Posted on 01/29/2010 4:49:25 PM PST by ventanax5
When it comes to any analysis of the problems facing Africa, Western society, and particularly people from the United States, encounter a logical disconnect that makes clear analysis impossible. That disconnect is the way life is regarded in the West (it’s precious, must be protected at all costs etc.), compared to the way life, and death, are regarded in Africa. Let me try to quantify this statement.
In Africa, life is cheap. There are so many ways to die in Africa that death is far more commonplace than in the West. You can die from so many things--snakebite, insect bite, wild animal attack, disease, starvation, food poisoning… the list goes on and on. At one time, crocodiles accounted for more deaths in sub-Saharan Africa than gunfire, for example. Now add the usual human tragedy (murder, assault, warfare and the rest), and you can begin to understand why the life expectancy for an African is low--in fact, horrifyingly low, if you remove White Africans from the statistics (they tend to be more urbanized, and more Western in behavior and outlook). Finally, if you add the horrifying spread of AIDS into the equation, anyone born in sub-Saharan Africa this century will be lucky to reach age forty.
I lived in Africa for over thirty years. Growing up there, I was infused with several African traits--traits which are not common in Western civilization. The almost-casual attitude towards death was one.
(Excerpt) Read more at theothersideofkim.com ...
What an incredibly interesting article..!
This is my favorite article about Africa, beside the incredibly honest book, “Not out of Africa”.
Depressing.
Lot's of places this would apply. Haiti...and every Sharia country, for example.
Africa is a wonderful place; don’t believe hateful rants until you have lived there.
Global warming is to blame for africa.
Dictatorships and liberal Utopian dreams are almost always a cover for greedy people who use up natural resources (human beings included) until the place is ruined, and then they move on, like the parasites they are.
I've never been to Africa, but I believe you when you say it's a wonderful place. I hope one day to go there and see for myself.
Wanna see something really, REALLY scary and African?
http://www.vbs.tv/watch/the-vice-guide-to-travel/the-vice-guide-to-liberia-1-of-8
Note there are over 6 episodes, OK? You can see those also, on the side.
This journalist is Dutch, and ex-hippy, and he is RECKLESS as hell. They almost whacked him a couple times as he made these films.
Even *I* am not crazy enough to go some of the places he went for these films:
Preview:
That sounds made up, right?
Excellent article and a reflection of the views that I have held for years.
Yea. It’s probably a great place to visit. But why is the life expectancy of sub-Saharan countries about 45 years of age? It ain’t because it’s such a great place to live.
bump
Absolutely. If Africa had been allowed to be under European colonialism for about 100 more years, the people might have a chance under their own.
I believe it's a wonderful place as well. I've seen the travel brochures and safari travelogues. That doesn't mean I want to live there.
That doesn't mean the author is ranting or exaggerating. Is there anything mentioned that is false in the article?
Do the mortality and morbidity reports for any country of Africa tell a different story?
A place can be wonderful, risky and deadly, as well as antithetical to Western culture all at the same time. Examples can start with Haiti, Somalia, Yemen, or Egypt.
I bet the Sahara rain forest was a lovely place to visit thousands of years ago. ;^)
If America is allowed to continue down our current path, we may find ourselves in a not to wonderful place to live in 200 years or so. Or sooner...
South Africa is now ruled by a Communist President who has so many wife’s that he lost count. And loves to dance around camp fires in a Loin Cloth. Now that’s what i call Progress.
The way out of the hole for Africa begins with “helpful authoritarianism”.
A government can be an utterly liberal thing, except in just one way, and turn a nation around. This is by totally taking charge of all the nation’s children, beginning at five years of age, and keeping them away from their parents, and under strict control, until they are 16 years old.
For those 11 years, they are kept in isolated schools apart from their countrymen. They are kept away from their failed native culture, their tribal traditions, customs and animosities, and they are given an intense, high quality, western style education.
At age 16, the top students are trained to rule the nation, as a technocracy. Their loyalty is to their nation, not to any tribes, and they must be obsessively honest. Their education is continued in a polytechnic, in economics, government, and the law.
The next tier of students are trained to be the military command, based on American military standards. Theirs is not an easy job, as they will have to train their fellow countrymen to be professional soldiers.
The bulk of the students will be trained in business, economics and professional careers. For the duration of their higher education, they will as a group have a national business plan, in which they are networked to provide the fastest redevelopment of their nation.
When these new generations take charge from the old government, that nation will be changed forever.
Isn’t that was Obimbo’s plan for “bitter, Bible thumping, gun totin’” ‘Mericans?
Africans must solve their own problems—with African solutions. We should help successful states and not failed states. Just tossing money in will not help—it hasn’t in the past.
Like North American need to solve theirs? Or is that Mexico? Or Canada... what a ignorant blanket statment.
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