Africa, what to do?

[Buffy]

This is the same argument that's used to say that women were better off when they just stayed home and made babies. It is *not* proof, its just showing that any change *whatsoever* in a power structure takes years to work itself out. Those violence statistics actually are not much worse than California! We were better off with a liberal Democrat as governor then, right? Why is it then not logical to argue for the world-wide imposition of aparteid? Blacks and minorities would be in *much* better shape if they just let us white folk take care of them, because we do take better care of our cattle than we take care of our neighbors!

 

You should note that one of the main arguments for globalization, free markets and off-shoring is that, no, in the short-term it will be painful, but that if we don't do it now it will be much more painful. Why folks can't apply this same notion to global warming, equal rights for all, gay marriage, and all sorts of things that "shouldn't be" is because of fear of a perceived loss of power and control. The motives are unfortunately horridly transparent and should be embarrasing, really.

 

Never give a sucker an even break,

Buffy

[J.B]

Please provide some evidence for this claim.

 

Here is a BLACK MAN who agree's with my opinion:

 

About five years ago, in a debate before the National Association of Black Journalists, I stated that if whites were to just leave the United States and let blacks run the country, they would turn America into a ghetto within 10 years. The audience, shall we say, disagreed with me strongly. Now I have to disagree with me. I gave blacks too much credit. It took a mere three days for blacks to turn the Superdome and the convention center into ghettos, rampant with theft, rape and murder.

 

President Bush is not to blame for the rampant immorality of blacks. Had New Orleans' black community taken action, most would have been out of harm's way. But most were too lazy, immoral and trifling to do anything productive for themselves.

 

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/printer-friendly.asp?ARTICLE_ID=46440

[TheFaithfulStone]

JB you cross post that damn apartheid article to every thread you poison.

 

I think that qualifies as spamming. KNOCK IT OFF. Every one who's going to make themselves stupider by reading it has read it.

 

TFS

[J.B]

How do you like the one right above your post?

 

You know this one?

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/printer-friendly.asp?ARTICLE_ID=46440

[Kayra]

Might I suggest that we are feeding J.B. exactly what he needs?

 

Ask him to prove his statements, and he will endlessly trot out his "Facts". Try to show him how he is wrong, and more "Facts" come out to prove his point. The process gives him legitimacy, and more opportunity to pound his pulpit. He can not be persuaded by logic or emotion. He has made a decision to believe what he believes, and until he makes a new decision, that will not change.

 

I woulds suggest that we as a community should no longer directly respond to his posts , and if you feel the need to say anything at all just say "Shut up J.B." and leave it at that.

 

Just a suggestion folks.

[TheFaithfulStone]

I read it too. And while it's certaintly interesting as an example of diversity of opinion, it isn't evidence. (Or correct, I would argue.)

 

Just because somebody else shares your opinion doesn't make it right.

 

TFS

 

Kayra: I agree, he's just a damn forum troll. I'd put him on ignore, but unfortunatley, I can't seem to find that function.

[J.B]

Might I suggest that we are feeding J.B. exactly what he needs?

 

Ask him to prove his statements, and he will endlessly trot out his "Facts". Try to show him how he is wrong, and more "Facts" come out to prove his point. The process gives him legitimacy, and more opportunity to pound his pulpit. He can not be persuaded by logic or emotion. He has made a decision to believe what he believes, and until he makes a new decision, that will not change.

 

I woulds suggest that we as a community should no longer directly respond to his posts , and if you feel the need to say anything at all just say "Shut up J.B." and leave it at that.

 

Just a suggestion folks.

You see Kayra you have it all wrong, I am not interested in proving how violent and uneducated black folks are as a whole. There are plenty of facts and stats out there for any person who's honest with themselves to prove this to be correct.

 

I am much more interested in how people deal with these facts when confronted with them.

