Too Much To Dream

Um. Well. Um. Er, thanks, but.

I have a longtime friend who's been with the State Department for more than twenty years now. (He keeps talking about retiring.) He's not been an Ambassador, but has been First Counselor at several embassies, including in Africa, as well as participating in Major Treaty Negotiations, including with the Soviet Union (you'd know the treaties if I mentioned them.

And he goes ballistic when Americans lump Africa as a homogenous situation that is "fubar."

Because it isn't. It's a bunch of wildly disparate nations, some of which are in terrible shape, and some of which are bright and shining starts (which don't get a lot of press -- how many folks follow what goes on in Botswanna?), and some in between.

Africa's problems are Africa's problems, but one of them is that Americans don't know, don't care, and lump where they shouldn't. Africa is not fubar. Africa has huge potential, and mostly is getting better and better all the time. Stereotyping it as "fubar" is, well, ignorant, and wrong, and unhelpful.

I hate to leap on you when you're trying to be helpful, Andrea, and I do appreciate very much that you're trying to be helpful, but I sortakinda felt I kinda had so respond to this point.

Africa is huge. Generalizations beyond a certain point aren't helpful. They become like -- which chain restaurant did that British reporter go to? -- well, I won't compare, but I'm sure you take my point. America and Africa: both real places.

Well fuck me for saying anything then. I'm fucking damed if I do and damned if I don't. Again. Excuse me, I didn't realize that there were specs involved in talking about this.

Every time there's a shining light in Africa, they freakin' manage to put it out!

Don't feel bad about the FUBAR. It's true as a generalization.

I said some time ago that Africa can no longer blame its colonial history for most of its mess. The residents are doing that very well all by themselves.

I have a degree in anthropology. In the last two years of working for my degree, I had the privilege of working in a museum in San Antonio writing up cultural info about some African masks...to wit, I became immersed in learning the history of Africa, its various tribes, and its current problems that continue to keep it in Third World status...LARGELY BECAUSE OF SCREWUPS THROUGH FRENCH AND BELGIAN AND GERMAN IMPERIALISM. Suffice it to say, I AGREE WITH ANDREA...Africa, as a whole is FUBAR. There are regimes that continue to hold it back and Colonialism that shitheads continue to capitalize on in order to keep the population from experiencing a Renaissance of Free Market power.

Caveats of a government wonk are not proof that he has more knowledge than the rest of us. It doesnt take much reading and observing to see that Africa has some SERIOUS SERIOUS problems, and they arent getting any better...I would include the perfidy of radical Islamacism in that mix. The radical Islamic world is as much against Westernization in Africa as the mincing anthropologist who thinks tribalism is what will make Africa successful.

I for one would love to see Africans succeed. But they won't do it if they continue to follow the French way of doing things, or the Belgian or the Socialist tyranny of radical Islam.

I have a feeling THAT is what Andrea is referring to.

Gary would hate what I said a while back:

"We should take a year off. Bring the troops home, stop sending foreigners money, and spend the savings on hookers and Jell-O shots. Then we'll turn on Fox News and watch the Europeans and Africans and Asians bomb each other back to...well, the way people currently live in modern Africa."

Heh. That's a nice dream. The problem is, they would all band together and send the bombs our way if we turned our back for a minute. People* hate the rich, but they hate being ignored by the rich even more. It's human nature.

*All people, even the rich, hate "the rich." Just look at all those celebs, guilty over all their disproportionate wealth. I've heard plenty of celebrities (cough Bono cough) drag out that old rich-man-eye-of-needle stuff as if it applied to everyone but them, or as if disparaging some abstract Rich Man would make people forget they are one of the fat cats.

Hear, hear!

Well, no, I certainly wasn't damning you in the slightest, and however I gave you that impression, I apologize. I was just attempting conversation. Which sometimes I do clumsily. I surely did not mean to offend you.

Eh. I am over it now.

Hmmm...
Africa..."the cradle of man"...the home of the ruins of the Library at Alexandria...the home of the ruins of ancient Eqypt, the Sphinx, and the Pyramids...at one time the home of a veritable cornocopia of resources, food, culture, and bounty...

One question for the Arican-hyphen-whoevers:How the hell did you eff it up?
And don't trot out the evil white bogeyman...if you knew how to build and care for it before, you can do it again.

Hmmm...
Africa..."the cradle of man"...the home of the ruins of the Library at Alexandria...the home of the ruins of ancient Eqypt, the Sphinx, and the Pyramids...at one time the home of a veritable cornocopia of resources, food, culture, and bounty...

One question for the African-hyphen-whoevers:How the hell did you eff it up?
And don't trot out the evil white bogeyman...if you knew how to build and care for it before, you can do it again.