

It sounds dreadful to say it, but if the entire African continent dissolves into a seething maelstrom of disease, famine and brutality, that's just too damn bad. We have better things to do--sometimes, you just have to say, "Can't do anything about it."

The viciousness, the cruelty, the corruption, the duplicity, the savagery, and the incompetence is endemic to the entire continent, and is so much of an anathema to any right-thinking person that the civilized imagination simply stalls when faced with its ubiquity, and with the enormity of trying to fix it. The Western media shouldn't even bother reporting on it. All that does is arouse our feelings of horror, and the instinctive need to do something, anything--but everything has been tried before, and failed. Everything, of course, except self-reliance.

All we should do is make sure that none of Africa gets transplanted over to the U.S., because the danger to our society is dire if it does. I note that several U.S. churches are attempting to bring groups of African refugees over to the United States, European churches the same for Europe. Mistake. Mark my words, this misplaced charity will turn around and bite us, big time.

Even worse would be to think that the simplicity of Africa holds some kind of answers for Western society: remember "It Takes A Village"? Trust me on this: there is not one thing that Africa can give the West which hasn't been tried before and failed, not one thing that isn't a step backwards, and not one thing which is worse than, or that contradicts, what we have already.

So here's my solution for the African fiasco: a high wall around the whole continent, all the guns and bombs in the world for everyone inside, and at the end, the last one alive should do us all a favor and kill himself.

Inevitably, some Kissingerian realpolitiker is going to argue in favor of intervention, because in the vacuum of Western aid, perhaps the Communist Chinese would step in and increase their influence in the area. There are two reasons why this isn't going to happen.

Firstly, the PRC doesn't have that kind of money to throw around; and secondly, the result of any communist assistance will be precisely the same as if it were Western assistance. For the record, Mozambique and Angola are both communist countries--and both are economic disaster areas. The prognosis for both countries is disastrous--and would be the same for any other African country.

Africa has to heal itself. The West can't help it. Nor should we. The record speaks for itself.

__________________
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." – C. S. Lewis

The ONLY sponsors we have are YOU!

Please Donate!

eple

Hmm....interesting... Have heard similar conclutions made by young African intellectuals a few years ago. They might have a point. There are undoubtedly great problems in African countries, but wether or not aid will do any good, is hard to say.

Food Eater Lad

WOW

maximusveritas

Well, the essay did a good job of pointing out some of the terrible problems facing Africans.

The conclusion, however, that the problems are too great to possibly fix is wholly unsubstantiated and in my opinion, patently false. The last few paragraphs seem to reveal the author's ignorance and hate and are not even worth discussing.

President Bush made a big deal about his pledge to send Africa $15 billion over 5 years. In comparison, we're spending $87 billion in Iraq now. And now Bush says Africa can make due with just $2 billion this year.

$87 billion to Iraq. $2 billion to Africa.

If you're going to believe the administration's new claim that we went to war with Iraq for humanitarian reasons, wouldn't it make more sense to concentrate on Africa since it has a much more pressing need for humanitarian assistance?

To get back to the essay's conclusion, you can't say something is unrepairable until you've actually tried to repair it. To say that it just looks too hard to repair is a cop-out and probably a diversion from the fact that the author is now an American and selfishly only cares about his/her own self and not about his/her homeland. That's a valid position to take; I just wish he/she would state it without trying to hide behind this weak argument.

eple

True, but I do believe the assumption that more aid is not the key might be a good point. Sometimes, pouring money into corrupt regimes isn't really any solution.

james t kirk

Well lebell

I read that entire essay, and then i clicked on the link.

That Kim guy is fatter than the butcher's dog. It's a miracle he hasn't died from coranary pulmonary disease. Then someone can do an essay under the "one less asshole" on his own website about him.

Then i clicked on some of his other rants.....

The guy is a lunatic. He's right up there with the fucking Nazis and spews out hate propaganda.

Just because it's written down by some nutbar doesn't make it true.

Nizzle

I wonder how many starving kids in Africa he could feed.

__________________
Nizzle

Lebell

Curious.

James T and Nizzle, have you two complained about the conservatives putting down Michael Moore for being fat instead of addressing the issues he raises?

Because really, I wish we can get over the sophomoric habit of judging a person's words on how they look.

/rant off


Anyway, I didn't check out the rest of his site so I don't know much about him, but nothing you guys said addresses THESE points, which I thought worth discussing.

__________________
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." – C. S. Lewis

The ONLY sponsors we have are YOU!

Please Donate!

Zeld2.0

I dont think points are particularly worth discussing to many if the author does have the uh.. traits and sayings he does.

eple

He is not alone on this issue. A few years ago, I saw documentaries about African poverty, and several young intellectuals from represented countries said the same things. Many of the countries in Africa whitch have recieved big figures in the last decade, have done very little to improve their situation. This essay is no doubt a bit over the edge, and pretty harsh, but the main points aren't too revolutionary.


I still don't think all aid to Africa should stop, humanitarian aid is always neccesary, but much of the money poured out to be used for developement are quite wasted through corruption and war.

eple

Uh, checked the link and the guy really are an asshole. Guess I won't endorse him too hard.

