Can Africa be saved?

[Coco]

Africa faces several challenges: AIDS, malaria and other diseases. Extreme poverty. Neglect for even the most basic human rights. Widespread violence and war. Genocide. Famine. Drought. Deforestation. Corruption. Unwieldy bureaucracies... the list goes on and on.
Millions and millions of dollars go into humanitarian aid every year, but it seems that the problems don’t go away, and even in some cases, they keep getting worse.
So, can Africa be saved? If so, how? Do you think that aid is being properly directed? Should we be doing something differently? Is it even our responsibility to help out, or should Africans solve their own problems? Should international organizations be more or less involved?
No doubt it will take decades if not more to solve some of Africa’s most crippling problems. But the question is, when you think of Africa, what kind of a future do you see? A bleak or hopeful one?

[Satan]

PM Goat for details

[Le Goat]

http://jj.am/gallery/d/34297-1/BigAfricanBoobs.jpg

[freegood]

The way the West has been trying to save Africa hasn't been working.

Reduce humanitarian aid with moralistic strings.
Reduce local subsidies for agriculture to make African agriculture more competitive.
Forgive punitive "legacy" debts and contracts.

As for corrupt dictators, tough one. I guess rich countries can try importing knowledge and schools for civil servants and engineers, but that step can't be crossed until the dirt poor over there can learn how to manage their crops and base economies. Otherwise you get standard pattern of famine and bloated megacities that cause large black holes for life around it.

[Pox]

Only if Levar Burton uses his earth ring.

[Coco]

The way the West has been trying to save Africa hasn't been working.

Reduce humanitarian aid with moralistic strings.
Reduce local subsidies for agriculture to make African agriculture more competitive.
Forgive punitive "legacy" debts and contracts.

As for corrupt dictators, tough one. I guess rich countries can try importing knowledge and schools for civil servants and engineers, but that step can't be crossed until the dirt poor over there can learn how to manage their crops and base economies. Otherwise you get standard pattern of famine and bloated megacities that cause large black holes for life around it.

What do you mean by humanitarian aid with moralistic strings?

[Okie Medicvet]

aid that gives a bible out with every loaf of bread I think is what he means.

[Skybase]

Let's reintroduce slavery worldwide.

[Coco]

aid that gives a bible out with every loaf of bread I think is what he means.

Oh yeah, I've seen missionaries do that in South America. They go to dirt poor towns and sometimes they are not even allowed to hand out food or medicines.

On the other hand, some of the most active organizations in Africa are religious. Very often the community leaders - who are essential for the proper implementation of aid programs - are religious leaders as well.

[vasili denisov]

Tribalism is a huge problem still in so many african countries. I'm trying to think of examples of former colonies, or oppressed countries that had a successful future after dealing with foreign oppression and factionalism, and the only examples that come to mind are Japan and China, both of which reacted with extreme nationalist movements, though China for a while achieved its sense of national unity through Maoism. How that's overcome in Africa, I have no idea. The idea that you simply introduce free markets and the possibility of prosperity into a country and tribal as well as religious identities disappear is an utter myth.

That the most hardline evangelical and catholic leaders are now found in Africa is distressing, for the practical reason that they'll impair implementation of birth control and pragmatic AIDS programs which involve contraception and contacts with sex workers. The Bush administration AIDS funds involved neither, so they may as well have burned the money and tossed it into the ocean. You don't evaluate programs based on good intentions, you evaluate them on results. And AIDS funding that shields its eyes as to how the disease is transmitted is useless.

The advantages of Africa is that it possesses an extraordinary amount of mineral wealth, and a huge resouce of people whose potential is untapped. Elements which have crippled the continent such as colonialism, slavery, genocide, and mercenaries are now at bay. If you see what was able to emerge from the war torn wreck of Germany and Japan, you can be hopeful about Africa.

[taters]

Do you think a possible massive nationalism movement could be the answer? Granted, that shit causes problems, but could the overall goods outweigh the bads? With the various factions and tribes in various nations with various scarcity of resources, it seems like a national unified state would better solve their problems'. Africa is still rich in untapped resources. Moreso than any other continent other than Antartica.


