Was listening to an NPR story about an African girl, who was brought to the us for treatments of severe burns after an aide work came across her case, the NBC story on gold minning (they specified a certain type artisan?) in Africa. That, with my love of Star trek / Star Gate things and my wonder for how Africa turns out in 100yrs got me wondering.
I have never been to the African continent, so my knowledge of the area is very biased by the media. But it seems as a continent as a whole, its pretty messed up with LOTS of regions of extremely poor living conditions and lots of people living in what most would consider not liveable but yet it has some developed cities but not sure if there is anything as wealthy a city as a New York, LA, Berlin, Paris, London.
Causes: I don’t know but it seems like the political system is a mess. Lots of smaller countries run amok?
Solutions? I have no clue. not a place I like to be - but not something that runs in my head much either (out of site out of mind). But I am sure lots of opinions exist here, and maybe even a few educated ones?
i’ve lived in africa for a few years. i currently live in switzerland, but before this was living for a while in Cape Town, and after that for about 2 years in a shantytown in Namibia.
i’m always happy to discuss it; like you i find the LR kind of limited sometimes.
Rhodesia/Zimbabwe was once considered the “bread basket of Africa” due to its fertile and productive farms. Have conditions there stabilized and the farms come back into production, or is it still on the decline?
cape town’s actually a great, great city. physically beautiful - the moutain and the ocean, gorgeous wineries, great surf. . . it’s a magic spot. culturally it’s very vibrant - lots of colour, lots of change, very cool music, food, arts scenes.
there’s no two ways about the crime, though. cape town’s better than joburg, but that’s not saying much. you need a comprehensive plan for protecting yourself and your property - electric fences, tazers, smash-proof car windows, etc. that part of things makes it tough for me. my wife and i loved it there and would love to move back, but can’t imagine staying more than a year or two. we come from canada, originally, and we like unlocked doors too much!
zim is still mostly toast. a couple of years back they finally ditched their hopeless currency and adopted the US$ and the south african rand - that’s helped quite a bit. last time i was there was ~2009 and there was food on the shelves, but the country’s a shadow of itself.
the saving grace of zim for years was not just the food production but the education system. zimbabweans had the best education in africa and were usually pretty worldly, ambitious, hardworking people to boot. the game now is to get rid of mugabe. he’s holding out for immunity, i think - if the international community would agree not to prosecute and/or he got a golden passport to asylum in in a fellow dictator’s country. once he’s gone, the rebuilding can start, and i sincerely think zim will come out in good shape.
My first-hand knowledge of Africa is second-hand. When I was an immigration lawyer we had a lot of African clients. Quite a few from were from central and west Africa, the rest from eastern Africa (mostly Somali). This topic is a tough one for me. The final straw in my legal career was an asylum case from Liberia.
There are many causes and a lot depends on where in Africa you are talking about. Northern Africa functions much like the Middle East in their political structures. South Africa has a stable government. The real issues are around central Africa, the Horn of Africa and much of western Africa.
In non-ancient times (think after Egypt, Nubia, etc.) there was no tradition of nations. Politics was essentially at the tribal level. Then you had the wonders of European colonialism.
So now we have no tradition of a strong central government. Outside interests frequently exploiting the situation (do you really think the oil companies want Nigeria to develop a strong government with the fees and regulations that would come with it). Read this to see what is going on in that single country, http://en.wikipedia.org/…_industry_in_Nigeria Just look at how many different languages are represented on the map about halfway down.
Extremely strong tribalism, think Hutu’s and Tutsi’s in Rwanda.
In the late 90’s Liberia’s capital, Monrovia hadn’t had electricity or running water for over a decade due to civil war starting in '89 (against the guy who staged a coup in '80). After Charles Taylor gained a lot of control there was an election in '97 that was a farce. It wasn’t until 2003 that any real progress was made. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberia
And we have all seen the issues in that libertarian utopia Somalia.
So there are tons of issues and no easy solutions. The fragmented social groups bring about a tribalism/racism that people in the US cannot fathom. The human rights abuses make the Saw movies seem like Mary Poppins. I have seen pictures of and know of things that I truly wish I could unlearn.
But they are people, just like everyone else. The case that made me quit was also my favorite client. Her and her little boy are the nicest people you could ever meet.
cape town’s actually a great, great city. physically beautiful - the moutain and the ocean, gorgeous wineries, great surf. . . it’s a magic spot. culturally it’s very vibrant - lots of colour, lots of change, very cool music, food, arts scenes.
there’s no two ways about the crime, though. cape town’s better than joburg, but that’s not saying much. you need a comprehensive plan for protecting yourself and your property - electric fences, tazers, smash-proof car windows, etc. that part of things makes it tough for me. my wife and i loved it there and would love to move back, but can’t imagine staying more than a year or two. we come from canada, originally, and we like unlocked doors too much!
-mke
Ok, Mike lets take this microcosm. Here you have a nice city, that sounds somewhat disfunctional because of of crime. WHY? Is there not demand for a security.