 

So, let me thank you, because your post is classic.:ebaskbal:

[Buffy]

Here is a BLACK MAN who agree's with my opinion:

So what? And he actually *doesn't* agree with you: "This was not always the case. Prior to 40 years ago, such a pathetic performance by the black community in a time of crisis would have been inconceivable." Its not that they are *black* its that the social fabric has degraded, arguably due to continuing prejudice and increasing polarization of rich and poor. As a taxi driver in New Orleans once said to me "I moved to Chicago for a while, but I moved back here: white people are prejudiced everywhere, but at least here they're open about it!"

But most were too lazy, immoral and trifling to do anything productive for themselves.

The hate spewing from those remarks doesn't need a comment... Good luck with St. Peter, pal....

 

Ugly is as ugly does,

Buffy

[Kayra]

Shush J.B., the adults are trying to have a conversation. ( I Doubt it will work.. never has with my kids )

 

Personally, I can not see a short term solution to the problems in Africa.

 

The problems are varied, so I doubt there will be a single golden solution.

 

Perhaps our best bet is to try to list all major issues, then look to solutions that affect as many of the problems at once as possible.

 

So what are the major issues In Africa right now?

[TheFaithfulStone]

Shush J.B., the adults are trying to have a conversation.

 

:wave:

 

TFS

[MagnetMan]

Personally, I can not see a short term solution to the problems in Africa.

 

The problems are varied, so I doubt there will be a single golden solution.

 

Perhaps our best bet is to try to list all major issues, then look to solutions that affect as many of the problems at once as possible.

 

So what are the major issues In Africa right now?

 

As always in every society, only one really - education. If we go down the conventional road of state-sponsored education in Africa, the continent is surely doomed. There is not enough money on the planet to install the same massive educational infrastructres that have taken centuries to install elsewhere. And even there was enough money, how long would it take and where would enough qualified teachers come from to educate nearly one billion people - with the numbers expected to double in the next twenty five years?

 

The problem is not intractable. There is a basic solution. I left Africa forty years ago in search of it and I believe that I may have found it - or least a starting point that can lead to complete literatcy and a solid base of qulaified craftsman and technologists inside a generation. Its not a money solution. It is a people solution. But in order to evoke a full-hearted people response, I have to resolve the racial hurdle and the religious hurdle amd the political hurle and religious hurdle with them. Once that is done perhaps we can find people with a lot of heart and a lot of common sense. People who can see that if we do not solve the problem very quickly, not only in Africa but also in the rest of the undeveloped world, life will not be worth living for any of us. The environment, finite resources, international terorism, AIDS, genocide and a host of other man-made and natural forces will eventually over-whelm us.

 

Other than stating that one word - education - I cannot give you an easily digestible short answer to how that can be implemneted on continental scale in short order. I have tried the short answer on other forums - and ended up with every objection mankind is capable of. The shouts drowned out the argument before I could get the whole point of it across. Not one of the shouts offered an alterantive solution of course. It was just people who love to hear the sound of their own voices. There was no genuine concern from any of them. But I have not given up hope.

 

I have started a thread on colonialism that outlines the solution in Africa from an historical persepective. There is a lengthy opening preamble that you have to wade through first. It is my test to find out how sincere the question about Africa really is. As an African, it is real for me. And as an African I have seen enough insincerity about our problems for one life time. So, if you are for real - lets talk. Ask your question again, based on the petrsonal background I have posted.

.

[Cedars]

The only thing I can offer to this thread is what I was told by different Africans who I attended college with, a few years ago. I asked them on an individual level whether they considered returning to Africa, once they had completed their educations. The overwhelming opinion was NO. I asked why. There answers were all remarkably similar including the one African who intended on returning home to his country of birth.

 

They admired and were overwhelmed by how so many people with so many different ideas on life, religion, and everything could all get along. How we in America could hold different ideas, argue with furor and sit together at lunch and talk about sports as if the previous heated exchange had not occured. Their facial expressions and laughter as they thought back on their experiences and relayed them to me was the same, whether they came from Ethiopia, Sierra Leone, New Guinea or Zaire. All of them said, Its not like that in my country. They all described some kind of risk to personal life for being from the wrong region, holding a different view, speaking the wrong language, and the fact that they could not count on their own nations stablity. The constant battles between idealisms prevented their hope for return to Africa. All of them loved Africa. You could see that each time they spoke of the places they had come from. All of them said it would have to change ALOT before they would go back. And most doubted this would occur in their lifetimes.

