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Elizabeth502
Guest
I didn’t say we shouldn’t “hear your voice.” I said that hand-wringing, without action (I said also earlier) is just a broken record. I also said (as did others) that blaming strangers on a message board for not single-handedly reversing the corruption inside African governments is uncharitable and unjust.
Africa is a complex continent. (I can’t think of any continents, off-hand, that aren’t.) It was once heavily colonized. There were also, as you probably know, major political upheavals a generation or two ago, which allowed many countries to regain a certain national pride but which also left them unstable. Add to that the whole Apartheid crisis and resolution of many years ago, which was both a mirror of the endemic inequalities and which drained from the region its productivity, and for many years. (Wars, including internal ones, always, always affect economies of nations; prosperity is invariably linked to peace.) Then you have cultural considerations, including tribal concepts and realities which do not neatly fit into First World expectations and operations.
Africa is still heavily missionary territory for many religions, not just Catholic. And there’s a reason for that: the various countries haven’t begun, overall, to meet living standards of the developed world, which, paradoxically (if they could), would make it easier to deal with their hunger from the distance of other continents.
The worldwide mission should not necessarily narrowly focus on hunger, although that’s always the most immediate concern, obviously. The mission should focus on Development. However, that also is easier said than done, due to very different agricultural conditions, climate conditions, local political situations (including tribal). Bringing cultures which have been economically stagnant for so long suddenly up to the level of the 21st century is a Herculean task, but I suggest that the most responsible and honest efforts, on the part of the Big Powers + the U.N. should be focused on internal economic development, communications, and infrastructure. Those are not necessarily subject to seizure, en masse, by government officials.
If I were to make any suggestion to you, it would be to open an initiative (or get a friend to help you with the tech aspects of this) to petition the U.N (possibly through various representatives in Congress or other US gov’t members). to declare sub-Saharan Africa an Economic War Zone and one in immediate danger, forcing a situation which would allow for U.N. oversight and intervention, such as the UN does in transitional military situations, etc. What is needed to speed the process of ending starvation is to override the local impediments and to bring to bear First World authority (not just non-profit groups but authority) in a decisive and visible way. That would be an authority that would situate itself, long-term, in such regions, to help with modernization, so that then non-profit groups, individuals, and non-African governments could be effective in initial outreach and so the various African countries could become economically independent or at least semi-independent much faster than waiting for the 22nd century.
