A few meanderings on Africa

Hello all,

Today I added a new link to my blog – the Affirmheid blog. This blog is set up to highlight the various activities of blatant ethnic and racial discrimination being perpetrated in various Southern African countries in the name of “affirmative action.” Its worth a read just to see what is going on in Zimbabwe, Namibia, and South Africa.

Why do I care what is going on down there? Well, for those of you who did not know, I was born in Rhodesia. Although I have lived in England longer than in any other country, and for over half my life in total, I spent a good number of my formative years in Zimbabwe, the country that Rhodesia became after a rather nasty combination of communist backed insurgency and international political back stabbing.

I have been pondering lately on why nothing ever gets done about the mad bastards who are running Africa into the ground. Sure, even a madly pro-colonial like myself has to recognise that European Imperial policy is somewhat responsible, but many of these countries have been independent since the 1960s, surely that is enough time to find their own feet and start on a path to stability and (relative) prosperity?

Yes, we all know about fair trade thanks to the chattering classes, and there may even be some truth in the claim that its Western business practices that are keeping the “3rd world” down. But this is far from the whole story. I recently watched, for a second time, the excellent film “Blood Diamond” which, along with Leonardo DiCaprio actually doing a pretty fair Rhodesian/South African accent for an American, brought to attention an acronym that is chilling in its simplicity and applicability.

Both DiCaprio and various others say, at various points in the movie, “TIA” – “This is Africa”. Three simple letters that do so much to portray the shocking state of Africa and the cynical jaded acceptance of the status quo by the people who live and work on that continent.

What does TIA really mean though? In general, it stands for corruption, for politicians doing nothing more than pillaging their countries and sending the loot to Swiss banks. It stands for deep seated ethnic hatreds, most of which pre-date European colonisation, that transcend what the Western chattering classes would term simple prejudice or racism.

It stands for a generally low estimation of the value of human life, of human dignity, of human rights. A willingness to perpetrate horrendous crimes on anyone and everyone who stands in the way of whoever is in a position of power, no matter their gender or age.

It stands for "democratically elected" governments for acting in the pseudo-feudal manner of paramount chieftains of centuries past, massacreing their opponents, albeit in socio-economic terms rather than literal in some of the more stable countries.

Sadly, this is not hyperbole and nonsense. One only has to listen to the news to see how bad things in Africa are (Zimbabwe, Darfur, what used to be Zaire), and one only has to do a small amount of research to see how bad they can get (Rwanda).

Sure, there are isolated success stories. Botswana, for example, has managed to avoid the worst excesses of African politics and social unrest. Zambia and Mozambique are clawing their way to modest prosperity after many years of economic meltdown and/or civil war. It should bear notice that the latter two countries owe a large portion of their recovery to cooperation between their indigenous black population and white Africans displaced from Zimbabwe and South Africa, who have settled in new lands.

But why should we have so few countries to point to as success stories? Why does the west allow people like Robert Mugabe to do what he has done to wreck Zimbabwe and reduce its economic and industrial development to the same place it was in the 1950s? Why do they say nothing while Thabo Mbeki of South Africa and Hifikepunye Pohamba of Namibia begin to march their own countries down the same path?

Tony Blair, for all of his problems, espoused a doctrine that I heartedly agree with – Humanitarian Intervention. The debacle of Iraq (which I mostly blame the Americans for – but that is another post) aside, Western intervention, largely inspired by Tony, in Kosovo, Sierra Leone, and Afghanistan had immediate and positive results. But why has the West not acted in Darfur? In Zimbabwe? Why will it not act when Namibia and South Africa go the same way as Zimbabwe?

The answer is simple. Guilt. Thanks to the dominance of left-wing apologists, shaped in the “feel-good” nonsense of the 1960s and 1970s, in the media and political spheres of the West, they are paralyzed by a misplaced sense of guilt over our colonial past, and an almost pathological fear of being seen as neo-colonialists should they answer the moral necessity and bring the excesses of Africa to heel.

The very same people who sponsor heart wrenching infomercials of starving African children, who throw lavish concerts to increase awareness, who use every iota of political and social influence that they can bring to bear on shaping policy to reduce poverty in the 3rd world, it is their fault, and the fault of those who agree with them, that Africa is in the state that it is in.

Giving aid to countries where democracy is non-existent and ethnic and racial oppression exists is wrong. Supporting businesses in countries where the government exists to shaft their own people and get rich doing it is wrong.

Yet the aid continues and the sympathy and racial-cultural guilt endemic in Western countries rages unabated by reality and expediency. Until people get over the ridiculous idea that all of the worlds problems are because on white Westerners, the situation in Africa will never improve. What is past is past. African countries need to get responsible and ethical leaders in place. They need to stamp out corruption and archaic and destructive urges to massacre each other indiscriminately. Once they have, everyone concerned can get on with peaceful and profitable development.

This will need a period of “tough love” from the West, but at the end of it we might see stable, sane, sensible African countries that can take advantage of the huge natural resources, natural entrepreneurial spirit and intelligence of the indigenous African people, and the good will of the West to build better countries and a better continent.

But this will not happen, because cry-baby idiots wracked by irrational feelings of responsibility for the acts of past generations are the ones who have the say on out TVs, in our schools, in our governmental legislatures, and on the pages of our newspapers and magazines.

Given this state of affairs, I am confident that my 5 month old daughter will one day hear the acronym TIA and know exactly what it means, because things have, at best, stayed the same in Africa, but more than likely have become far far worse.