 

The one student to intended to return spoke of all these same things with a fire in his eyes. Except for one difference. He was going back to try to change his country that he loved.

 

After listening to each of their storys I could not help but wish for them success in America. When I had asked them these questions, I had wanted to hear them say they wanted to return home and make their birth countries better. I thought Africa can do it for itself and I did hold the ideas that all it would take is these educated students to return and teach the people. But it is much harder and more complicated that that. And I would want to stay where I had a chance, just as these men did.

[Boerseun]

There's only one thing that'll "save" Africa. (And we should remember that in "Saving", we are meaning "Bringing Africa to Western levels. Has anybody actually ever asked an African if his continent 'needs' saving? Saving from who and from what? We are looking through Western eyes at expressions of a cultural idiom that is foreign to us.)

...and that one thing is the aggressive growth of a viable consumer class. Forget about education, MagnetMan - it's useless to achieve a degree in anything if the infrastructure to absorb and utilise your knowledge in exchange for hard cash doesn't exist. And that infrastructure won't exist without consumers.

 

People should be taught to take responsibility for their own condition. The culture of expecting foreign aid to bail you out around every corner has been more destructive for Africa's future prospects than African public mismanagement.

 

Another thing which we Westerners should keep in mind is that there is no homogenous "African" culture. It simply does not exist. In Apartheid South Africa, the whites were able to dominate the overwhelming black majority simply through the intricacies of the Tribal system, which did, indeed, make the white South Africans the single biggest Tribe. The Zulus conspired with the Apartheid government in order to get one up over the Xhosas, their sworn enemies for hundreds of years. Even though they're both Nguni, they will happilly work with any racially oppressive system to get the better of the other tribes. The Zulus and the Xhosas, however, will work together to screw over the Tswanas, who in their turn can't stand the Bapedis. And then the Vendas and Swazis will cooperate to undermine anything the Sothos achieve. That's the story of Africa, and what I'm describing here is only a tiny fraction of the divisions existing only in South Africa. Similar divisions exist up through Africa, up to the Mediterranean. We should also keep in mind that African borders were abitrarily drawn by European colonial powers who didn't understand this undercurrent of tribal strife. The nett effect of this being, of course, that countries spend an inordinate amount of time and resources in sorting out their own internal tribal battles. Look at Rwanda. Possibly the most stable African country to emerge out of the colonial era would be Botswana, whose borders were, quite by accident, drawn to include only Tswanas. Hence, no Tribal struggle.

 

The World tends to ignore this, seeing as this is more in line with 19th century nationalist Europe than with the 21st century nationless, borderless, profit-driven global-village free-market capitalist approach. Keep in mind, if we use 19th century nationalist Europe as a model to see how we can elevate Africa out of this quagmire, Europe had to go through 2 World Wars in the 20th century in order to shed the nationalist baggage it generated in the previous few centuries. What to do?

 

Africans should be taught the ins and outs of entrepeneurship. The businesses they will establish will create the vacancies to be taken up by the educated people MagnetMan proposes. If we don't start with entrepeneurship and easier access to capital, any education will only end up in a further brain drain and emigration to already developed states able to absorb educated people.

 

First things first. Teach them entrepeneurial skills, and give them access to capital.

[ughaibu]

Boerseun: Any ideas on how the weight could be shifted from tribal to continental, or at least national, identity? It may sound trivial, but I think this is an area in which sport might be successfully exploited.

