quote: When it comes to financing, we should try and involve a country like China, which now commands enormous amounts of foreign reserves, and most important, also has enormous potential for using solar energy, to join hands with us. China is growing so rapidly economically that it will run out of power at some stage, despite the great strides it has made in the generation of hydro-electric power in recent years. Its recent triumphant commissioning of the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River, which produces 18 gigawatts of electricity, will not close its eyes to the long-term uses of solar power.
are you hostile towards African-American influence on Africans? Are you aware that only people related to Africans, such as African-Americans, will truly, overall, truly care for the overall welfare of Africa? Do you think the European Union cares? Do you think CHINA actually cares about Africa? If they did, perhaps they would tell the Sudanese government to stop civilians in Darfur. As far as I know, they are supplying the weapons used for genocide. And until they agree with the U.N. to bring drastic measures on Sudan for this genocide taking place, they prove that they don't care about anything but what is in fact good for them. African-Americans acutually care about Africa. Think about that........Salaam
Posts: 826 | From: U.S.A. | Registered: Jun 2006
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quote:South Africa has received a R160-million Christmas gift from Oprah Winfrey. She will have distributed her message of hope and about R70 million worth of gifts to 50 000 South African children by the time the dust settles on Sunday on the children's Christmas party she is co-hosting with Nelson Mandela at his home in Qunu.
On top of this, her Oprah Winfrey Foundation has committed R90-million to the erection and maintenance of an Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in Gauteng.
What was initially conceived by Oprah Winfrey as an opportunity to spread Christmas cheer among poor children in South Africa has developed over the past three weeks into a long-term commitment to raise international awareness of the plight of Aids orphans. "I don't know where it will end up," Winfrey said in an exclusive interview for Independent Newspapers. "I originally came with the idea of giving gifts, but the very first day here (she hosted a children's party at the Expo Centre in Joburg) was a life changing day for me."
In 20 gruelling days, Winfrey has hosted 12 ChristmasKindness parties for 63 schools in KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape, she has hosted parties at orphanages and for orphans, visited hospitals and came face to face with the poverty and squalor in which so many South Africans still live.
" Before I came I didn't know where this would lead, but that first day's experience with children from the orphanages and clinics, many of them with HIV/Aids, made me realise there was a higher calling for me .
"Ultimately, my work here will involve helping to create stability for the orphans, and for girls. What went on there was far bigger than anything I've ever done."
Winfrey said she had been thrilled by the spirit of South Africa's youth and angered by the non-availability of antiretroviral drugs in public hospitals, but what struck her most, she said, was the number of children denied the opportunity to be children because of the death of their parents .
" What happens to a generation of children left to fend for themselves? Unless someone does something now the orphans will change the face of this country and the continent," she said .
"When we go home next week and begin to download this experience, it is my intention to work out how best to use my name, my resources and access to other resources to benefit the crisis of orphans in this country," Winfrey said.
She will have distributed her message of hope and about R70-million worth of gifts to 50 000 South African children by the time the dust settles tomorrow on the children's Christmas party she is co-hosting with Nelson Mandela at his home in Qunu.
Winfrey said her decision to visit and share her wealth and knowledge with SA was because of her historic identification with the anti-apartheid struggle, her friendship with Nelson Mandela and her love for the country which she has visited twice before.
She originally broached the idea of doing something special in SA with the former president in New York earlier this year.
Mandela linked her up with his Nelson Mandela Foundation, which helped put the trip together.
Winfrey said: "I have a very strong connection to Madiba. He is my greatest living mentor. It is one of the great honours of my life to spend time with him. I gain strength from his strength. The idea for this entire initiative was inspired by the parties he hosts every year at his home."
Chinese companies are exploiting workers in Namibia, China is selling weapons to the Sudanese government, this does NOT help to end the Genocide going on in Sudan.
quote:Originally posted by Arwa: The future for Africa is SOLAR, SOLAR, SOLAR!
Solar Cooking
Solar ovens have come on the market which are built and designed to perfection. Or you can build your own in an evening or two. In third world countries in Africa and Asia where fire wood and other cooking fuel has become too expensive or is increasingly unavailable, a solar oven made out of whatever materials are at hand is a marvelously simple and efficient alternative to traditional methods of cooking. Water is also easily boiled and sterilized, thus reducing illness and in fact saving many lives. A huge commercial sun oven called the "Villager" is now available and will bake 50 loaves of bread in half an hour.
(The picture shows simple sun ovens--called the "Cook-it"--made with cardboard and aluminum foil in use in a village in Ethiopia.)
Breakthrough in Kenyan Refugee Camps
Solar Cookers International (SCI) has been sponsoring extensive solar cooking work in Kenyan refugee camps. More than 15,000 families have attended workshops and returned home with their own solar cooker. Thanks to a new cooker design, it costs only US $10 to supply each of these families with a solar cooker, a black pot, a supply of trial food, and instruction on how to use their new cooker. Follow-up visits have revealed a high level of use. Families report now that they no longer have to trade their scarce rations for firewood, and thus have more food left to eat.
posted
I actually think it is a good thing. If only more ordinary folks can be as politically active as people like Arwa, greatly needed change in the socio-economic conditions around the globe, would come sooner rather than later.
Posts: 5964 | Registered: Jan 2005
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quote:Israel Arwa, are you hostile towards African-American influence on Africans?
Instead of Foreign-Aid some of the posters here are on Hater-Aid for some odd reason.
quote:Israel
Do you think CHINA actually cares about Africa?
I would say no, but they will look out for their Own Best Interest.
Note: China business men never build their Auto Plants near African American communities here in the USA, at least not one that I know of but they love the Africans on the Mother Continent and of course it has nothing to do with the resources there
Note: Africans better watch out for those “White Angels” we know what happens from past history when you let foreigners have access to African resources.
Oh and how are Africans in general who travel to China treated?
Posts: 567 | From: USA | Registered: Nov 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Africa: China Poised to Overtake World Bank as Biggest Lender in Africa
By Christopher Swann and William McQuillen
Nov. 3 (Bloomberg) -- China is poised to become the biggest lender to African nations, threatening to undermine efforts by World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz to use overseas aid as an incentive to clean up corruption on the continent.
China has committed $8.1 billion this year to Nigeria, Angola and Mozambique, according to World Bank figures. That compares with $2.3 billion pledged to sub-Saharan Africa by the Washington-based World Bank. China may announce more deals at a Sino-African forum starting today in Beijing, cementing its place as the top official source of finance to Africa, development experts say.
China is bucking the global aid establishment by refusing to impose conditions in return for financing projects that include airports, government buildings and power plants. That allows African governments to borrow overseas while avoiding strictures imposed by the World Bank, such as accounting safeguards and measures to protect workers and the environment.
``There is a risk that some governments in Africa may use Chinese money in the wrong way to avoid pressure from the West for good government,'' said Papa Kwesi Nduom, who heads the Ministry of Public Sector Reform in Ghana, which is seeking a $1.2 billion loan from China for a hydro-electric dam and rural electrification.
China has a more commercial agenda than the World Bank, the U.S. and France, the top Western donors, and terms of some of its loans are less favorable. The U.S. provided a net $3.5 billion in loans and grants to sub-Saharan Africa in 2004, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. France extended $3 billion.
Eximbank, China's overseas lending arm, has provided about $12.5 billion in infrastructure loans to Africa since 1994, a figure that excludes mining and oil projects, according to the World Bank.
Access to Resources
China is using loans, export credits and other sources of financing to secure access to resources it needs to fuel its economy, the world's fourth largest and among the fastest growing. China is the world's biggest consumer of zinc, nickel and copper, the second-largest user of crude oil and the top importer of tropical woods.
``The Chinese deals are very opaque but seem often to be long-term mortgages on Africa's resources or mineral deposits,'' says Dan Large, a China specialist at the Rift Valley Institute, a Nairobi-based think-tank that's financed in part by Unicef.
Angola, a nation of 14 million that's recovering from a 27- year civil war, is avoiding pressure to clean up corruption thanks to aid from China, Large says.
Money Disappears
The former Portuguese colony is ranked 151 of 158 countries on Transparency International's corruption index. Global Witness, a London-based human rights group, reckons that $8.5 billion of Angolan public money disappeared between 1997 and 2001.
In 2004, Angola received a $2 billion line of credit from China backed by oil revenue, an amount that was increased by $1 billion this year.
Laurinda Santos, press secretary at the Angolan embassy in Washington, didn't respond to requests for comment. The press office at the Chinese embassy in Washington didn't return telephone calls.
Nigeria, the continent's top oil producer, this year agreed to provide a drilling license to China in exchange for a $4 billion commitment to improve infrastructure. China this year also agreed to lend $2.6 billion to Mozambique to build a dam, a hydroelectric power plant and transmission lines.
