Can't we bomb over there for humanitarian reasons?

The truth is this: Africa doesn't need food... it's not a shortage of food that is a problem (yes, in certain areas like Ethiopia it's necessary)... the issue is that Africans have lost their culture to do things for themselves. I think to a great extent this is because people have come and given instead of taught. The old chinese proverb is well illustrated here in Africa... we give to them to feed them, but never teach them to grow, to plan, to strategize. The end result is fed tummies today, hungry minds tomorrow.

Now move look at it from a different perspective, as an African. Here you are in Nigeria, where you hardly have any chance of getting employed. Food isn't particularly scarce, as you can grow veggies or fish for food... so you cruise down to your local fishing spot to pick up some lil' ones for dinner... BANG, suddenly there's this big-ass oil refinery fenced off where you always fished... where did this come from? now suddenly this "Shell" has introduced something called a Cell phone? And it costs less than my groceries? And these "casettes and CDs"? What are these wonderful things? Wow... and all this to take the oil from my land? Sure... take away! Oh, but what if you leave... what then? So you leave us with no resources, you've polluted our water, and given us blank cd's and the remnants of the MTV generation.

Let's be honest here... Helping Africa help itself is the way to go, but up till today the only reason why anyone has shown ANY interest in Africa has been due to it's wealth of resources and minerals. The Corporations and Governments (US, China, UK, etc) have been plundering the continent like the savage pirates they are... leaving nothing behind but old Nike's, satellite dishes and cheap cellphones. Africa cannot save itself because the trade agreements with China secure cheap goods to flood our market... this means that locally produced goods have no where to go...

So before anyone points fingers as to whether Africa should or shouldn't be helped, let's first ask whether our INTENTIONS for helping Africa, and even our METHODS, are sincere.

Euro-whites and weinies have not allowed any of the African countries to defend their borders and their populations from immigration. Cultural "Relativism" has made it impossible to defend and improve their circumstances--it is impossible to pull yourself out of the stone-age if you are supposed to preserve stone-age tribes and social morays like they are in some sort of "ZOO".

The Kenyans described some of the tribes to be as locusts; the are nomadic only in the fact that the destroy the environment in which they live, then move on. The movements of these tribes has resulted in genicidal wars in the past--and the present--in Africa.

Those who are anti-religion have made their bias clear. Christianity condemns promiscuity, as does Islam--They both also condemn pedophilia and sex-for-food. All of which are responsible for the spread of AIDS.

Stone-Age peoples' population was controlled by disease, starvation, and genicidal war; not some sort of "new-age" connection with the land. People who spread and/or believe such are woefully ignorant--regardless of their profession or professed education.

Anne, I'm not sure if you're responding to me or not. My argument about food has nothing to do with it being Africa. It's all about how a population reacts to a huge and sudden drop in infant mortality, and a sudden rise in life expectancy. As I said, the huge population boom didn't happen as much in the Europe because the culture of having large families to work the farms had time to change as Europe slowly became industrialized and urbanized.

You'll find a statistical tendency to larger families in most rural or agricultural areas, and smaller families in wealthier educated urban areas. Even within the US and Europe.

Let em tough it out.

I've been to various parts of Africa when I was in the Military.

If they can't survive on their own, maybe they shouldn't.

Feed the Nigerians so they can scam our citizens?
No thanks... Send em condoms as aid, or ammunition...

but anyway, the problems in africa are not just of this century. it started when european explorers crossed the mediterranean and saw all the "darkies" who needed saving from the devil by introducing the "saving powers" of christianity, and the rest is history. we have been hurting africa for as long as we have known africa was there. if we would have stayed away and let them live in their own conditions, i believe today's conditions would be a different story. the african population may not exist had we left them alone, but that would be natural selection at its finest. who knows.. maybe the people would have flourished? there is no way of telling.

