Comment Setting the record straight! (Score 1) 436
I beg to differ with your views. The problems affecting Africa are not entirely of our own making. The Westeners have an exploitative interest in Africa and have had that for centuries.
You talk about wars. Do you not know that many of the wars in Africa are enriching you guys up there. The CIA triggered and supported the killing of Patrice Lumumba in Congo. And what followed? Do you want to know why there is no democracy in Congo? The war in Angola. Who was funding Savimbi? Who supplied the ammunition? Who gave him military intelligence? Yes, you have much to do with our problems. The war in Mozambique which lasted more than 15 bad years was all because of superpower rivalry between USA and the long gone USSR. The USA supported the MNR rebels while USSR was for Samora Machel. What's more the USSR benefitted immensely from their unwelcome and uninvited stay in Mozambique. They ran down that country without mercy. We might have had despotic leaders, but who supported them? Is it not a familiar story. Not to you, of course.
Fraud and corruption are not ills that are exclusive to Africa. What happened to Enron? What happened to the Japanese financial institutions? If Africans are corrupt who benefits? Is it not the big multi-national companies?
The root cause of under-development goes much deeper than fraud, corruption and "ethnic wars". We must understand the complexity and magnitude of the African problem. Don't forget the ripple effects of slavery. Let's talk about WTO and free trade. Read more on the Doha conference. The more African countries open up their economies to free trade, the more the developed countries shut them out. The success of the Bretton Woods Institutes (WB and IMF) is questionable. Bad policies and unworkable resolutions on the side of the IMF and WB. Some of our political leaders have not been helpful either.
Deal with us fairly! We are as much capable as everyone else under the sun. We're not weaklings! Nor are we cry-babies. There is nothing to stop me from doing what a European can do. Nothing! But the skewed system.
Yes, there is a reason - the system. It's the system that breeds the extremists, the fanatics, the suicide bombers. It's the question of cause and effect. I don't belong to any of the above categories. I'm as interested in the economic growth of Africa as any self-respecting, law-abiding, rational, clear-minded, purpose-oriented African should be. I'm just giving simple facts. Things that don't need scratching your head.
Then there is "aid". Is it truly aid. It's tied, it has strings, too many strings, attached to it. The givers have benefited more than the receivers!
Finally, I have much to do as an African. But, you have a part to play too. Hither to you have been a bad player partner. Why not start by changing your supremacists attitude?
Africans can do it, if you let them do it. We've success stories: 1. Makatiani(sp), a black African from MIT (USA), started Africa Online in Kenya now it runs across the continent, 2. Econet Wireless International now listed on the LSE is from Zimbabwe and has operations in New Zealand and across Africa, 3. Nigel Chanakira of KMB financial institutions of Zimbabwe is in the top 100 emerging business people in the world. Of course, these are just a few examples. Many more go unreported. Africa can develop. I know we can do it. I believe we can do it.
Africa is not poor because Africa is poor but it is poor because it has been robbed and raped.