Debt Crisis
Such loans raise the prospect of a renewed debt crisis in Africa, just a year after the world's rich nations agreed to forgive as much as $57 billion of debt, Wolfowitz told Chinese news agency Xinhua last week.
``Africans cannot afford to miss the growth opportunities offered by new sources of lending and investment,'' Harry Broadman, an economic adviser in the World Bank's Africa Department, said in a statement yesterday.
China and other new lenders ``will undoubtedly want to learn about the overall debt situation and coordinate with other sources of development finance to avoid some of the mistakes and problems that Western lending and aid has generated in the past.''
Wolfowitz has made his good-government drive a hallmark of his 16-month tenure at the World Bank, arguing that too much of the money intended for schools and clinics winds up in the pockets of corrupt politicians.
One result of his efforts: Chad in July agreed to set aside set aside 70 percent of its oil revenue for anti-poverty programs after the World Bank suspended $124 million in loans to the central African nation of 9 million.
Fight Against Poverty
``The effort to strengthen and improve governance is a key element in the fight against poverty,'' Wolfowitz, 62, said in a speech on Sept. 18.
Some African nations bristle at the World Bank campaign, calling it interference in domestic matters.
``The fact that a country gives you aid makes them think they have a license to tell you how to run your affairs,'' Robert Kabushenga, a spokesman for Uganda's government, said in an interview from Kampala. ``These conditions are probably well intentioned, but they are humiliating.''
quote:Originally posted by Africa: On the same note: November 2, 2006, 16 hours, 22 minutes and 47 seconds ago.
By ANDnetwork .com
At meetings with several African state leaders at the Beijing summit Chinese President Hu Jintao said Wednesday the event marked the beginning of a more prosperous relationship between the two.
quote:Originally posted by Myra Wysinger: China as Africa's 'angel in white' By Scott Zhou November 3, 2006
SHANGHAI - Amid increasingly harsh Western criticism of its "neo-colonialist" conduct in Africa, the Chinese government has issued a circular demanding that Chinese investors and workers on the continent behave themselves better.
The new policy was issued on the eve of the China-Africa Cooperation Forum and summit in Beijing this weekend to mark China's 50th anniversary of cultivating relationships with African countries, with an apparent additional aim of winning the hearts and minds of the Africans.
Over the past few decades, some 16,000 Chinese doctors have worked on the continent as a goodwill gesture to Africans. The tradition can be traced back to the late chairman Mao Zedong, who in the 1960s began to send "angels in white" to Africa and barefoot doctors to the rural areas of China. The tradition continues even today to show China's goodwill and build its image among Africans.
However, recent efforts to bill China as an "angel in white" for Africa have been seriously challenged by a new kind of emissary as trade and business have grown by leaps and bounds. That has led to criticism, especially by Western countries, that China is engaged in some new kind of "neo-colonialism" in Africa.
Apparently in response to such criticism, Beijing has moved to readjust its Africa policy. The move seems somehow reluctant as it comes at a moment when China's success in African arouses in Western countries criticism perhaps sometimes tinged with jealousy. Beijing is afraid that a barrage of criticism from Western countries could sow discord between China and its African friends.
The State Council, China's cabinet, last week issued "Nine Principles" to "Encourage and Standardize Enterprises' Overseas Investment", which in plain words could be interpreted as a warning to Chinese enterprises in Africa: behave yourselves.
The principles require Chinese companies, most of which are state-owned enterprises, to abide by local laws, bid contracts on the basis of transparency and equality, protect the labor rights of local employees, protect the environment, implement corporate responsibilities and so on.
So far, Beijing's interests in Africa have paid off handsomely, particularly in helping to ease its increasing thirst for oil. China imported 38.3 million tons of crude oil from Africa in 2005, accounting for 30% of its total oil imports. Four African countries - Angola, Sudan, the Congo Republic (Congo-Brazzaville) and Equatorial Guinea - were among the top 10 oil exporters. In the first six months of this year, Angola overtook Saudi Arabia as the biggest oil exporter to China.
This epitomizes Africa's economic exchanges with China: exporting raw materials in exchange for manufactured goods. A trade pattern in China's favor is taking shape: China is flooding Africa with cheap manufactured goods while shipping back oil, timber, copper, diamonds and other raw materials - some might say, the essence of colonialism.
Africa increasingly depends more and more on trade with Asian countries, especially China. Asia is the third-most-important market to Africa, after the United States and the European Union. China led the skyrocketing growth of Africa-Asia trade with an annual growth rate of 30% from 2000 to 2005. China-Africa trade will be well over US $50 billion this year.
But development economists are deeply worried about the emerging economic partnership. The World Bank is interested in introducing the "Chinese model" of development to Africa, but some experts doubt the trade-and-investment model with China will do anything helpful in nurturing the continent's competitiveness in world market.
"Africa is under-trading manufacture goods with China, but over-trading oil with China," concluded Harry G Broadman, a World Bank economic adviser on Africa. The history of economic development teaches that countries relying largely on natural resources will end up with weak economies. Also, development experts pointed out that China cannot provide world-class technology, management know-how and infrastructure to its African friends.
A 'neo-colonial' power
Any outside power making inroads in Africa is bound to be haunted by charges of colonialism. China cannot take it for granted that it can get rid of that perception easily.
A sense of moral superiority over Western countries may be the cornerstone of China's soft power in Africa. Beijing is adept at tapping into the colonial history inside the collective memory of African countries whenever Western countries criticize China's ignorance of human-rights issues on the continent. China is equally ready to label its Western competitors as the real "neo-colonists".
By blaming Africa's underdevelopment on colonialism, Beijing believes it has established the moral high ground. From training "fighters for freedom" in the revolutionary 1960s and early 1970s to providing scholarships to children of African elites, China has been exporting its values for years. By successfully linking neo-colonialism with the neo-liberalism of Western countries, China has been able to win the hearts and minds of African elites.
But that policy has been undermined by the behavior of many Chinese companies in Africa. China's moral case is spoiled by support for authoritarian regimes caring nothing about human rights, bribing its way into big contracts, leaving one big empty hole after another on the continent after extracting minerals, and making Africa both a supplier of raw materials and a market serving China's "world workshop" economy.
The Chinese government hopes that in the spirit of "angels in white", this weekend's forum and summit, not to mention writing off $10.9 billion in debt owed by 31 African countries, could be a good chance to put some new ingredients into the "Beijing consensus" between China and 50 African countries.
Scott Zhou is a Shanghai-base analysts on China's politics, economy and international relations. [Source]
are you hostile towards African-American influence on Africans? Are you aware that only people related to Africans, such as African-Americans, will truly, overall, truly care for the overall welfare of Africa? Do you think the European Union cares? Do you think CHINA actually cares about Africa? If they did, perhaps they would tell the Sudanese government to stop civilians in Darfur. As far as I know, they are supplying the weapons used for genocide. And until they agree with the U.N. to bring drastic measures on Sudan for this genocide taking place, they prove that they don't care about anything but what is in fact good for them. African-Americans acutually care about Africa. Think about that........Salaam
For real...
Posts: 3423 | From: the jungle - when y'all stop playing games, call me. | Registered: Jul 2006
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posted
Again, no one seems to have read the articles I posted. The articles state more criticism toward China than what you wrote so fare.
Listen, I'm not a big fan of China--and we would not need their trads today if we Africans not stop killing eachother. Indeed, we Africans point fingers very easily to others than ourselves
And to those who say China acts "neo-colonialist" toward their African partners. I don't recall China sent their ships to Africa to enslave millions of Africans or colonized 500 years, when they had every opportunities to do in Zheng He's many voyages to Africa--in stead he offered gifs and trades to them and even some Chinese made Africa their new home.
The problem is, there is a new kid on the block and the West does not like it, and when you own 90% of the media in the world, then all what you hear is how bad this kid is--but forgetting to tell to world all the good things he did to Africa in the 60's. e.g, building new roads, sending doctors, offering free educations.
I have nothing against AAs, but I'd rather choose Angelina Jolie's or Madoona's money over Oprah's, because how disgusting can it be to see these AAs imitating Western do-gooders and thanks to them those Western do-gooders we got 'development pornography' when ever some one reports from Africa.
I think these AAs do-gooders money could be usefull to their brothers and sisters in the US--when more black men are in prinson than in collage.
It's rather the AAs who need our help--to decolonize their mind. A trip to Africa is what they really need.
Anyway..back to Sudan. This problem goes back to Berlin conference in 1885--China was not there on the table--and China does not need Sudan's oil: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4946708.stm
Masonic Rebel:
quote: Oh and how are Africans in general who travel to China treated?
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posted
^I agree with you to some extent, Oprah is a tit and is pretty much useless in the African American community. I don't agree that African Americans need their minds decolonised; I think that's a problem that people in Africa (who where colonised) have and need to solve.
