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Africa: The Never ending Litany of Misery

JupiterKid

It is reported that over 20 million people face starvation and famine in Africa including Somalia, South Sudan and North Nigeria. Can humanitarian aid really help these people? We've been pouring aid into Africa for over 60 years now with precious little to show for it. I well remember the 1984-85 Ethiopia crisis - nothing seems to have changed since then.:(

Is the atrocious governance of these countries the root cause of this misery and can aid actually alleviate suffering?

Africa seems to remain mired in dire poverty whilst the rest of the developing world in Asia and South America is just getting on with developing.

What is to be done? What should be done?

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222233

JupiterKid wrote: »

It is reported that over 20 million people face starvation and famine in Africa including Somalia, South Sudan and North Nigeria. Can humanitarian aid really help these people? We've been pouring aid into Africa for over 60 years now with precious little to show for it. I well remember the 1984-85 Ethiopia crisis - nothing seems to have changed since then.:(

Is the atrocious governance of these countries the root cause of this misery and can aid actually alleviate suffering?

Africa seems to remain mired in dire poverty whilst the rest of the developing world in Asia and South America is just getting on with developing.

What is to be done? What should be done?

I suspect the vast majority of the money we pore in pays the CEO's and staff of the organisations who "work" with these counties. I imagine each one of those staff have substantial expenses, I doubt much of the money gets to the people in Africa..

wakka12

Live65a846d0ee wrote: »

Not British, actually the forests were cut down to make barrels for the guiness company. Most of the trees were cut down for that purpose and since timber was not imported all our forests were cut down. Grand job. Every other county has lush forests but for us storing beer in wood barrels was more important for us so we have no wood left anymore. Guiness now use metal barrels as there is no more trees to cut down.

That is simply a myth.How much bloody guinness did you think they drank! Alcohol consumtion was probably never much higher than a country like Germany, far as I can see it didnt decimate their forestry, and they had/have considerably higher population density

Live65a846d0ee

wakka12 wrote: »

That is simply a myth.How much bloody guinness did you think they drank! Alcohol consumtion was probably never much higher than a country like Germany, far as I can see it didnt decimate their forestry, and they had/have considerably higher population density

Germans are surrounded by other nations with land borders to which they traded resources which included timber. While Ireland being an island had to rely on its own supply of wood as importing was difficult so as a result almost all trees were cut down.

SafeSurfer

Autonomous Cowherd wrote: »

It boggles my mind that we can have NGO types on the radio this morning telling me of the horrific impending starvation of millions of children in Yemen, without one single whisper about the US and their good Saudi Arabian buddies in Oil bombing the country and its civilians to bits.

If African countries were paid the true market value by the ''developed'' world for their natural resources from food, gold, abundant minerals, woods, oil reserves, land, and labour the African continent would be richest on the planet. Instead we live royally off the sweat of their subsistence labour and enslavement. Our ''aid'' programs are cheap beads and trinkets traded to the natives in return for their vast treasures.

My hope and sense is that African people across that vast continent are rising up slowly but surely and recognising the truth of things.

It's pointless talking about African people rising up in the same way as it is talking about Asian people rising up. Africans are not a homogeneous group, with common culture, religion, development or experience.
You say if developed countries paid African countries "market value" for their natural resources that Africa would be the richest continent on the planet. That's utter nonsense. Firstly the markets determine what they are willing to pay. So market value is already being achieved. Shell is going to pay Nigeria what it values its oil reserves at, in competition with other oil companies. That is how the market works.

Natural resources alone are no guarantee of wealth. It is the companies and countries that add value that generate wealth. Which do you think is more valuable. A tonne of silicon or a tonne of computer chips?

wakka12

Live65a846d0ee wrote: »

Germans are surrounded by other nations with land borders to which they traded resources which included timber. While Ireland being an island had to rely on its own supply of wood as importing was difficult so as a result almost all trees were cut down.

Maybe that is so, but they were not all cut down for barrel making. That is ridiculous

Richard Hillman

bleg wrote: »

So many experts who have probably never set foot on the continent.

People talking about Africa as some sort of homogenous entity are off their rocker.

