Quote Originally Posted by Mark O'Neill View Post
An article of half truths and skewed factoids - not really that different from the folks he is having a go at.

I believe that Africa's problems, much like those of COIN, are complex and not amenable to reductionism and sound bite solutions from people stuck firmly in their Western 21st Century paradigms.

I would find Blair, Bono, Oprah, the LA time commentator and the plethora of other folks who comment on Africa far more believable if they:

a. lived in sub-Saharan Africa for more than five minutes;
b. stayed somewhere other than the Mt Nelson hotel, Sun City or the Sabi Sands when they visited; and
c. had met, talked to, and shared time with some African's other than Nelson Mandela ( This is not a criticism of Mandela - he is probably the most amazing bloke I have ever met).

I have lived in Africa for a while over my career - good places and 'bad'. To my experience, it defies the trivial categorisation offered by either the LA times piece or the celebrity do gooders.

It does deserve 'better' - I think the best place we can start is learning more, and displacing the developed world's profound ignorance of the continent.

Cheers,

Mark
Good post again. There are two Africas and he is saying that his--the one of gourmet Rwandan coffee etc--is doing better than Bono's--the one of poverty and illness. What a shocker!

Seriously he simply does what everyone else does--he assumes that Africa as a continent can be addressed in a single opinion column or a single description.

Best
Tom