Pacifier

WEll if you like to stop all the aid, then please stop also all western companys who have mines and factories in the thrírd world.

__________________
"It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I cannot take seriously. I also cannot imagine some will or goal outside the human sphere. Science has been charged with undermining morality, but the charge is unjust. A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death
— Albert Einstein

Macheath

Ironically, Kissinger himself has come close to advocating Wilsonian idealism in response to Africa's plight. I was rather surprised.

There are a couple of things I want to know about this idea of "leaving Africa to its fate". Will Western companies be relinquishing thier control of mines and mineral resources? Does "cutting Africa loose" mean giving it a fair go at the global free market or does it mean isolating it economically; either through the current regime of protectionism for European and American agriculture or maybe through perversely punitive trade santions - the economic equivalent of a "high wall around the whole continent". What about debt relief; does cutting them loose mean freeing them from that particular aspect of our "charity" or is that going too far?

lurkette

The single best thing we could do to help African nations - and in fact, the entire developing world - is to cut agricultural subsidies in the Western nations. We cripple the only chance they have of an export economy, all so rich corporate farmers can get richer (they get about 65% of the subsidies, compared to small farmers who could still be subsidized provided they don't export - France is moving this way).

The second best thing we could do is expand the electrical grid.
<a href="http://www.geni.org/globalenergy/index2.shtml">http://www.geni.org/globalenergy/index2.shtml</a>

The third best thing we could do is stop sending food aid to countries with famines. It's harsh, but we keep people alive who can't be fed by the land they're living on. We create a cycle of famine and dependence.

__________________
"If ten million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing."

- Anatole France

eple

I agree on the trade-barrier one. Stopping food-deliverance is indeed harsh, and hardly possible to do for anyone with morals. But viewed from an absolutely objectice stance, it might not be too foolish to let darwin take effect...

chavos

do we really think a contient of failed nation states, some under the influence of radical islam is REALLY the asnwer? You think that somehow the systemic collapse of Africa wouldn't produce harmful side effects for the West?

The first requisite to economic growth is socio-political stability. We need to start rewarding nations that are stable...and providing the other corralate to economic growth: physical infrastructure and education.

Simply calling africa uncureable is a rationalization for inhuman disregard for suffering. There are forgien aid solutions that can work in these situations, and that we are uncreative is not a proof that they are unhelpable.

Xell101

It is uncurable if we keep on doing the same thing we are doing now. We need something different things to do, I'm not suffeciently well educated in the matter so my only input would be to simply fix it one area at a time, and then ahve the fixed area do some helping as well, so the amount of help being tossed around would increase on a bell curve...

Nizzle

Okay, first off, if you can find a post where I have said anything to defend Michael Moore in any way, I will personally apologise. But you can't, because I don't. Please do not put words in my mouth or attribute beliefs to me because you perceive me as a "liberal."

Secondly, I spent about 15 minutes poking around the guys website in addition to reading the article. I was stunned. Poking fun at people that are callous and socially reprehensible is a good way to let off steam. I really can't take what he has to say seriously.

__________________
Nizzle

Lebell

Nizzle,

No, it really was a question. I didn't know if you were one of the ones who did that or not.

But I really AM tired of the "Oh, I don't like him, so I'll call him FAT" BS. It adds nothing to the discussion and just makes the person saying it look foolish.

Anyway, I suppose I'll have to check out some of his other essays to get a feel for the writer, but I still don't see anything fundamentally wrong or untrue in this article.


Edit:

Alright, I spent some time at his site, and while he is clearly a conservative, I certainly don't see that he is a 'nut' (unless of course, you are a liberal, in which case all conservatives are 'nuts' to you).

__________________
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." – C. S. Lewis

The ONLY sponsors we have are YOU!

Please Donate!

eple

When talking about letting Africa starve, being fat really is a negative trait, you have to admit it...

james t kirk

Exactly.

As for michael moore being fat, he is. He's very fat.

I like the guy's movies, but i don't ever recall defending him over his decision to eat too much. Furthermore, MM has never written anything advocating letting a continent starve to death. MM should lose some weight for his own sake i hope. If you can find a post i ever made defending mm against people who slander him cause he's fat, please quote it.

As far as africa goes, i AGREE that in some ways it is a bottomless pit where dictators rule and steal and life maybe cheap.

But it doesn't seem a very humanitarian thing to me to turn your back on them because of that. I dunno, i have never been to africa. Though i have known several people who have for extended safaris, etc. and none of them ranted and raved about all these snakes this kim guy keeps going on about.

Read his little essay written about traitors and see if you think he still isn't nuts.

dy156

just curious, but what big natural resources does the continent have outside of South Africa and wild animal tourism? If it has some, there exists the basic buildingblocks for an economy that can help the people eventually thrive. Alomost every big advanced society first started progressing based on natural resources. There are some exceptions, e.g. Isreal, but those places are, inddeed exceptional. Without them, you will get the situations described above, whereby you get cycles of famine and dependency on foriegn aid. I just don't know.

lurkette

Depends on where you're talking about, but:

Diamonds, other precious gems and metals
Petroleum
Mahogany, teak, other hardwoods
Cotton, and I'll bet they could make hemp a viable crop if they haven't already
The metal they use to make cell phone batteries

There are plenty of resources, they either lack the infrastructure to make use of them (no roads to get to ore deposits, e.g.), the knowledge to make them sustainable resources (as with the woods), or the leverage to compete with subsidized Western farmers.