Go there. It's an amazing place full of amazing people. People like you and me with hopes and dreams, anxieties and fears. Take a child out of an African family and put them in a European family and they will be more like their adopted family than their blood relatives.

There are seriously racist undertones to the whole "Europe invented x, y and z whilst the Africans were living in mud huts." Have you ever heard of societal pressure or cultural context? The Bushmen of sub Saharan Africa are an amazing people. To them, their way of life was perfectly civilised. They lived in harmony with nature and recognised that here was a balance that needed to be maintained. Thus they didn't over hunt or over fish.

Africa is an amazing place, take a holiday there. You might be surprised and humbled.

:pac: :pac: :pac:

Guess what Bruv? There were wonderful hunter gatherers in Europe and the Middle East millennia ago, totally at one with nature. We evolved. We learned. We changed the world. They didn't.

We are all products of our culture and all cultures were not created equal.

Live65a846d0ee

bleg wrote: »

So many experts who have probably never set foot on the continent.

People talking about Africa as some sort of homogenous entity are off their rocker.

Go there. It's an amazing place full of amazing people. People like you and me with hopes and dreams, anxieties and fears. Take a child out of an African family and put them in a European family and they will be more like their adopted family than their blood relatives.

There are seriously racist undertones to the whole "Europe invented x, y and z whilst the Africans were living in mud huts." Have you ever heard of societal pressure or cultural context? The Bushmen of sub Saharan Africa are an amazing people. To them, their way of life was perfectly civilised. They lived in harmony with nature and recognised that here was a balance that needed to be maintained. Thus they didn't over hunt or over fish.

Africa is an amazing place, take a holiday there. You might be surprised and humbled.

Amazing place to be executed or abducted for ransom.

hungry hypno toad

Where's Bono when the Africans need him?

Sand

Richard Hillman wrote: »

How come Europeans colonised Africa and Africa didn't colonise us?

How come we had the navy's and guns and they had spears and witch-craft?

Necessity. All the voyages of discovery, all the colonial conquests, all the inventions were driven by the European necessity to reach Asia and trade for luxuries with the hugely advanced, peaceful and prosperous economies of India and China. Europe had literally nothing the Indians or Chinese wanted to trade for, other than gold and silver. Hence the European thirst for gold and silver and the drive to beg, borrow or steal it from anyone and anywhere.

And Africa did at times invade and colonise Europe. As late as the 16th century, Northern Africa was a centre of a European slave trade. In as much as African slaves were carried to America, European slaves were being carried to Africa and the Ottoman empire. The definite European technological superiority only became apparent in the late 1700s with Napoleons invasion of Egypt.

As for Africa today, Europe cant solve its problems by talking down to Africans telling them what they are doing wrong. Throwing money at the problem isnt working either. Only African leaders and reformers can solve African problems and bring African people with them. Europe can only intervene to advance its own interests, and assist African leaders allied to those interests.

bleg

Live65a846d0ee wrote: »

Amazing place to be executed or abducted for ransom.

Funnily enough, the only place I felt uneasy was in South Africa, arguably the most westernised of African countries.

SILVAMAN

When you have an apparently bright, Jesuit educated guy like Robert Mugabe, who inherited the "breadbasket of Africa" to rule, and you look at what he has done , you can have some sort of idea of why Africa is perpetually ****ed. South Africa is drifting perilously close to the same fate. The continent is ruled by despots, some western supported, who murder and torture those of other tribes.and loot the national reserves and pillage the natural resources. Look at Rwanda, the tyrant Idi Amin, Kenyatta, Mobuto, the dictators of North Africa, and their probable replacements in the form of religious zealots. A multitude of languages, tribes, religious and superstitious nonsense. Most African airlines are banned from flying into the EU on safety grounds. They are incapable of doing anything correctly, save to kill and exploit each other. Lost cause.

dreamers75

Their Militaries have spent over 10bn on equipment in the last year.

Tbh I literally could not donate a single euro to any country that spends that much on weapons rather than their own people.

[Deleted User]

dreamers75 wrote: »

Their Militaries have spent over 10bn on equipment in the last year.

Tbh I literally could not donate a single euro to any country that spends that much on weapons rather than their own people.

What countries are supplying the weapons?

