Right now huge portions of Africa rely on foreign charity to keep their people fed. They don't bother developing their own agriculture and such. Australia began as a prison, and it has taken us one century to become quite a developed nation. We can do it, why can't so many African nations? Foreign aid in its current form should cease completely. If a country wants our money, they should agree to do things we want without reservation. For example, if Zimbabwe wants Australian dollars, a condition should be that 95% of that money is spent on building damns. Or amybe we could say "Equal rights for white people there, or you don't get any money".
I'm starting to believe that culture contributes as much to evolution as biology. Or at least that cultural evolution is AS important as biological, if not more so. I feel for them, for their lack of education, for their lack of willpower to drag themselves out of the mire, and their lack of a culture which would give them the ability to fend for themselves. But i would never lift a finger to help. that's their responsibility.
Yep. Teach them to fish instead of give them fish, something like that. But only when they demonstrate a willingness to go fishing, which so far has not happened for many African governments.
It would appear that many of these nations spend foreign aid on weapons. I know this has been said in the past, but it must be true. They won't learn how to fend for themselves until we let them, you have to push the bird out of tree so that it can learn to fly.
Do you think that Europem bears some responsibility for arbitarily drawing up boundaries which split ethnic groups and languages. Not to mention the plundering of resources, slavery and racism that often went hand in hand with colonisation? Yes, Africa has done little to help itself - corrupt governments are plentiful and violence continues. But the reason for much of this can be traced back to the creation of African nation states which occurred under colonial rule. Nigeria, Zaire and Sudan are split largely because European cartographers were more interested in straight lines than peoples cultures. There is no easy solution though. Give money with no strings? Often squandered or embezzled. We ought to pay, and pay substantially, but we should also link such aid to proper programmes designed to improve education, governance and economic development. We could do more - like implement free trade policies (we still protect our own farms by slapping huge tariffs on imports). Do more to boost health and education - these hands on programmes do not so readily see funds diverted into the pockets of officials. African states do need to take more of a lead though. I hope South Africa might be the country to take that leading role. It won't be easy.
Bollocks. European colonialisation did not cause the troubles in Africa today. The various nations and tribes there were slaughtering each other and selling each other into slavery long before Europeans arrived. It's very common and easy for people to blame Europe, but history does not support the claim. Yes, European created states involved new borders which caused trouble. But there was a lot more trouble beforehand, and those earlier troubles are the cause of the problems.
All the points you bring up are valid but how does Africa get out of this spiral. The world needs to move on & the burden seems to be on a few countries to make those moves , how can the resources of the world be efficiently used cause right now we're getting better at making more from less while Africa has stretches of untapped resources which could greatly alleviate poverty. I travelled through Eastern, Central & Southern Africa - what a place it's unreal, but I can't quite figure out why Africa is in the state its in , the people are hard-working, you see women in the fields with babies strapped to their backs all day long tilling the land - We're on the internet all day long. Africa still has admirable social manners like revering elders, you see poor people donate to the blind & homeless, no old people are in old-age homes they are with their families. Squid made a good point there because I'd blame the leaders but the culture of the people seems to let them get away with it, aye, even create the situation. I believe the Africans should be left to themselves to sort this out but that is so cruel after you've seen an African child standing on the African plain, you wonder what's going through his mind.
If you guys would read history a little bit before extrapolating on your version of it you would find out that Africa was doing very well before the colonizers went there and plundered the continent for their profit. They, the colonizers, spent several hundred year stealing the finest specimens of Africans and shipping them overseas to be used as slaves. Any who resisted with any consistency were killed. They took over vast territories and made the people change their way of living so that they could produce raw materials to be shipped to the colonizers homelands. They warred on the African's lands and treated the people horribly. Then they armed everybody on the continent with automatic weapons and had proxy wars between the forces of "communism and capitalism". They installed murderous dictators as heads of governments simply because they would do anything to their own people to maintain control of resources for the companies of the foreign nations who were their benefactors. The "democratic" nations are directly and fully culpable for the sorry state that Africa is in today and should be the ones who get directly involved with applying their resources and knowhow in order to get the continent's societies working copacetically.
