|
|
|
 |
FreeRepublic , LLC PO BOX 9771 FRESNO, CA 93794
|
|
It is in the breaking news sidebar! |
|
Posted on 07/10/2003 2:32:37 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Edited on 04/13/2004 2:10:28 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
GEORGE W. BUSH made it clear during the presidential campaign in 2000 that Africa ranked low on his list of priorities. Jim Lehrer, who moderated the three debates between Bush and Al Gore, noted during one of them that while 600,000 people were being killed in Rwanda in 1994, the United States had done nothing to stop the slaughter. Had it been a mistake, he asked Bush, for the Clinton administration not to intervene?
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
Although most black-American Africa worshipers condemn this harsh criticism, ordinary Africans suffer from international neglect, repression, poverty and disease. They will benefit from this new stance. For the sake of ordinary Africans, black Americans, who can influence U.S. African policy, need to become realistic about conditions on the continent, face hard truths and take unapologetic action.***
Cynthia Tucker: Africa needs all that Bush can provide*** Black Americans hold to a romantic naiveté about Africa, ignoring the tyranny and corruption of many black leaders while celebrating the achievements of a few notables, such as Nelson Mandela. For Atlanta's jet-setting black upper middle class, for example, South Africa is one of the most popular destinations for business and leisure travel.***
|
|
|
|
|
FreeRepublic , LLC PO BOX 9771 FRESNO, CA 93794
|
|
It is in the breaking news sidebar! |
|
The perils of designer tribalism***Part of what makes The Tears of the White Man such an important book is Bruckner's sensitivity to the aerodynamics of liberal guilt. He understands what launches it, what keeps it aloft, and how we might lure it safely back to earth. He understands that the entire phenomenon of Third Worldism is fueled by the moral ecstasy of overbred guilt. Bruckner is an articulate anatomist of such guilt and its attendant deceptions and mystifications. "An overblown conscience," he points out, "is an empty conscience."
- Compassion ceases if there is nothing but compassion, and revulsion turns to insensitivity. Our "soft pity," as Stefan Zweig calls it, is stimulated, because guilt is a convenient substitute for action where action is impossible. Without the power to do anything, sensitivity becomes our main aim, the aim is not so much to do anything, as to be judged. Salvation lies in the verdict that declares us to be wrong.
The universalization-which is to say the utter trivialization-of compassion is one side of Third Worldism. Another side is the inversion of traditional moral and intellectual values. Europe once sought to bring enlightenment-literacy, civil society, modern technology-to benighted parts of the world. It did so in the name of progress and civilization. The ethic of Third Worldism dictates that yesterday's enlightenment be rebaptized as today's imperialistic oppression. For the committed Third Worldist, Bruckner points out,
- salvation consists not only in a futile exchange of influences, but in the recognition of the superiority of foreign thought, in the study of their doctrines, and in conversion to their dogma. We must take on our former slaves as our models. . . . It is the duty and in the interest of the West to be made prisoner by its own barbarians.
Whatever the current object of adulation- the wisdom of the East, tribal Africa, Aboriginal Australia, pre-Columbian America -the message is the same: the absolute superiority of Otherness. The Third Worldist looks to the orient, to the tribal, to the primitive not for what they really are but for their evocative distance from the reality of modern European society and values.
It is all part of what Bruckner calls "the enchanting music of departure." Its siren call is seductive but also supremely mendacious. Indeed, the messy reality of the primitive world-its squalor and poverty, its penchant for cannibalism, slavery, gratuitous cruelty, and superstition-are carefully edited out of the picture. In their place we find a species of Rousseauvian sentimentality. Rousseau is the patron saint of Third Worldism. "Ignoring the real human race entirely," Rousseau wrote in a passage Bruckner quotes from the Confessions, "I imagined perfect beings, with heavenly virtue and beauty, so sure in their friendship, so tender and faithful, that I could never find anyone like them in the real world." The beings with whom Rousseau populated his fantasy life are exported to exotic lands by the Third Worldist. As Rousseau discovered, the unreality of the scenario, far from being an impediment to moral smugness, was an invaluable asset. Reality, after all, has a way of impinging upon fantasy, clipping its wings, limiting its exuberance. So much the worse, then, for reality. As Bruckner notes, in this romance adepts "were not looking for a real world but the negation of their own. . . . An eternal vision is projected on these nations that has nothing to do with their real history."***
"In a time of growing commerce around the globe, we will ensure that the nations of Africa are full partners in the trade and prosperity of the world," Bush said in Senegal Tuesday.