Interesting view you have on China. Perhaps I have been blinded to their goodwill by some negative propaganda.
Posts: 3423 | From: the jungle - when y'all stop playing games, call me. | Registered: Jul 2006
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quote:Originally posted by Masonic Rebel: Instead of Foreign-Aid some of the posters here are on Hater-Aid for some odd reason.
And you ask way
quote: Behind the image: Poverty and 'development pornography'
By Rotimi Sankore
In a world where graphic pictures of starving children are used by development agencies to raise funds from the public in the rich world, ROTIMI SANKORE critiques the phenomenon of ‘development pornograpy’ and argues that it has contributed towards deeper prejudice. New ways must be found to reach the public and more clearly explain the real reasons behind poverty in Africa, he states.
For decades, development and aid charities in the western world have believed the best way to raise funds from the public for their work is to shock people with astonishing pictures of poverty from the 'developing' world. An iconic poster example of these pictures is one of a skeletal looking 2 or 3 year old brown-skinned girl in a dirty torn dress, too weak to chase off dozens of flies settling on her wasted and diseased body and her big round eyes pleading for help. 'A pound means a lot to her'; 'a dollar can mean the difference between life and death'; 'Give something today' are generic riders.
This approach is partly based on the philosophy that 'a picture is worth a thousand words'. Since the development of photography and the mass media, this has been the mantra of any remotely competent photo editor and in modern times campaign and advertising executives.
The Make Poverty History Campaign, Millennium Development Goals and the Commission for Africa have again focused attention on existing poverty in Africa, Asia and Latin America. New targets have been set just as in the 70's and 80's when the target to end world poverty was the year 2000. New targets mean new campaigns and the type of images used to draw attention to the famine in Ethiopia in 1984 and 1985 will need to be updated. Unlike previously however, there are now even more development charities competing for a limited 'market' of givers. The implications are clear. Each image depicting poverty needs to be more graphic than the next to elicit more responses.
As some psychologists have argued, increasing levels of violence on television normalises violence. Subsequent images of violence then need to be more graphic to make an impact. Likewise an addiction to pornography demands increasingly graphic images to provoke even minimum arousal - in this case, a sense of outrage necessary to sustain similar levels of giving. But despite the number of lives saved or enhanced by aid, the most horrendous pictures do not and are incapable of telling the whole story; neither will development charities conclusively solve the problem of poverty that exists worldwide.
Increasingly graphic depictions of poverty projected on a mass scale by an increasing number of organisations over a long period cannot but have an impact on the consciousness of the target audience. That is the desired objective. But there can also be unintended consequences. In this case, the subliminal message unintended or not, is that people in the developing world require indefinite and increasing amounts of help and that without aid charities and donor support, these poor incapable people in Africa or Asia will soon be extinct through disease and starvation. Such simplistic messages foster racist stereotypes, strip entire peoples of their dignity and encourage prejudice.
Some may genuinely think that this is mere exaggeration. But when a leader of the Conservative opposition announces bombastically that under his government, all immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers would be subjected to tests for tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS in order to save the National Health Service millions of pounds, you can tell he thinks he is on to a vote winner. He either sincerely believes most people from those places carry dangerous diseases, or his strategists believe this will tap into the fears and prejudices of millions of voters. Either option is offensive and no amount of denials will avoid the fact that such prejudice is based on negative stereotypes. And where have most of the negative stereotypes come from? Your guess is as good as mine. Periodic appeals for donations using graphic and stereotypical images of poverty reach millions every year. The intentions may be good, but some of the consequences are not. Additionally many Africans and Asians resent negative stereotypes of their continents as anybody would, and find them offensive no matter what cause they are employed for.
Over time, there has been gradual but increasing awareness that pictures can lie even when they are a 'true' likeness of an instant in time. In the former Eastern bloc, images of poverty stricken homeless people in the 'West' were the only picture many had of capitalism. In today's world of digital media and convergence there is a clear understanding by media experts that often-repeated images can and do create a false consciousness of what is real.
While the poverty is real, the subliminal message development 'pornography' conveys is unreal. There has been some development alongside the poverty and the causes of poverty are far more complicated than single pictures can ever convey. In Africa for instance, previous undemocratic rule facilitated or conveniently accepted by many western governments - to fight off the threat of 'communism' - has ensured institutional imbalances in the development of the political and democratic process. As a result former dictators and their cronies have exclusively accumulated fabulous wealth necessary to meet absurd financial conditions set by biased electoral bodies in many countries. Actual electoral expenses that are unregulated run into hundreds of thousands of dollars and in huge countries such as Nigeria (population 130 million) even millions. And then there is the pre and actual ballot rigging using the mass media and state apparatus. Add to this layers of repressive laws - originally introduced by colonial governments to suppress restless natives - that have led to the death, imprisonment, intimidation and exile of tens of thousands of intellectuals, activists, lawyers, journalists, trade unionists, students and scientists and it is clear that most of those managing these economies and societies are not the best qualified to do so.
One dares not even go back to the consequences of 400 years of slavery that directly or indirectly killed and took away over a hundred million Africans and in the process disrupted all social and political development for four centuries, or subsequent colonial repression that in some places lasted over a 100 years. Most of Africa has been independent for only between 10 and 46 years and for most of that period many countries were ruled by left and right wing or simply mad dictators supported by cold war enemies jostling for strategic influence.
With all the slavery, colonialism, mass murder, repression, looting, corruption, trade imbalances, an doutrageous interests on dubious loans that have gone on for 500 years it is no wonder the continent is bruised and battered. No continent subjected to the same conditions would have fared better.
No pictures can explain this. What development 'pornography' shows is the result, not the cause of five centuries of aggressive exploitation of a continent. The relatively smoother development in parts of Asia exists because no industrial scale slavery and destruction of society was imposed there for four centuries. Unlike in Africa, the foundation of most Asian civilisation and culture remained largely intact. Colonialism suspended the natural trajectory of development in Asia that then continued once its yoke was lifted. Were it not for the immortality of the pyramids and scattered records of past African civilisations, the entire continent might have well been declared a historical wasteland.
Without clear explanations of why poverty persists in the developing world, the western public will tire of giving and sooner or later there will be a backlash; some argue that such fatigue has already begun to set in. For now negative stereotypes may already have been so ingrained that the level of ignorant prejudice that facilitated the transatlantic slave trade, the holocaust against European Jews, Apartheid and genocides from the Balkans and Cambodia to Rwanda may have already taken root.
This is no exaggeration. The first step towards institutionalised prejudice, exploitation and violence has always been a false mass belief that other peoples or sections of society are unequal, sub-human, vermin, dangerous, treacherous or whatever is propagated until it becomes an 'accepted truth'. The most universal example of consequences of such false beliefs is the exploitation of and violence perpetuated against women in all societies. Development 'pornography' has unwittingly contributed towards prejudice and must find new ways to reach the public before its good intentions irreversibly facilitate bad ones. Most importantly, what the developing world needs is a reversal of the institutional imbalances that have facilitated repression, exploitation, incompetence and corruption and a pledge from western interests to allow their people to freely define their future.
Trade volume rocketed to 39.7 billion U.S. dollars in 2005 after breaking the mark of 10 billion dollars in 2000.
In addition, China has forgiven debts of 10.9 billion yuan (1. 38 billion U.S. dollars) by 31 heavily indebted poor countries and least developed countries in Africa and extended zero-tariff treatment to some imports from Africa.
China has helped establish nearly 900 projects in Africa and train some 14,600 personnel in various fields.
Posts: 2198 | Registered: Jun 2006
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An African revolution that needs noticing: 'The Chinese are the most voracious capitalists on the continent and trade between China and Africa is doubling every year.'
I arrived in Sierra Leone in June 2005, at the height of the rainy season. Mud washed down the pot-holed streets of the capital, Freetown, and knots of beggars, some without arms or legs, huddled under trees and against battered shop-fronts. It was a fortnight before the G8 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, where Bob Geldof and Bono were to celebrate a huge increase in aid to Africa, but in the Bintumani Hotel no-one spoke of this. Gusts of rain-filled wind blew through the hotel's porch to set the large red lanterns swinging. Cardboard cut-outs of Chinese children in traditional dress had been stuck on the windows. The management had just celebrated Chinese New Year.
It was my first visit to Sierra Leone in more than twenty years' reporting from Africa, and I was to make a film not about the normal issues covered by British television—orphans, war victims, corruption—but about something few outside Africa seemed to have noticed: the rapidly growing influence of China in the continent.
The hotel's manager, Yang Zhou, was pleased to show me round, helped by his spiky-haired young translator who introduced himself as Maxwell. While Chinese businessmen stick to their real names, Chinese translators in Sierra Leone give themselves English names to ease communication with Africans and visiting Europeans.