[Cedars]

The World tends to ignore this, seeing as this is more in line with 19th century nationalist Europe than with the 21st century nationless, borderless, profit-driven global-village free-market capitalist approach. Keep in mind, if we use 19th century nationalist Europe as a model to see how we can elevate Africa out of this quagmire, Europe had to go through 2 World Wars in the 20th century in order to shed the nationalist baggage it generated in the previous few centuries. What to do?

 

Africans should be taught the ins and outs of entrepeneurship. The businesses they will establish will create the vacancies to be taken up by the educated people MagnetMan proposes. If we don't start with entrepeneurship and easier access to capital, any education will only end up in a further brain drain and emigration to already developed states able to absorb educated people.

 

First things first. Teach them entrepeneurial skills, and give them access to capital.

 

I could not remember a single tribal name that was mentioned in the stories told to me. Your post was very helpful in that it really puts a magnitude of the issue (in my mind) that is preventing Africa from excelling.

 

But without complete and committed African devotion to the endeavor of stopping the infighting between tribes, if one group commits resources to development, the guys across the river/valley/whatever lines are drawn in the ground will fall back on the older idealisms and destroy what has been built, thru some justification that will amass an army. This seems to be the cycle that is keeping africa down.

[MagnetMan]

There's only one thing that'll "save" Africa. (And we should remember that in "Saving", we are meaning "Bringing Africa to Western levels. Has anybody actually ever asked an African if his continent 'needs' saving? Saving from who and from what? We are looking through Western eyes at expressions of a cultural idiom that is foreign to us.)

...and that one thing is the aggressive growth of a viable consumer class. Forget about education, MagnetMan - it's useless to achieve a degree in anything if the infrastructure to absorb and utilise your knowledge in exchange for hard cash doesn't exist. And that infrastructure won't exist without consumers.

 

It is good to spar with one who has some idea of the ground rules in Africa. The only thing that will save Africa is Africa Herself. But She needs to be fully literate first and foremost - or she would reduced to waiting for bards to come riding up on a camel and relate what is happening next door. Education of course goes beyond the three R's. It includes lessons in ethics, in modern housing, agriculture and energy. Only when those foundations are established can we talk about a consumer-driven economy - which by the way I am not advocating. I believe capitalism is an artificially obstructive economic ideology in the New World Order.

 

People should be taught to take responsibility for their own condition. The culture of expecting foreign aid to bail you out around every corner has been more destructive for Africa's future prospects than African public mismanagement.

 

Sending money in has been a fatal mistake. Teachers with expertise is what is most needed. Wherever that has been done, marked success has been achieved

 

Another thing which we Westerners should keep in mind is that there is no homogenous "African" culture. It simply does not exist. In Apartheid South Africa, the whites were able to dominate the overwhelming black majority simply through the intricacies of the Tribal system, which did, indeed, make the white South Africans the single biggest Tribe. The Zulus conspired with the Apartheid government in order to get one up over the Xhosas, their sworn enemies for hundreds of years. Even though they're both Nguni, they will happilly work with any racially oppressive system to get the better of the other tribes. The Zulus and the Xhosas, however, will work together to screw over the Tswanas, who in their turn can't stand the Bapedis. And then the Vendas and Swazis will cooperate to undermine anything the Sothos achieve. That's the story of Africa, and what I'm describing here is only a tiny fraction of the divisions existing only in South Africa. Similar divisions exist up through Africa, up to the Mediterranean. We should also keep in mind that African borders were abitrarily drawn by European colonial powers who didn't understand this undercurrent of tribal strife. The nett effect of this being, of course, that countries spend an inordinate amount of time and resources in sorting out their own internal tribal battles. Look at Rwanda. Possibly the most stable African country to emerge out of the colonial era would be Botswana, whose borders were, quite by accident, drawn to include only Tswanas. Hence, no Tribal struggle.

 

All the above was duplicated in tribal Europe and Asia as the clans there too evolved from a Bronze Age agricultural economy into an Iron Age of National industrialization.

