Africa and why waste money on them?

**snaw** · 24 June 2005, 15:40

most likely they were busy butchering their own people I would suspect

Well considering it's a continent, with some well run nations amongst the sea of corrupt ones, your assumptions are a wee bit off.

But essentially, Africa is too poor and armies are not mobile enough to re-act to something like Congo - we on the other hand are. Considering you could make a great case for saying that most of the problems in Africa have western roots of some description, and that when it comes to butchering it's own people - the west's track record is second to none.

So go find something else to whinge about today.

**mailmannz** · 24 June 2005, 15:56

Haha Snaw, you bury your head in the sand like the morons in Africa who are saying Zimbabwe is not their problem (correct me if Im wrong but it wasnt England that has caused the problems in Zimbabwe today...that honour sits squarly with Mugatu and the rest of the morons who support him).

Mailman

**DodgyAgent** · 24 June 2005, 15:56

Considering you could make a great case for saying that most of the problems in Africa

So snaw give us your vision for Africa had it remained untouched by the white man.
You are back with your old guilt ridden leftie rhetoric snaw. Let us pour our money into these people because WE feel guilty. Let us not make them bear any responsibility because WE feel guilty.
This leftie (patronising) guilt thing is doing Africa more harm than good. Why should not the rest of Africa take some responsibility for the antics of Mugabe? You say they are too poor (because you are a patronising leftie). I say that they are big enough, ugly and intelligent enough to take responsibility for their own continent.

**snaw** · 24 June 2005, 16:07

Good stuff, I'm a bit bored today so the dumb and dumber show should be fun.

Haha Snaw, you bury your head in the sand like the morons in Africa who are saying Zimbabwe is not their problem (correct me if Im wrong but it wasnt England that has caused the problems in Zimbabwe today...that honour sits squarly with Mugatu and the rest of the morons who support him).

I'm not burying my head in the sand at all, I'd agree that African nations should be condeming Magabe. But your point went a wee bit beyond that, you started banging on about Congo and butchering people etc. If you read my response that's the only thing I'm responding too.

So snaw give us your vision for Africa had it remained untouched by the white man.
You are back with your old guilt ridden leftie rhetoric snaw. Let us pour our money into these people because WE feel guilty. Let us not make them bear any responsibility because WE feel guilty.

What guilt ridden rhetoric? I didn't mention pouring money into Africa once. More of your usual putting words into people's mouth cause you can't be bothered to read what they actually said.

I didn't mention Magabe either, I just responded to the subsequent assumption Mailmanz made.

And no I don't feel guilty, not just on Africa but on pretty much anything .You , for whatever bizzarre reason, always assume I do - never quite figured that out, but then again I can't figure out your worldview at all, beyond slicing the world into them and us and everything them must be somehow evil.

I said we're the root of most of Africa's problems, which is pretty much true for most of the continent - whether it be crippling debt's, or artificial boundries/countries we left behind. I think Africa has to help itself, but that doesn't mean we can't help it do so.

**DodgyAgent** · 24 June 2005, 16:12

I said we're the root of most of Africa's problems

Why are we? The only reason that you take this view so readily can only be through guilt???
Why not think about it objectively andstart by giving your analysis of where Africa would be if "we" had not interfered.
Quite how you can define this will be interesting

**snaw** · 24 June 2005, 16:22

Why are we? The only reason that you take this view so readily can only be through guilt???

Nope, it's not guilt at all. Simple common sense - we colonised most of Africa during the 'Scramble for Africa'. When we left we left behind artificial countries, and boundries between countries - most of the civil wars can be attributed to that simple fact.

Most of these countries are extremely poorly run, and at some point borrowed way too much money from us, and their leader's pocketed it. The sums involved for the west are a drop in the ocean, but for many of the countries involved they're crippling any chance they might have of getting out of the trouble because of mistakes made a generation before.

Then we close our markets to them, and any markets they can compete on they're stuffed cause we subsidise our markets so heavily.

You can debate these points if you want, but that's the commonly accepted view in the world at large as to the root causes of Africa's current problem's. I don't profess to have the solutions - I do firewalls and routers, not third world economies, and I'm sure as hell not going to get into a futile debate about what if, on Africa's history with a guy who wouldn't read any point's I'd make anyway; quite simply you don't actually read what other's say - in fact you go ahead and assume my analysis for me and pretend it's me saying it - that's what you usually do anyway.

**mailmannz** · 24 June 2005, 16:31

So we should fob off any criticism of Africa and their non-action against Zimbabwe simply by saying we caused the problem in the first place?

Fact is...Zimbabwe was quite a prosperous country under British rule and it wasnt until Mugatu started to stuff around with his people that things went down hill.

Yet somehow this is our problem? You probably need to change the sand your head is buried in Snaw :rollin

Mailman

**snaw** · 24 June 2005, 16:34

Mailmanz - I've never said Zimbabwe is our problem. It's quite clearly run by one the the most heinous men in the world and if we had any decency we'd do to Zimbabwe as we did with Iraq. I'd be all for that if given the choice.

**sasguru** · 24 June 2005, 16:39

I agree with Snaw on a quite a few things. However the fact is that Africa is not unique in having to face the problems of colonialism. Yet everywhere else has managed to overcome these problems.
e.g. in 1960 Ghana was about twice as prosperous as South Korea - now look at the difference. South Korea had to cope with centuries of brutal Japanese colonialism and a civil war yet pulled itself up. Or look at India - well on its way to creating a viable middle class.

No, the problem lies elsewhere. There was an interesting program on BBC4 yesterday about this issue. A very intelligent African woman educated in Britain agreed that Africans were mostly to blame. I have hope that with more and more Africans being educated abroad - the situation will slowly change.

I think the best thing to do is open up our markets and stop aid.

Africa and why waste money on them?