ThunbergsAreGo

[Deleted User] wrote: »

What countries are supplying the weapons?

Why does it matter?

diomed

naughtb4 wrote: »

Why does it matter?

Because you can blame them instead of blaming the people who buy the weapons.

bnt

It's all about the demographics, of course. Have a look at the demographics of Somalia here: the numbers might not be totally reliable, since sudden increases might mean the numbers were low before, but however you read them, they are unsustainable. TFR* is consistently over 6 children per woman. (A rate of about 2.2 would keep population stable.) Somalia is a patrilineal clan-based society where women have few rights, and family planning certainly isn't one of them. This isn't news: Mary Robinson was predicting famine over five years ago.

* Total Fertitlity Rate

Samaris

Reading this thread makes me feel that it needs to be pointed out that Africa is a continent, not a country.

And why the panic against colonialism being mentioned? Is it not possible that it's being brought up because it was a major contribution to what's happening today in many African countries?

Most countries, and I talked about this in a similar thread about Ireland, when suddenly achieving independence and self-rule, royally cock it up for a good century or so. The people aren't used to running themselves, they don't have a large circle of people educated in how to run a country to draw upon when the colonialists pull out. Ireland was fortunate, they had the EU, they had a mono-cultural and monotheistic region, they were surrounded (metaphorically anyway) by countries that could rule themselves in a manner appropriate to the western Irish people. Carrying on British methods wasn't particularly a bad thing in Ireland as it's a very similar set-up, culture, type of society and size of country. Carrying them on in Africa when they were nothing but a symbol of oppression would be more difficult, even if they worked. And the whole type of society in many African countries had been irreparably (and violently) changed. For a start, they were countries with hard borders, comprised of mixed bits of tribes who had been separated off from each other when the borders were drawn. On top of that, the method of governance was to pick a "civilised-looking" tribe and put them in charge as subordinates to the colonial authorities. Tribes had no need of loyalty to each other, any more than a Belgian would have instinctive loyalty to French people in a similar sort of set-up in Europe. With little oversight into cruelty or abuse of people trying to get on with their lives, abuse and cruelty happened. As did resentment. Rwanda is an imperfect example of that (as power went a bit to and fro between German and Belgian rule).

On top of that, many African countries are cursed with vast mineral wealth, poor sods. Anyone -really- think that western corporations just kindly forgot about the wealth they'd been exploiting because it was no longer British/French/Dutch-owned? No, they did not. They made deals with likely leaders and propped them up in return for getting first dibs at the country's riches. Without state-owned infrastructure to exploit said wealth, it was the most logical choice. And also the most corrupting. If anyone thinks that sudden independence for a whole lot of countries within a few decades of each other is gonna be just fine if you have hugely valuable resources, I have a diamond bridge to sell you in Mogadishu. DRT Congo has been in a set of civil wars over the past 20 years due to their reserves of diamonds and coltan that involved nine countries, a host more foreign troops to keep the peace and the deaths of 5.8million. The Dodd-Frank regulations made diamonds have to be sourced from non-conflict regions and that toned down the conflicts in many places, but Congo still suffered from having the largest deposits of coltan, vital to western electronics. Dodd-Frank's been repealed now, so prepare for another wave of violence. Gotta have us those conflict diamonds!

It's not that African countries are inherently incapable of running themselves and that's a stupidly arrogant way to look at it. It's that they've not been running themselves long enough to have managed to get enough norms into place to prevent the hopelessly corrupt from taking over and running the show (which will happen in just about any country) and they don't have the structure of something like the European Union to help stabilise these countries. I don't know if Africa is ready for a pan-African union at the moment, with as many deeply corrupt and frankly evil people in power as there is currently, but a similar union is one of the things that saved Ireland from itself.

bnt

Colonialism has been mentioned many times in this thread already. We're now well in to the 21st century, and it's been 50 years since most former colonies gained their independence. I think we can start winding down the "blame colonialism for everything" arguments now. OK, maybe you can blame Western influences for the high population growth rates in countries such as Somalia - for bringing in life-saving improvements to agriculture, sanitation and medicine that meant most children now survive to adulthood.