 

The World tends to ignore this, seeing as this is more in line with 19th century nationalist Europe than with the 21st century nationless, borderless, profit-driven global-village free-market capitalist approach. Keep in mind, if we use 19th century nationalist Europe as a model to see how we can elevate Africa out of this quagmire, Europe had to go through 2 World Wars in the 20th century in order to shed the nationalist baggage it generated in the previous few centuries. What to do?

 

Except for a few metroplitan centers, the model in Africa is closer to medieval Europe. It took us 80 grenerations from the start of Roman occupation for Western Europe to get out of its hovels, go through all the centuries of warring turmoil to break clan totem and oral-based taboos, go to school, learn Scripture and established national pride and national industries and then move onwards via international colonization to get where we are today. But we built or colonies via the dislocation of indigenous populations and with the help of ten million African slaves. Their descendents are owed some ancestral back-pay right now, with accumulated interest. That way Africa can graduate much faster through the same necessary eras of growth, than we did - with less collateral damage to her people and her environment.

 

Africans should be taught the ins and outs of entrepeneurship. The businesses they will establish will create the vacancies to be taken up by the educated people MagnetMan proposes. If we don't start with entrepeneurship and easier access to capital, any education will only end up in a further brain drain and emigration to already developed states able to absorb educated people. First things first. Teach them entrepeneurial skills, and give them access to capital.

 

Capitalism was an excellent domestic tool during the colonial era for encouraging entrepreneurship, invention and the technologies needed to develop nations. But it has no business as an international medium of exchange and certainly none in the New World Order. So I would say Africa does not have to invent the wheel all over again. She can learn from us ( a brother who left Africa 100,000 years ago to gamble on the global market place and now returned) and within a generation become an equal global partner in a New Age, based not on senseless consumer-based comptetion, but on custodianship in a very challenging Nuclear Age of efficient planet management.

[Boerseun]

MagnetMan, thanks for the detailed reply.

 

I don't agree with you, however, on your take on Capitalism, and its application in post-colonial Africa.

 

In my personal opinion, any econo-political system in use anywhere in the world only has a chance of success in the level of approximation it has to Human Nature. And that is where Democracy tied to Capitalism comes in. Democracy have been called the "Tyranny of the Masses", but only by those who'se guy didn't make it. Government by concensus should be the way to go in countries inhabited by minorities (like most African states whose borders were drawn arbitrarily by European powers). Checks and balances can only be incorporated in a Democracy where freedom of speech and a free media is constitutionally guaranteed.

Capitalism, once again, resonates with that most fundamental human trait, namely Greed. You don't have to like it, but that's what humans are, deep down inside. Human Greed will drive the economy of a constitutional democracy, with labour laws ensuring that labourers are not exploited or forced to work in unacceptable conditions. Obviously, there will be those that will find a way of ducking the system, and run sweat-shops, but it will be up to the government to patrol and enforce its laws.

Economies tending towards Socialism and eventually leaning all the way right over to Communism, move further and further away from approximating human nature - and end up having less and less chance of succeeding. The last 100 years or so have proved this conclusively. Even now, China is achieving remarkable success in economic growth simply by systematically turning its economy away from communism towards a more "natural" capitalist system.

 

Education as you propose it, should work, but will not make any difference if no jobs exist. If I'm an African, and receive a degree in accounting, what would I do after I've got my degree? There are no jobs, so I'd emigrate to Europe or the States or anywhere else where my skills would be appreciated. Unless a first tier of entrepeneurs have been established, say, a few guys who clubbed in to establish a tyre and exhaust workshop. They now need a bookkeeper. So, I'd stay and work for them, and be paid top dollar because there are precious few bookkeepers around. I now receive a decent wage, and become empowered as a consumer. All of a sudden, the shops in the area start making more money, because of guys like me. Now they need more bookkeepers. Also, with the increase in profit, they become bigger consumers with more disposable cash, meaning they can expand and create more vacancies, etc.

 

We desperately need that first tier of entrepeneurs. Access to capital, however, is the biggest current stumbling block. Spending money on education in the short term will only benefit the countries these people will emigrate to.