__________________
"If ten million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing."

- Anatole France

sipsake

Damn, don't you ever get tired of painting with your incredibly broad brush?

I'm a liberal. Very liberal. A pinko-commie-hippy-tree hugger according to my conservative friends. Yeah...friends.

My best friend in the world is a staunch conservative. I'm the first democrat in almost 3 generations of my family, much to my father's chagrin.

Do I consider all conservatives nuts? No. Ironically, some of the people I love and respect most are conservative.

Are some conservatives nuts? You bet.

So, go ahead and make sweeping generalizations if you want. But realize that it's a common characteristic of those nutty conservatives, liberals and independants.

__________________
When life hands you a lemon, say "Oh yeah, I like lemons. What else you got?"

Henry Rollins

redravin40

Sometimes the natural resources create the problems.
Consider the problem of conflict diamonds .

The oil companies have been accused of letting the local governments throw people off their land for drilling and building pipelines.
There are even cases of slave labor being used to build the pipelines.
We get the end results of some of this horror in the way of cheap products.
It might be that we should take a look at how people are profiting from having Africa being a wreckage.
There have been efforts in the past to build strong governments which have been undermined by other countries who saw such efforts as a threat to their profits.

eple

eheh....Believe me, the problem is not lack of natural resources. The vast resources on the African continent was the very reason why Europe colonized the shit out of it.

Thraeryn

Yeah, okay, liberal/conservative bashing aside, let's discuss this.

Some folks have pointed out that we have to try solutions before we can give up on them. To them I say: didn't the article point out that many, many solutions have been tried, unsuccessfully?

Some have pointed out that, as humans and humanitarians, we cannot let our fellow man suffer. Who suffers more? The man who is diseased and knows of no cure, or the man who has the same disease and hopes for a cure that he knows exists, but that never comes? Such is our "aid" to African nations: the miracle cure that never finds its way to the hands of the sick.

There are three solutions, as I see it. One: Go in and completely wipe out their way of life, replacing it completely with our own infrastructure, spending trillions of dollars until Africa no longer truthfully exists. Two: Take no active role in the political and social welfare of African nations, while still doing business with them. I don't see this as a real solution, as it would simply result in the corrupt regimes still selling us low-cost blood diamonds, etc. Three: Take no active role in the political, social, or economic welfare of African nations. Just forget that they exist. Unfortunately, we need the natural resources; we can't just let them be razed. It would force us to find some of our own or cultivate inventiveness, though.

So what do we do?

lurkette

Thraeryn, first, I don't know how anybody can conclude that 30-50 years of inconsistent aid from Western countries can reverse 1. centuries of colonial oppression, and 2. deep-seated problems that predated colonialism. To say that we've tried them and they've failed only means that so far what we've tried hasn't been effective. Doesn't speak to future or long-term effects.

Second, I'm not sure I see how those three options you list are the only options. There are a number of middle-road options that have been suggested but never implemented, at least not on a wide scale - everything from "trade not aid" programs to military occupation of the worst offenders.

A couple of suggestions have been made, here and elsewhere:

1. end farm subsidies that would allow African nations to compete with agricultural exports
2. establish free trade instead of giving away IMF funds
3. demand accountability for aid funds
4. send in U.N. peacekeepers where appropriate
5. international oversight of elections

It's a systemic problem, and it has to be tackled on a nation-by-nation basis.

Check out these articles from last weekend's News & Observer (Raleigh):

<a href="http://www.newsobserver.com/news/q/story/2902781p-2671721c.html">http://www.newsobserver.com/news/q/s...-2671721c.html<a/>

__________________
"If ten million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing."

- Anatole France

Conclamo Ludus

Its an interesting essay. I'm not ready to close the doors on Africa. If we wait too long and isolate them, they're problems will be in our backyard before long. Same thing with Iraq, and other nations that are detrimental to their own people.

__________________
Lord, have mercy on my wicked soul
I wouldn't mistreat you baby, for my weight in gold.
-Son House, Death Letter Blues

Lebell

No, I am less tired because I require fewer brush strokes this way


In all seriousness, you are right; I used a generalization that I personally know isn't true and for that I appologize.

But I do think your general statement, implying that I make a habit of it is rather unfair.

__________________
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." – C. S. Lewis

The ONLY sponsors we have are YOU!

Please Donate!

ARTelevision

You have your humanitarian reasons and then you have your geopolitical reasons for African policy.

Humanitarian reasons don't make any sense to me.
Governments act best when they act out of self interest and geopolitical necessity.

As for Africa, I believe our humanitarian efforts are misplaced.
There are solid geopolitical reasons for acting there.

__________________
create evolution