A terrible thought, but I think most of sub saharan Africa at various times would have moved to a nationalist system, most likely through war. The Zulu were literally in the midst of establishing a national empire (not at all modern, but nation by way of absorbing, destroying or supplanting all other cultures into one). The Dutch and then the british messed that up.

[IdiotBrain]

If we could figure out a way to get the minority of warlords and their factions to stop killing innocents, it would be a big step. Until that is taken care of I don't see much of a chance, no matter how much aid is thrown that direction.

[Mustard]

If Africa could be saved, does that mean one day we can spend it as well?

[Ghostrider]

I can't get behind a country where people believe the fix for aids is sex with a virgin or one that believes the us has a weather weapon. I am not so sure they can be helped, look at Barrack's dad.

[taters]

I can't get behind a country where people believe the fix for aids is sex with a virgin or one that believes the us has a weather weapon. I am not so sure they can be helped, look at Barrack's dad.

Where are you talking about, because Africa is a continent with dozens of countries?

Geography 101 Remedial - Tater Polytechnical State University. Dean, Provost, Chancellor, Ombundsmen and Faculty.

[Claydon]

I believe things will probably get worse as the chinese are basically treating africa as a natural resource piggy bank. PLA forces are all over the african continent, and there are well over 100,000 chinese nationals there already in basically amounts to neo-colonies. The backlash has already started against the chinese. Hell, why do you think the world does NOTHING about Sudan, the chinese get all of their oil output, sell weapons back to the Sudanese government and furthermore the PLA protect the oil fields.


Surprisingly in the area of humanitarian aid, George Bush has given more in aid than most countries or any other president, specifically with regards to the distribution of antiretroviral drugs for HIV.

[taters]

^ Its up to them whether to kick the chinese out. The chinese arent invading, they are actually being welcomed, as you said, in trade for weapons.

At some point, 1-3 national powers are simply going to have to take over the entire or most of the region to stabilize it. Unfortunately, centuries old conflicts over resources prevents that.

Call me crazy, but the best chance africa had to solve its problems and move past its differences and conflicts would have been communism.

[Coco]

Chinese involvement in Africa is nothing new. What is really dangerous about China’s involvement in Africa is that the Chinese are really offering rogue states a sweet deal:
1. Money
2. China offers technical expertise, training and manpower to build and develop the infrastructure necessary jumpstart several industries that would otherwise remain stalled.
3. China offers to exercise its political clout within some international organizations, like the UN.

Countries like Sudan, Zimbabwe and Nigeria receive large cash injections, their industries are developed, and China can help further these countries’ agendas. For example, China has prevented the UN Security Council to act on genocide and crimes against humanity charges.
It is indeed a sweet deal, but the price to pay may prove to be too high.

[Archangel]

Qaddafi was on the right track when he proposed a dissolution of the arbitrarily colonial national borders. For a healing process in Africa to start, tribal interests and national interests have to become one and the same; as long as that isn't the case, civil war and corruption will be the rule rather than the exception. People will support the most evil and corrupt imbeciles at the top as long as they promise to squeeze every other tribe for the benefit of the most dominant one (their own) - which is the same reason that those in power will be the ones who'll most oppose such a step, since it's them and their tribes which profit most from current circumstances. Just as those "freedom fighters" fighting them want not democracy or justice, but rather the dominance of a different tribe.

You will not get tribalistic tendencies out of the heads of Africans, nor should you try to. It's how their culture developed over millennia, and some paradigms just developed differently from ours, just as they did in East Asia or the Subcontinent; in order to help tackle African problems, one first has to view them from the perspective of those who live there, something at which the West is notoriously bad. We've never cared for, much less respected, other peoples' cultural identities. So trying to suppress those traditions in favour of something as utterly arbitrary (not to mention obsolete) as 19th-century European nationalism is the very definition of idocy.

The notion that a healthy, functioning Africa would look anything like Europe or North America is one of the reasons why most attempts at trying to help fix things end up fucking things up even worse.

[Phil Theehor]

Building on (echoing, perhaps) Arch's post, it's futile for the West to continue to try and 'fix' Africa, according to our values. When we did try to do "the right thing", we pushed them towards representative governments-- which clearly did not fit culturally. What we should noticed (and I forget the exact statistic) was that less than 10% of African languages even had a word for democracy. If a concept is this alien, what would give us the idea that we could just implement it and it would work?

