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[QUOTE]Originally posted by zarahan- aka Enrique Cardova: [QB] [QUOTE]Originally posted by ausar: [qb] Any comments on the author's style and how his worldview due to his ethnicity effects his opinion? [/qb][/QUOTE][IMG]http://www.africareview.com/image/view/-/1284594/highRes/315333/-/maxh/283/maxw/432/-/4uyvn0z/-/protestpix.jpg[/IMG] His tone is [pessimistic, but I don;t think it has anything much to do with his ethnicity. Just perusing the book preview, he quotes directly from numerous Africans sick and tired of the BS, the lies, the hypocrisy and the looting. It may be pessimistic, but it is realistic, and African voices say the same. Such realism is a necessary corrective to the various smokescreens put forward by corrupt elites. Yes, various racist enemies and detractors of Africa will use the detail as ammunition, but that is nothing new or special. Hell, look at all the ammunition they have now to use, and much of it provided on a silver platter by Africans themselves. Racists have a very low workload these days. While we must defend our people strongly, it is too late in the day to be giving "soul brother" passes to those who are responsible and who know better, and can do better. One weak spot is his failure to provide some solutions, understandable perhaps, because the problem is so widespread, and intractable. This is why I sympathize with all those African boat people, saying WTF- I am headed west. Sneered at and condemned, and despised, they are "voting with their feet" just as fed up Euros voted with their feet to leave Europe for America. I don't blame the brothas. Hell, you got Chinese vendors selling individual cigarettes on the streets of various countries, controlling the pipeline of cheap goods and undercutting ordinary brothas trying to eke out even that meager living, courtesy of the elites. In Nammidia for example the government issues around 25,000 passports to the Chinese in exchange or payoffs. Now these people are undermining even the small time brotha on the street, already on the margins, now being squeezed even more. It used to be at the top end, but now the brothas are being squeezed on the bottom end up as well. Still as a journalist with decades of experience on the continent the author could have pointed the way forward for a least a Level 1 suite of things that can be done. I can think of several right away, and they are nothing new. 1) Drive a harder bargain with the West. If you want such and such then you will have to match what the Chinese are doing, and give us more for our produce, which you can well afford. 2) Use Western aid to more benefit the small man rather than big projects that benefit the elites and urbanites more. 3) Drive a much harder bargain with the Chinese before their looting of resources runs out. The CHinese do offer certain advantages, namely speed and economy. But as this and several other books show, African "leaders" are giving away the store in too many cases. Hell get some money for yoself with the bribes and payoffs, but dammit make sure shiit gets done, to more advantage of Africans. On top of this the quality of Chinese work is often sloppy. Its like they can pass anything off on negroes per some reports. 4) Make the Chinese invest more locally, and use more local personnel. In the book below, China's Second Continent, the author describes how the Chinese are bringing in their own people for low level unskilled jobs, and are not providing any skill building locally to develop local capacity. On a road negroes will be shoveling dirt but not learning how to operate heavy equipment, for example. Everywhere? No, but too often. The so-called "leaders" ought to be insisting that these projects are creating a parallel package of African skills and capacity being built up. In addition, there is Chinese looting practice like widespread strip mining, without enough enviro protection. 5) Stop putting so much money into big "prestige" and "showcase" projects. Look at the famous Yamoussoukro Basicila in Ivory Coast- yes an impressive construction by all measures, but at a cost of $300 million. Do you know what 300 million could do for African farmers, infrastructure, etc. [IMG]http://campus.udayton.edu/mary/images/yam1.jpg[/IMG] And let's take that swanky new OAU headquarters built by the Chinese in Ethiopia. Nice.. for $200 million. Now all the elites have such a nice place to gather and talk about "African Renaissances." Ethiopia is one of the lowest income countries in world- though seeing some recent growth. Think of what 200 million could have done for small farmers, infrastructure like a thousand feeder roads to bring their produce to market, the factories that could have been set up, etc etc. http://africabusiness.com/tag/parliament/ In other words, why isn't there more concern for pushing the cash down to the street level, so the ordinary brotha can get a piece of the action? The Chinese built the nice $200 million talking-place using mostly Chinese labor and Chinese imported material. There was spillover effect of course but how much cash disappeared into the pockets of the elites, or already relatively well ensconced urbanites rather than the countryside whee most of the masses toil? [IMG]http://addisababaonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/African-Union-Headquarters-in-Addis-Ababa.jpg[/IMG] [b]^^ A cool 200 million... PS- why does the gubment own all the land in Ethiopia and why are huge slices of Ethiopian land being sold off to India and Saudi Arabia?[/b] [IMG]https://62e528761d0685343e1c-f3d1b99a743ffa4142d9d7f1978d9686.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com/files/83432/width668/image-20150529-15234-ou6f91.jpg[/IMG] [b]^^Brothas can't even get enough food to eat sometimes yet the "leaders" are selling of the best Ethiopian land to India and others..[/b] http://theconversation.com/the-lesser-known-story-of-indias-role-in-ethiopian-land-deals-42432 QUOTE: [i]Much less attention has been given to the role of India. A global land monitoring initiative, Land Matrix, ranks India as one of the top 10 investors in land abroad. It is the biggest investor in land in Ethiopia, with Indian companies accounting for almost 70% the land acquired by foreigners after 2008. Indian land deals in Ethiopia are the result of the strong convergence in the two countries' domestic political-economic policies. Both advocate the privatisation of public assets and increasing reliance on free trade and open markets. India’s investment in land has been driven by the need to obviate the effects of spiralling food prices by outsourcing food supply. Ethiopia’s decisions are driven by its development policy based on commercialisation of agriculture and reliance on foreign investments. Rough estimates suggest Indian firms have acquired roughly 600 000 hectares of land in Ethiopia. This is more than ten times the size of land acquired by firms in India under the country’s special economic zones policy. India is followed closely by Saudi Arabian firms, with 500 000 hectares of land, in Ethiopia.[/i] [IMG]http://nazret.com/blog/media/merkato/Karmjeet-Sekhon-in-Gambela.jpg[/IMG] [/QB][/QUOTE]
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