An African Understands the Problem with Africa
With all the bruhaha being made by spoiled Rock stars and the idiots in the G8 about the "plight" in Africa, they fail to realize what the real solution needs to be. Instead they need to be listening to this man, James Shikwati, an African who REALLY understands Africa.
Here we have an intelligent person that lives in Africa, who realizes that the African Welfare system is NOT the solution. These bleeding hearts, with all their guilt-ridden compassion, need to understand that their Band-Aid fix of throwing money at the problem, is only exasperating it, not helping. What they really need to be doing is helping to shore up the infrastructure, to enable Africans to fix the problem themselves. If they want to help, they need to go into these countries, train up the Africans themselves, show them options of possible solutions, support them in their endeavor and stand back and let the African work it out themselves. And in case of a African country that is ruled by a greedy despot, bypass that country. This may seem cruel, but that country's people need to realize that their despot is preventing them from succeeding. You only have to look at America's Welfare system to realize that the Bleeding Hearts ideas are doomed to failure. I am not saying that people don't need or deserve help every once in a while, but when you continue to support them, without giving a way out of the problem, all you have done it enable them to rely upon you and your free money. A lot of Africans, such as James Shikwati, understand the situation, and they are the ones that need to be leading the distribution of relief aid, not the bleeding hearts.
Mr Minority
DAKAR, Senegal -- In Niger, a desert country twice the size of Texas, most of the 11 million people live on a dollar a day. Forty percent of children are underfed, and one out of four dies before turning 5. And that's when things are normal. Throw in a plague of locusts, and a familiar spectacle emerges: skeletal babies, distended bellies, people too famished to brush the flies from their faces.
To the aid workers charged with saving the dying, the immediate challenge is to raise relief money and get supplies to the stricken areas. They leave it to the economists and politicians to come up with a lasting remedy. One such economist is James Shikwati. He blames foreign aid.
"When aid money keeps coming, all our policy-makers do is strategize on how to get more," said the Kenya-based director of the Inter Region Economic Network, an African think tank.
"They forget about getting their own people working to solve these very basic problems. In Africa, we look to outsiders to solve our problems, making the victim not take responsibility to change."
Here we have an intelligent person that lives in Africa, who realizes that the African Welfare system is NOT the solution. These bleeding hearts, with all their guilt-ridden compassion, need to understand that their Band-Aid fix of throwing money at the problem, is only exasperating it, not helping. What they really need to be doing is helping to shore up the infrastructure, to enable Africans to fix the problem themselves. If they want to help, they need to go into these countries, train up the Africans themselves, show them options of possible solutions, support them in their endeavor and stand back and let the African work it out themselves. And in case of a African country that is ruled by a greedy despot, bypass that country. This may seem cruel, but that country's people need to realize that their despot is preventing them from succeeding. You only have to look at America's Welfare system to realize that the Bleeding Hearts ideas are doomed to failure. I am not saying that people don't need or deserve help every once in a while, but when you continue to support them, without giving a way out of the problem, all you have done it enable them to rely upon you and your free money. A lot of Africans, such as James Shikwati, understand the situation, and they are the ones that need to be leading the distribution of relief aid, not the bleeding hearts.
Mr Minority