That said, I don't think it is the West's responsibility to try to unfuck Africa.

[Archetype]

I say we reconquer them.

[Draven X 23]

Survival of the fittest. If they cannot adapt then they will become extint. Not our duty to get involved. Isn't that one of the Prime Directives? Or was that Star Trek?

[Archangel]

Building on (echoing, perhaps) Arch's post, it's futile for the West to continue to try and 'fix' Africa, according to our values. When we did try to do "the right thing", we pushed them towards representative governments-- which clearly did not fit culturally. What we should noticed (and I forget the exact statistic) was that less than 10% of African languages even had a word for democracy. If a concept is this alien, what would give us the idea that we could just implement it and it would work?

That said, I don't think it is the West's responsibility to try to unfuck Africa.

Yeah, remember that little fracas where Jayzus told your CinC to bring secular democracy to a people who only accept laws given to them by Allah Himself? That was a brilliant idea...

[taters]

Building on (echoing, perhaps) Arch's post, it's futile for the West to continue to try and 'fix' Africa, according to our values. When we did try to do "the right thing", we pushed them towards representative governments-- which clearly did not fit culturally. What we should noticed (and I forget the exact statistic) was that less than 10% of African languages even had a word for democracy. If a concept is this alien, what would give us the idea that we could just implement it and it would work?

That said, I don't think it is the West's responsibility to try to unfuck Africa.

(Not saying I dont agree with you, I actually agree) What difference does their language make?

It seems that the wests habit of carving up convenient geographic terrotories out of places whose demographics dont match them is the primary culprit.

The Communist / capitolist arms race did little to help this scenario. Lets be honest, its not the fact of how bad things are in africa that has the west pretending concern, its the fact that Africa has has less western influence, both culturally, demographically and economically (non developed as it maybe) than any other place in the world.

Africa managed to survive colonialism with its original populations relatively intact. Other places did, but only through nationalistic brutal uprisings. Thats makes Africa an anomaly.

[fuldstændigamok]

I really wonder what would happen if we just stop getting involved in Africa. And I mean, really not at all, just let them do whatever the fuck they want to do. Gonna be a hell of a mess in the start, but in the long run, I'm pretty sure that they will do just fine.

[Okie Medicvet]

I can't get behind a country where people believe the fix for aids is sex with a virgin or one that believes the us has a weather weapon. I am not so sure they can be helped, look at Barrack's dad.

You may have a good point, but look at what Barak's dad helped create. You can't say that having Barak as our president is a bad thing, because I think it is already beginning to help heal our nation.

I do agree that we cannot support nations that have beliefs that kill like the one about sex with a virgin curing teh aidz but at the same time, that doesn't mean we can't do something to help the people affected by this and try to leave the politics out of it.

[taters]

^Africa is neither a 'nation' nor a 'country'. Its a continent with dozens of 'countries' and hundreds of 'nations'.

[fuldstændigamok]

Well thanks captain obvious. Who the fuck you think you talking to? Sarah Palin?

[Pax Britannia]

We've tried building up Africa and equipping them with representative governments and modern infastructure but that didnt seem to work. Now we're just blindly throwing money at them and hoping they catch up with the rest of the human race. Throwing money at a problem blindly never solves the problem, however dont tell Bob Geldof because he would kill himself.

On second thoughts someone tell him.

[Archangel]

(Not saying I dont agree with you, I actually agree) What difference does their language make?

Isn't it obvious? Language is the primary manifestation of any given culture's paradigms. So in analysing certain facets of a vocabulary, you can easily find out what is important to which cultural circles: This is especially true with abstract-to-metaphysical concepts such as liberty, democracy, faith etc. If a language has a multitude of idioms for certain concepts we associate with politics (republic, democracy, self-rule, independence, constitution, rule of law, self-determination etc), you can be pretty certain that democratic concepts, and the underlying schools of thought, are deeply ingrained into that culture. If that language has 20 different words for "ruler" and "subject", but none for "freedom", maybe democracy isn't their thing.