The Beijing Urban Construction Group, which is owned by the Chinese government, started to rebuild the Bintumani Hotel even before Sierra Leone's civil war ended in 2002. The wall opposite the manager's office had been decorated with glossy photographs of China's economic progress: one showed the Three Gorges Dam, another a group of pretty young Chinese women throwing their mortar boards in the air to celebrate graduation. The captions were in Chinese and English, as was the sign for the toilet which featured a girl with pig-tails sticking out horizontally from her head and the word ladie's. The clocks above reception gave the time in Beijing, Freetown, London, Paris and New York. London was out by an hour.
'Africa is a good environment for Chinese investment, because it's not too competitive,' Yang Zhou said as he ushered me into the Presidential Suite, the hotel's best room. Shower: made in China. TV: made in China. Kettle: made in China. The doors to the rooms were designed for the Chinese as well as by them—the six-foot-four Danish cameraman with me had to stoop to get inside.
Sierra Leone epitomizes the British Prime Minister Tony Blair's vision of Africa as a 'scar on the conscience of the world'. By most calculations it is the poorest country on earth, with seventy per cent of the population living in poverty. UN troops keep the peace, after a brutal conflict over power and resources in which child soldiers amputated people's arms and legs with machetes, and rape was widespread. Sierra Leone, a former British colony, is one of the largest recipients of British aid, but the benefit is hard to see. Few homes have electricity or running water, and sixty per cent of young men are unemployed.
Most European companies abandoned Sierra Leone long ago, but where Africa's traditional business partners see only difficulty, the Chinese see opportunity. They are the new pioneers in Africa, and—seemingly unnoticed by aid planners and foreign ministries in Europe—they are changing the face of the continent. Forty years ago, Chinese interests in Africa were ideological. They built the TanZam railway as a way of linking Tanzania to Zambia while bypassing apartheid South Africa. Black and white footage shows Chinese workers in wide-brimmed straw hats laying sleepers, and a youthful President Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia waving his white handkerchief as he mounted the first train. As an emblem of solidarity, China built stadiums for football matches and political rallies in most African countries which declared themselves socialist. In the 1980s and 1990s, the Middle Kingdom withdrew to concentrate on its own development, but in 2000 the first China–Africa Forum, held in Beijing, signalled renewed interest in Africa. Now, the Chinese are the most voracious capitalists on the continent and trade between China and Africa is doubling every year.
On the outskirts of Freetown, on the site of an abandoned centre for disabled refugees, the privately owned Chinese company, Henan Guoji, has created the Guoji Industrial Entry Zone, a small complex of workshops and factories. In the city centre, a new multi-storey government office-block, military headquarters, and refurbished stadium are all the work of the Chinese. The British say future aid will depend on Sierra Leone's progress towards democracy. China, which follows a policy of 'non-interference' in African politics, and is scarcely in a position to tell any other country to be democratic, has nonetheless built the modernistic, brown bunker tucked into a hillside which serves as the country's new parliament.
Xu Min Zheng (translator: Lucy), the Henan Guoji representative in Freetown, told me that his company was following the Chinese government's injunction to 'Go Global'. The first part of the twenty-first century is dubbed 'the period of strategic opportunity'. Chinese companies are preparing themselves to become multinationals, and Africa is their proving ground. 'The Chinese are very diligent,' said Mr Zheng, who wore a jacket and tie despite the humidity. 'We are good at learning, and our equipment and raw materials are cheap.' Many companies bring even their labour force from China. Africans watch in surprise as buildings are erected in weeks. ('The Chinese don't seem to rest,' Sierra Leone's Information Minister told me. 'We could learn from that.') Managers and translators live in barracks-style accommodation. No spouses, no children, none of the comfort and expense Western expatriates demand.
'I never thought my life would be so exciting,' Lucy the translator said. 'My mother wants me to go back to Beijing and get a boyfriend and have a child, but I want to be here for a few years. Then maybe I'll get to go somewhere else in Africa or even to Britain. With a company like Henan Guoji, if you speak English, you can go anywhere.'
When I first went to Africa in the early 1980s, it was rare to see a Chinese face, other than in embassies or Chinese restaurants. Now, the Chinese are everywhere—building the new State House in Uganda, starting joint businesses in South Africa and, most significantly, establishing themselves in countries with natural resources. Chinese companies are involved in mining, timber, fishing and precious stones. Above all, they are involved in oil.
Second only to the United States in its oil consumption, China needs Africa's resources to fuel its own phenomenal growth. In oil-rich countries like Angola, Chad, Nigeria and Sudan, the influence of former colonial powers is waning. The Chinese government imposes no political conditions on African governments before signing contracts for exploration or production. No Chinese pressure groups lobby Chinese oil companies about 'transparency' or environmental damage. Not surprisingly, African governments welcome these undemanding new investors.
I employed a young Sudanese journalist, Nima Elbagir, to find out how Chinese investment was changing Sudan, 2,500 miles from Sierra Leone on the other side of the continent. She got hold of the Sudanese energy ministry video archive of Chinese activities in the oil sector: earnest seismologists on their knees tapping the dry, brown desert for the latest oil find; the Sudanese President, Omar al-Bashir, and the head of the African division of the Chinese National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) at a ribbon cutting ceremony for the new oil refinery at Al Jaily, north of Khartoum. She filmed billboards across the capital showing smiling Sudanese and Chinese oil workers in yellow hard hats shaking hands, with the legend—in Chinese, Arabic and English—CNPC: YOUR CLOSE FRIEND AND FAITHFUL PARTNER.
Sixty per cent of Sudan's oil goes to China; twelve per cent of China's oil comes from Sudan. No wonder the Sudanese government is untroubled by the oil sanctions which prevent American investment. 'With the Chinese, we don't feel any interference in our Sudanese traditions or politics or beliefs or behaviours,' Awad al-Jaz, Sudan's energy minister said when Nima interviewed him on camera in Khartoum. He smiled as if trying to suppress a laugh. 'Business is business. There is no other business but the business.'
In 2004, when Britain and the US pushed for a punitive UN Security Council resolution against Sudan for the mass killing of civilians in Darfur, China threatened a veto. The weaker resolution which passed with Chinese approval had little impact. Chinese companies have built three small-arms factories near Khartoum; most of the weapons used by government forces and militia in Darfur are manufactured there or in China.
Human rights workers have a new problem here. As their economic interest in Africa has declined, Europe and America have gone along with calls for 'good governance' and an end to human rights abuse in Africa. It is easy to moralize at regimes which you have no reason to cultivate. But such regimes will not cow to this new moralizing if China is offering practical support without conditions. In May 2005, President Robert Mugabe—regarded as a pariah by Europe and the United States—told the crowd celebrating twenty-five years of Zimbabwe's independence: 'We have turned east, where the sun rises, and given our back to the west, where the sun sets.'
When white farmers dominated commercial agriculture, Zimbabwe used to sell tobacco at international auction. Now the auction houses in Harare are silent—tobacco goes directly to China's 300 million smokers, as payment in kind for loans and investment from Chinese banks to Zimbabwe's bankrupt state-run companies. As Zimbabwe's agricultural sector collapses, the Chinese are taking over land the Zimbabwean government confiscated from white farmers, and cultivating the crops they need. On a recent visit to Beijing, President Mugabe—who was armed by the Chinese during the bush war against Ian Smith's Rhodesian forces—was given an honorary professorship at the Foreign Affairs University for his 'remarkable contribution in the work of diplomacy and international relations'. The same week, a UN report condemned his government for demolishing 700,000 homes and businesses 'with indifference to human suffering'.
In Freetown last June, rainstorms made the electricity cut out even more frequently than usual. The hi-tech console controlling the lights and TV in each room at the Bintumani bleeped in the night, as the power surged and faded. The new casino, a joint venture by a Chinese man called Henry and an Irishman called Derek with collar-length hair and a 1970s wide-lapel suit, was not busy. Chinese businessmen spun the roulette wheel, while a few glum Lebanese played slot machines, gambling with money they may soon lose anyway, as the Chinese break their traditional monopoly on trade in West Africa.
Sierra Leone's ambassador to Beijing, Sahr Johnny, was hosting a Chinese delegation planning investments in hydroelectric power and agriculture. 'The Chinese are doing more than the G8 to make poverty history,' he said. 'If a G8 country had wanted to rebuild the stadium, we'd still be holding meetings! The Chinese just come and do it. They don't hold meetings about environmental impact assessment, human rights, bad governance and good governance. I'm not saying it's right, just that Chinese investment is succeeding because they don't set high benchmarks.'
Like most African diplomats, Mr Johnny sent his children abroad to study. The two girls work in Britain, but his son is in Hong Kong, learning Mandarin and Cantonese.
