Suddenly, the world is talking about Africa
By GERRY LOUGHRAN Sunday Nation | July 3, 2005 http://www.nationmedia.com/dailynation/nmgcontententry.asp?category_id=25&newsid=52303 Any foreigner who ever worked in Kenya can tell you of the friend back home who says: "Oh, you live in Nairobi! My aunt lives in Johannesburg, why don't you pop by some evening for a cup of tea." For years, Africa has truly been the dark continent as far as the light of knowledge is concerned and if game park safaris and palm-fringed beaches later came to enlighten some rich tourists about geography and wild life, basic knowledge of Africa's fortunes could be summed up in the phrase "wars and famines". Not any more. The British public is being deluged with information. Huge BBC billboards by the roadside proclaim "Africa Lives" and television programmes range from a weekly series on a school in Uganda to pop star Sir Bob Geldof's travels through the continent. Many newspapers are running special issues, such as the two pages every day which the popular free paper, Metro, is devoting to the continent. The latest section tells us about the benefits to farmers of the Fairtrade scheme, how it is that much-needed African doctors are being drained to the West, and the continuing rows about Zimbabwe and the forced repatriation of some of its exiles. One intriguing story explains that most Americans believe they already give enough to the world's poor. They told pollsters that 10 per cent of the country's Budget is spent on foreign aid; in fact the figure is 0.2 per cent. US courts wrote off £25 billion of debts through personal bankruptcy cases last year five times what the country gives in aid. "In terms of debt forgiveness, Americans are much more generous to themselves," commented Forbes magazine. All this publicity has been generated by Prime Minister Tony Blair making Africa the centrepiece of the forthcoming G8 summit, in Scotland, of eight powerful nations from Asia, Europe and North America. Crucially, this has been boosted by Geldof and pop guru Bono laying on a series of eight concerts in London and elsewhere round the world to publicise the aims of the Make Poverty History campaign. The Live8 concert scheduled to take place in London's Hyde Park yesterday was to be the biggest ticket event ever held in Britain 150,000 spectators plus 55,000 watching on 12 giant screens. Featured artists, among them leading African musicians, were billed as U2, Coldplay, Madonna, Paul McCartney and a reformed Pink Floyd. The summit and the concerts have highlighted the problems of Africa in a way nothing has ever achieved here and the goodwill is immense. But it is not unanimous. The same Metro newspaper that devoted generous space to the countdown to Gleneagles, carried this letter from Andrew Taylor of London: "When the British were running the empire, there was little corruption. Compare this to African leaders today; during his dictatorship of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mobutu Sese Seko salted away billions, as did, and do, so many other African leaders. "This brings me to the point of relieving poverty in Africa. What a waste of money. The man with the big black Mercedes will continue to stash away his ill-gotten gains in his Swiss bank account. "Look at all the black people being killed by Robert Mugabe. No African leader lifts a finger to stop him because they all admire him so much. No Western leader lifts a finger to stop him either. Maybe this is because the masses he is killing are black." This deeply cynical letter is not typical but there is a body of Western opinion which fears that donations will support dictators and exacerbate human rights abuses; what Africa needs, this argument goes, is free trade and democratic space. Certainly, Mr Mugabe's demolition of the so-called illegal structures, has shocked people here and dampened some enthusiasm for the Africa campaign; they see it as similar to the policy of "forced repatriation" in South Africa under apartheid, and knowledgeable commentators also refer to Kenya's ethnic violence in the Rift Valley in the recent past. There is a marked difference between Britain, its European partners and the United States on one hand and Zimbabwe's neighbours on the other. The African Union, which represents 53 countries, believes Mr Mugabe is entitled to clean up his country and crack down on the black market. People here are dismayed that the human factor is being ignored and refugees are trundling their pathetic belongings on carts like a replay of World War Two. The African corruption issue is brought up regularly but the motor-mouthed Geldof makes the point that if we wait for corruption to stop, millions more will simply die, and when it comes to venality, the West has more than its fair share of crooks, as witness the conviction and jailing of high-flying businessmen in the United States and Europe. Optimistically, a growing body of experts believes that a fundamental shift has occurred in the thinking of the world's leaders. Before 2005, development issues were way down the rankings in the political arena. Today they are up near the top and well-wishers believe this will lead to real change for the world's poorest. Because Britain is the presiding country of the G8 grouping this year, it was allowed to choose the the two main issues for the Gleneagles summit and Blair went for Africa and climate change. This was clever. He knew he had little chance of persuading President George Bush to act seriously against his oil giants, thus forcing him to be more generous on African poverty and debt. "I think that on Africa there is a real sense of coming together," Blair said a few days ago. "Climate change is obviously very difficult." By this time next week, we will know how effective that coming together has been. *** One motorist said it was like driving into a cloud of money. Suddenly along a stretch of the M3 near Winchester, £20 notes began blowing out of a rucksack carried by the pillion passenger on a motor-cycle. The distraught motor-cyclists and several car and truck drivers tried frantically to collect the cash but a strong wind blew the notes across both carriageways and when a count was done, only £500 of the £11,000 from the bag had been recovered. The police were interested. Said a spokeswoman: "The fact that they had so much money on them did cause suspicion. Their excuse was that they were going to buy a car but checks are taking place into all possible options." *** No offence to Christians or mothers-in-law but I thought this was worth retelling. A British man visited Jerusalem with his mother-in-law, where, sadly, she died. The visitor talked to a rabbi about disposal of the body and the rabbi said the lady could be repatriated to Britain at a cost of £15,000 or he could bury her in Jerusalem for £150. The man thought long and hard and opted to have the body taken back to Britain. The rabbi was aghast, pointing to the difference in expense. "Yes, true," said the Englishman thoughtfully, "but 2,000 years ago a man was buried in Jerusalem and three days later he was up and walking around. I cannot take the chance." -- This is ZESTGlobal. Post articles on international affairs to [email protected] If you got this mail as a forward, subscribe to ZESTGlobal by sending a blank mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] OR, if you have a Yahoo! ID, by visiting http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTGlobal/join/ Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTGlobal/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
