To defeat Africa’s Mugabes, Elect an African pope
Ninety percent of this column is a look at Zimbabwe dictator Robert Mugabe’s tyranny and depravity. The last paragraphs discuss what do to about him.
Here are two questions I received in email– and the floor is open for discussion.
Question 1: How come America has never become involved in this situation, or for that fact, any sub-Sahara country?
Question 2: Why does the main stream media seem to care so little about events in sub-Saharan Africa?
I would re-work this question a bit, for there is, on a daily basis, outstanding and detailed reporting coming from Africa. (For example, ABC had a superb piece on UN peacekeeper crimes in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and main-stream coverage of that issue, once it gained traction, has been fairly thorough.) Here’s my re-phrase: Why is there so little sustained interest in sub-Saharan Africa?
Q1. I don’t think the US has many options there. I don’t believe (but could be wrong) that most of the countries want the US to become involved. We don’t have a history of involvement. And with everything that is going on in the rest of the world, we just don’t have the resources. Q2. A cynical response is that the MSM have not figured out how to blame the problems on Bush. But the media also has limited resources and other places to spend their money.
Comment by Jeff — 4/6/2005 @ 10:42 am
We haven’t gotten involved there because we have no historical, economic or political ties to the area of any significance. Further, the problems there seem so deep and intractable that no one wants to take the lead on trying to solve them. As to the MSM, its personnel have no interest in going into very dirty, unhealthy, poor dangerous places any more than most middle-class people from the developed world. We all know the name of a guy like Robert Kaplan because of the hundreds of millions of people in the rich countries, he is one of a tiny number who is willing to set foot in these places and publicize what he finds. Also, the groups which do go into sub-Saharan Africa are often religious charities. The MSM is not likely to respect or know such people, even when they have liberal views. The world of religious charities and missionaries is off the radar as far as the MSM goes, even though it is a large number of people doing a lot of important work.
Comment by Lexington Green — 4/6/2005 @ 11:50 am
#1. I believe that Africa’s colonial history (up to the ’60’s)prevented the U.S. from developing historical ties with Africa. Immediately, thereafter we would have been perceived as stepping on European toes;or, as making an attempt at colonization ourselves. Jumping to the present, the problems seem unsolvable. While there I often thought that “re-colonization” might be a solution but, again that would be short-term and probably impossible to do anyhow. I agree with AB that we need Cardinal Arinze as the next Pope for all of the reasons that he enumerated and because of his familiarity with Islam and the main actors therein.
Comment by noprisoners — 4/6/2005 @ 12:32 pm
Africa will not cause a nuclear war. China will. Elect a Chinese Pope.
Comment by Canucklehead — 4/6/2005 @ 2:56 pm
I recall Charles Murray writing that the median IQ of sub-Saharan blacks is two standard deviations below the US white median. I’m guessing that most of us believe that without knowing Murray’s figures. This adds up to a feeling that nothing good is going to happen in sub-Saharan Africa because the natives lack the capacity to cope with modernity. It is this belief, I think, which accounts for our indifference.
Comment by david mandel — 4/6/2005 @ 9:02 pm
If you or anybody else can get the members of the Congressional Black Caucus to support any sort of genuine reform effort in sub-Saharan Africa, a) do so at once, and b)I’ll be completely stunned. We aren’t in Black Africa because race is such a debilitating issue here.
Comment by John Mendenhall — 4/7/2005 @ 5:18 pm