Africa looks to China and sees success: according to the World Bank, the Chinese have lifted 400 million of their own people out of poverty in the past two decades. All the while, no one forced the Chinese government to have elections or allow its opponents to start newspapers. Many African leaders would love to do to their oppositions what the Chinese did to theirs in Tiananmen Square, but if they want Western aid money, they must abide by Western conditions.
Like most Western journalists and aid workers who have spent time in Africa, I frequently despair at the continent's problems, veering between blaming the aid donors, the African governments, and even at times the people. Western aid hasn't worked, so why was everyone demonstrating near Gleneagles so convinced that sending more would make things better? It cannot be good that African governments persist with human rights abuse, or perpetuate their rule against the desires of their peoples, but poverty remains Africa's greatest problem, and liberal concerns have not helped Africa's poor.
The Chinese come to Africa as equals, with no colonial hangover, no complex relationship of resentment. China wants to buy; Africa has something to sell. If African governments could respond in a way which spread the new wealth—a large if, of course—then China might provide an opportunity for Africa which Europe and America have failed to deliver.
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again, I ask: what is your problem? You and Yonis are very similar........maybe it is cause your both Somalian.......LOL! Anyway, all jokes aside(....lol), what the heck do you mean when you say, 'I would rather have Angelina's money more than Oprah's'? Honestly, does that make any sense? Who has more money? Oprah has more money, of course. And Oprah isn't imitating anybody: Oprah is doing her own thing, something that has not been done by anybody before her, white or Black. And she has a heart for Africa: you know this is true, so why would you say such an uneducated comment? I not gonna diss Angelina: she is doing her own type of good. But for you to diss Oprah.......what the hell are you talking about? What "DEVELOPMENTAL PORNOGRAPHY"? What the heck is that? If you had told me, "I would take Angelina's money over 50 Cent's money', I could(notice I said I "COULD" understand.........) understand, cause 50 Cent is all about 50 Cent(at least in terms of how he promotes his music). But for you to diss African-Americans as Western "do-gooders"...............I'm sorry Arwa, no disrespect, but that is an assinine comment. An absolutely, totally wrong comment. You remind me of so many Africans who misunderstand African-Americans.........
I remember being on my college campus, and I seen this brotha walking. Sometimes, you just kinda know when a brotha is not simply an American brotha but an African brotha. This dude, I could perceive, was African. I introduced myself, he did likewise and asked for directions on the campus, cause he was fresh off the plane from Kenya. I showed him the way to the place where he needed to go, and after that we became friends. He told me, months later, that he had heard back in Kenya that African-Americans don't "like us", meaning A.A.'s don't like Africans. I told him that I did what I did for him the first day we met to let him know that that wasn't true...........Lack of understanding is what it is.
I have also dealt with Black Americans we have told me, "Them Africans don't like us", or whatever. My homeboy was telling my other friend that mess a few years ago. I told my friend that it wasn't true, but my homeboy(first guy) kept arguing the point. Anyway, my friend(second guy) and I went to Chicago some years ago, and met some African street vendors. We took time and talked. My friend learned alot. He realized that my other homeboy was wrong about Africans. He realized that we are most certainly "cousins", know what I mean?
Speaking of Somalian, I met a Somalian sistah some years ago. Very beautiful, and she was married to an African-American Muslim guy whose mother was a preacher! And they all lived under one roof! When the Somalian sister came to the States, she knew where "family" was at.......That is not to say you can't be family with whomever, cause I do believe humanity is, or ought to be, one big happy family. But again, she knew, I believe, where "family" was for her, know what I mean?
Therefore Arwa, open your mind. Please open your mind. If Africans and African-Americans(including Afro-Brazilians, Afro-Cubans, Afro-Colombians, etc.) get together, Africa will birth a new revolution in this world. Salaam Arwa, Salaam.
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^I certainly don't have any issue on AAs--and don't put words in my mouth! I was very luckey to visit louisiana and other Southern states before the world saw the real poverty, racism, segeration and how a dividy US is after hurican katarina.
Study after study shows how the AAs living conditions became worse before civil right movements --in every part you can think of--whether education, socialsystem, crime,broken families, you name it!
And to Oprah, since when she bacame a holy cow?
quote:"DEVELOPMENTAL PORNOGRAPHY"? What the heck is that?
Read Rotimi Sankore
And try to stay on topic.
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Arwa wich ones? africa posted two different articles relating to the Africa/China relationship and i posted Myra Wysinger's article from that topic on this thread aswell
i think it's better if all things related to African/World Politics and economic news is posted in this topic instead of multiple different threads being opened!
We Africans don't like when famous people try to boost their popularity at the expense of our problems.
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quote:The Chinese come to Africa as equals, with no colonial hangover, no complex relationship of resentment. China wants to buy; Africa has something to sell. If African governments could respond in a way which spread the new wealth—a large if, of course—then China might provide an opportunity for Africa which Europe and America have failed to deliver.
BEIJING (XFN-ASIA) - China's rapid economic growth should serve as a model for African development, said a UN official at a seminar in Beijing late yesterday.
'Africa is a very hungry continent. But the crisis is solvable, and Chinese technology and investment as well as putting to use its recent historical experience would make a big difference,' said Jeffrey Sachs, special advisor to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, during the China-Africa Partnership seminar.
Sachs said China was best able to understand how Africa's rural poor -- 80 pct of whom live in extreme poverty -- could be given better lives, as China has experience in bringing economic revitalization to thousands of disparate villages across a vast territory
Sachs pointed to agro-tech as a good starting point to put the 'China model' to work.
'Chinese expertise in irrigation and rice cultivation alone could help triple agricultural output in food-deficit Africa,' he said.
He also said China's success in nearly eradicating malaria from its territory, in large part due to the development of various traditional Chinese medicines, could help stem the disease in Africa.
Once these health catastrophes are addressed, Africa can begin to climb up the economic ladder by emulating China's economic success, Sachs said.
'Africa's coastal cities should look to the Chinese example and develop exports for economic growth. Food and agro-processing would be good places to start,' he said.
He also pointed to China's controversial population control methods as part of the reason for the country's consistently high GDP growth rates, and said Africa desperately needed to take similar action.
'Fertility rates in Africa are way too high, and the population in many countries has nearly doubled each generation over the past several years. But China has succeeded in its population control,' he said.
He suggested Chinese businesses and investors work together to bring rejuvenation to the continent using many of the techniques China used to build its economy -- as well as the current drive to develop the country's poorer hinterlands.
Two way trade between China and Africa's 54 countries has increased nearly 20-fold since 1999, from just two bln usd in 1999 to 39.7 bln last year, the UN said.
As for China's allegedly turning a blind eye to human rights abuses by its major African trading partners, as well as complaints that China was dumping its wares to the detriment of local industry, Sachs said that economic paradigm shifts always brought tension.
'China's growth in business with the continent is growing rapidly, so whenever two sides suddenly increase economic contacts, there are bound to be misunderstandings,' he said.
quote:Originally posted by Arwa: ^I certainly don't have any issue on AAs--and don't put words in my mouth! I was very luckey to visit louisiana and other Southern states before the world saw the real poverty, racism, segeration and how a dividy US is after hurican katarina.
Study after study shows how the AAs living conditions became worse before civil right movements --in every part you can think of--whether education, socialsystem, crime,broken families, you name it!
And to Oprah, since when she bacame a holy cow?
quote:"DEVELOPMENTAL PORNOGRAPHY"? What the heck is that?
Read Rotimi Sankore
And try to stay on topic.
What words did I put into your mouth Arwa? Secondly, there are, unfortunately, many types of African-Americans, economically speaking. Yeah, you went to Louisiana. Well, Lousiana certainly not come anywhere close to representing the best and brightest of African-Americans overall. What I mean is that in Atlanta, Washington D.C., Chicago, and other places, African-Americans are doing quite well. Many of the megastars who are A.A. stay in the outskrits of Atlanta...million+ dollar homes, and the neighborhood is nothing but Black people! See, this is something you need to understand..........
My friend, who is 1/4 Black, 1/2 white, and 1/4 Jewish(grandmother is Jewish....etc.) told me that when Kanye West said, "George Bush doesn't care about Black people", she disagreed. She said it is not that Bush doesn't care about Black people, but it is that Bush doesn't care about POOR Black people! I agree with her.
