What should be done in Africa
- Thread starter All Seeing Eye
- Start date
All Seeing Eye
Admiral
The majority of African countries are suffering from drought, food shortage and famine. African countries are more alike in this fashion than countries on any other continent, in Asia the differences are huge, China is nothing like Bangladesh and India is nothing like North Korea but in Africa however all African countries are suffering from the same problems. There's nothing wrong with me talking about what needs doing in Africa, ALL African nations would benefit from these new towns not just 'some' African nations. When I talk about Africa I mean AFRICA, I mean Africa the entire continent not just a handful of countries within.
All Seeing Eye
Admiral
Which are? I didn't see any mention in the thread regarding logistics. (please use quotes so I know who posted what).
No real reason to requote every post in this thread that wasn't yours, but the highlights are:
-Africa isn't an entity, it's a ton of smaller tribes and ethnic groups (and thanks to European "help", these groups aren't even organized by country). Would it make sense to talk about a problem that affects Serbia, but force the same solution upon england, because they're part of the same continent? Not so much.
-Problems in Africa are generally tied to city areas, not the villiages you're trying to correct. And we're not raising these people out of the stone age, they have cities already, no need to try and grow them.
-If any of these areas were built, they'd almost immediately be a target for militias and warlords. Free, self-sustaining energy and water? Defensible perimeter? yeah, they're gonna be all over that, and the people you're helping are going to be back out in those mud villages.
-Violence, drugs, ethnic violence, and AIDS seem to be the biggest problems facing African people at the moment. Moving to a shiny new villiage, and giving up ancestral land, doesn't seem to be addressing any of those.
-A one-time buy of these things is great, but where do the light bulbs come from for the free electricity? Can't exactly hit up walmart, and they don't have a lot of options there. Sustainable things closer to their current standard of living would be more helpful in the long run.
-Can't enforce a European standard of living or culture on a group coming from a different place. They don't have the same needs or priorities, might not WANT to move away from their villages (which, aside from being terrorized by warlords, they might be happy with), etc. Trying to "reform" these people is what fucked them all up in the first place, and England is pretty high on the list of those responsible for it. Repeating a mistake is generally still a mistake.
-Money might be FAR better off being spent on improvements like digging clean wells in existing villages, improving hospitals, providing doctors (and training for new doctors), etc. The sorts of things that the money IS being spent on, at the moment...
-Africa isn't an entity, it's a ton of smaller tribes and ethnic groups (and thanks to European "help", these groups aren't even organized by country). Would it make sense to talk about a problem that affects Serbia, but force the same solution upon england, because they're part of the same continent? Not so much.
-Problems in Africa are generally tied to city areas, not the villiages you're trying to correct. And we're not raising these people out of the stone age, they have cities already, no need to try and grow them.
-If any of these areas were built, they'd almost immediately be a target for militias and warlords. Free, self-sustaining energy and water? Defensible perimeter? yeah, they're gonna be all over that, and the people you're helping are going to be back out in those mud villages.
-Violence, drugs, ethnic violence, and AIDS seem to be the biggest problems facing African people at the moment. Moving to a shiny new villiage, and giving up ancestral land, doesn't seem to be addressing any of those.
-A one-time buy of these things is great, but where do the light bulbs come from for the free electricity? Can't exactly hit up walmart, and they don't have a lot of options there. Sustainable things closer to their current standard of living would be more helpful in the long run.
-Can't enforce a European standard of living or culture on a group coming from a different place. They don't have the same needs or priorities, might not WANT to move away from their villages (which, aside from being terrorized by warlords, they might be happy with), etc. Trying to "reform" these people is what fucked them all up in the first place, and England is pretty high on the list of those responsible for it. Repeating a mistake is generally still a mistake.
-Money might be FAR better off being spent on improvements like digging clean wells in existing villages, improving hospitals, providing doctors (and training for new doctors), etc. The sorts of things that the money IS being spent on, at the moment...
And the reasons for that include the shittiness of the current aid system, pouring money between governments to be fed into the arms trade and horribly corrupt systems.
