THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume VII, Issue # 208, September 17, 2005
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
HEARTLESS, HOPELESS AFRICA
By Alan Caruba
AFRICA: THE SCOURGES OF ISLAM, MARXISM, TRIBALISM, ANARCHY, CORRUPT POLITICS, EXTREMELY RAPACIOUS
DICTATORS, & A TOTAL CULTURE OF CRIMILALITY -- THE HISTORY OF AFRICA AS A STORY OF DISEASE, STARVATION,
MURDER, RAPE, TORTURE, THEFT, GREED, & MEGALOMANIA -- AFRICA'S IMMUNITY TO CONSTITUTIONALISM, THE RULE
Of LAW, & HONEST & EFFECTIVE SELF-GOVERNANCE
FULL STORY:
For as long as I can remember in my nearly seven decades of life, the most enduring image of Africa was of a starving black child. Not
only has this not changed, there is little hope this will improve.
I was thinking about Africa when the G-8 meeting in Scotland was rudely interrupted by a bombing in London on July 7, 2005. It was
testimony to the fact that Islam remains intent on spreading its socalled “peaceful” religion throughout the world and the way Islam
has been one of the major causes for the genocides and the rape of Africa since Islam first swept out of Arabia in the 600s AD. Islam
fairly swiftly took control of the entire northern part of Africa, moving south against the tide of Christian missionaries who later would
convert a large portion of the continent’s population south of the Sahara.
As did many of the indigeneous African tribes, the invading and conquering Arab Muslims discovered, in Africa, wealth in the form
of the slave trade -- a trade still practiced to this day. In Africa, every one of the most vile aspects of human behavior can be found,
extremely vile human behavior coupled with some of the most awful diseases known to man.
The story of the vile behavior is carefully documented and told in a remarkable book by Martin Meredith, The Fate of Africa: From
the Hopes of Freedom to the Heart of Despair. ($35.00, Public Affairs) This litany of murder, rape, torture, greed, and megalomania
is told in just over 680 pages and, if it were not for the fact that the author has a most agreeable writing style, the process of moving
from beginning to end of this history would prove daunting. Ultimately, like some horror film, one reads simply to reach the end.
Almost every page is splashed with the blood of murdered Africans.
The purpose of the G-8 meeting was to propose yet another series of financial bailouts to the various nations of Africa, while
forgiving debts that cannot be paid. In short, it was about throwing good money after bad. The history of Western help to Africa is
one of seeing most aid stolen by whoever was in charge of the particular nation receiving it.
Of course, preceding the more recent history of vile human behavior on the African continent was the history of European
colonialism, wherein vast chunks of Africa were simply declared to be the property of England, France, Belgium, Italy, Spain, and
Portugal. The people in those colonial possessions were not consulted, and, in many cases, they were cruelly treated. They would,
after World War II and the independence granted to one African nation after another, discover their new masters had learned well
how to enrich themselves, often bringing with them a new plague called "Marxism" or simply exploiting the old plague of Islam.
Africans have proved to be immune to constitutional democracy -- i.e., self-governance and the rule of law -- showing their preference
for loyalty to their immediate families, then to their tribe, then to their religion, and vaguely to whatever passed for a nation. Throw
into that mix, Islam, Marxism, and some of the most rapacious dictators to ever walk the Earth, and you have a litany of starvation,
murder, and theft that even the many pages of Meredith’s thick volume could not adequately record.
One is reminded of former President Bill Clinton’s visit to six African nations in March, 1998. “Within three months of Clinton’s visit,”
Meredith relates, “Ethiopia and Eritrea embarked on a futile border war in which 100,000 people died.” Then, “two months after the
start of their war, Rwanda and Uganda plunged headlong into another round of war in Congo and then began fighting among
themselves over the spoils of their occupation there. The much-heralded “African renaissance” descended into a host of conflicts in
Angola, Sudan, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and the Central African Republic.
Two years later in 2000, “there were more than ten major conflicts underway in Africa. One-fifth of all Africans lived in countries
battered by war. Some 12 million were classified as refugees — 40 percent of the world’s total.”
