africa

[Jenks]

Re: africa

Yeah, let's pile on Qwerty. :P

[toasty]

Re: africa

^^Qwerty? Fuck that mother fucker. He can suck my mother fuckin' dick. Worthless bastard.

J/K, Q thought I'd take the invitation to pile on...

[qwerty2222]

Re: africa

i didnt mean to be rude
by miser i ment a person who only thinks of money, no feeling involved when it comes to money, sorry sightless if i offended you, it wasnt intended
toasty, it was not you i was responding to, so be a gentelman and tell you're mama to keep herself to you

[thesightless]

Re: africa

oh, i understand what you are all saying , and i realize that its the right thing to do. but, its the complete lack of accountability here that is bugging me. its too much money not to recoup IMO.

[toasty]

Re: africa

toasty, it was not you i was responding to, so be a gentelman and tell you're mama to keep herself to you

dude, I was seriously just playing around b/c of the suggestion to "pile on." no serious comment or offense intended. peace out.

edit:

BTW, my comment was an allusion to an old RevCo tune. So there was really nothing serious about the comment at all...

[Yao]

Re: africa

Now can I get a decent reaction on my post?

[runningman]

Re: africa

this is what the white man is doing to pay back the blacks for slavery. I bet all the black people in the USA are pissed because they thought they were going to get the check for there ancestors work.. I am happy about this though because africa has to get fixed..

[neoee]

Re: africa

this is what the white man is doing to pay back the blacks for slavery. I bet all the black people in the USA are pissed because they thought they were going to get the check for there ancestors work.. I am happy about this though because africa has to get fixed..

I hope you sig applies to this statement because what you said was absolutely ricockulous! Not to side with 'the white man' but to be fair blacks were sold into slavery by their own. I don't think any debts need to be paid back (except ours ).

[jabondan]

Re: africa

Something has to be done in Africa. 24k people starve to death every day in africa plus millions die because of aids.

The "Debt Relief" and "Grants" would curve the problem, but goverments are transferringg power to corporations and perosonal millionaires in order to create infrestracture for consumers and market economies. The new bechtels are buidling new roads, and the phizers are going to sell more drugs, and at last all the africans would run with the new customize nike shox.

Lets hope that the new leaders and our generation could invest in education and serving the whole world as one. I think that europeans as a more mature culture grasps the importance of education and program based aid.

The Future??? nobody knows.... at least i like the idea of people actually living and enyoing the beauty of life. According to the quantum theirs a probabiltiy for everything, lets the people figure out the chaos.

[Yao]

Re: africa

@ Neoee

correction: slavery was occuring even before the arrival of the white man, BUT...it wasn't industrialised, only occurred on relatively small scale. We made an industry of it. Robbed Africa of more than one third of it's potential working force in that time. So there is deffo a debt to be paid.

There's so fucking many problems...i could write on and on about that.

[neoee]

Re: africa

@ Neoee

correction: slavery was occuring even before the arrival of the white man, BUT...it wasn't industrialised, only occurred on relatively small scale. We made an industry of it. Robbed Africa of more than one third of it's potential working force in that time. So there is deffo a debt to be paid.

There's so fucking many problems...i could write on and on about that.

Yao I agree with you on the industrialization of slavery, and to add I'm also ok with forgiving debts owed to the US, even though theres a lack of accountability (as sightless puts it). But only if they are for economic or even humanitarian purposes. I do however have a problem saying it is "owed" to them because the early civilizations believed slavery was just. That is a time long gone, our culture has changed. Our generation holds no responsibility for those of the past.

My mom came into this country with 80 dollars in her pocket in the 70's and busted her ass to get where she is today. Do you think she as a US citizen owes for the mistakes of those before she was even a member of this country- or even a twinkle in her father's eye?

[Yao]

Re: africa

Even though I was only referring to the slavery in my last post, if you reread my post before (the big one) you will see I will certeinly not put the guilt at one side. But yes, I know it sounds cruel, but as a collective we still have a debt to pay to that continent. I totally understand your reasoning, but this is a thing that really cannot be looked at individually.

We can't suck a continent dry of all of its resources and then pull back saying: it wasn't me, it was my father, or grandfather. As a people, when you make mistakes, you have the obligation to set that right just as well as an individual. And in some cases it takes multiple generations yes.

But thank god there are finally standing up a few African leaders that tell their people to quit whining and DO something about their situation, instead of just sitting there feeling mistreated.

