AFRICA
Believing that the West is truly interested in the rise of Africa is akin to believing that the Republican Party in the USA is interested in raising taxes to help Social Securities long term solvency. There is much rhetoric coming from the West, in the past year, in regards to helping Africa rise from the abyss that the West’s past and present practices condemned it to. Of course, the latter part of that last sentence was my personal addition to the rhetoric. The West does not feel it owes anything to Africa (despite the Popes recent proclamation saying Europe was responsible for importing the vices of violence and corruption to Africa), despite it using Africa for centuries to lift itself up. Rather, they would define the supposed ambition as being altruistic, not taking responsible for the mess it created.
The three most prominent reason as for the sudden interest is due to politics, economics and terrorism. The political component is born from the need to offset what is widely perceived around the world to be evil western aggression, symbolized by the invasion of Iraq and the threatening of other nations. By placing focus and aid to Africa, the desired effect is to have the world interpret the West's ultimate motive as being the improvement of the lives of people, sometimes by aid and sometimes by military force. Also, there might be a little political capital to be gained in the African American community, by being seen as being pro-African. However, the fact that most African Americans have a disconnection with the continent will prevent any significant political benefits in regards to the black vote.
The West fears Africa after the terrorist attacks of 911, because the west perceives poverty and failed states as the breeding ground for future terrorist. One cannot find more poverty and failed states than in Africa and with Islam growing at a faster rate on the continent than Christianity, their propensity to link Islam to terrorism makes Africa a potential dirty bomb. Can one imagine the effects of black terrorist infiltrating the US? The US will have a major problem if it starts rounding up black folks in the USA, again, this time as suspected terrorist (but I guess that was true of the past roundups as well). If you want to start riots and social unrest reminiscent of the 60’s, the country can’t afford to take a step back in its treatment of black people in this country.
The economic reason that the West is gaining interest in Africa is born from the hunt for new oil reserves. Oil will be the defining issue in this century as economic growth is dependant upon the fossil fuel. The problem is that the resource is finite, creating a catch-22. The catch-22 is that economic growth increases the demand for the finite fossil fuel and hence a point is reached where demand is increasing while supply is decreasing, the point of “Peak Oil”. Consequently, whose economy gets to grow or hurt the least due to the phenomenon of peak oil depends on who is controlling the oil directly or by proxy. Africa has had some new promising discoveries off the cost of guinea and several other places, hence the economic interest in Africa.
The economic motive is interesting, for it begs the question, for the astute, of why would the West want to promote the rise of Africa, which can only manifest through growing economies, knowing the strain it would place on world oil supplies? We already have seen that the rise of Asia, particularly China and India, has placed a strain on the ability of producers to keep up with growing demand. The rise of Africa as a competitive economic block like Asia would only exacerbate the depletion of world’s finite oil supplies, hurting the Western economies in the process. In light of this, promoting the growth of yet another economically expanding continent would be akin to the West shooting itself in the foot. Poverty does not use much oil, while wealth requires and or promotes a gluttonous consumption there of.
It is my belief, therefore, that the West is not interested in fixing the problems it created in Africa or teaching the Africans how to fish. Rather, this supposed Western ambition is to give more fish to the Africans, for the above mentioned reasons. The adage that one should teach a person to fish instead of giving a person fish to eat ignores the reality of competition and finite resources. If you teach a person to be competitive with you for a finite resources linked to your degree of survival, you also increase the threats against your survival and why would humans do that, given that survival is the first law of animal nature? No one should hold their breath waiting for Western governments, businesses, banks or other institutions to have a real interest is Africa’s rise. There may be some private citizens from the West, who are truly interested in seeing Africa, do better, but they do not have the ability or resources to make the needed input.
posted by Noah TA @ 6/02/2005 09:38:00 AM
2 comments
2 Comments:
Point well taken on the political football of Africa.
What is equally disturbing, however, are the sins of the leaders of Africa.
Though many of them have abundant resources they have chosen to take personal profit from these resources rather than create a system in which more people participate and extract wealth and benefit from the system.
Secondly, we only need to look toward Zimbabwe to see that the rhetoric of "Exit All White People, Return The Land To The Blacks" ALONE does not insure that the masses of Black Africans are FEED and are respected as HUMAN BEINGS. Mugabe has failed to MANAGE the transition so that the masses are not harmed in the transition. Though the return of the land and resources are important, when you abruptly change the system from which 94% of your country's gross domestic product was had, striking it with a blunt instrument, rhetoric alone is not going to insure that this economic system is replaced when you are at the controls.
We can look to the after effects of Idi Amin in Uganda when he purged the Whites, Asians and Indians from his country but FAILED TO EDUCATE THE BLACKS ON HOW TO OPERATE THE CONTROLS OF THE ECONOMY, leading to a collapse, brutal suppression by the government against people who dared to notice that things ain't right and the spiral toward a civil war.
YES, I agree with you brother that Africa is being plotted upon from afar!!
My challenge to you is to come up with a more comprehensive strategy to insure that the masses of Africans who are calling out for help actually receive it from their fellow human beings while they keep their dignity and self determination in tact.
In my view the solution is to have the Reparations for Western Slavery be showered upon the African continent. Those countries who agree to accept us will have African-Americans to come in and construct infrastructure as a means of channeling the world's aid into productive projects and TO EMPLOY THE HISTORICALLY UNDEREMPLOYED AFRICAN-AMERICAN, giving him skills and opportunity necessary to express his intelligence, setting up the frame work for which engineering skills, management skills and other viatal skills will been to be had and thus our schools will become filled with people with a purpose.
Renaldo, you need to visit the Popes proclamation and admission that Europe exported the vices of violence and corruption to the African content, to the degree that those vices now help keep the continent impoverished. The Pope is a white man and a white leader. Thus, I think his statement will resonate more coming from him, then coming from a brother like me. The Europeans, at the end of direct colonial control, left the template or structure in place that black leadership inherited. A great deal of behavior is the product of nurture or learning. The Europeans provided that learning when it spread its practices and systems into Africa, which were then emulated and produced the same negative effect upon black Africans.
In regards to what is happening in Zimb, every break from an addiction or dependency will produce hard times, whether it is a dependency upon white folks or heroin, there will be withdrawal fallout. The question is due you then run back to the addiction to feel good again? I think Zimb did what was RIGHT and I say that because of the uproar from the west in regards to what he did. Yet, what he did was simply the undoing of what white had done earlier in taking the land from the people. Much of the suffering of Zimb is related to the unofficial squeeze being placed upon the nation by the West, because of what he did. The West is attempting to PUNISH zimb and it has the power to isolate the nation and make the situation much worse…which they have done.
Let me ask you something Renaldo, since you have a PLAN for Africa and my problem is, according to you, that I don’t, how are you going to move your plan into action and fruition? It is one thing to have a PLAN and quite another thing to have the POWER or RESOURCES to execute that plan. A plan without power is a wasted effort. You can create all the plans you want for Africa renewal, but until you can demonstrate that you have the power, resources and the following….what good is it worth? I have a lot of plans that I think would work for Africa…but I have not the power or resources to bring fruit from the plan. However, there is things that I can do on an individual bases, for individual Africans, which I do. That, and noting what the origin of the problem is, is within my sphere of influence.
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