"Colonialism is a system of administration; a process of exploitation; and a production system often geared towards the creation of capitalist relations and the economic and socio-cultural aggrandizement of the colonizer. This may be done by covert or overt, psychological, legal and military mechanisms. Colonialism inhibited the development of indigenous technology in Africa to a large extent. Colonial domination brought with it a shift into a cash crop economy and de-stabilized some of the existing processes of technical growth. The dumping of goods took place. African markets were flooded with cheap mass-produced textile, glass and iron products in the context of policies such as "the scrap iron policy" of Britain. Indigenous manufacturing capability was deliberately undermined to facilitate European exports. Captive markets were created. There were deliberate laws aimed at suppressing African indigenous technological development. Among the first groups to feel the impact of the invaders' new laws and activities were the metallurgists. These included the blacksmiths who forged iron and the whitesmiths who worked with lighter metal such as tin. Blacksmiths were depended on as much by farmers, for implements, as by the aristocracy and the political elite. This system of internal self-reliance changed. It is interesting to note that practitioners of indigenous medicine were confronted with unjust laws leading to fines, imprisonment, execution and deportation Sadly enough, African medical practitioners who were trained in the conventional Western bio-medical tradition were discriminated against and often denied employment. They were excluded from membership from the white-dominated "West African Medical Staff" made up of British migrants. In the words of the Legislative Council Proceedings of November 2, 1911: It is only of recent that those in the Medical Services have been able to fight out the right to be recognized and classed as something above chief clerk. But these discriminatory laws were not confined to medicine. In 1909 the Nigerian builder of a model steam ship was threatened with imprisonment by the British colonial authorities." treaty form sudan nubia afrocentric but what about today, africans cannot whine forever
Pure bollocks. African tribes were wiping each other out wholesale and selling each other into slavery for thousands of years prior to European colonisation. Were they developing much? Well, most of Africa was still Stone Age; very few places had developed even the barest forms of metal use. A few areas had agriculture. Note that during the height of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, Europeans only had access to a few coastal towns of Africa, and were not heavily colonising. Ah, it's all crap. Africa was not very developed then, and isn't now.
Perhaps you need to read more about Africa's history Adam. I think I'll take a page out of your book and post some articles on this...Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Slavery in Africa: It is true that African societies did have various forms of slavery and dependent labor before their interaction with Arabs and Europeans that invaded Africa, especially in nonegalitarian centralized African states, but scholars argue that indigenous slavery was relatively a marginal aspect of traditional African societies. Many forms of servitude and slavery were relatively benign, an extension of lineage and kinship systems. Slaves and servants were often well-treated and could rise to respected positions in households and communities. African social hierarchies and conditions of servitude were mitigated by complex, extended kinship relationships, based on community, group, clan, and family. Ethnic rivalries and hostilities did exist, as did ethnocentrism (a belief that one's group and its lifeways are superior to those of other groups), but the concept of race was a foreign import. Muslim conquests of North Africa and penetration in the south made slavery a more widely diffused phenomenon, and the slave trade in Africans—especially women and children--developed on a new scale. The adoption of Islamic concepts of slavery made it a legitimate fate for non-believers but an illegal treatment for Muslims. In the forest states of West Africa, such as Benin and Kongo, slavery was an important institution before the European arrival, African rulers seeking to enslave other African groups, rather than their own people, to enhance their wealth, prestige, and control of labor. However, the Atlantic Slave Trade opened up greatly expanded opportunities for large-scale economic trade in human beings--chattel slavery--on an unprecedented scale. Expanding, centralized African states on/near the coast became major suppliers of slaves to the Europeans, who mobilized commerce in slaves relatively quickly by tapping existing routes and supplies. http://www.cocc.edu/cagatucci/classes/hum211/timelines/htimeline2.htm African Slave Trade & European Imperialism: THE HOLOCAUST: Muslim traders exported as many as 17 million slaves to the coast of the Indian Ocean, to the Middle East, and to North Africa. African slave exports via the Red Sea, trans-Sahara, and East Africa/Indian Ocean to other parts of the world between 1500-1900 totaled at least 5 million Africans sent into bondage. Between 1450 and 1850, at least 12 million Africans were shipped from Africa across the Atlantic Ocean--the notorious "Middle Passage"--primarily to colonies in North America, South America, and the West Indies. 80% of these kidnapped Africans (or at least 7 million) were exported during the 18th century, with a mortality rate of probably 10-20% on the ships enroute for the Americas. Unknown numbers (probably at least 4 million) of Africans died in slave wars and forced marches before being shipped. Within central Africa itself, the slave trade precipitated migrations: coastal tribes fled slave-raiding parties and captured slaves were redistributed to different regions in Africa. African slave trade and slave labor transformed the world. In Africa, slave trade stimulated the expansion of powerful West African kingdoms. In the Islamic world, African slave labor on plantations, in seaports, and within families expanded the commerce and trade of the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf. In the Americas, slave labor became the key component in trans-Atlantic agriculture and commerce supporting the booming capitalist economy of the 17th and 18th centuries, with the greatest demand in the Americas coming from Brazil and the sugar plantations of the Caribbean. http://www.cocc.edu/cagatucci/classes/hum211/timelines/htimeline3.htm If you read the timelines I linked, you will see the empires and nations that have been on Africa. You will also see that they were comparable to their European counterparts. Enviornmental conditions, and a lack of cooperation from other civilizations is what has caused Africa's demise.