Hence, you are looking at the negative issues in the Black community, and you are rejecting the possibility of an Pan-African partnership that could help Africa become what it needs to become. I guarantee that African-Americans are your BEST FRIENDS here in the United States. That is guaranteed. Black Americans are the ones who helped destroy Apartheid in SOuth Africa. TransAfrica, a Washington based lobby group, lobbies on behalf of Africans and Africans of the diaspora. Their efforts were CRITICAL to help Nelson Mandela get out of jail. Trust me, if politically and socially aware Black Americans didn't care about Africa, Africa would be WORSE then it is. I feel that our presence in America forces our government to deal with issues that it wouldn't normally deal with. Which Congressional leaders are protesting in front of the Sudanese embassy here in Washington because of the Darfur genocide? NONE OTHER THAN THE BLACK CONGRESSIONAL CAUCUS. Believe me, if Barack Obama, Colin Powell, and other leaders, didn't care, if superstars like Don Cheadle(from Hotel Rwanada) and other leaders weren't standing up, things would be, I think, different concerning how America deals with these issues. You may ask, "What is your proof"? Well, my professor in undergrad was/is an Arab intellectual who fights for the rights of the Palestianians. She told me that she believed that if Arabs were more entrenched in American society the way African-Americans are, that maybe things would be ALOT different concerning U.S. policy in the region, i.e. the cause of the Palestians would have ALOT MORE SUPPORT IN AMERICA, which would force the Amer. politicans to deal with the Palestian issue according to just measures. My professor acknowledged that the Black American involvement to help destroy the Apartheid regime in SOuth Africa was very influential in terms of Apartheid's eventual downfall.
Hence, what I am saying is that Black AMericans who are globally minded(and there are alot of us who are globally minded) will be helpful in terms of Africa's overall development. I shared with you some of our leaders who were Pan-Africanist on another thread. One person I didn't mention was MARTIN LUTHER KING J.R.! I read in his autobiography how he ENCOURAGED BLACK AMERICANS, AT KWAME NKRUMAH'S INVITATION, TO SETTLE IN GHANA, AND TO HELP AFRICA DEVELOP.
Anyway Arwa, if you can't see the possibility of the good that could come out of this situation, well, I can't help you. I mean seriously, do you think Angelina has given more to Africa than OPRAH?! Cmon, that is pure b.s., and you know it! THerefore, again, why would you say, "I'd rather have Jolie's money than Oprah's."? That doesn't make sense at all.
Again, at the end of the day, I guess I am just disappointed with you cause I, as an African-American, with nothing but goodwill towards Africa, to hear some of your comments, really, it is simply appalling. You should read what Kwame Nkrumah said about Pan-Africanism. He wanted the United States of Africa. And he had a plan to make Black Americans a part of that goal, realization, etc. Again, I say, "Open your mind Arxa". Open your mind. Salaam
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quote:Originally posted by dawit: china is africa's friend. better then western world. i hope they will replace the USA being the world most powerfull country.
^ Bite your fingers for typing the above! China is a communist country whose only reason why it hasn't ended up the Soviet Union or worse-- North Korea, is because of its new ownership of ironically the capitalist Hong Kong. I have no doubt this "friendliness" extended to Africa is part of a propaganda to spread communism to that region! The tragic irony behind all this is even though China may seem like "a friend" to Africa it sure isn't acting that way to its own people!! Just ask the Tibetans or the Turkic peoples, or better yet just as the ethnic Chinese whose rights were deprived and were imprisoned and/or whose vital organs like kidneys were taken out and sold to the black market!
Posts: 26249 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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President Hu Jintao said on Saturday, seeking to bolster his country's influence in the under-developed but resource-rich continent.
With smiles and handshakes, Hu greeted visiting delegates from nearly 50 African nations one by one at the Great Hall of the People on Tiananmen Square.
China's President Hu Jintao (C) applauds as he is flanked by African leaders at the opening ceremony of the China-Africa Summit at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, November 4, 2006. (REUTERS/Jason Lee)
"Our meeting today will go down in history," Hu told the leaders in a speech after the welcoming ceremony. "China is the largest developing country, and Africa is home to the largest number of developing countries."
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^And developing countries are the most vulnerable to communism!
Posts: 26249 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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I am not deviating from the topic. The fact is that you were trying to imply to Machivelli that Africans should have their eye on China more than on a Pan-African dream......am I correct? Hence, I was responding to that......
That doesn't mean that China isn't important. China is VERY important. Not only in Africa, but in Latin America as well. Many countires are making their people(Latin America) learn Chinese strictly for economic purposes. China is the sleeping giant which is finally taking its place in this world as the next major superpower.......props to them! All they have to do is stop persecuting the followers of religions, and stuff like that, and they will be a very great country. Hence, Africa should do business with them. And maybe the Chinese can show Africans how to be independent of the West. That would be wonderful. But that doesn't mean that Kwame Nkrumah's dream for the formation of the "United States of Africa" should be lost. And A.A's will have a pitoval role to play, whether you, me, or whoever, likes it or not. Salaam
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What are you talking about?! China is still a communist government, despite calling themselves a "republic". Even today people who speak out against the government are imprisoned, executed, and even have their vital organs sold!
And even today Tibetans, Turks, and other ethnic minorities are being suppressed by the government!
Posts: 26249 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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WOW, Arwa! That is a real blow. I(as it seems a few other AA's on this forum) don't understand the distrust of African-Americans by Africans. I've read many posts here on where fellow Africans agree with your feelings. It surprises me that you don't innately feel a kinship with AA's as we do for Africans. Israel, I am also from Louisiana and I can assure you that New Orleans has/had many AA professionals there as well. What you fail to realize is that any major metropolis that experiences a natural disaster such as Katrina, would find that their communities also harbor great poverty as well. Anyway, I know that this is a forum on Egypt, but please pm me ARWA and explain your feelings toward AA's. I'd really love to know.
Peace and blessings, Igbogoddess
Posts: 34 | From: Lurkerville | Registered: Oct 2006
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quote:What are you talking about?! China is still a communist government, despite calling themselves a "republic". Even today people who speak out against the government are imprisoned, executed, and even have their vital organs sold!
And even today Tibetans, Turks, and other ethnic minorities are being suppressed by the government!
There is a difference between an authoritarian system and communism...American capitalism and Chinese capitalism are not very different except that Chinese are getting smarter than the Americans...
The roots of the current debate can be traced to a biting critique of the property rights law that circulated on the Internet last summer. The critique's author, Gong Xiantian, a professor at Beijing University Law School, accused the legal experts who wrote the draft of "copying capitalist civil law like slaves," and offering equal protection to "a rich man's car and a beggar man's stick." Most of all, he protested that the proposed law did not state that "socialist property is inviolable," a once sacred legal concept in China. http://travel2.nytimes.com/2006/03/12/international/asia/12china.html
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I hear you Igbogoddess. I was trying to open this lady's mind, know what I mean? Salaam
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Sorry the late reply, I had a long weekend, and I enjoyed reading your contributions.
Igbogoddess, welcome onboard, bro. As you guessed, I'm not an AA, and my short trip to the US does not qualify to be an expert about the condition of AAs, BUT that is not an excuse to gag me out of the discussion .
As I wrote( and so far no one came with an answer)the living condition of AAs became deteriorated after the civil right movements--white and black Americans are more segregated than ever before whether in education, or housing. The AA population make up 12% of total population but comprised 2mio Americans behind bars. And there are more black men behind bars than in college.On any given day, 30 percent of African-American males ages 20 to 29 were under correctional supervision – either in jail or prison or on probation or parole. Some people ask such separatist, if it is not an apartheid
Igbogoddess, you said there successful AAs, but WHERE ARE THEY? Where is the AA lobby in Washington? The focus of the last presidential election was the Hispanic voters--not AAs. Why?
We Africans have nothing against AAs, but be able to help us, shouldn't they focus first on themselves?
African Americans have produced the finest scholars through years, and it is time they unite and build strong society with one voice.
Israel,I know the middle class of AAs is growing, but I don't see any solidarity to their brothers who are less fortunate.I read a research study where black students are discriminated by fair skin of AAs in college . There is a deep division among AAs --and the is the main obstacle why there is lack of strong leader(s).
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Despite the negative tone of your article (Beijing's race for Africa, November 1), I think China's economic involvement in Africa is a good thing. Unlike the European countries which came to dominate, rule and plunder Africa's resources, China is there purely on business terms. African countries have the opportunity of dealing with China as equal trading partners, extracting the best deal possible for their countries. This opportunity has been impossible in the past because Africa's economic relationship with the west has always been that of master and servant. China is doing what no western nation has ever done - building infrastructure and giving development loans to Africa without the killer conditions usually attached to western aid that have ruined and restricted the economic growth of the continent while increasing the west's economic dominance in the world. Paul Wolfowitz's concern about human rights stinks of hypocrisy. The west has propped up brutal dictators. A good example is the CIA-Belgian installation of Mobutu Sese Seko, Africa's most kleptocratic ruler to date.
quote:Originally posted by Africa: There is a difference between an authoritarian system and communism...American capitalism and Chinese capitalism are not very different except that Chinese are getting smarter than the Americans...
