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Notice this quote from Obama to Africans which I think applies to Haiti also.:
"Development depends upon good governance. That is the ingredient which has been missing in far too many places for far too long. That is the change that can unlock Africa's potential. And that is a responsibility that can only be met by Africans."
http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0 … 70,00.html
But if the general public in any African country or Haitian village are illiterate but just wanted the foreigner out so they could "own their own land", then is failure and opportunistic villians not too far behind?
Last edited by bob_2 (01-27-10 4:13 pm)
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bob-2,
But what you are referring to exactly the legacy of colonialism!
The number 1 principle that the European powers used in Africa was "divide and rule". There is probably not a single country in Africa that follows natural ethnic boudaries - Europeans just divided land any way they liked, regardless of tribal or linguistic boundaries. Most African countries have many tribes and many languages as a result, with many tribes living in various countries, across political boundaries.
The European rulers also antagionised the native tribes agains each other by favouring some over others. It is colonialism that is responsible for the Rwandan genocide. Before colonialism the Hutu and Tutsi were more like different classes rather than hostile tribes. The Belgians changed all this.
Colonialism has not finished. It is the minds of people that being colonised now rather than their land. African are made to drink coke and eat at KFC, and they do so without realising that they are being exploited. Isn's this the ultimate trumph of colonialism? Western companies do not give a damn about human rights etc., they are only after the oil in Nigeria, diamonds in South Africa and so on. They are not interested in good governance - they are happy with the culture of bribes and corruption.
Western churches are still sending their missionaries to Africa - isn't it time we recognised the original African spirituality instead of treating it as inferior to ours? The current anti-homosexuality bill in Uganda is a direct reasult of modern religious neo-colonialism.
So if Obama really wants good governance, how about cancelling Third World debts first and then helping the poor with assistance of any kind that is required, including financing their development? It would simply be repaying the debts and giving back what the West stole from Africa.
I guess more or less the same applies to Haiti. I am not saying we should blame only colonialism - but it is the biggest evil.
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Not sure I followed all your twists and turns, JAG, but, the sentiment I was trying to get across, I guess is something like a kid coming of car driving age, being allowed to drive the car without any training, with his youthful hormones raging and innocent pedestrians in peril, not realizing injury or death is potentially close because someone didn't regulate dangerous people, or at least educate them, neutrally of course, before giving them the keys to the BMWer and told to have a good time on that first date.... possibly his last.
Last edited by bob_2 (01-28-10 8:29 pm)
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I'l put it in simpler words for you, bob_2:
It's easier to look for a speck in someone else's eye than a log in your own.
It's also easy to rob someone and then blame them for being poor.
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You are not suggesting are you that in every situation where European or American influence is seen in Africa or other third world countries, that it is for selfish motive, are you???
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Of course it is not in every situation. But if I see young people in a Zambian supermarket always preferring Coke instead of a fermented millet drink then I know that their minds are still colonised. Not because I buy the millet drink, but because it is cheaper, healthier, tastier, more nutritious and it means helping the local economy. After all Coke is in Africa not to enlighten the natives, eradicate diseases or to help out the poor. I use Coke here as a symbol only, it is neither better nor worse than the others.
I am, however, saying that Third World countries' debts should be cancelled immediately. In fact, the West should be paying them reparations for past injustices. I am not suggesting cash handouts, but something like building/maintaining infrastructure, investing in education etc.
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Why not China, or France??
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what you are referring to exactly the legacy of colonialism!
there are many interesting influences to be seen in the Islands.....
I've observed in three places the following:
British influence in Bermuda, for example, makes the locals stand patiently in line at theatres, restaurants, etc, and to exhibit civil respect authority, and act with class. they work hard...they work together....they work within the rule of law.
French past influence in haiti seems to show vestiges of French culture...almost the direct opposite of Brit culture!!!
where no one is willing to wait in line!! everybody just piles up toward the front .....they reject authority....they reject rules...
they act individually...they prefer to think, and watch others work!!!
Puerto Rico is another example of history and geography influencing behavior!!! Once on a weeks tour there, it was quite noticeable that they had the same theft problem that parts of to NYC have....where Ricans have migrated.
litter in the streets,and bars on the windows.
My visit to PR suggested why:
Islanders grew up believing that everybody owned everything...no concept of personal property...so what you have, is mine, and when you are not looking, I am justified in "liberating" it..... this applied to food....bananas, pineaples, coconuts...if growing wild....were owned in common .....and could be taken by anybody...
one day while touring the north shore, I happened upon a refreshment "stand"....a cardboard table, a guy with a sign...
"cocos...un dollar".....so I stopped....the guy picked up a coconut off the ground, broke open the "eye" with a (probably filthy) screwdriver, and offered me the "milk"...which for sanitary reasons, I refused, but asked for the "meat" from the inside which I thought I could obtain with my own swiss army knife....
he hacked open the coconut with his (dirty) machete, gave me a portion, but the taste of fresh, green coconut does not remind me of the sweet taste of commercially available coconut, and I thanked him, payed my dollar, and watched as he just swept everything off the card table onto the beach.
There was s 30 foot long trail of broken shells.... he appeared to have been there for days or weeks, and simply moved his table a foot or two beyond the mess he had created the previous day.....
however, the "mess" created was a local , natural product, and it decayed quickly in the warm weather into topsoil...a seemingly natural process.
the day before flying home, I read in a local paper how they were holding seminars for locals at an in town hotel...free dinner and drinks...to tell locals how to get free airline tickets to migrate to the mainland, for better welfare, school, and subsidized apartment benefits...of all places, in Springfield, Mass..... kinda of like florida swamp agents offering free trips to their development to sell their product....maybe some large developers with US gov grant money for subsidized housing trying to fill up their apartment buildings.....
so the islanders move to the mainland, where they receive food vouchers valid to obtain burgers at BurgerKing...which come wrapped in aluminium foil....which they promptly discard into the streets like coconut shells!!! and they bring with them their ancient island disposition that everything is owned by everybody...hence the need for bars on the windows and double locks on the doors!!!
one need only observe the barbed wire and broken glass embedded atop the stone walls surrounding the SanJuan international airport to understand that different climates and different histories result in different ideas!!!
my guess is that northern europeans grew up more "selfishly"....learning quickly..the first winter...that if you didn't plant, you didn't harvest, and that if you didn't save up for winter, you didn't survive....so the concept of personal responsibility grew along with the notion of "owned" property....if you worked, you got to keep it. so you worked, and kept your place neat, and saved for a rainy day....and recently voted for Scott Brown!!!
while the "islander" notion of common ownership, and bananas and cocos are "free", resulted in the litter and welfare problems visible in some of our N. eastern cities, and the notion that someone should inherit Ted Kennedy's "seat".
just my personal opinion....and I could be wrong....
If electricity comes from electrons, does morality come from morons?
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bob_2,
France IS in the West. And it certainly should pay reparation as one of the main colonial powers!
As for China, it did not take part in the Berlin conference and was never a colonial power in Africa: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_conference. Having said that, it is quickly emerging as a new economic colonialist power and it is already responsible for a lot of evil there.
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