Live 8 & Dickens & why Live 8 won't make a damn bit of difference in Africa

Europeans are at least partly to blame but so is the US and every other rich region on a global scale. Are you aware of the massive subsidies your domestic agricultural industry is getting? Of the trade balance your country has with Africa as a region?

Yes let's look at Nigeria, why not. Let's look at a Nigerian village shop and see what kind of products they have on the shelves. For some reason they sell American corn. Now ask yourself why they import American corn.

 

Dude, if in your world it's still 1977 then you have a point. If not, then you don't.

Zimbabwe used to be known as the "bread basket of southern Africa". Its well-run, stable and prosperous agricultural economy fed both its own citizens and those of the countries around it, with goods and services emanating from the sector all the way up the Rift valley as far as Uganda and even Ethiopia.

The civil war and then Mugabe's incessant pilfering gradually eroded the stability of that industry and gradually undermined the means by which Zimbabwe could build upon its economic strengths through diversification. By the time Mugabe sought to turn the ire of a starving population on "the white man" in the mid to late 1990's the country was a massive net aid recipient. His decision to initiate the land-grab of the past few years condemned Zimbabwe to the chaos, starvation, disease and helpless poverty in which it now finds itself.

Simple fact - had the (white-run) agricultural business been left alone and not used as a sop to the militant and self-destructive African nationalism of the Zimbabwean ruling elite (the only people in that country who could afford such a ruinous conceit), then you might have a point in holding Zimbabwe up as an example of how things should be done. But as it wasn't, you're out of your tree.

Which is what they've been doing in Zimbabwe. It's also what they did in other post-colonial countries like Kenya and Tanzania ... and it led to all sorts of horrible problems with the infrastructure of those largely agrarian economies. Simple, unavoidable fact: tribal, often nomadic societies (like, for instance, the Kykuyu or Masai in central Africa) are really, really shit at running vast agri-business cereal farms.

They are about to repeat in Malawi mistakes made and learnt from 30 years ago in Kenya. Parcelling vast land tracts off into 10-acre plots and handing them over to urban poor people does not help either those poor people (who have no experience of farming) or the nation as a whole (who lose large agricultural facilities run on an industrial scale). The tea and coffee plantations that will disappear once compulsory purchase has gone through provide far more for the country of Malawi than the redistributed plots of land will. The World Bank's involvement in schemes such as this is an ongoing travesty.

Why - because they have oil?

Oil doesn't buy you stability, good health care, strong education and workforce development, environmental protection, infrastructure investment and global trading power.

As, um, Nigeria proves.

Besides, their reserves, whilst impressive currently at 35bn barrels, are inefficient earners because so much of the money goes either straight out of Nigeria to companies such as BP and Shell or disappears into the web of local corruption that surrounds the industry. They're pissing their main asset up the wall and until enough of each oil dollar is actually made to stick in terms of investment into Nigeria and Nigerian society, they're not even going to come close to being a "world power".

I don't know the figures, but I think it would be instructive to compare $/barrel that made it into the local economy in the Middle Eastern regimes during their development in the 60's and 70's with the $/barrel figure currently the making it all the way through to benefit the Nigerian people.

 

I asked for YOUR opinion. Do you have one? Coloreds are too stupid? Is that it?

 

We vilify Landon alot more than, say, Beckham, too.

It's such an easy dodge, Sarge. We're Americans. We're gonna talk about America. You're full of crap on this one. It's not ironic at all.

 

IMO, you're too stupid!

 

I'm a lot more cynical about this sort of thing than I was in the 1980's. Maybe the hype was better then, I don't know. These benefit concerts are a lot better than doing nothing. And some, like Farm Aid, Sweet Relief, the 9/11 benefits - there's a lot, actually - tend to do some very tangible good. Probably the more short-term or concentrated an issue, the more likely it is that a benefit will help.

I don't know of anyone who thinks that by itself it was going to bring about the Rapture, or the end of Pete Townshend's "Lifehouse." It's a lot better than nothing, though.

The sanctimony is awfully easy to hate, though. I fondly remember Chumbawamba's first record, tactfully called "Pictures of Starving Children Sell Records."

 

Karl, You are an idiot.

1. Democracy only works in societies with sufficient literacy. An illerate public is not an informed public. The first problem is education, not lack of democracy.

2. Rule of law is a problem in many places. Americans are still dying in Iraq, so that is hardly a shining example. China has an incredibly high degree of "rule of law." Unfortunately, those laws don't resemble our laws. Would not want to live there.

3. Free markets, my @ss. AIDS infection rates in some countries are pushing 50%. There aren't enough workers to do any work in Africa. You can't deliver a product to market if you are barfing your lungs out.

And you are an @sshole, too.