If Africa were white...

sourdough

I think people's idea of Africa is one of helplessness and therefore apathy. It becomes another Africa being Africa story where we are bombarded with one crisis after another.

Right now we have:

The deadliest war since WWII in the Congo (5 million dead)
a 20 year civil war in North Uganda
the genocide in Darfur
mass chaos and anarchy in Somolia
the AIDS and murder capital of the world in South Africa
political instability and mass killings in Kenya
Inflation of 165000% (can you imagine!!!) and an election being stolen in Zimbabwe

This PLUS the mass famine that is taking place and starvation/AIDS throughout.

I am going to Uganda this summer to work at an aid clinic there and get so upset with the amount of indifference here. People are tired of hearing about Africa. It is so abstract that it may as well exist on another planet. Really how much can any of us who haven't been there really empathize with the situation. Most people can't but what is worse is that most people have given up on trying.

One of the more politically incorrect truths is that Africans have just done a shitty job of governing themselves and the poplulation is very compliant. Corrupt leaders and a compliant population breed a disasterous combination. The world HAS provided and forgeiven billions of dollars of debt already and yet crooked governments have squandered aid, money and resources. As much as people like to point the finger at the rich countries for not doing enough, we have to point the finger at Africa itself for squandering opportunities it has been given.

rebornFixer

sourdough wrote:

One of the more politically incorrect truths is that Africans have just done a shitty job of governing themselves and the poplulation is very compliant. Corrupt leaders and a compliant population breed a disasterous combination. The world HAS provided and forgeiven billions of dollars of debt already and yet crooked governments have squandered aid, money and resources. As much as people like to point the finger at the rich countries for not doing enough, we have to point the finger at Africa itself for squandering opportunities it has been given.

Agreed. This is one of those times were we need to be a bit un-PC and acknowledge ALL the factors that play into a bad situation. This is clearly one of them.

sourdough

My question for those following this thread and agree that there is something that needs to be done is...

If we are serious that the problems in Africa are of the most urgent and disasterous that the world faces, what are you doing as an individual to address it?

I'm tired of talk and no action.

JOEJOEJOE

sourdough wrote:

My question for those following this thread and agree that there is something that needs to be done is...

If we are serious that the problems in Africa are of the most urgent and disasterous that the world faces, what are you doing as an individual to address it?

I'm tired of talk and no action.

People are too busy maxing out their credit cards or earmarking their economic stimulus checks to go see PJ in NYC!...why worry about starving or oppressed people?

Did you see the bit on The Daily Show where the made a comedic parallel between the food shortage in India, and the so-called "Rice shortage" in the U.S.? Rob Riggle was at a Costco, and he, with great concern on his face, pointed out that you can only buy 4 large bags of rice per day, then they cut away to Aasif Mandvi, who is greenscreened in front of a building in India, where he is reporting on their REAL food shortage. The look of amazement on his face in response to Rob Riggle was funny, but it did make a good point about putting our "problems" into perspective.

To answer your question, after seeing this documentary http://www.thedevilcameonhorseback.com/, I got DVDs of it, and gave it to some of my celebrity clients in the hope that they would champion the cause, since everyone seems to listen to them!

To simply sit back and say that things would get more attention if the people were white is just plain apathetic!

beachdweller

Heineken Helen wrote:

there would be none of the problems there are now! I just started reading 'shake hands with the devil' by Romeo Dallaire, the UN force commander during the Rwandan conflict. The introduction describes a three year old child covered in dust with flies all over the sores on his body just wandering the road, walking over rotten bodies, that kinda thing. I realised that obviously nowhere did the author say the kid was black... so I tried to pretend he was white... suddenly the book turned into a post apocolyptic fantasy horror! It just wasn't believeable when the kid was white at all. Why is it so easy to take these things in when they're talking about Africa? He explains why he found it impossible to get any help from anybody... cos everybody was focussed on what was going on in the Balkans.

Are we really that fucking shallow? :mad:

I think the plan is to continue to let them destroy themselves from within, and then we'll have cheap land for condo's...now I don't actually believe there is a conspiracy like this, but the problem is, if there was, I wouldn't be surprised...I think that alone shows how kcufed up we are as a species.

Urban Hiker

JOEJOEJOE wrote:

People are too busy maxing out their credit cards or earmarking their economic stimulus checks to go see PJ in NYC!...why worry about starving or oppressed people?


To simply sit back and say that things would get more attention if the people were white is just plain apathetic!

Truly. Americans at the very least are too busy with STUFF to look around. The same shit is happening around the world. Ethnic disputes in one place, gang rivalries in another.