How much pity can u have for african starving nations?

I'm going to avoid flaming you, because you seem genuinely interested. I'm assuming you don't have a background in anthropology or any social science...So, I'll give it to you in a nut shell:
Poor people have kids because...
they live in a patriarchal society
they don't have access to sex education or birth control
they are religious
children die often
children can work, and work means food
children are a status symbol
children will take care of you when you're old
and many other reasons...

So, no, I do not have a problem with giving aid to poor people if it goes towards food, education, women's empowerment etc.

 

Um, it kind of is. The West spread a lot of disease in the places it colonized. This usually helped them take-out most of the native population. That put them at a slight disadvantage lol.

 

But that was much, much later.. When in Europe and Asia they had already made great technological breakthroughs, particularly of warfare, in Africa (and America) they were still living the tribal life of Europeans and Asians millenia before them.

Hell, even the romans 2000 years ago were more developed and organized than the sub-saharan Africans of a few hundred years ago.

To answer the OP, not too much, to be honest. Yes, of course, war and famine is always terrible. Yes, the Europeans and the USA, and even many middle eastern nations, have greatly exploited the African nations over the centuries and for that my heart bleeds.

However, even in the most advanced of western and eastern nations, poverty, hunger and crime are still everyday elements for many people. I do not feel as if my own land has a particular obligation to help people of other nations until it has curbed its own problems (Although the leaders feel differently, fortunately for those in third-world countries.)

If I went there, likely my sympathy would be greater. But it seems to me the African peoples have never really done much to help themselves. In Europe, hundreds of years ago, when the ruling castes became too oppressive, the masses rose up in revolt and replaced them. In Africa, we see dictator after dictator perform atrocity after atrocity. Is it just the lack of information? Or fear? Why will the African masses not rise up, dethrone their despots, and create a better world for themselves? How many centuries of exploitation will they suffer? Not only from industrialized nations, but also from their corrupt local governments who enable such exploitation.

As for the excessive breeding, I find that entirely reasonable. As has been pointed out, it is important for many reasons to have many children in this part of the world. Overpopulation is not the most serious issue in Africa; if resources were distributed fairly, if instead of cash crops to export to western/asian nations they grew food, if they could unite and their leaders were not corrupt, I believe they could make great progress, and quickly. For how many centuries have we heard of famine and terrible conditions in Africa? How do the African people expect nothing will change unless they change something?

 

And to that, I can only respond with a bit of light reading suggestions:

The Bottom Billion by Collier: Gives you answers to your questions of "Why won't Africans rise up?"
Guns, Germs, and Steel by Diamond: Counters your seemingly ethnocentric claims about Europeans being better.

 

Ethnocentric? Claims about Europeans being better? Either you didn't read my post, or you need to work on your reading comprehension. Europe has always been miles ahead of Africa in terms of technology. Whether or not technological prowess is a good thing is a different discussion. But you can't reasonably claim that Europeans are responsible for slow technological progress in Africa.

I honestly don't care enough about the African peoples' inability to rise up against their oppressors to read a book about it. I understand that in modern times it will be very difficult to get out of the grip of foreign and corporate interests, but my point is that it's their own leaders who have let it go this far, indeed, enabled it to go so far. And I see no reason to dole out billions of dollars in foreign aid to corrupt governments when your country has plenty of problems of its own.

If you really want to help Africans, go there and educate them. Sending money is a minimal effort, minimal results solution. Clears your conscience, but does sweet fuck all for the people who need the aid. (That goes for individuals as well as govt's, btw.)

 

notice that i said "seemingly" in regards to how your views may come off to others.

my question to you is why should leaders in africa stop being corrupt if it benefits them? they have no concept of national or patriotic pride often times. these are very western concepts.

i do agree with you that just "sending money" is often pointless if it isn't being used correctly.

 

Fair enough, hopefully this will have cleared things for any others who might have thought I felt one was "better" than the other.

Patriotism.. it's a virtue of the vicious. It leads to separatist mentality and inevitably cruelty to those who a) aren't patriotic or b) belong on the side of a perceived enemy. It is a blight on the world. Not very relevant, but patriotism really irks me.

Why should leaders stop being corrupt if it benefits them? Well, I like to believe leaders are in place to ensure the interests of their people. We both know this is rarely true in practice, unfortunately.

But while these leaders may feel no obligation to their country, how can they be so lacking of a sense of obligation to their people? Surely, being in the midst of it - or at least closer than we are here in the west - you would think that eventually a leader would rise to power who would want to change things for his people, and not just perpetuate his own wealth and power, simultaneously perpetuating the suffering of millions.

 

solution to all africa's problems: farm and eat people.

 

I've been searching for this documentary since your OP. Please watch it.

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8xHHP39OnM&featur

e=player_embedded

 

I don`t know, but I would like to have seen Kinshasa, Lagos, and Johannesburg which are some of the largest, most diverse, and fascinating cities in the world to me.

 

Africa had advanced peoples with everything from music to spirituality.

Yes, their warfare tech was lacking. I don't think this is a great point against them or their accomplishments.

The reason africa is still fucked is because of countries like us, continually colonizing, invading, enslaving, and otherwise totally fucking over the whole fucking continent ever since douchebags with bigger ships first showed up there. Considering all of that, some places there are doing very well, admittedly while various countries violate various international treaties in an ongoing manner by NOT actively attacking other african nation's tyrannical governments.

Once you have an appropriatly downtroden lower class, in the modern age, it is nearly impossible to rise up. It was easier when secrets could not be intercepted by anyone that did not hear you whisper them, when the governments agents had to see something to know it was happening, when farmers tools where not so very different from weapons of war. The lower class is STILL in this time, while the governments are (nearly) modern. What chance do starving subsistence farmers have to revolt? if you go revolt, your crops die and you die.

 

I hate the idea perpetrated by the west that developing nations should abide by treaties, environmental and work/wages policies, and other western standards in order to attain success, when the west never had to adhere to those same standards to achieve their great power.

there is no clear solution.

 

Globally that any nation is starving is a poor reflection on all countries that could assist. That anyone starves in our own countries that we like to think of as developed is also disturbing.

Considering the massive waste that we are all involved in creating, there is no excuse for not being able to provide immediate and effective assistance.

The problems and issues will not be remedied with only that though and the resources and assistance must also be extended to long term solutions. Those need to be implemented and if need be funded as part of the solution. Feed them first as that is a basic human right and then work with them to assist in making them self reliant and able to produce what they require.

How anyone can see someone hungry and decide it is not their problem is probably the greatest problem.

 

i thought of this very same bit as soon as i read the op

 

the real story
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=25871

 

What do you mean?

Maybe some people did some things wrong some places. Doesn't mean people now don't deserve freedom from genocide and despots, and deserve living wages and a clean environment.

I was talking about the treaties that obligate us and others to attack nations have have abused their sovereignty. The same ones we used as excuses to try to steal iraq's oil apply to places without oil, but..... they have no oil. Of course we'd just colonize anyway, but theoretically, we're obligated to knock over tyrants and allow the people to build what ever sort of peaceful government they please.

Are we going to roll into darfour? well, does darfour have any oil?

 

What I meant is that we basically polluted as much as we wanted, and it helped to get to become an international hegemon. I'm not saying it's necessarily realistic, or right, that developing nations should be allowed to do the same. It still puts them at a huge disadvantage though.

 

Just a response to the thread title: a lot of Africans may care less for your pity than you suspect. :coffee:

 

You can't eat pity.

 

lol