The countries mentioned in this thread will ideally undergo a demographic transition, lowering birth rates to match the lower childhood death rates, but it's no accident that these countries have barely started down that path, compared to (say) South Africa.

Samaris

Yis might think that fifty years is enough, bnet, but history of other countries suggests otherwise.

diomed

Samaris wrote: »

It's not that African countries are inherently incapable of running themselves and that's a stupidly arrogant way to look at it. It's that they've not been running themselves long enough to have managed to get enough norms into place to prevent the hopelessly corrupt from taking over and running the show (which will happen in just about any country) and they don't have the structure of something like the European Union to help stabilise these countries. I don't know if Africa is ready for a pan-African union at the moment, with as many deeply corrupt and frankly evil people in power as there is currently, but a similar union is one of the things that saved Ireland from itself.

Why do you call posters stupid and arrogant?
From what I've seen in my few years in Africa a big problem is/was tribalism.
The country that I have a slight clue about is Zambia and that has these main tribes: Bemba, Tonga, Chewa, Lozi, Nsenga, Tumbuka, Ngoni, Lala, Kaonde, Lunda. If you mentioned a tribe to a local they could tell you where you were likely to see them in the economy e.g. police, army, civil service, commercial sector, state companies, and at what level. If the boss of a company is from one tribe, employees of the company will be over-represented by people from that tribe.
We think all black people are the same. There are many more genetic types in Africa, and Africans can look at people and tell their tribe, and even if someone was of mixed tribe they can tell you the two tribes.

I found attitudes in business to be very different to Europe. The aim was to be appointed to the big job, and the big benefits.
My boss went to a secondary school looking for recruits. Many were interested, but when they found they would have to study and qualify they lost interest. He recruited one person.

red ears

Their population increase is a big issue. The Ethiopian population has increased from 39 million in 1984 to 100 million today. The same thing is happening throughout Africa. We can't help them if they don't control their populations.

RandomName2

snowflaker wrote: »

It's amazing how Europe plundered Africa's natural resources and blame them for the mess they were left in

This isn't relevant. If a dictator took charge in Poland, blocked all food imports, confiscated property and caused a famine would we say "well this clearly is the fault of the USSR". ffs.

Zebra3 wrote: »

Western companies milk Africa.

Western governments back corrupt African regimes.

This is relevant, but it's not obvious what can be done to improve the situation. Sanctions would cause more harm than good. Of course, I imagine you back the sending of foreign aid, which helps support corrupt regimes.

Zebra3 wrote: »

Gadaffi planned a pan-African currency to improve Africa's situation and make it more independent. The West decided this wouldn't do [...]

Look, the West is more than prepared to be pals with any brutal dictator that's in the market, and France and the UK were more than happy to off Gadaffi when they thought that their interests would be better served without him, but painting him as a would-be saviour of Africa is so absolutely mind-bogglingly ridiculous you might as well say that "Mussolini would have done wonders for the Arab world had he been given a chance".

Nigeria is a very rich lush country and is facing starvation. How? How can Afghanistan, an arid resource-deprived country racked by war and currently engaged with conflict with both the Taliban and ISIS feed its people when Nigeria can not? Seriously.

Samaris

diomed wrote: »

Why do you call posters stupid and arrogant?
From what I've seen in my few years in Africa a big problem is/was tribalism.
The country that I have a slight clue about is Zambia and that has these main tribes: Bemba, Tonga, Chewa, Lozi, Nsenga, Tumbuka, Ngoni, Lala, Kaonde, Lunda. If you mentioned a tribe to a local they could tell you where you were likely to see them in the economy e.g. police, army, civil service, commercial sector, state companies, and at what level. If the boss of a company is from one tribe, employees of the company will be over-represented by people from that tribe.
We think all black people are the same. There are many more genetic types in Africa, and Africans can look at people and tell their tribe, and even if someone was of mixed tribe they can tell you the two tribes.

I found attitudes in business to be very different to Europe. The aim was to be appointed to the big job, and the big benefits.
My boss went to a secondary school looking for recruits. Many were interested, but when they found they would have to study and qualify they lost interest. He recruited one person.

I said it's stupid and arrogant to dismiss Africa as being inherently unable to govern itself. If the cap fits for specific posters they can wear it, but I was referring to the thought process.

