Live 8: Es el Estado, estúpidos (II)

Leído en The Blog Herald. (No nos olvidemos que la pobreza africana y la latinoamericana, aunque en diferentes grados, tienen el mismo origen: corrupción e ineficiencia de sus gobernantes).

African bloggers slam Live 8

Interesting feedback coming from some excellent African blogs I’ve stumbled across via an article at FT.com criticizing Live 8.

Some of the best commentary and coverage can be found at Black Looks, who covers Live 8 as well as Zimbabwe with this striking comment:

As for African governments refusing to condemn Mugabe that is hardly surprising as they are all one side of the same coin. How can (Nigerian President) Obasanjo condemn Mugabe when he is committing human rights violations himself? What have African leaders done about Darfur- nothing. So why should they break the mold and condemn Mugabe? It is African leaders who are only interested in solidarity for African leaders. The people vote differently.

For those who might actually be deep enough to actually ask Africans what’s wrong with Africa instead of getting on the Live 8 guilt bandwagon (or should that have been Live 8: help African nations purchase more Mercedes because some of them only bought 20 for their leaders this year) check out some of these blogs.

Afican Bullets and Honey: A sometimes satirical and always interesting look at Africa, its politics and people

Thinkers Room: “the quicker leaders of poor nations that appear begging in 6 door Mercedes limousines are thrown out smartly on their ears the sooner they will learn from the school of hard knocks that they have to live within their means.”

Passion of the Present: “a place for sharing ideas and inspiration on how to stop the genocide in Darfur, Sudan”

Otro post anterior del mismo blog decía:

Why I m not supporting Live 8

Duncan Riley> The Blog Herald is a not a political blog and I hope it never will be, but I’ve been emailed by a few people asking me to link to blogs and related sites covering Live 8. Whilst I respect the people who have asked, and know that many supporting Live 8 do so with good intent, I won’t be supporting Live 8, and its not just my mostly general dislike of modern music that’s driving it (note I do like Coldplay though :-) )

Here’s my beef. The Aims of Live 8 are said to be as follows:
“Live 8’s aim is to get the attention of the leaders of the eight largest industrialized nations, the Group of Eight or G-8, ahead of their July 6 meeting in Scotland. The message: Forgive Africa’s debt and formulate a concrete plan to double aid, wipe out hunger and poverty, and help Africans become viable trade partners to the rest of the world.”

All very well and good, but it ignores the real problem in many countries in Africa and that’s governance. Seriously, ask youself, we went through “Live Aid” 20 years ago, Western countries have spent billions of dollars in aid in that time in Africa, and how much further have we advanced today?… In the most part: ZILCH. And the aims of Live 8 will achieve the same, throw some more money at the problem and hope it will go away. Guess what people, it won’t. The whole guilt industry that Western society is to blame for the plight of the African people is rubbish. If the same held true then why is Asia booming? Again the issue at hand is Governance. Most of the world stands silent whilst the butcherer of Zimbabwe Robert Mugagbe destroys the homes of millions of people all because they didn’t vote for him. Does Live 8 look at challenging Mugabe? Of course not, because we are to blame, not the Goverments of many of the nations of Africa. Seriously ask yourself this…we talk about forgiving debt. How did all these nations come to be in such as great debt? They borrowed the money in the first place and they mis-spent it. How much longer must we keep spending billions on Africa whilst the majority of people live in poverty or in the case of a number of countries now, actually die out. Debt relief will make NO DIFFERENCE because those same countries that F*cked up their finances in the first place will continue to do so. The Western world will continue to ignore the political genocide in Zimbabwe because its not PC to talk up about these things in “black countries”. Want to help the people of Africa? Write to your goverment no matter where you live and urge them to take a stand in favour of democracy and good governance in Africa, because the only real future Africa will have is if this happens.

Tags: argenblogs