Why Africa Has Problems -- According to the BBC

BBC carries an explanation of what is wrong with Africa and why from Sir Nicholas Stern, Former Director of Policy and Research at the Commission for Africa. His opinion:

1) Africa's biggest problem is misgovernment and corruption. [Well, duh!]

2) The reason for the misgovernment and corruption is "the legacy of colonialism." [That's right, blame it on the white man.]

3) Africa's future progress depends on gaining access to foreign markets from which they have been unfairly excluded. [There's something to this, but Africa also has to produce something other than raw materials that people want to buy. Basically, it's just another way of blaming the white man for Africa's troubles.]

The whole argument is a spectacular piece of crap! And this is the guy whose recommendations have formed the basis for British African policy!

By contrast -- look at America's position under Bush.

Of all the G-8 leaders, Bush is the only one to insist on political and administrative reform as a condition for aid. He is the only one who is seriously trying to lower trade barriers. And, he is the only one who doesn't seem to be burdened by guilt over the colonialist legacy.

Get over it guys. Colonialism is now far enough in the past that Africa should be moving on to other things. They can't play the guilt card forever. To the extent that anti-colonialist ideology persists it excuses the excesses of monsters like Mad Bobby Mugabe and undermines serious efforts at reform. Until African leaders realize that they are in charge of their own destinies and can't continue to depend on largesse from the West, the continent will continue to sink farther and farther behind the rest of the world and its poorest and most vulnerable people will suffer.

Matthew Parris writes in the Times:

Pity poisons the continent when it stifles criticism. As leaders of the G8 gather to discuss aid, they should be pitiless in their resolve to make pariahs of black Africa’s cruel and rotten governments. A ruling class of greedy men, sheltered by a popular culture of gawping passivity in the face of political swagger, is suffocating the people of Africa and neither tears nor money nor rock music should be our first response. Rage, not rock, is called for.

Read it here.

Exactly. Once Western leaders begin get over their absurd guilt tripping and start to demand real reform in Africa things will begin to improve on that sad continent.