Colonialism didn't cause Africa's problems, and aid alone won't fix them

Jewish World Review ^ | 6 March 2007 | Niall Ferguson

[Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus]

Ever been had? Last year, the United States Agency for International Development gave Ghana $22.5 million in food aid.

Last Monday, that same country began a 12-month celebration of its independence from British rule, which was granted 50 years ago, on March 5, 1957. The total budget for these festivities, which commenced with an all-night party in Accra, is said to be $20 million.

You might reasonably ask if this is a sensible way of spending $20 million at a time when the typical citizen of Ghana has a daily income of $1.33. You might also ask what exactly Ghana has to celebrate after 50 years of "freedom...."

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Too much fact for this article to get very far outside this discussion board.

[twonie]

How many years have these "help the children" charities been going into Africa with aid money and teaching, etc.? What I would like to know is, where are the children who were helped say 20 or 30 years ago? Are they there helping? What are they doing? Is it really helping? What is going on?

[Darnright]

>From the article: "The government was also in the hands of dupes. A long-standing Communist Party member, Nkrumah was easily persuaded by the KGB that the CIA was plotting against him and readily acceded to Soviet offers of assistance. This took the form of a KGB-trained national security service with a huge network of paid informers and more than 1,000 Russian "advisors." By the early 1960s, Ghanaian women were staging protests with placards reading "Bring Back the British."<

We pour billions of dollars into these countries, and all the while communists are whispering in their ears, doing everything in their powers to keep the people in the countries enslaved.

Until the leaders of these countries begin using capitalist methods, we may as well take that aid money and burn it, for all the good it will do.

[true_blue_texican]

Very good article

[Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus]

Exactly. Same thing with Latin America. They're poor because they keep nationalising everything and swinging to Marxism. Then, instead of figuring it out, they just blame their poverty on "Big Yanqui".

[Our man in washington]

In some cases, the evidence suggests the colonizers were very bad for the colonized. The Belgians completely mismanaged Rwanda, for one thing. King Leopold's rule in Congo was a disaster, although the Congolese tribes were being brutal to each other long before Leopold's forces showed up.

However, conquest and colonization have been the way of the world ever since civilization got started. Foreign aid is not the solution. The solution is to encourage the people to accept the best of western values as much as possible.

You can call me an imperialist for saying so, but the fact is that rule of law, property rights, individual rights and national identity are ideas that have been proven to work. These ideas are not necessarily in opposition to the tribal customs of the African people. Many tribes believe in some form of property rights, for example. Someone can also have a tribal identity and a national identity.

When African leaders say they reject western values, what they often mean is that they prefer the worst of western values such as Marxism and bloated government.

[Darnright]

>They're poor because they keep nationalising everything and swinging to Marxism.<

They do so in part, because "caring environmentalists" in our country and in western societies actively work to keep Africa from developing workable electrical systems, based on their stores of coal and of oil. Instead, the environmentalists put emphasis on wind, and solar power, neither of which is effective.

Many, many African people suffer due to no electricity, or clean water treatment.

It's an abomination that any American would work actively against the poor, and deny them basic comforts they could have, given the chance.