Roger Hassenforder

RDM_83 again wrote: »

Ok been a fair few years since I read it but here is mine.

He's basically completely environmentally deterministic - culture and history only play a minor part in his view

Very selective examples - Why are Fertile crescents grains better than other crops

Untested examples - Fertile Crescent animals are easily domesticated, Zebra's etc aren't - yet Zebra's can be trained to pull carriages and we don't know that riding came first with horses in Eurasia (sites will say they cant be domesticated but thats arguing for calm ridable mounts in 1/2 generations).

Countering an argument thats not really taken that seriously anyway, I don't think you will see much serious scholarship saying the west rose because of inherent characteristics in the populations there.

His thesis falls flat in relation to later China - which was very advanced.

If you give a quick google you will see a lot better structured criticisms than mine.

You'l also see a lot of people calling him a semi-racist- I'd take these criticisms with a massive pinch of salt to be honest, a lot of anthropological academia is highly left wing, I don't think there is actually any racism its simply that for Diamond everything is down to environmental determinism and NOBODY has agency, conquerors or conquered.

In fairness, his book is regarded more as a seminal work in the field than that of a crank.

Anyone using such broad strokes is liable to criticism , he was at great pains to demonstrate the advantage Europeans enjoyed wasnt due to any intellectual advantages, but had genetic advantages arising solely from better evolved immunity.
Can't remember what he had to say about China, must dig it out.
Re crops, something about the seed being easier to store and transport and grow in most climates?

Rothschilds zebras weren't exactly domesticated, he just put a female in front and younger females followed. Zebras have never been domesticated, they're too aggressive and unpredictable.

Roger Hassenforder

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Excellent reference. I never heard of him or it before but there's an extensive Wikipedia article on that book that I've just read. It apparently won the Pulitzer Prize for Non-Fiction:

Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs and Steel

Sounds like a very compelling thesis. One small point I don't get is the following (from the above article): "Eurasian diseases weakened and reduced local populations, who had no immunity, making it easier to maintain control over them (germs)".

Could this not have worked in precisely the opposite direction? Why was Eurasian immunity from diseases greater to the extent that it was a principal factor in enabling them to conquer countries which presumably had a slew of diseases they never encountered?

It's a great read, well worth the effort.

He argues "we" had evolved better immunity to germs, and were better able to fight theirs, then they ours.

Icemancometh

Roger Hassenforder wrote: »

It's a great read, well worth the effort.

He argues "we" had evolved better immunity to germs, and were better able to fight theirs, then they ours.

Have the book on the shelf looking at me. Looking at the index and quickly checking, his argument is that infectious diseases were common in Europe (agriculture leads to greater population, leads to greater population density leads to more infectious diseases) so most Europeans had to have immunity, whereas only one infectious disease was common in the Americas. All of this pertains to the "New World," so not strictly relevant to Africa.

suicide_circus

red ears wrote: »

Their population increase is a big issue. The Ethiopian population has increased from 39 million in 1984 to 100 million today. The same thing is happening throughout Africa. We can't help them if they don't control their populations.

The problem is that children are often the only "wealth" they have.

Wibbs

Sand wrote: »

Necessity. All the voyages of discovery, all the colonial conquests, all the inventions were driven by the European necessity to reach Asia and trade for luxuries with the hugely advanced, peaceful and prosperous economies of India and China. Europe had literally nothing the Indians or Chinese wanted to trade for, other than gold and silver.

Partially. The Europeans from their side wanted for little else but silk and spices from the East(porcelain came later). Yes, securing trade routes that bypassed the Islamic empire was important, but it was part of an already extremely competitive drive between European nations looking to grow. They wanted to expand and they couldn't really do so within Europe or large uneconomic wars would kick off and scuffles were all too common and the major players were pretty evenly matched(save for the French on land, who kicked everybody's arse), the Middle East was not an option for any single European state to attempt to take over(ditto for Russia, which had it's own huge empire anyway), so their only real option was to explore and look for "virgin" territory they could add to empire. They created "remote" empires. China like Russia was already an empire and had vassal states all around it. The drive to expand by sea was almost absent, because they simply didn't need to(and when attempted usually went badly. QV Japan). They had enough growing room.