The roots of the current debate can be traced to a biting critique of the property rights law that circulated on the Internet last summer. The critique's author, Gong Xiantian, a professor at Beijing University Law School, accused the legal experts who wrote the draft of "copying capitalist civil law like slaves," and offering equal protection to "a rich man's car and a beggar man's stick." Most of all, he protested that the proposed law did not state that "socialist property is inviolable," a once sacred legal concept in China. http://travel2.nytimes.com/2006/03/12/international/asia/12china.html
"Authoritarian" is also used to describe Nazi Germany and Italy under Mussolinni. It is basically fascism plain and simple and many African nations have had enough of it.
Despite the negative tone of your article (Beijing's race for Africa, November 1), I think China's economic involvement in Africa is a good thing. Unlike the European countries which came to dominate, rule and plunder Africa's resources, China is there purely on business terms. African countries have the opportunity of dealing with China as equal trading partners, extracting the best deal possible for their countries. This opportunity has been impossible in the past because Africa's economic relationship with the west has always been that of master and servant. China is doing what no western nation has ever done - building infrastructure and giving development loans to Africa without the killer conditions usually attached to western aid that have ruined and restricted the economic growth of the continent while increasing the west's economic dominance in the world. Paul Wolfowitz's concern about human rights stinks of hypocrisy. The west has propped up brutal dictators. A good example is the CIA-Belgian installation of Mobutu Sese Seko, Africa's most kleptocratic ruler to date.
Ndy Okezue London
However, as much as I disdain China's policies I must admit that Africa should take whatever gains and benefits it could get from China, and that indeed the Chinese help seems to be a hell of alot more sufficient and efficient than that from the West.
All I say is that Africa must be cautious.
Posts: 26249 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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China has done something no other nations of human history ever did---to bring 400 mio. people out of deep poverty to middle class in 25 years--a miraculous achievement. There is a lesson to learn for all of us
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China has done something no other nations of human history ever did---to bring 400 mio. people out of deep poverty to middle class in 25 years--a miraculous achievement. There is a lesson to learn for all of us
Not sure what that lesson is, but maybe you‘ll elaborate. Plutocracies wherein profit for the rich few is above all else, in its various guises, whether the so-called democratic "capitalist" societies, Stalinist "communism" or plain dictatorships/monarchies, should be eradicated. To measure the level of 'leniency' tolerated under such systems wherever they stem from, to me, is a distraction that can only end up aiding the said systems to hold ground indefinitely. Imho, this is what ordinary folks [like me], need to start thinking of, if they are not yet there.
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First of all kill all these "African leaders", just gather them in a football stadium, and organize a mass executaion. Then its time to start thinking of business with china or whoever. Whats needed is to get to the source of the problems, Europe did not have a standing army in Africa for the last 40-60 years, so they did not rob sh!t. During colonialism yes, but recently no, they only outsmarted these vegatebals who call themselves "Leaders", majority are illiterate fools,some of them are nothing than simple ex-military agents, who have been armed so to keep the status quo which benefits other nations. Untill the people do some mini revolutions here and there, the west will continue and always find ways to get what they want through these dumb hyenas.
What a joke this picture is Look at them losers smiling, its just the same bastards who have got themselves a new pimp. Shame does not exist in their world. real economic freedom comes from inside, not through prostituting yourself around the world and expecting China, or india, or whoever to deliver. This economic meeting is flawed from the get go, you cant expect the same individuals have mentally been gangbanged by the western world, but at the same time enriched themselves for decades and put their own peoples creative ability oppresed to actually make any changes through signing new deals. The problems in Africa does not lie in Europe or China, sorry to say this but it comes from inside. The sooner we realize it the better. china only came this far because of its policy of zero tolerance on corruption, regardless of its human rights record, they were still efficient, they didnt follow the recomendations of the World Bank, IMF and other programs that are suicide. Sometimes you need to sacrifice and make tradeoff. Human rights and other western mumbo jumbo should not be a priority in African countries, such luxory comes later. In order to compete and catch up we need to sacrifice a little bit, forget minimum wage, forget trade unions, for 30+ years africans should work day and night, lower the costs as much as possible, save and utilize its own resources, import only essential products,technology and information for production. Export all kind of consumer bullshit, lift all tarriffs and other stupid trade barriers between African countries and share knowledge, western profit maximising companies will flock to these regions and heavilly invest. All these plus much more disciplined decisions needs to be taken just for the industrial machine to get started, soon enough growth will follow, with enough public savings the finacial instituions will naturally start to get developed, investments will be made people will attain know-how, and this will result in a multiplier effect for the whole continent. Thats how basically economies grow, not by expecting other interess groups to lift you up, economic freedom can only come from inside, not from Europe or China.
Posts: 1420 | Registered: May 2005
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Is SOMALIA, NIGERIA, ETHIOPIA, SOUTH AFRICA, KENYA, SUDAN, etc.,........is any part of Africa doing exceptionally well? Nope. Somalians, for instance, are doing great in Kenya, yet their own country is scattered with warlords.............
The point is that A.A.'s ARE YOUR BEST FRIENDS IN AMERICA! Bottom line. You ask, 'Where are the Middle class Black Americans?'.........honestly Arwa, it is getting to be hard being patient with you because I already spoke about these things above. I mentioned that ATLANTA, WASHINGTON D.C., and CHICAGO, in particular, are places where there is a VERY LARGE AND SIGNIFICANT BLACK MIDDLE/UPPER MIDDLE CLASS! I already told you that in Lithonia, GA., outside of Atlanta, many Black millionaries, atheletes, bussiness people, etc., live together, ALL BLACK, ALL RICH!
Again, you don't live in America, so don't act like you totally know and can understand the situation. The fact that you can't see that Africans need the help of A.A.'s shows that you are blind. Ali Mazuri, an Africanist scholar, who is Swahili, believes, as did Kwame Nkrumah, that Africa ought to effectively connect with A.A.'s to help strengthen Africa. A Nigerian friend told me that A.A.'s are the "elites of the oppressed" in the world. What he was trying to imply was that since we worked hard to have what we have in this country, it is our responsibility to help others gain their freedom.
Anyway Arwa, it is hard to perceive why you are acting ignorantly. I don't mean to be harsh, but your statement concerning "Oprah and ANgelina" made no sense. Also, alot of African-Americans do feel like you! They say, "Who cares about Africa, lets do what we gotta do right here". However, they are forgetting the fact that you reap what you sow. If you help others(sow), you will most certainly reap benefits that will help yourself. Hence, I believe that it is my 'callling' to help Africa. Making moves even while you are reading this...........But you know what, if you don't want to make the connection that would benefit yourself, if you don't have the vision to see how far we can take this thing, then hey, what can I do? If your being short-sighted, then I can't do nothing about it. No harm intended, but it is, more or less, truth. Salaam
Posts: 826 | From: U.S.A. | Registered: Jun 2006
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quote:Originally posted by Yonis: First of all kill all these "African leaders", just gather them in a football stadium, and organize a mass executaion. Then its time to start thinking of business with china or whoever. Whats needed is to get to the source of the problems, Europe did not have a standing army in Africa for the last 40-60 years, so they did not rob sh!t. During colonialism yes, but recently no, they only outsmarted these vegatebals who call themselves "Leaders", majority are illiterate fools,some of them are nothing than simple ex-military agents, who have been armed so to keep the status quo which benefits other nations. Untill the people do some mini revolutions here and there, the west will continue and always find ways to get what they want through these dumb hyenas.
What a joke this picture is Look at them losers smiling, its just the same bastards who have got themselves a new pimp. Shame does not exist in their world. real economic freedom comes from inside, not through prostituting yourself around the world and expecting China, or india, or whoever to deliver. This economic meeting is flawed from the get go, you cant expect the same individuals have mentally been gangbanged by the western world, but at the same time enriched themselves for decades and put their own peoples creative ability oppresed to actually make any changes through signing new deals. The problems in Africa does not lie in Europe or China, sorry to say this but it comes from inside. The sooner we realize it the better. china only came this far because of its policy of zero tolerance on corruption, regardless of its human rights record, they were still efficient, they didnt follow the recomendations of the World Bank, IMF and other programs that are suicide. Sometimes you need to sacrifice and make tradeoff. Human rights and other western mumbo jumbo should not be a priority in African countries, such luxory comes later. In order to compete and catch up we need to sacrifice a little bit, forget minimum wage, forget trade unions, for 30+ years africans should work day and night, lower the costs as much as possible, save and utilize its own resources, import only essential products,technology and information for production. Export all kind of consumer bullshit, lift all tarriffs and other stupid trade barriers between African countries and share knowledge, western profit maximising companies will flock to these regions and heavilly invest. All these plus much more disciplined decisions needs to be taken just for the industrial machine to get started, soon enough growth will follow, with enough public savings the finacial instituions will naturally start to get developed, investments will be made people will attain know-how, and this will result in a multiplier effect for the whole continent. Thats how basically economies grow, not by expecting other interess groups to lift you up, economic freedom can only come from inside, not from Europe or China.
