Topical heat...

The following is the text of a comment that I posted on African Bullets and Honey. The comment turned into an essay which, on the whole, sums up my feelings on the whole African matter.

Quote from of the comments: "Africa will indeed need to climb up on its own but I can't understand how you can fault people for trying to cut off the ton of bricks tied to its feet."

Well, there's the take that says that—if you remove the banks' profit on the deal, i.e. the interest—they will be severely unwilling to lend to those countries in the future. After all, it might happen again.

The interest repayments are by no means crippling. Figures vary, but the most consistent that I can find come in at $10 billion for last year. Aid to Africa was roughly $63 billion, a nett gain of $53 billion.

Furthermore, the idea that we should do anything, just because apathy is worse, is completely refuted by this excellent article detailing the abuses of the Ethiopian people by the Dergue government, funded by, and using the NGOs implementing, the original Live Aid programme.

I fully support the idea of dropping tariff barriers against African countries. Through a healthy economy, on an equal trading footing with the Western world, they will be able to build a lasting wealth. However, that will not—cannot—happen until they have security of life and tenure of property. If you cannot own your property, then you cannot raise capital on it. This means that it is extremely difficult to start a business. And the whole thing is rendered slightly pointless is some militia member is suddenly going to drop by, rape and kill you and your family, and burn your house down. Until African countries implement the rule of law, they will remain for ever stunted economically.

I'm afraid that the argument about the Western economies taking hundreds of years to mature is entirely disingenuous, simply because the people building those economies had no examples or comparators. The African nations have the Western economic models, and a number of other models. They have—or, at least, their leaders do—televisions, access to information and worldwide meetings that simply were not available to the nascent Western economies.

Lastly, few people would advocate that colonialism was of nett benefit to Africa. However, only a fool would argue that it was entirely malign (although, one needs to also look at the way that the different colonial powers treated their subjects. The British were, in no way, the worst behaved, just the biggest and most well-known).

Contrary to popular wisdom, the majority of the colonial powers did attempt to leave people behind to advise and provide support to the newly independent nations: they were, however, almost all driven out (or murdered) fairly shortly after the main powers left. The Africans wanted their countries back, and that included the political power structures. It was an understandable move, but naive.

Finally, Africa is an incredibly rich country in terms of natural resources. The colonial powers prospected for, and set up mines, to extract these resources. The great majority also left these mines open, operating and extant when they left the subject nations. Thus, much of the groundwork for a solid economy had already been laid. More could have been done but, understandably, the African peoples were keen to see us leave.

The history of the majority of African countries has, since independence, been a complete disaster of mismanagement and strife. This was admittedly not helped when Britain, for which many countries (witness the welcoming demonstrations in Sierra Leone a few years back) still held in regard, sold the Commonwealth down the Swannee to join the EEC, a move for which—if it is any consolation to you Commonwealth people out there—Britain has also paid a heavy price.

In conclusion, although I have never been to Africa, many friends who have have spoken of the friendliness, energy and enthusiasm of many of its people. The real way to help Africa is to help the people to help themselves, and the most effective way to do that is to reform or remove the corrupt governments that are holding them back, to improve the security of property and life and the rule of law. It is not to increase aid, which merely helps to prop up the murderous—or simply incompetant—regimes which are holding the African peoples back.