Another aspect was the renaissance and the drive, both intellectual and nation oneupmanship, for exploration itself. Again China wasn't that pushed on this, because again they had enough of existing territory they could explore. Just once did they try similar to the European states and was successful in bringing knowledge back, but the entire fleet was scrapped afterwards and was seen as a waste and kinda pointless.

Yet another aspect was religion. The church was ever eager to "expand the faith" to as many "savages" and "pagans" as possible. This was in play early on and before the Reformation, where gathering more souls for Jesus could again be used as oneupmanship by nations. This went nuts after the Reformation where the element of competition was increased massively between the new factions and the old.

As for advanced, that is extremely debatable. Europe from the Renaissance onward was forging ahead on a near yearly basis. Indeed the only period where the per capita wealth of Chinese citizens was ahead of Europeans was in the middle of the Dark Ages during the Tang. Even where their was disparity, it was Europeans that ran with the tech, improved it and rapidly overtook the original inventors. Gunpowder and printing good examples.

As for Africa today, Europe cant solve its problems by talking down to Africans telling them what they are doing wrong. Throwing money at the problem isnt working either. Only African leaders and reformers can solve African problems and bring African people with them. Europe can only intervene to advance its own interests, and assist African leaders allied to those interests.

RDM_83 again

Roger Hassenforder wrote: »

RDM_83 again wrote: »

Ok been a fair few years since I read it but here is mine.

He's basically completely environmentally deterministic - culture and history only play a minor part in his view

Very selective examples - Why are Fertile crescents grains better than other crops

Untested examples - Fertile Crescent animals are easily domesticated, Zebra's etc aren't - yet Zebra's can be trained to pull carriages and we don't know that riding came first with horses in Eurasia (sites will say they cant be domesticated but thats arguing for calm ridable mounts in 1/2 generations).

Countering an argument thats not really taken that seriously anyway, I don't think you will see much serious scholarship saying the west rose because of inherent characteristics in the populations there.

His thesis falls flat in relation to later China - which was very advanced.

If you give a quick google you will see a lot better structured criticisms than mine.

You'l also see a lot of people calling him a semi-racist- I'd take these criticisms with a massive pinch of salt to be honest, a lot of anthropological academia is highly left wing, I don't think there is actually any racism its simply that for Diamond everything is down to environmental determinism and NOBODY has agency, conquerors or conquered.

In fairness, his book is regarded more as a seminal work in the field than that of a crank.

Anyone using such broad strokes is liable to criticism

AFAIK it's not well regarded at all in the fields it draws on, its well regarded outside those fields.

He's making arguments against stuff nobody took seriously anyway.

My point about the Zebras is nobody knows how hard it was to initially domesticate horses so you can't just decide zebras are undomesticable when it could have taken 1000's of years with the horse

red ears

diomed wrote: »

Why do you call posters stupid and arrogant?
From what I've seen in my few years in Africa a big problem is/was tribalism.
The country that I have a slight clue about is Zambia and that has these main tribes: Bemba, Tonga, Chewa, Lozi, Nsenga, Tumbuka, Ngoni, Lala, Kaonde, Lunda. If you mentioned a tribe to a local they could tell you where you were likely to see them in the economy e.g. police, army, civil service, commercial sector, state companies, and at what level. If the boss of a company is from one tribe, employees of the company will be over-represented by people from that tribe.
We think all black people are the same. There are many more genetic types in Africa, and Africans can look at people and tell their tribe, and even if someone was of mixed tribe they can tell you the two tribes.

I found attitudes in business to be very different to Europe. The aim was to be appointed to the big job, and the big benefits.
My boss went to a secondary school looking for recruits. Many were interested, but when they found they would have to study and qualify they lost interest. He recruited one person.

A big problem too is when the Europeans (British were up to their necks) divided up the countries and created borders they divided tribes. Mich like northern Ireland when they are fighting it makes it more difficult to create a thriving economy.

I would love to see a few of the Africans economies really take off. It would be like a shining light to the other countries. Whatever happens Europe can't solve their problems and with demographic trends we can't absorb millions and millions of poor people fleeing to the West either over the coming decades.