So true Yonis!
The situation in Africa is just like Mexico, except worse! Mexico for example is considered a 'poor' country, even though the land itself is rich in natural resources. The problem is that 80% of the wealth is owned by like 30% percent of the people. Now I don't mean to generalize Africa as whole as not all nations in Africa suffer from this problem, but let's face it an overwhelming majority do which as a whole is pn a much greater scale than Mexico, because Africa is as it has always been a very rich continent. As long as you have corruption and greedy dictators the true wealth and power of the people that Africa was once known for before colonialism will never be realized!
Posts: 26249 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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Heads of State from all over Africa recently gathered in China for the China Africa Summit. The reception involved the heads lining up and going to greet the China’s President one by one. Symbolic that China is putting African countries in its basket one by one?
In what is seen as the greatest wooing of Africa since the emergence of the West in the continent, China pledged a number of goodies in the economic, education, agricultural and health sectors. China will give Africa $ 3 billion in preferential loans; $ 2 billion in preferential buyer’s credits and debt relief on all interest free loans that matured at the end of 2005.
Chinese universities are churning out the largest PhDs in science and engineering in the world. In the US, Chinese and Indian students are taking over some of America’s best engineering and science schools. After getting their first-class PhDs in science and engineering, the Chinese have infiltrated America’s exclusive research shrines, outnumbering Americans at such strategic scientific research centers like the MIT Lincoln Lab and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena California, once reserved only for America’s best and the brightest weaponry, space science and engineering researchers.
China has pledged to set up 10 agricultural technology centers in Africa and dispatch 100 senior agricultural experts. China will train 15,000 African professionals, dispatch 300 volunteers, build 100 rural schools and offer scholarships to 4000 African students every year. It will build 30 hospitals and disburse $37.5 billion to fight Malaria on the continent.
What is China’s secret? What is making China flex its muscles to the amazement of the West? Could it be a result of its powerful and networked Diaspora? Or could it be as Chika Onyeani puts it, a result of its “spider web doctrine,” an impenetrable social and economic network?
China has not only mastered the act of exploiting its large local market but is cheering its entrepreneurs to act aggressively. Drawing from 19th century European history, it is taking advantage of the huge market incentive that drew European investors to America and economies of scale available in manufacturing, distribution, marketing, and research processes. China has realized that a productive population increases the middle class and acts as a consumer. It has also realized that small and medium size sectors are key to a nation’s development and that a country need not reinvent the wheel, but rather repackage it, and send it back to the market.
What can Africa learn from the Sino-Africa ties? Learning from history is very important. Decades of aid have not reclaimed Africa from economic stagnation. Will history be repeated, this time, with China on stage? There is need to see population not in terms of a “time bomb” but a resource that is key to production and consumption. If Africa does not align its education to meet market demands, it will continue to be servant to other continents. It is surprising that Africa has a large number of highly educated professionals in diaspora yet they do not work closely with their African counterparts, like the Chinese and the Indians do, to help jumpstart continental economy. Africa’s well-trained scientists and engineers are roaming the streets devoid of mobilization and self drive. The understanding that the future of Africa’s economic development not only lies in the mobilization of its entrepreneurs but also providing a conducive environment for business such as low taxation, has not been fully grasped. Lack of entrepreneurial dynamism will continually separate the continent from the developed economies of the West and Asia.
As the continent absorbs Asia’s largesse, it should realize that solutions to its economic problems must be home-grown. It calls for resolve to steer the process, learn from history, and form a united front to reclaim African civilization. Africa should choose between remaining an egg that will be an omelette on other peoples’ breakfast tables or hatching into a chick that will give rise to other chicken. African states need not be eggs in China’s basket.
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Posts: 1549 | From: California, USA | Registered: Jan 2006
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posted
Memorable Quotes by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld
"I believe what I said yesterday. I don't know what I said, but I know what I think, and, well, I assume it's what I said."
"Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns -- the ones we don't know we don't know."
"I don't know what the facts are but somebody's certainly going to sit down with him and find out what he knows that they may not know, and make sure he knows what they know that he may not know."
"I'm not into this detail stuff. I'm more concepty."
"I don't do quagmires."
"I don't do diplomacy."
"I don't do foreign policy."
"I don't do predictions."
"I don't do numbers."
"I don't do book reviews."
"Now, settle down, settle down. Hell, I'm an old man, it's early in the morning and I'm gathering my thoughts here."
"If I know the answer I'll tell you the answer, and if I don't, I'll just respond, cleverly."
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Posts: 1549 | From: California, USA | Registered: Jan 2006
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Rumsfeld's Departure Is a Mixed Blessing for Rice Time-CNN Online
ABSTRACT:
Analysis: The Secretary of State and the Defense Secretary were often at cross purposes. Finally rid of her nemesis, however, Secretary Rice is left to clean up on her own. Three and a half years ago, as the U.S. prepared for war with Iraq, Condoleezza Rice went to President Bush with a complaint: Donald Rumsfeld wouldn't return her calls. At the time, Rumsfeld was the Administration's swaggering alpha male, a global celebrity whom even Bush called a "matinee idol"; Rice was the overwhelmed National Security Adviser, struggling to make herself heard above the din of colliding war-cabinet egos. "I know you won't talk to Condi," Bush told Rumsfeld, according to Bob Woodward's book State of Denial. "But you've got to talk to her."
Rice and Rumsfeld loathed each other. Throughout Woodward's book they are depicted squabbling over everything from how to handle detainees at Guantanamo Bay to whether the U.S. should guard oil pipelines in Iraq. As the war dragged on, their roles were reversed: By the end of the book it is Rumsfeld who is left to doodle in his notebook while Rice briefs reporters during a joint appearance in Baghdad. "Don's Don," Rice says, when Frank Miller, a top aide, calls Rumsfeld a bully. "We'll deal with it."
Now she has. Rumsfeld's departure means Rice has outlasted nearly all of her principal rivals within the Bush Administration; among current officials, only Vice President Dick Cheney can match Rice's influence over the President and his foreign policy. But every silver lining has a cloud. Having bemoaned, circumvented and ultimately usurped Rumsfeld's control over the U.S.'s failing Iraq policy, Rice is now the one responsible for figuring out how to clean it up.
She hasn't done much so far. In her early months as Secretary of State, Rice would sidestep questions about Iraq by stating that the presence of 150,000 troops on the ground meant it was mostly the Pentagon's problem. But that argument has become less persuasive as the violence has continued and all military options - short of a massive increase in U.S. troops - have proven ineffective in dealing with the insurgency. By now, even Bush's dog Barney knows that extricating ourselves from Iraq will require cutting some ugly political deals with an assortment of rogues, who might be willing to help stabilize Iraq in return for a piece of the country's future: Sunni Baathist rebels and Shi'ite Islamists, Iranian spooks and Arab strongmen. That, at least, is one option currently under consideration by the Iraq Study Group, the panel headed by former Secretary of State James Baker, whom Rice prodded Bush to appoint in part to clip Rumsfeld's wings.
But as America's top diplomat and the President's most trusted lieutenant, Rice can't simply stay on the sidelines. The Iraq situation demands an immediate, high-profile, region-wide push for an acceptable political settlement, followed by a U.S. withdrawal. But that won't be possible until Rice accepts that her legacy will hinge not on spreading democracy or stopping genocide or facing down Iran, but on whether she can limit the damage to U.S. power and prestige caused by the Adminstration's misadventure in Iraq. In her two years as Secretary of State, Rice's achievements have consisted mostly of projecting a more conciliatory U.S. image to the world and outflanking her rivals at home. She has pushed Bush to abandon talk of regime change and pursue diplomacy with Iran and North Korea. But those successes have more to do with process than with substance. And they have done nothing to resolve the question of whether Rice is truly willing to risk failure, and her reputation, in a concerted effort to get the U.S. out of a messy, misbegotten war. Rice no longer has to worry about whether Rumsfeld will return her calls. Now she has to come up with the answers on her own.
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Posts: 1549 | From: California, USA | Registered: Jan 2006
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posted
Give it a few years and China with it's Billion + population will shake off this goodie goodie act and go after Africa's Lebensraum
Posts: 275 | From: .. | Registered: Aug 2006
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UBBFriend: Email this page to someone!
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Bite your fingers for typing the above! China is a communist country whose only reason why it hasn't ended up the Soviet Union or worse-- North Korea, is because of its new ownership of ironically the capitalist Hong Kong. I have no doubt this "friendliness" extended to Africa is part of a propaganda to spread communism to that region! The tragic irony behind all this is even though China may seem like "a friend" to Africa it sure isn't acting that way to its own people!! Just ask the Tibetans or the Turkic peoples, or better yet just as the ethnic Chinese whose rights were deprived and were imprisoned and/or whose vital organs like kidneys were taken out and sold to the black market!
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