The president gave a stirring speech on the Senegalese island of Goree, a 19th-century processing center for slaves heading to the US, calling slavery "one of the greatest crimes of history." Bush also met with several West African leaders to discuss possible US military involvement in war-torn Liberia. "We're now in the process of determining the extent of our participation," he told reporters.
Late Tuesday he flew into South Africa to begin trade discussions. With 13 percent of the world's population but less than 2 percent of global trade, Africa represents both a huge potential market and a major failure of globalization. Fifty nations, half of them in Africa, are worse off now than they were 10 years ago, according to a new United Nations report.
Because of instability and corruption, foreign investors have often been reluctant to pour new money into Africa. As Secretary of State Colin Powell said last month in a speech about the continent's economic potential, "Capital is a coward" that flees insecurity and poor governance.
In an effort to make Africa more attractive to investment, three leaders on Bush's itinerary - Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal, and Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria - crafted the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) in 2001, a plan that seeks to woo more investment in return for greater African responsibility for peace, security, and good governance. Bush and other Western leaders have pledged their support to the plan, although emphasis on the program has fallen since Sept. 11.
Bush is expected to advocate the success of programs like the 2000 African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), which allows duty-free access to the US for selected products from 38 African countries.
He will also likely urge African countries to open their own markets, both to the US and other African countries. On the agenda here in South Africa will be a proposed free-trade agreement with the five countries that comprise the Southern African Customs Union (SACU) - South Africa, Lesotho, Swaziland, Botswana, and Namibia. The agreement would make permanent the benefits of AGOA, which expires in 2008.
The US says that African exports to the US grew 10 percent last year, to $9 billion, under AGOA. Exports from South Africa, by far America's largest trading partner on the continent, totaled $923 million in 2001 and rose in 2002.
But AGOA has not been as successful as many have hoped. According to Oxfam Great Britain, a nongovernmental organization, while 28 eligible countries have exported goods under the program, only six, including South Africa, have increased trade with the US.***
AP - President Bush and Botswana's President Festus Mogae, right, greeted children in Gaborone on Thursday.
I guess it just takes a little 'splaining.
You are not alone.
Does any sane person actually think our aids money will fight aids as opposed to enriching corrupt dictators and officials?
What utter garbage.
It is easy to "care" when your paying for that "care" with someone else’s i.e. the TAXPAYERS money and with the blood of THEIR sons and daughters, ala Somalia. Once we get in there we will never get out and we are going to again become the target:
Black Hawk Down Redux
as a direct result of Bush’s “care” and our humanitarian efforts. Exit strategy, there ain't no exit strategy.
The mess that Africa has become is a bed of their own making; America has no strategic or national interests there.
Throwing 15 BILLION dollars at them for "Aids" and sending "peace keepers aka "TARGETS" is politics, pure and simple to win the so-called black vote and I for one am sick of it.
My wife and I, along with millions of other hard working American citizens can barely keep our family afloat because we are throwing Billions of dollars down the toilet on people who hate our guts. True to form, the Africans will just take the money and run, we will loose more troops and the so-called black vote will not materialize.
As usual, things just aren't as black and white as that. Yes ignorant people hate Americans. It's more likely jealously that's whipped into hate by corrupt leaders but there are valid reasons, besides simple humanity, to venture around the world, and they are biggies - national security and economic markets.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.