Hi Madiba!
Thanks for your post. While I found some of the author's
arguments bordering on racism, I was quite amused by some statements. They
are reproduced below together with some rather true statements.
1. Much of Africa is ruled more by rainfall than politics.
2. Liberia is, in fact, Charles Taylor Inc.
3. Besides, the money accumulated by the politicians and crooks
in Africa is rarely reinvested there.
4. Abolishing debt would help to create a fresh balance- sheet, but for
many countries debt-relief would only benefit Ukrainian arms- dealers.
5. Today, still, Africans' strongest qualities are fortitude to the point of
fatalism, close family and communal ties, tolerance and an ability to
enjoy life.
6. Most African businesses are one-man-bands that rarely survive the
death of their founder.
7. The most damaging impact of imperial rule on Africa was neither
economic nor even political. It was psychological.
8. One example: the East African reported recently that a white
foreigner had been appointed to head the Kenya Commercial Bank,
since "it became clear that the appointment of an indigenous Kenyan
might lead to a run on the bank."
9. African states were not forged by ethnicity, nationalism and war.
They were simply bequeathed by departing imperial powers who left
highly centralised, authoritarian states to a tiny group of western-
educated Africans who rushed in and took over.
10. Independence often meant little more than a change in the colour of
the faces of the oppressors.
11. The African state, as invented by Europeans, has been neither
deconstructed nor reconstituted.
12. By personalising power, African leaders have undermined rather than
boosted national institutions
13.Their loyalties are regional or tribal, and they support the president
because he is the big chief. "I will vote for you when you are
president," challengers are sometimes told.
14. Most African presidents make no distinction between their party
and the government, using the panoply of state institutions in their
election campaigns.
15. The aid donors, whose support is essential for African rulers,
demand multi-party democracy on a western model. But they have applied
it inconsistently. Cynics call it donor democracy-just enough fair
voting and respect for human rights to satisfy the aid donors.
16. Few African palaces have anything in them made in Africa.
Thanks.
Buharry.
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