"Africans" don't have some endemic tendency to shoot each other more than other people, we have just taken a resource poor continent, created an upperclass funded by us, destroyed any local business with massive but temporary inputs of cheap/free Western goods, and poured in Western made arms, along with pisstake 'glamour aid' to give people like Bono screentime.
With randomly targetted and poorly thought out 'aid' from Western nations being the most significant resources, and undermining any local attempt to generate wealth, is it any wonder that fighting breaks out?
All the time we're still forgetting to ask the African people "What would you like for your future?" Maintaining our condescending idea that the Africans somehow need to be managed; guided by our wisdom and superior intellect. The Chinese have taken the mind-boggling step of treating the Africans as equal business partners, entering into adult contractual agreements. And it works better - it remains to be seen how the recession affects the approach, but they've achieved more than any amount of mistargetted, patronising aid programs in a fraction of the time.
All Seeing Eye
Admiral
I'm not seeing your answers. Wanna take a quick crack at the questions in my quote? Can re-quote your answers, if they hit on those questions and you don't want to re-type them. For the safety/security question, for example, you just told me to not be sarcastic, but didn't address the question....
... let them fix their own banana republics.
Sure, there's an economic case for wanting them to grow, but until they sort out their own backyard.....
The problem with Africa is the psycho tribal politics putting a dampner on practically everything (and was exacerbated by European colonists).
All Seeing Eye
Admiral
Take a closer look then. I'm not going over what i've already said when it's there to re-read.
This here is a great point. Until the African nations can move past only looking out for their own tribe and letting the others die for all they care, nothing will help. The rest of the world has been sending aid and food for decades, but it hasn't helped much. A lot of it rots on the wharf when it's brought in by ship as the governments there will not distribute it. The charity groups have only so much manpower and the African infrastructure is abysmal. What we should do is send over only what we are able to distribute ourselves.
The situation is so pathetic in many African nations that I don't think we'll see much progress this century or the next.
All Seeing Eye
Admiral
Here is an article I found which sums up quite well where most tribal conflicts arise from. The title is "tribal conflicts grow as drought persists".
You see tribal fighting is brought about by drought, starvation and famine. If we were to build towns for these people, give them power via central solar power plants, help them plant crops around their towns and dig them plenty of wells why would there be conflict? they would have nothing to fight about.
Why is there conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo? a lot of the fighting is by people desperate to obtain diamonds. Why are they so desperate? because they want money for them so they can buy food and other goods. If everybody could go live in these towns i've proposed there wouldn't be any need to fight each other over diamonds and gold.
So we have a town, people move in. Why would militias come along and have a problem with that? they arn't going to be left out, they can move into towns themselves.
Once these people are in their towns they can create their own town defence forces or another better name would be 'police forces' to protect the towns.
All those with a problem with my idea think to yourselves honestly, how did towns survive in the 14th century? 15th century? towns had defence forces. The same will be true for these new towns in Africa. But like I said, build these towns for everybody and nobody will feel left out, everybody will have a better life and they'll reconsider fighting, because they'll have nothing left to fight for.
Also as I mentioned before, build road links between towns so they can trade with each other. Perhaps one town evolves to specialise in pottery and another evolves to specialise in making clothing (these are just examples, please don't dwell on my choice of product
). Those two towns can trade goods. As trade expands between these towns they become dependent on eachother further strengthening their bonds and making fighting a thing of the past.
You see tribal fighting is brought about by drought, starvation and famine. If we were to build towns for these people, give them power via central solar power plants, help them plant crops around their towns and dig them plenty of wells why would there be conflict? they would have nothing to fight about.
Why is there conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo? a lot of the fighting is by people desperate to obtain diamonds. Why are they so desperate? because they want money for them so they can buy food and other goods. If everybody could go live in these towns i've proposed there wouldn't be any need to fight each other over diamonds and gold.
So we have a town, people move in. Why would militias come along and have a problem with that? they arn't going to be left out, they can move into towns themselves.
Once these people are in their towns they can create their own town defence forces or another better name would be 'police forces' to protect the towns.