On a bigger scale, will the international govt. ever step in? Will these “humane” Diamonds and Gold that are trying to be marketed succedde in changing the way of life over there? Is this something Large US humanitarian efforts (think Gates) do anything to make a difference?
Rhodesia/Zimbabwe was once considered the “bread basket of Africa” due to its fertile and productive farms. Have conditions there stabilized and the farms come back into production, or is it still on the decline?
It may no longer be on the decline as much as bottomed out. The big problem that Mugabe created was to start a populism policy geared towards the poor black majority. He blamed the white farmers for stealing land belonging to the poor blacks. The poor then decided he was right and took back the farms but only one problem, they are not farmers and destroyed the agriculture.
Zimbabwe is a mess with most of the educated fleeing to South Africa or overseas and as long as Mugabe is around, they will never really recover but I agree with the earlier comment that the saving grace is the good education system so there is hope as long as that is maintained.
He blamed the white farmers for stealing land belonging to the poor blacks. The poor then decided he was right
Because he was right. A lot of land was handed over to white control in treaties where blacks were staring down the business end of British guns, which kind of limits bargaining power.
Not apologizing for Mugabe’s corrupt and thuggish nature - and all around insanity - but let’s be honest and not pretend the rich white farmers ended up with that nice land through free and open market transaction.
I would love to visit the game preserves. My big dream trip is to run Comrad’s then spend a couple weeks looking at elephants, zebras, hippos and lions while camping in big white tents and riding in an old Land Rover. Big camera too, of course. And a young Robert Redford to keep me company. I’m confident that is a completely romanticized version of how things really are but I’m clinging to it.
jen - can’t recommend namibia and/or botswana highly enough. comrades would be an epic, no doubt, but i feel like kruger park is a little played out. from joburg, it’s a quick zip north and then you’ve got your pick between etosha, chobe, and the okavango - 3 of the best game parks on earth, in my opinion.
Ok, Mike lets take this microcosm. Here you have a nice city, that sounds somewhat disfunctional because of of crime. WHY? Is there not demand for a security.
On a bigger scale, will the international govt. ever step in? Will these “humane” Diamonds and Gold that are trying to be marketed succedde in changing the way of life over there? Is this something Large US humanitarian efforts (think Gates) do anything to make a difference?
Of course we cant even fix Detroit so …
in short, dave, i think the answer looks like this.
here’s downtown cape town:
and here’s ‘suburban’ cape town:
literally millions of people live like this. sure, there’s a huge market for security: you buy an electric fence from a fellow middle-class businessman. maybe - maybe - you hire some security guards from the townships, or a gardener or maid or something . . . but there’s not enough grass to cut or cars to watch to support the numbers, and the wages are a few bucks a day. bill gates cannot solve this problem. ethical diamonds cannot solve this problem. i’m not really sure what can.
I agree with the earlier comment that the saving grace is the good education system so there is hope as long as that is maintained.
About ten years ago I met a white couple in Fiji that had been large farm owners in Rhodesia. The way they explained it was that their farm was like a small town. They supplied the school and educated the families of their workers, who also lived on the farm. When the squatters moved in and pushed them out, the black families who had been the farm residents/employees fled to avoid being killed. As the farm collapsed, so did the school and medical clinic that were part of it.
definitely a lot of the farms were like little communities, and to some extent those communities collapsed (or got replaced by less effective, supportive ones) when the cronies took over the farms.
but i’ll also say that the plain old public education system in zim was/is outstanding. best on the continent, truly, and this is largely - would say - in spite of mugabe.
Ok, Mike lets take this microcosm. Here you have a nice city, that sounds somewhat disfunctional because of of crime. WHY? Is there not demand for a security.
On a bigger scale, will the international govt. ever step in? Will these “humane” Diamonds and Gold that are trying to be marketed succedde in changing the way of life over there? Is this something Large US humanitarian efforts (think Gates) do anything to make a difference?
Of course we cant even fix Detroit so …
in short, dave, i think the answer looks like this.
here’s downtown cape town:
and here’s ‘suburban’ cape town:
literally millions of people live like this. sure, there’s a huge market for security: you buy an electric fence from a fellow middle-class businessman. maybe - maybe - you hire some security guards from the townships, or a gardener or maid or something . . . but there’s not enough grass to cut or cars to watch to support the numbers, and the wages are a few bucks a day. bill gates cannot solve this problem. ethical diamonds cannot solve this problem. i’m not really sure what can.
-mike
Thanks Mike, those two pictures are definitively the contrast I had for “city” life, then you have the undeveloped regions. And you honest in the last statement is also appreciated. Clearly its not an easy problem, but sadly it also seems to be one the world chooses to ignore.
When I was an immigration lawyer we had a lot of African clients. Quite a few from were from central and west Africa, the rest from eastern Africa (mostly Somali). This topic is a tough one for me. The final straw in my legal career was an asylum case from Liberia.