the fact that we went in the first place set a standard. we introduced our own standards and believed their conditions were "unfortunate" because they were not the same as ours. we think we have to "help" them, when in fact we are only trying to "raise" their standards to mirror our own. OUR STANDARDS ARE OURS, AND OURS ONLY. if they wanted our "help" they would have found a way to ask. instead, we just went in and treated them all like lost children. their people lived fine without us there, and they would have continued to if we left them alone. of course we wouldn't have nearly the black/white diversity we have here in the US today had it not been for slavery, but what a terrible way to create diversity.

of course, this raises the question: if the white-europeans hadn't gone to africa to introduce the teachings of jesus, who would have? it's in human nature to explore the unkown, so SOME group of people would have claimed the land as their own to "fix." considering the other majority is muslim, i would guess THEY would have taken the baton. i'm not trying to discriminate against muslims, because i know the vast majority are truly good religious people who mind their own business. and thank-you if you are one of them because the small minority of radicals are ruining your culture, and i feel bad for you. but it would have been those kinds of extremists who would have taken power, and who knows what the conditions would be like today had that happened?

Ireland has a very good record on its international aid figures, and Irish people personally donate one of the highest amounts per capita in the EU. I hope that this will give a more balanced view of Ireland at least. There are plently of people who will agree to this (to my shame) especially in times of recession and inflation.

We in Ireland should remember when one million people died in the potato famine (a further million emmigrated)- must have done wonders for our surplus population....

This is a racist article, one which places a value on human life. It is an antiquated notion, a relic from Victorian times when simply being poor made you worthless.

Like someone said before.
This is a country full of PEOPLE, not STRAY CATS, DOGS, or plottable statistics. REAL LIVE HUMAN PEOPLE.

how about you invade, rape and pillage a country for hundreds of years, then say the horrible shit the author said in his article, and tell me how you like the backlash. can you seriously agree let alone defend his opinion.

fuck, (this and the comments) totally bummed my day.
we as a race are doomed with thinkers like this amongst us.

i'm tipsy and make more sense then the proponents of this idea.

alex, poor taste yo

thanks for the tip, i'll have to give it a look. i've been curious about arguments against quinn's work but haven't had the easiest time spotting them.

In a world of limited resources, it would mathematical sense to look at the problem in numbers, what is going in, what is coming out...a chemical equation that is Africa.

But the problem with Africa is not mathematical or biological, its social and there are very human problems caused by humans, and the pain can only be alleviated through human intervention.

On the subject of overpopulation, Bangladesh is the most densely populated country in the world, and they have made amazing strides in keeping population under control by using education and resources brought in by other countries. It took time, but they have had great successes in bringing down the birth rate. Similar resources and education should be provided...

Of course, most of the problems come from who is in power. While the world shakes their head at these horrible people, someone is still buying the diamonds and other resources they do horde to keep them rich.

Because the earth has limited resources, humans should be more keen on figuring out how to save the continent of Africa instead of simply throwing stuff at it or suggesting we turn our heads and plug our ears (while pouring resources into wars and ships to get us off the planet).

Life seems to work in cycles, whether it be biofeedback, human history, or the earth itself recycling. Many believe that human life began in Africa, and ignoring the continent may be the beginning of the end.

Andri, I'm gonna have to pick on what you said for a little bit. I've read Ishmael, and its a fun read. But he presents the world in a totally inaccurate way. Native, or indigenous, cultures are generally not at peace with the environment. It may appear that way, and popular culture sure reinforces that stereotype, but it's not accurate.

I'm not going to go into any large specifics here, but Easter Island is an excellent example of an indigenous culture not able to sustain itself. I'd recommend reading Jared Diamond's book "Collapse" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapse_(book) for more info. It's a fantastic book.

Changing topics a little back to population: one more very interesting image to the people who think we're going to overpopulate the earth and we "westerners" should be personally responsible: http://www.prb.org/images07/62.3_01GlblPopGrth.gif

Almost all of this growth happened because we broke the previous barriers of food production during the "Green Revolution". It was actually so successful that the US and Europe dumped cheap food on the rest of the world (in part because of aid, partly to keep out farmers in business now that grain is so cheap).