More simply put, languages of the South Pacific are unlikely to have words for snow, while those of the Inuit probably don't have many expressions for palm trees. Useful to know if you're trying to establish biathlon as Tonga's primary sport. Or, to use another example, there is no word in Korean or Japanese for "bread"; they only adopted the Romance "pan" a century or so ago. So just by looking at the language, you can instantly glean that a) bread isn't a major dietary staple in those societies, and that b) if you had happened to crave some ciabatta in Seoul in 1860, you'd have been shit out of luck.


Language makes all the difference because we literally cannot even imagine extralingual concepts without a corresponding signifiant/signifié. If you don't have a word for it, it simply does not exist. Read de Saussure, Lacan or Wittgenstein for more detailed information.

[Okie Medicvet]

^Africa is neither a 'nation' nor a 'country'. Its a continent with dozens of 'countries' and hundreds of 'nations'.

I was talking about OUR nation, the United States of America, in that first sentence, not Africa. I really believe that the election of Obama really has been a major step forward and I personally am loving watching a positive history in the making for a change.

Oh and addressing some other things brought up in others postings, There is no way in hell we can pull a 'reverse protectionism' on a continent, so "leaving Africa the fuck alone" is not in the equation. We need to be thinking about things we can do going from here, and that doesn't mean ignoring the past or not dealing with it.

[Archangel]

The colonial powers dismissing the nations of Africa into "independence" was tantamount to parents sending a 7 year old off to college.

[wonderllama]

Africa has always intrigued me.
When I was at university, we had a Nigerian lecturer who was very big with GIS and the cadastral system in general. He went back to work in his country which he admitted had big problems, most of all relating to the acknowledgment of the legal boundaries of things and the corruption associated with it.

Given the tribal mechanisms in place and the corruption higher up the tribal ladder, I wonder how anything relating to land, ownership and legal use of given land can be achieved. Aside from the differences in religion, culture, tribal customs etc, the acceptance of a foreign concept in land zoning and ownership acceptance is a far greater issue to overcome and in many African areas I suspect it is impossible.

[Phil Theehor]

(Not saying I dont agree with you, I actually agree) What difference does their language make?


Language has everything to do with it, Tates. If a people lack a word for democracy, then it is obviously an alien concept. My point is just that-- by trying to change the foundation of their societies with a system for which they don't even have a word, we tried to do too much, too quickly.

That's why I'm saying we should have noticed that little factoid before we started selling them ballot boxes.

[Archangel]

When I was at university

Silly llama.

How can you go 'to university'? You mean 'a university'? Are you sure you are one to recognize 'what teach in university'?

[Pax Britannia]

The colonial powers dismissing the nations of Africa into "independence" was tantamount to parents sending a 7 year old off to college.

We were supportive and nurturing parents to Canada, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand letting them leave home when they were ready and look how well their doing. The problem child America was a bit of a handful but has grown up to be an alright kid.

When it comes to most of the African colonies though we had to kick them out of the house because the mortgage was getting too big to support such a large family and look what happened.

[wonderllama]

Silly llama.

So you say "When I was young, I went to a school"?
;)

[Das Kahlua]

How about we send some of the 'hard-working' blacks from the US back to Africa to help them?

[Pax Britannia]

How about we send some of the 'hard-working' blacks from the US back to Africa to help them?

You guys tried that with Liberia. Didnt really work out.

[Coco]

Language has everything to do with it, Tates. If a people lack a word for democracy, then it is obviously an alien concept. My point is just that-- by trying to change the foundation of their societies with a system for which they don't even have a word, we tried to do too much, too quickly.

That's why I'm saying we should have noticed that little factoid before we started selling them ballot boxes.

I understand and agree with the point you and Arch are making about language and democracy. But I don't think that's enough to say that democracy will not work in a given territory. Democracy is an acquired ideal, not necessarily a cultural predisposition.
Mussolini invented fascism - both the word and the system. Just because there was no word to describe it didn't make it any less of a reality. Same thing goes for genocide. In 1943 Raphael Lemkin coined the term "genocide", long after we had been practicing it for thousands of years.

