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| Charities |  Are charities killing Africans? Hardly a day goes by without the haunting images of starving children permeating our television screens, with ribs poking through, bloated bellies and stick thin arms and legs, their angelic little faces covered in clouds of flies, their parents lying next to them slowly dying. Countless aid agenices, and has-been popstars play on the publics' feelings, and then emotionally blackmail the people into parting with their cash: an envelope here, a cash tin rattled there. But should we part with our cash? And perhaps more importantly, what are the consequences of our actions when we do make a charitable contribution? It's difficult to know when most people are deliberately misled and subjected to a litany of halftruths and lies.
What we do know, is for the last sixty years interfering do-gooders have poked their noses into a continent that neither wanted or asked for their help. And in no small part, it's this interference which has generated the problems Africa faces today: poverty, social deprivation, malmutrition, disease and any prospect of recovering their status to an acceptable standard of living. Quite simply, it's the over indulgence of western liberals - often motoivated more by greed than conscience, that have engineered a system of irrevocable extents. More often than not, the need of the average African has played second fiddle to the exceptional arrogance of the western sycophant
Before the second world war, Africa retained a level of economic independence, especially those countries controlled, run and maintained under the British empire. Take an example. Under the British Empire Rhodesia was known as the Bread Basket Of Africa, a prosperous well managed country with every attribute of the modern western world. But when Independence came, motivated mainly by liberals, it changed its name to Zimbabwe, Mugabwe was placed in power, and within twenty years of self-rule Rodesia went from being the second richest country in the African block, to the second poorest. Today, six million people face starvation. What is the world doing. Nothing! Before independence the good people of Rodesia hardly ever starved, most had some form of employment and the majority of the children in this impoverished region received a basic standard of education. Medical treatment was also available to those who needed it. Most bleeding heart liberals will say that's not true, but the sad fact is, it is true. What is also true is most African nations before the second world war also had an element of self-respect. They didn't have much, but at least they could hold their heads high and proud.
Yet after the second world war all that changed. A culture of so called caring emerged from an over enthusiastic middle-class breed of left wing politicos and self appointed pressure groups who believe, rather naievly that they could do a better job than nature. These radical, dope smoking, rock playing hippies became active primarily in the late sixities, and then conveiniently built-up a steady head of steam throughout the seventies, eighties and nineties. The money poured in. Yet in pursuit of such blinded action Africans were seduced from their land. They abandonded their small farms and moved lethargically away from their traditional farming techniques to find bountiful aid stations packed with rations. Rather than offer the Africans a hand-up, cynical aid agencies offered them a hand-out. It was this which undoubtedly created a culture of dependency. |
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