Africa is a mess

growler

what are peoples' thoughts on Africa ? I am constantaly amazed at their inability to properly manage their countries and the seeming ease with which any sub-saharan country can be plunged into bloody civil war, tribal war, economic war, religious war or war for no real apparent reason.

Now I know, and i used to believe, that this was mostly the fault of colonial europe, but that legacy should have passed by now, politics and corruption are so inter-twined it's incredible. They have great natural resources, but are unable to manage them etc and basically can't seem to do things "properly".

I visited Kenya a few years back, have been to egypt and most recently to south africa and on the surface their isn't a lot of difference. but then you have systematic rapes and genocide in the congo, rawanda, ivory coast , sierra leone etc. , pygmy's being eaten , children being mutilated , slavery , aids epedemics etc. , a billion $$ a year war between ethiopia an eritrea ...and yet we are always asked for donations to help these countries.

anyway i think that they are mostly f**ked , i refuse to give anymore of my money so that they can buy new wives / mercedes / jets / AK's / machettes for themselves. But even worse i just cannot see an answer to sorting out most of the continent short of leaving them to their own devices and hoping they cop on.

The Saint

It might be an idea to stop selling these oppressive regimes weapons to kill their prople with.

mike65

Big subject, Africas troubles are multi-factorial to say the least.
I guess the transformation of Robert Mugabe from idealist freedom fighter and negotiator into a tyrant may sum up much of whats gone wrong, did
Zimbabwe ever have a secure democracy? and was the "international community" looking out to see that the necessary changes after the end of white rule were made or implimented properly? I dont know but I suspect Zimbabwe was just left to look after itself and with no culture of democracy and justice its perhaps no surprise the counrties first leader
is still its leader through rampant corruption.

Mike.

Bunny

Originally posted by growler
what are peoples' thoughts on Africa ? I am constantaly amazed at their inability to properly manage their countries and the seeming ease with which any sub-saharan country can be plunged into bloody civil war, tribal war, economic war, religious war or war for no real apparent reason.

Now I know, and i used to believe, that this was mostly the fault of colonial europe, but that legacy should have passed by now, politics and corruption are so inter-twined it's incredible. They have great natural resources, but are unable to manage them etc and basically can't seem to do things "properly".

I visited Kenya a few years back, have been to egypt and most recently to south africa and on the surface their isn't a lot of difference. but then you have systematic rapes and genocide in the congo, rawanda, ivory coast , sierra leone etc. , pygmy's being eaten , children being mutilated , slavery , aids epedemics etc. , a billion $$ a year war between ethiopia an eritrea ...and yet we are always asked for donations to help these countries.

anyway i think that they are mostly f**ked , i refuse to give anymore of my money so that they can buy new wives / mercedes / jets / AK's / machettes for themselves. But even worse i just cannot see an answer to sorting out most of the continent short of leaving them to their own devices and hoping they cop on.

I mean what is up with those people, don't they like have diamonds or something? why do they like live in straw houses, its like gross. I've decided to stop sending 3 euros a month to like help people see again, maybe they'll like cop on and do something.

Dr_Teeth

Most of them are still colonies in every way that matters - the only difference is that there's an african puppet at the top instead of a european one.

And be fair to the people there, they're only 3-4 generations out of a mud hut in the bush. It took us a hell of a long time to move away from tribal/feudal/monarchistic systems of rule. The idea of the 'chief', the strong man who rules and takes what he wants still persists strongly in addition to old tribal rivalries.

Plus they have very little education and they're dying of aids while being screwed over by us lot still.

Put all that together and there's little to look forward to I reckon, though hope for some places like Botswana.

Teeth.

taellad

And Ghana too! Or so I've heard. I do think it's a bit rich talking about how ruined African countries are, when only 60 years ago we had Stalin and Hitler who managed to kill ... how many millions? And Britain and France were hardly the most benevolent of rulers, now were they? And America (who up to the sixties operated an apartheid state ... some would say they still do) seems to have taken over their place, to a certain extent anyway.

Lennoxschips

They're still colonies of the west. We take their oil, we take their resources and we get them to grow coffee and cotton on their land, when they'd be better of using that land to grow crops they can eat.

How do we get them to do this? Western companies like Shell bribe the corrupt leaders of coutries like Nigeria so that we can get their oil on the cheap while destroying the environment. There are some corrupt governments in Africa, and the west takes advantage of this. Do you think Robert Mugabe turned a tyrant overnight? No. He used to cooperate with the west, so we turned a blind eye. Now he's pissing off the west, so the western media have all of a sudden decided to show him for what he is. Another equally ruthless tyrant will eventually replace Mugabe, and as long as he cooperates with the west, we'll all be told that he's a model leader of a democratic nation.

Colonialism destroyed Africa, and it's still destroying it today, under the guise of 'free-trade'.

We in Ireland would be in a similar position, but we were lucky that, geographically speaking, we are located in Europe. Hence, we were admitted to the EU. Let African countries join the EU, I say. Rename it the World Union if you have to...