[Insomniac]

Considering how long and messy Europe's progress to nationalism and democracy was, why would anyone expect something different of Africa? It's parts are geographically more isolated and the people have less in common. (Someone can correct me on this if I'm misremembering, but Africa has the greatest genetic diversity in the entire world).

It's probably true that multiculturalism is diametrically opposed to statehood, and genocide and cultural suppression are a very effective and necessary way of getting the population homogeneous enough to consider itself one people.

That doesn't make it morally acceptable, but we shouldn't be so disappointed when we see it.

[vasili denisov]

When we did try to do "the right thing", we pushed them towards representative governments-- which clearly did not fit culturally. What we should noticed (and I forget the exact statistic) was that less than 10% of African languages even had a word for democracy.
You didn't have a word for democracy in japanese prior to the american occupation. The athenians may well have had a word for democracy, but it didn't prevent them from falling into tyranny.

You will not get tribalistic tendencies out of the heads of Africans, nor should you try to. It's how their culture developed over millennia, and some paradigms just developed differently from ours, just as they did in East Asia or the Subcontinent; in order to help tackle African problems, one first has to view them from the perspective of those who live there, something at which the West is notoriously bad. We've never cared for, much less respected, other peoples' cultural identities. So trying to suppress those traditions in favour of something as utterly arbitrary (not to mention obsolete) as 19th-century European nationalism is the very definition of idocy.

I disagree. To give a practical example, you can't have Rwandan Tutsis cross the Congo border with the help of Congolese Tutsis in order to stop cross border attacks. The Congolese, rightly, look at that as a violation of their sovereignty. I'd say the problem isn't so much philosophical as practical. These states are either so weak, or their benefits are squared away only to the favoured tribe, that there's no possibility of a greater sense of nationality developping.

Call me crazy, but the best chance africa had to solve its problems and move past its differences and conflicts would have been communism.

Ethiopia was a communist state, and they employed collective farming in order to starve out their opponents, just as Stalin did in the Soviet Union, with the result being the famine of the 80s that the first Live Aid raised relief for. Nor did their ideology keep them from engaging in a long term war with Eritrea.

[gillkonam]

It seems to me that the "1st world" nations really have no interest in ending African strife in the name of quasi-divide and conquer tactics and the exporting of "free market"--- read slavery--- conditions that run concurrent with most USAID and World Bank mandates. There is a certain small hope in my heart that Barack might attempt to institute some foriegn policy that builds on community organizing principles, except across tribal lines. As mentioned by others, Africa is still struggling with post-colonal anachronisms, and increasing levels of radicalized Islam. China isn't helping certainly, and playing very much the role Russia once played. The fact that we don't have troops on the ground to prevent the salami tactics that are going on hurts Western/US interests for sure, and the fact that our allies are very unstable will bite us in the ass in the end. Self-empowerment is really the beginning of any hope, so perhaps the best policy would be to offer tribal leaders some form of secular support, funneling the long lines of history on the ground and helping to establish education to train worthy individuals. As China and the tiger economies fade as expident sources of cheaper labor, I think this might prove to be a vital chance to raise these tribal units to a greater sense of prosperity, teach a man to fish and all that. Also, helping women in a way that works with tribal norms (at least at first) is a key step toward reestablishing some sense of order. My biggest concern is that India begins to play a larger role there, although this may not be such a bad option as India will probably be fostered as our "cousin" against the Chinese, just as Israel is against many of the Middle Eastern states. Mauritius may rise further as India's Hong Kong, so there may be hope for Africa through that route.

[Archangel]

You didn't have a word for democracy in japanese prior to the american occupation. The athenians may well have had a word for democracy, but it didn't prevent them from falling into tyranny.

Japanese "democracy" has very little to do with what we associate with the concept. I don't know whether you'd call a European country which has been ruled by one party for 60 years, and whose decisions have been guided by the zaibatsu and the MITI rather than parliament for most of that time "democratic". Few people seem to accept Putin's Russia as a democracy, so why would anyone accept the LDP's Japan any more as such?

So you could still argue that they haven't gotten the idea.