Demographically, people in agriculturally dominated food-poor nations had been attempting to have large families to run their subsistence farms (kids = free labor ). This has just been the cultural norm in many of these regions.

So back to the Green Revolution and Malthusian Principle: we flood their economies with cheap or free food. Infant morality goes WAY down REALLY fast, but cultural norms don't change that fast. So people keep having kids until the culture changes and population skyrockets.

The "west" went through this same thing a long time ago, but it was a gradual process where the norms changed at the same pace of the slow innovation.

Um... now that I've written an encyclopedia... if it's any consolation several demographers expect total global population to drop over the next century as developing nations urbanize and industrialize.

And of course it is more complicated than this. there are corrupt governments, and a nasty colonial history. But this population issue is why I think the majority of our aid money should be going to slowing down the population growth that the green revolution and outdated cultural norms have created.

To conclude that any aid would exacerbate the problems could be a compelling argument if better posed, especially economically speaking, but still an argument with stronger, more sound opposition.

I'd have to agree with the author; we're not helping much by pouring more money into Africa. But the poverty is only a symptom of the real problems there; the root cause of much that ails Africa is political corruption. Much of the money that comes into African countries gets skimmed off by crooked politicians and bureaucrats. Those same politicians & bureaucrats — or others very much like them — keep the people beaten down so that they remain dependent on the crooked governments. And those same politicians & bureaucrats — or others very much like them — keep getting re-elected in the democratic nations, or fight their way to becoming dictators. Makes one wonder if colonialism was really all that bad a deal.

You'd think that after a couple millennia Africa would have it a little more, umm... together. How is it that Africa has been inhabited for so long and is still such a mess?

@Homer Jay: I was surprised to see so many cell phones in Africa when I visited there in 2004. They're not often seen in the most impoverished ares, because they cost money; if people have no work to produce income, they can't support a phone. Communication is becoming increasingly important as Africa modernizes; cell phone networks are much cheaper to install & maintain than landlines, so it only makes sense to go that way. But I still find it hard to understand how many Africans can justify spending such a large percentage of what little they do earn on cell phones.

I agree not much can be done while the message of 'procreate wildly' is reinforced by their culture.

The thought in many of these communities is that one must have lots of children too have a better chance of one surviving to carry the family on. But people have come in with their vaccines and food and now the population has blown up because the people are still breeding like crazy not realizing that they no longer need to do that in order to keep their family going.

There is also the introduction of useless technologies into these areas. Even MTV noticed this problem where they showed a girl living in a shack made of trash, BUT SHE HAS A CELLPHONE.

These countries are only third world countries because we compare them to first world countries. What ever was working for them before will work for them now, we just need to allow them to progress on their own instead of going in and trying to speed up the process.

Africa is fucked up because of an imperial system that raped the continent of natural resources and of people, which destabilized indigenous government and social order, and from which the West (that's us!) benefited and continues to benefit.

for those of you saying "they're not animals, they're people" i have to ask what are humans if not another animal on this planet? most of whom*, for some bizarre reason, claim ownership to the entire planet and recklessly inhibit the way of life of so many other species.

i don't say any of this from on top of a tower because i know i'm not helping as much as i could, but the problem at hand is so much bigger than we think. it's not going to take a fraction of us to fix it, it's going to take all of us to fix it, mostly in very small ways. i highly suggest reading daniel quinn's books: ishmael, the story of b, and my ishmael. they talk pretty much exclusively about this subject and i think i agree with him, and the author of the article.

*many "indigenous cultures" have lived in a way that is sustainable and doesn't tax the land. it may be they didn't consciously do this, but this is just how they evolved to do it, because it works. (i know, i know... i'm regurgitating quinn's ideas, but i think they're pretty spot on)

That's why they need education, not hand-outs. You don't learn anything by getting a free ride. It's like a mother who does absolutely everything for her kid and then wonders why he can't even do his own damn laundry when he's forty. Except in this case, the stakes are a lot higher than just having no clean underwear.

I'd say this for any suffering continent.