African development

At 3QD. Abbas responds to Paul Theroux bitter denunciation of African development initiatives, especially those involving Bono.

Abbas's colleague Robin passes on some helpful hints for writing about Africa.

Comments

[King George]

Bono is a media whore.

[Erik Loomis]

It's important to remember with Theroux that this is one crabby man. He goes into these anti-aid rants in much greater detail in Dark Star Safari. In this book he travels from Cairo to South Africa and is clearly upset by the complete collapse of east Africa. And to be fair to him, it's not as if all the aid that has been given to Africa has made one damn bit of long-term difference, even though I disagree with Theroux on giving it because people do need to eat. I don't doubt that we need a entirely new way of dealing with a lot of nations of Africa because they are failed states (for many reasons, first and foremost of which is colonialism).

So rather than discount Theroux's thoughts on this matter entirely, it seems more useful to think harder about what the world's policy toward Africa and its myriad problems should be. How do we ensure that all of the money doesn't go up in the smoke of corruption? How do we make sure that the aid goes to the people in need? How do we deal with AIDS? How do we work to create functional states in these artifically created nations? How do we overcome the legacies of colonialism?

[King George]

ERIK
For all my seemingly unbiased cynacism :) i agree entirely with your post.

I am African, more specifically, I am South African. I grew up after apartheid and as a result i would like to think that all the sins of the past have somehow been ignored by my generation (1988 babies!) As a result of this many south africans, especially those of my generation have skewed perspective of the work being done by overseas philanthropists like Bono and the like. We see them as patronising fucks, here to exploit the poverty of a nation for their own commercial gain. Being a white south african this pisses me off more, knowing that these people are coming to do 'good', meanwhile all i can do is sit on my ass and do nothing. It's a dificult situation to be in, when i know that most of the leaders of african nations are trying to get the best out of their countries. Uganda being a good example, Mozambique another. It's when a man like Bono comes into a country, like Kenya, with his array of camera crews from stations like MTV and goes directly to the poorest most AIDS affected town he can find, and in the most condescending way imaginable, talk of their downfalls. Little is said, in global media, about the work that many african governments are doing to try and pull their people out of the shit.

Yes there are a lot of fuck ups at present, yes we've got a long way to go as a continant. But i think the answer to your questions is that the global community needs to work DIRECTLY with the governments that are doing well. Like your president would like believe with his drive for democracy in the east, if we get just one country to sort it's shit out the rest of the continant will soon follow.

[ghostcatbce]

Ah, the country of South Africa. Whose president still isn't quite convinced that HIV causes AIDS. Perhaps instead of sitting on your ass and doing nothing, you might undertake to enlighten Mr. Mbeki that, yes HIV causes AIDS, and, no, the retroviral drugs that treat it, are not poisons meant to kill black Africans. In fact, used properly, they will actually save lives.
Or maybe it will take those "patronizing fucks" Bono and Bob Geldof, to finally convince Mbeki to tackle the AIDS crisis consuming South Africa.

[King George]

See your's is the attitude that is the problem of africa. So fucking condescending and patronizing. I'd like to inform you that, while perhaps taking too long and saying some pretty stupid things, the ANC is handing out anti-retrovirals. Groups in south africa like the treatment action campaign have taken huge steps agianst the ANC and president Mbeki for his stupid comments (particularily those made to the BBC on Hardtalk), going so far as to take the government to the supreme court... in so doing anti-retrovirals are now being distributed. These groups are the ones doing the brunt work, working for the people through the government, by whatever means necessary. Unlike Bono, Zachi (sp) Ahmed (leader of the TAC) needs no overseas camera crew to take along to the slums of Jo'burg to justify his actions. Unlike Bono, Ahmed works WITH the government. Unlike Bono, who i will now refer to as the media whore, Ahmed DOES NOT benefit finacially from his endeavours.

Bob Geldof is not like the media whore in that Geldof DOES NOT benefit financially form Live Aid and he too works WITH governments in Africa. Speaking to them. Are you seeing the parallel?? Hmm??

Let's not forget that it's not just african leaders that are responsible for the fuck ups on this beautiful continant of mine. what about farm subsidies, and the resultant produce dumping by the western world on africa, effectively saturating african communities with cheap produce, destroying local farming endeavours? Let's remeber that Geldof has spoken out against western governments for this. Did Bono? No. Why? Because he is a dumb fuck media whore.

I digress somewhat, but as i'm sure you can imagine, i get heated when people from the west blame all our troubles on african leaders. Sure there are despot leaders in Africa, no doubt, but there are some good ones too. So before you decide to criticize african leaders, and think that all the solutions to our problems rest in your dirty western hands, think again. Cause the way i see it, the western worse has made things worse.

[gordo]

King George--

I think you're being a bit unfair to Bono. First, I haven't seen any evidence that he's benefitting financially from his efforts. His efforts have been primarily focused on debt relief, and he's had some success in tht area. Surely you wouldn't argue that debt relief isn't an essential piece of the puzzle.

Also, I don't think you should put too much faith in elimination of farm subsidies as a panacea. Food production has greatly increased in Brazil over the last 20 years, but incidence of hunger has increased. Why? Because food exports increased even more. Eliminate the farm subsidies in the U.S., and watch as the food starts disappearing from African markets and gets loaded onto ships headed for America.

Jeffrey Sachs is the voice to listen to on the subject of African development. His words from The End of Poverty, cited in the first link provided by Lindsay, are worth repeating here:

Africa needs around $30 billion per year in order to escape from poverty. But if we actually gave that aid, where would it go? Right down the drain if the past is any guide. Sad to say, Africa's education levels are so low that even programs that work elsewhere would fail in Africa. Africa is corrupt and riddled with authoritarianism. It lacks modern values and the institutions of a free market economy needed to achieve success... And here is the bleakest truth: Suppose that our aid saved Africa's children. What then? There would be a population explosion, and a lot more hungry adults. We would have solved nothing.

If your head was just nodding yes, please read this chapter with special care. The paragraph above repeats conventional rich-world wisdom about Africa, and to a lesser extent, other poor regions. While common, these assertions are incorrect. Yet they have been repeated publicly for so long, or whispered in private, that they have become accepted as truths by the broad public as well as much of the development community, particularly by people who have never worked in Africa. I use the case of Africa because prejudices against Africa run so high, but the same attitudes were expressed about other parts of the world before those places achieved economic development and cultural prejudices could not hold up. (TEoP, p. 309)

[King George]

GORDO

Very useful. Thank you. I still have a few gripes, but at risk of sounding pedantic i wont voice them. Thanx again