All those with a problem with my idea think to yourselves honestly, how did towns survive in the 14th century? 15th century? towns had defence forces. The same will be true for these new towns in Africa. But like I said, build these towns for everybody and nobody will feel left out, everybody will have a better life and they'll reconsider fighting, because they'll have nothing left to fight for.
Also as I mentioned before, build road links between towns so they can trade with each other. Perhaps one town evolves to specialise in pottery and another evolves to specialise in making clothing (these are just examples, please don't dwell on my choice of product
). Those two towns can trade goods. As trade expands between these towns they become dependent on eachother further strengthening their bonds and making fighting a thing of the past.
Where would all the money come from this. Millions of houses would have to be built. For evample Rwanda has a popution of 10,000,000, the majority of whom live in rural areas. Even if you only had to build one house for every 40 people that would still be quarter of million houses. In just one small country.
What if you have to build one house for every 100 people in Nigeria. You would have to build about 1,500,000 houses.
And that is only after you have bought the land to build these towns on. Then you will have to put in the neccessary infrastructure and pay the labour force to build them.
What if you have to build one house for every 100 people in Nigeria. You would have to build about 1,500,000 houses.
And that is only after you have bought the land to build these towns on. Then you will have to put in the neccessary infrastructure and pay the labour force to build them.
Last edited:
All Seeing Eye
Admiral
Hmmm perhaps I had better quote from the first post of this thread:
All Seeing Eye
Admiral
That's exactly how i've always felt....... until I got my town idea.
How would you make this plan work in Rwanda with a density of more thsn 700 people per square mile?
How would you make it work in those Muslim countries who don't want Westerners coming in and reorganising their culture?
What would you do in those countries that have natually poor soils and marginal farmimg lands?
Where would all the materials to build these houses come from. how would it be transported?
Hundreds of these towns would not help Africa much. For it to make much of a dent there would have to be tens of thousands.
You do realise there are already hundreds of prosperous towns in Africa who are trading with each other? That there are already roads along which things are transported? There are already many many thousand of houses of the standard of the houses you descibe?
How would you make it work in those Muslim countries who don't want Westerners coming in and reorganising their culture?
What would you do in those countries that have natually poor soils and marginal farmimg lands?
Where would all the materials to build these houses come from. how would it be transported?
Hundreds of these towns would not help Africa much. For it to make much of a dent there would have to be tens of thousands.
You do realise there are already hundreds of prosperous towns in Africa who are trading with each other? That there are already roads along which things are transported? There are already many many thousand of houses of the standard of the houses you descibe?
All Seeing Eye
Admiral
You start out by building a few towns and then if they want more they make a go of it and expand themselves. We will merely be laying the foundation for them.
I think I made it pretty clear and I couldn't have made it any clearer that nobody is forcing these towns onto any Africans, if they don't want one building then they won't get one.
Couple of choices:
- Build where the soil is good.
- Make the soil good. Drought doesn't help the soil, build the water pumps and improve the soil that way and if need be import some compost. Eventually the native soils will become fertile.
How about from whichever country is supporting this endeavour and by boat.
How the heck do you think it's going to get there.All the money will come from charities 'working together' like they've never done before from countries ALL over the world. A completely new money raising campaign will be made where people are asked to donate specifically for these towns. Another option is asking the worlds governments for some money from their foreign aid budget.
Goodness me you're nitpicking just for the sake of nitpicking. we're not trying to put a man on Mars.
Putting a man on Mars would be far easier than trying to solve all the problems of Africa.
What if there is not enough good land in the country concerned? Where are you going to find any spare good land in a place like Rwanda were the population density is over 700 people per square mile.
When a rich country such as Australia is unable to improve its land (an impossible thing to do given Australia's topography) , how can it be achievable in so many poor countries in Africa?
What if there is not enough good land in the country concerned? Where are you going to find any spare good land in a place like Rwanda were the population density is over 700 people per square mile.
When a rich country such as Australia is unable to improve its land (an impossible thing to do given Australia's topography) , how can it be achievable in so many poor countries in Africa?
Similar threads
