Let Africa Sink

Kim du Toit ^ | May 26, 2002 | Kim du Toit

[sarcasm]

U.S.-Bound African Refugees Stuck in Post-9/11 Red Tape

[backhoe]

-"Pity About Africa..."--

[MEG33]

I never post on this topic because I feel so lacking in positive thinking.It is time for Africa to step up to the plate and stop the constant war.

[wretchard]

There's plenty of unemployed military power in the world. The armed forces of New Zealand, Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, Italy, Canada and Japan for example. Japan has the second largest military budget in the world after the USA. All that force, doing nothing in particular.

What is needed is a new leadership structure to harness the energies needed to maintain the existence of civilization, in places like Africa, Aceh, Burma, the Solomon Islands. There should be a real peacekeeping equivalent of Southcom, Northcom, Centcom, Atlantic command, Pacific command. Real headquarters that anticipate problems, gather intelligence, develop contingency plans, to which national forces can be chopped.

The UN is an obsolete Cold War organization which will never be able to meet this challenge. But the United States can take the lead in building up the structures needed to coordinate international efforts to bring peace to places where American military force is neither appropriate nor adequate in numbers. If we build it, they will come.

The United States armed forces are a premier military force which should be reserved for fighting the really tough bad guys. But even the Belgians, I feel, can handle the cannibals.

[Joe Boucher]

I think you are wrong there sport.
As long as these folks around the world have the lack of education, lack of drive and desire there is nothing one can do.
What, take a gun and force people around the world to act civilized towards one another?
Let's not take Africa, but say Haiti. No education. No incentive. No resources. And corruption so rampant that we've poured billions into the endless pit and for what?
We have accomplished absoultely nothing even after years of trying.
Let's turn to say Somalia. Same thing. No education. historic distrust for anything resembleing normalicy and govt. control. Throw in ancient religions and beliefs and go ahead and put the french army in there and watch the soldiers die?
I can go on but I think what I am trying to say is that no persons anywhere will cooperate with someone telling them what to do while carrying a gun.
The key is education.

[ricpic]

And into this sinkhole our President is about to drop 15 billion of OUR dollars!

[LadyDoc]

I, and I suspect most Africans, am completely inured to reports of African suffering, for whatever cause.

Africans? Which tribe are you discussing?

Bantus feel deeply, but keep their emotions in check especially in front of strangers. When someone died in our hospital, they would scream and cry loudly, then quickly get up and coldly make arrangements to take the person home. (usually a baby or a child, since old people preferred to die at home).

But lack of emotion? No, because when I learned the language I would have mothers tell me sadly of how their firstborn died, or when their children were sick, or why they named their children. (My name was "troubles" because I was born in the year of famine. My 8 year old is named "Leave him" because he was born right after measles killed children in the village and we wante God to Leave him with us).

This stoicism is often interpreted by more direct tribes-- like the British immigrants or by the Boer tribe (du Toit is a Boer name) as lack of feeling.

it is not. It is a passivity in the face of what cannot be changed. The good part of this passivity is a quiet grace and deep feelings. The bad part is that common people do not fight back when a tyrant orders them to kill, or indeed when a tyrant kills them. The flip side of passivity is violence: witchcraft, poisoning, burning people in huts at night, and outbreaks of terrible wars.

When I worked in Africa, our German nuns would shake their heads about this violence. I usually replied, yes, sisters, you Germans were much more civilized and neat in your killings.

Finally, Africans, like other primitive peoples (such as Hindus, Baptists and Catholics) believe that death is not the end, but that the soul lives beyond death. This faith is much much deeper than many in the secularized west. So death is not an end, merely a passing over.

Cardinal Arinze says that what we can learn from Africa is how to pray. Indeed, African priests serve "heathens" in many countries, both in Africa, but also in Europe and in my own diocese. An African bishop is supporting the "anglican mission in America" to revive Christianity in the Anglican church. You see, in these countries, Christianity still has meaning.

During Idi Amin's atrocities, someone asked a visiting Anglican African bishop what he needed for his people. He said Roman collars. The American reporter asked why, thinking it was a vanity request. The bishop replied: We need the collar so that when they murder our people, they know we priests are still with them, and that God is there.

[11B3]

The other day I posted similar thoughts about Africa - basically "screw Africa, let them sink or swim on their own" - and some found that cruel. I agree with this author 100%.

BUMP

[JesseHousman]

...15 billion of OUR dollars!...

You're wrong there, Ricpic.

They ceased being our dollars after we were mugged by the vaious and sundry taxing authorities and our money taken from us.

That's all goobermint money. What you are left with after the mugging is yours.

[MEG33]

Thank you for your insight.I see no end,do you?

[Musket]

Not hard to understand. Wonder why GW doesn't get it?

[libertylover]

As long as these folks around the world have the lack of education, lack of drive and desire there is nothing one can do.

You're so right. The people themselves have to want it and want it badly in order to make success possible. I think the main reason we failed in Vietnam was not that our military was inept, but that the Vietnamese themselves didn't want freedom badly enough. You can lead a horse to water ...

[Ax]

While on TDY to Mbabane, Swaziland, in the 80s, I was reading the Johannesberg Star. There was a story there concerning a dirt-poor village in war-torn Mozambique. Some RENAMO guerillas came through the village looking for FRELIMO soldiers. They came upon a young mother in her hut who had been scavenging for food for her infant. She told the guerillas how hungry she was. The guerilla chief took the infant from the mother and threw him in a pot of boiling water. He told the mother to eat the child if she was that hungry. The mother then suffered a fatal heart attack. This from the Jo'berg Star, a government organ solidly in RENAMO'S corner.

[mo]

You are right...most "successful" westernization is preceeded by a Christian mission...indeed most of the civilizing of the West in relation to Africa is the consequence of Judeo- Christianity and the daily one on one gifting and giving that creates a durable and viable social fabric.

[quebecois]

Although he addresses the immigration issue briefly, I think that it bears repeating. Besides staying the heck out of Africa, the West must make absolutely sure that Africa and the Middle East do not transplant themselves into our midst (as is currently happening). This also entails some sort of change in the West to stimulate our pathetic birth rate. If we continue to have 1.1 children per woman (as in Spain and Italy), Africa and the Middle East will eventually overrun us, regardless of immigration laws.

Africa must sort out its own problems, or wither on the vine. But we cannot allow Africa to take the West down with it.

[ThanhPhero]

What is needed is a new leadership structure to harness the energies needed to maintain the existence of civilization, in places like Africa

Intervention Africa. What a noble thought! Bring civilization to Africa, and bring all those African diseases to America and Europe. We can do it in the name of Equality.

[happygrl]

I note that several U.S. churches are attempting to bring groups of African refugees over to the United States, European churches the same for Europe. Mistake. Mark my words, this misplaced charity will turn around and bite us, big time.

Oh, so it's ok that HE comes here from Africa with his "life is cheap" attitudes, but don't let any of THOSE OTHERS in.

Some of these groups of refugees are persecuted Christians. I prefer their outlook to his aetheism.

What's this "us" business Kimosabe ?

"Us" are not all bigoted racists like you.

BTW Dennis, why are you posting this crap ?

[MEG33]

Chilling,heartbreaking.May God guide Africa to a better way of life.

[happygrl]

Thank you for your eloquent apologetic for Africa. So much more worthy of print than this diatribe from this admittedly spiritually stunted "man."

Dennis, would you find this kind of bigotry acceptable if it was directed at YOUR people ?