If constant war on the continent wasn’t enough to discourage one from holding out any hope after fifty years of independence, then
there is the scourge of AIDS. “Sub-Saharan Africa is home to just 10 percent of the world’s population but bears more than 70 percent
of the world’s HIV/AIDS cases. With the pandemic still in its infancy, by 2004,” wrote Meredith, “some 20 million people had died from
AIDS; 30 million were infected by the HIV virus and their number was rising by an estimated 3 million new cases each year. “
The next time you hear our President or some other Western world leader talk about foreign aid for Africa, keep in mind that “Africa
has received more foreign aid than any other region in the world. More than $300 billion of Western aid has been sunk into Africa, but
with little discernible result.”
Aside from economic growth, what Africa needs most and, after fifty years of independence has shown the least possibility of
achieving, is good government. Routinely, the educated population of any African nation was the first to be slaughtered by dictators,
leaving few to administer the governance required to address the needs of the millions within their borders.
As Americans were responding to the needs of the victims of Hurricane Katrina, busing them to safety and taking other steps to help,
in Zimbabwe, largely unreported by the world’s media, Robert Mugabe, the Marxist dictator, was evicting 700,000 of its most vulnerable
people from their meager shelters in that nation’s cities. This is a microcosm of the way most of Africa’s nations have behaved since
gaining independence.
As anyone who has ever received the email scams to transfer huge sums of money from Nigeria, Benin, or South Africa well knows, the
other predominant factor at work in Africa is the total culture of criminality that exists there. Between the poverty and the looting at the
governmental level estimated to cost Africa $148 billion annually -- more than a quarter of the continent’s entire gross domestic product
-- Africa is a virtual continent of criminals.
“After decades of mismanagement and corruption, most African states have become hollowed out. They are no longer instruments
capable of serving the public good,” concludes Meredith.
Is there any hope for Africa? Not in the foreseeable future. Like much of the Middle East, it is a pestilent sinkhole of disease, war, famine,
and death. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are quite at home in Africa.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Africa South of the Sahara -- Black Africa
North Africa -- The Arab States of Islamic North Africa
Alan Caruba is a veteran business and science writer, a Public Relations Counselor, and Founder of the National Anxiety Center, a
clearinghouse for information about media-driven scare campaigns. Caruba writes a weekly commentary, "Warning Signs," posted
on the Internet website of the National Anxiety Center, which is located at
www.anxietycenter.com.
© Alan Caruba 2005
Published with Permission of Alan Caruba
ACaruba@AOL.Com
Return to Top of Page
Go to the WEBSITE INDEX
Return to Beginning of
THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA,
Public Issues & Political Controversies
Return to Beginning of
THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
Most Recent Articles
Return to Beginning of
THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA,
Volume VII, 2005
Return to Beginning of
THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA,
Subject Matter Highlights
Return to POLITICAL EDUCATION Homepage
CONTACT & ACCESS INFORMATION
This is not a commercial website. The sole purpose of the website is to share with interested persons information regarding civics,
civic and social education, political science, government, politics, law, constitutional law and history, public policy, and political
philosophy and history, as well as current and recent political developments, public issues, and political controversies.
POLITICAL EDUCATION, CONSERVATIVE ANALYSIS
POLITICS, SOCIETY, & THE SOVEREIGN STATE
Website of Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr.
Government, Politics, Public Policy, Legal Issues, Constitutional Law, Government & the Economy, Cultural Values, Foreign Affairs,
International Relations, Military Defense & National Security, Geopolitics, Terrorism & Homeland Security, American National Interests,
Political Systems & Processes, Political Institutions, Political Ideologies, & Political Philosophy
INDEX FOR THE ENTIRE WEBSITE
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z
THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Conservative & Free-Market Analysis of Government, Politics & Public Policy, Covering Political, Legal, Constitutional, Economic,
Cultural, Military, International, Strategic, & Geopolitical Issues