I disagree. To give a practical example, you can't have Rwandan Tutsis cross the Congo border with the help of Congolese Tutsis in order to stop cross border attacks. The Congolese, rightly, look at that as a violation of their sovereignty. I'd say the problem isn't so much philosophical as practical. These states are either so weak, or their benefits are squared away only to the favoured tribe, that there's no possibility of a greater sense of nationality developping.

We're not disagreeing, actually: What I said is that tribes and nations have to become synonymous. A Hutu nation, a Tutsi nation, two or three Zulu nations (sit down, Bambaataa), etc. The problem is that the dominant tribes within the artificial countries profit from having others within those borders whom they can oppress.

Were arguing pretty much the same points, as you can see.

Ethiopia was a communist state, and they employed collective farming in order to starve out their opponents, just as Stalin did in the Soviet Union, with the result being the famine of the 80s that the first Live Aid raised relief for. Nor did their ideology keep them from engaging in a long term war with Eritrea.

As if tater ever let something as insignificant as facts get into the way of his agenda.

[Archangel]

I understand and agree with the point you and Arch are making about language and democracy. But I don't think that's enough to say that democracy will not work in a given territory. Democracy is an acquired ideal, not necessarily a cultural predisposition.

Yeah, but after 2500 years of everybody from Pericles to Cicero to Pico della Mirandola to Hegel to Rousseau, the foundations which allowed that ideal to be acquired were pretty much set; and yet, it took the greatest conflict in human history to make a country sich as Germany see the light - ironic, since Germany contributed as many thinkers to the process as anyone else.

You cannot make the average American see that our football is an exciting sport (and vice versa); how are you going to make somebody who lacks all cultural pre-disposition for something far more fundamental such as democracy acquire its ideals?


Mussolini invented fascism - both the word and the system. Just because there was no word to describe it didn't make it any less of a reality. Same thing goes for genocide. In 1943 Raphael Lemkin coined the term "genocide", long after we had been practicing it for thousands of years.

Mussolini based the word on the fasces of Roman lictors; so the desired associations and correlations - based on cultural tradition - were already in place. It wasn't an expression which came out of thin air - more of a metaphorical extension than an actual neologism, if you will.

And what the term "genocide" did was to put a face to the crime. Before the word, the murder of almost 2 million Armenians by the Turks was just business as usual; by naming the monster, by declaring it to be something else, something worse, people's perceptions regarding it were fundamentally changed.

[Phil Theehor]

To Vasili's point about Japan:

When you speak to the difficulty of imposing democracy, people invariably bring up both Germany & Japan as a counterargument that it can work. The major difference is that both countries had their shit together already (they functioned well-enough to get within some British codebreaking of taking over much of the civilized world). They were highly-organized industrial nations with strong functioning governments in place.

We overlaid democratic processes atop existing functioning governments. This is very different than trying to glue together a hundred different groups and telling them "here's your parliament. see them if you have any problems."

[Archangel]

Exactly. Democracy can only work when people are fed, clothed, healthy, and content. Hunger is the greatest oppressor of them all; in order to be rid of it, people will willingly follow evil men all the way to hell.

[Coco]

Yeah, but after 2500 years of everybody from Pericles to Cicero to Pico della Mirandola to Hegel to Rousseau, the foundations which allowed that ideal to be acquired were pretty much set; and yet, it took the greatest conflict in human history to make a country sich as Germany see the light - ironic, since Germany contributed as many thinkers to the process as anyone else.

You cannot make the average American see that our football is an exciting sport (and vice versa); how are you going to make somebody who lacks all cultural pre-disposition for something far more fundamental such as democracy acquire its ideals?



Mussolini based the word on the fasces of Roman lictors; so the desired associations and correlations - based on cultural tradition - were already in place. It wasn't an expression which came out of thin air - more of a metaphorical extension than an actual neologism, if you will.

And what the term "genocide" did was to put a face to the crime. Before the word, the murder of almost 2 million Armenians by the Turks was just business as usual; by naming the monster, by declaring it to be something else, something worse, people's perceptions regarding it were fundamentally changed.

