Another View:
You like my initials? Knock yourself out, I’m not one of those insecure individuals you’re used to who run from name-calling. Sticks and stones…
Before you presume to judge my knowledge of history, you should know a few facts. I’m old enough to remember the past 50 years of history. I don’t have ten traceable generations of American ancestry – in fact I have none. I live in Africa – one of those evil colonists who are responsible for the present condition of Africa. By which I mean, such depredations as the wheel, written language, stable government, roads, electricity, agriculture … insofar as those have survived decolonization. And I have watched that process in my lifetime.
Forgive me if I oversimplify your rather longwinded argument. The problem of agriculture in Africa is not tariffs that prevent African farmers from competing on world markets. It is simply that Africa doesn’t produce enough food to feed its population. This is not due to colonialism or any lack of physical capacity, but purely human factors. Rhodesia used to export food; Zimbabwe exports only refugees. South Africa is rapidly going the same way.
So, the only way to prevent mass starvation in Africa is food aid. Private, public, what’s the difference? So millions survive on handouts. If people can get free food from charities, where’s the incentive to grow your own? How can a farmer sell his produce? Result: less production, more demand, more charity, until the bubble eventually bursts.
And spare me the “rape of Africa” sob stories. Africans had no use for minerals before the colonists came and exploited them. Left to their own devices, they still wouldn’t know they were there, or what to do with them. In less than a hundred years, colonists developed mining and agricultural industries in Rhodesia that sustained the country. Zimbabwe inherited a thriving economy and an infrastructure that Africans could never have developed on their own. I think they got a pretty good bargain. Today, the mines are idle, agriculture is all but dead, and the people are starving. Believe me, colonialism was the golden age of Africa. Never before has there been such progress in such a short time. For Africa, never again.