Then again, in other countries where people are willing to bust their asses off for a better future they are still held back by a moron greedy dictator (Zimbabwe, Togo, Equatorial Guinea). Eventually dictatorship will get rid of itself, but it may take some time, unless we intevene through either politics or the military.

But the reason why Africa is still so underdeveloped is the so-called Neo-Colonialism (Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana). It's all too easy to make aid look like aid but then let it help Europe/US rather than Africa. How?

example: help farmers acquire new and better agrarical techniques to increase the production of their lands. What does it involve? Buying expensive heavy equipment and artficial fertilizers from Western companies, who increase the prices every year. The first year is free, but then....and the balance ends up negative.

Give governments subsidies for educational improvements. Condition: to hire more Western teachers to help improve the quality of education. Those Western teachers are 3 to 10 times as expensive than African teachers.


Don't look at the intital aid flow, look at the conditions attached to it.

[runningman]

Re: africa

ya it was a joke.. but seriously africa is in a sad state of affairs and I am more then happy to see that the western world is proving that they are better then the east by coordinating a $50 billion package to help save the continent of africa.. this should help with terrorism but it probably won't because the brainwashing has gone to deep..

[Mauricio]

Re: africa

Don't look at the initial aid flow, look at the conditions attached to it.

Yao, I couldn?t have agreed more. Just like you, I lived in Africa and am going back soon. This aid should have some strings attached though. It is in this world not possible to simple relief all countries' debt. There have to be certain criteria which determine which countries' governments are the most likely to correctly invest and use the new financial situation. The money that is normally used to pay off the debt or to pay the interest has to be invested.

Naturally it is not possible to relief Zimbabwe of their debt (BTW they recently applied for a new loan form South Africa, but when Mbeki had certain strings attached and wanted to see results and such Mgabi wasn?t interested anymore. he probably needed the money to built his 35th palace with bunker and more Bentleys and such).

I also do understand the correlation to slavery and the industrialisation of it and the fact that the West has greatly contributed to the current state of affair in Africa. However, I personally am not willing to take all the blame. As said before in this topic, the World Bank has, yet again, screwed African countries over by imposing their ridiculous conditions and the same for individual loan given by Western countries. It is indeed the conditions that have had a great influence on the current situation.

Ok having said this, i also do not think that African countries go without any blame. Those countries that are having corrupt regimes should not receive dept relief. Nobody will have benefits from that except the corrupt people in charge.

And debt relief is likely to reduce terrorism in Africa. When people earn money they are able to built a future, take care of their family and send their kids to school. When these basic needs are not supplied or when people do not have the money to pay for them they end in poverty. Now a terroristic organisation works as a company (Read Jessica's Stern book on terrorism and religion). They supply those standard needs and in return they only demand those people's kids for a little favour, Become a suiside bumber. Ofcourse those families this that it is an onhour for them, after all they are giving their kids to allah or god or which ever mighty ruler. There you go, poverty supports terrorism.

[Yao]

Re: africa

For me Mugabe from Zimbabwe is nothing more than a legal criminal: all the countries are unwilling to take action against him, just a few days ago the South-African deputy president has said that it could 'learn' from Zimbabwe when it comes to land reform. Fucking idiot. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/4140990.stm)

With all his big mouth on 'African solutions for African problems' Thabo Mbeki has discarded himself IMO by not taking a stand against Mugabe's ridiculous polilies which are clearly aimed at prolonging his presidency (and inherent to that, his self-enriching).

Financial aid in itself is not an incentive to really start doing things for the people receiving it...they should only receive support to set up long-term projects/businesses which will generate enough income in the long run. And until African industries become competitive on the world market, a little protectionism is in place I think. African economies started going wrong when they abandoned the socialist/communist way and entered the capitalist world market, simply because they were outcompeted and never even had the chance to develop themselves on that market. An open African market meant that is immediately was flooded with Western products, and had to supply the raw materials. Efforts to start up domestic production were discouraged by tariff walls, taxes, administrative humps, bans on goods and simply buying whole industries by Western companies.

I'm kinda for having protectionis measures in Africa along with investment in their industries and public sercives: let it mature a bit before exposing it to the world market. Also, the brain drain should be put to a stop, and maybe that is done best by investing in knowledge, in schools as well as after schools. I may sounds harsh to give those who already a lucky enough to have a decent education a pay raise, but maybe it's necessary to keep them in, because hiring scientists and other high-educated people back form the West is still many times as expensive...