Before Mussolini got to power, he created groups of “gangs”, which he called fasci di combattimento. The idea was that each fascio (or gang) was like a stick; together, the gangs would be stronger. One could easily break an individual stick, but breaking a bundle of sticks would be much harder. Strength through unity, basically. Thus the word fascism.
Nonetheless, you are right about the lictors. They did carry an actual bundle of sticks with an axe attached to it, but the symbolism was somewhat different. If they had the axe, it meant that the lictors had power over life and death; if not, they didn’t - the assembly had the power. End of the day, it was also a weapon, and they used it as such.
What Mussolini did was give the fasci a completely different use and meaning. So much so, that the actual bundle of sticks used by the lictors holds little or no significance if compared to the fasci di combattimento created by Mussolini. Ask any Italian what the fasci held by the lictors meant, and they may not even be able to tell you. So, the cultural significance of it is now probably lost or replaced by another one. Actually, I even doubt that in Mussolini’s time many Italians would’ve known what that even was, for obvious reasons.
Again, I sustain that democracy is an acquired ideal. I don’t think the lack of a word in a given language constitutes a definitive characteristic of a culture. Language, if anything, is a cultural element that is in constant change. I do appreciate the anthropological significance, but in this context I just don’t think that is that strong an argument to make. Constant interaction and adaptability have changed the cultural and political landscape. Especially in this day and age when there is so much exchange of information and ideas. Regardless of this, a number of African tribes do present some democratic characteristics within their political organization, so the idea of democracy may not be completely lost on them. Democracy is a very fluid concept, so that may be a starting point and they could build on that. I can assure you, the idea of democracy was a novel one for Chile, but that didn’t stop Chile from embracing it and creating one of the most thriving democracies in Latin America. I don’t see why the Africans can’t do the same.

[Trident]

The only way Africa can be saved is by closing the borders, removing all the foreign nationals and let them sort themselves out. A few massive wars and starvation will lead to a manageable population, not to mention the repositioning of national lines - and then we might get somewhere.

It would take an mythical amount of money and a governmental structure that is not fundamentally corrupt from basic administrative staff upwards in each country to make it work any other way.

[Archangel]

You'll never get rid of corruption in Africa for the simple fact that they don't understand why paying someone to do you favours is considered wrong.

[Trident]

That's very true, Baksheesh is a way of life in Egypt...

When you're talking about a tip etc it's one thing, but when people are squireling away hundreds of millions of dollars meant for food aid etc it's a whole new ball game and Africa will never recover if the people who control this money are more concerned about hiding whatever they can.

[Phil Theehor]

Good points by Arch and Biggus.

The sad truth is that Africa can't be fixed by us. Go back fifteen years and look at the fact that we had to deliver aid at gunpoint because the bad guys wouldn't let it through to the people for whom it was intended.

When your continent is that fucked up, when people with power are that evil, aid won't help. It is going to require a complete systemic overhaul. And as we've talked about, you can't force an overhaul on people. That needs to evolve.

I don't say this so that we can walk away with a clear conscience (okay, maybe I do), but Africa ultimately needs to be fixed by the Africans.

[andora]

Being from Zimbabwe, you'll never save Africa. Put any fucker in charge and you'll see corruption, ethnic cleansing and the like on a huge scale. Look at Africa over the last 1000 years and you'll see the same picture. Its the way it is and the way its always been.

The west should save their money and build a theme park or something with the aid. Generally it ends up in the pockets of whoever is running the place and little ends up helping the poor.

[taters]

Language has everything to do with it, Tates. If a people lack a word for democracy, then it is obviously an alien concept. My point is just that-- by trying to change the foundation of their societies with a system for which they don't even have a word, we tried to do too much, too quickly.

That's why I'm saying we should have noticed that little factoid before we started selling them ballot boxes.


Fair enough, but technically, unless you live in a nation that has at any point studied greek history as a large part of their education curriculum, you probably wouldnt have a word for it.

Besides, (Ill get called a fascist for this, but its the truth) Democracy doesnt always work. Moreover, it often doesnt work when a nation goes straight from conflicting nations and groups to democracy. History unfortunately shows that most places go 'small nations > unifying conqueror/dictator > democracy. Jumping step or forcing steps doesnt work.

Unless some massive unifying threat (the only thing humans truely put aside their differences for) emerges to Unite the region, I doubt it will change.