When technical knowledge is confused with societal development, confused people adopt an elitest stance that says "might makes right". While the British, French, Dutch, Germans and some others deserve some vilification for their part in denigrating Africa, the major blame falls on the U.S. The U.S. continued with their slavery until after their civil war and continued to meddle in Africa ever since. When the second world war ended, the U.S. didn't end it's war, it just gave it a new name, "the cold war", and prosecuted it at a reduced level. The U.S. is the culprit responsible for starting the second world war with Japan, for the war in Korea, for the "police action" in Vietnam, for allowing Iraq to believe they could take over Kuwait without a war, and for scores of smaller wars and skirmishes before, in between and after all of those wars mentioned. The U.S. corporate/government is directly responsible for the devestation in Africa and they should be leading the industrialized nations in going there and setting things right. They had a tremendous opportunity to begin such a process at the just ended summit in South Africa and they abrogated their responsibility. The planetary society is going to have to convert to clean energy soon, nature is going to dictate that, and Africa would be the perfect showplace for solar power to replace the polluting fossil fuels. That version of history that I just spoke of is not taught in schools and the books about real history are not allowed to be reviewed in the corporate/government press so it is understandable how young fellows like Adam can develop a narrow-minded understanding of history. Fortunately, people with such elitest views will not stop the progressive change that is going to force the corporate/governments to behave more civilly.
stop the aid flow, leave them for themselves... I think that this all help they get, just allows them not to develop. Those who do not develop , die out. common known fact; as said by one of our writers: " He who will change, will remain" as noted previously Australia is an exellent proof of human abilities if they want - Australia is a desert with some green areas, but does Europe send aid, does Australia need it?
I agree kinda Avatar, But that would have to include political influences also. You must remember that these African nations were under colonist rule up until the 1900's. This is what stifled their economies and growth. As stated by John MacNeil, the colonist stripped the Africans of their way of life and forced them into being mere workers. Now due to environmental reasons, diseases abound in Africa, and with no infrastructure(that was destroyed by the colonist), it will be tough to repair the damage done. Lastly, comparing Africa with Australia doesn't make any sense. Africa has had only decades to fix the ills of 400 years. That's a little bit different.
that doesn't work- your example I live in Latvia and we reestablished our independence only in 1991. I think, if you visited our country now, you'd see a distinct difference from African countries we talk about which had time to develop since 1950s it's all about management of resources- we don't have any diamonds- many African countries have them- some are swimming in them- and what do they do- every tribe buys a shitload of weapons and war with each otherPlease Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Also- Zimbabve- the instance they prohibited white farmers to grow crops- all markets started to run out of food- and you know why- they took those white farms, robbed them and left them alone- management of resources - if they can't do that- then even a trillion dollars of aid won't do anything.
The problem with using Latvia, is that it's one country, while Africa is a large continent of many countries. Each nation has their own goals and agendas, and the political disarray left since the 1900's, create a long list of problems. Perhaps the best way to help Africa, is by building peace among the warring nations. Only when there is peace, will there be growth... If Latvia wasn't annexed by the USSR in 1940 and they remained free, wouldn't they're growth have been stunted by the war around them (WW2). Wouldn't you say that political disarray(like in Africa), or political discord(like communist rule over Latvia until 1991), are major reasons for social problems. If it was just one country in Africa we were talking about, then we would only have to look at the government. But instead, were talking about a whole continent, that was left in total political disarray, and spawned government factions bent on power. The key is to obtain peace, and to update the technological standards of the continent.
AFRICA - Cradle of mankind? Still is. The smart ones with high IQ ran away, and over thousands of years formed great civilizations, put man on the moon etc.... The dumb ones stayed behind and with inbreeding created a genetic cesspool. That is what my friend says. I dont have much experience with that continent except in 1984, I gave the secret to changing Uganda to a great country to a high level political leader. His venom towards white man blinded his understanding of the knowledge so much that, he did not accept the free advice. Nothing has changed since then.
kmguru so at the time they ran away, was africa still a cesspool? to run a successful country must we be privy to the secrets that you mention? if for instance we assume the us is a great country, is it because of secretive doctrines practised by its leaders? or could a student of law, economics or political science govern just as well? african incest! what level of inbreeding? cousins? tribes? africa is a now a monolithic society? nothing has changed?? its getting worse!
