This Washington Times article nearly knocked me off my seat:
Obama to African leaders: Time for ‘responsibility’
By Stephen Dinan | Saturday, July 11, 2009
L’AQUILA, Italy | President Obama on Friday said African countries cannot blame colonialism for problems caused by corruption and their own bad governance as he embarked on his first trip as president to sub-Saharan Africa.
Mr. Obama also announced that he has secured a commitment from major countries to spend $20 billion on food security aid, or $5 billion more than expected from world leaders meeting in Italy this week. But he said rather than simple assistance, this money will be managed “to help people become self-sufficient, provide for their families and lift their standards of living.”
“We do not view this assistance as an end in itself. We believe that the purpose of aid must be to create the conditions where it’s no longer needed,” he said.
The president flew from Italy to Ghana Friday and is scheduled to deliver a speech to that nation’s parliament Saturday, at which time he is expected to lay out developing nations’ roles and responsibilities, and his strong words on ending excuses are likely to be a theme.
He said he delivered that message in Italy at a meeting of major economies and African countries, when some fellow leaders started blaming “colonialism and other policies by wealthier nations.”
Mr. Obama said he told them the parallel between Kenya and South Korea, which 50 years ago had similar-sized economies. Today South Korea’s economy is nearly $1 trillion, while Kenya’s is about $30 billion.
“If you talk to people on the ground in Africa, certainly in Kenya, they will say that part of the issue here is the institutions aren’t working for ordinary people,” he said.
In an interview with AllAfrica.com, released by the White House earlier this week, Mr. Obama sounded an even tougher note.
“I think part of what’s hampered advancement in Africa is that for many years we’ve made excuses about corruption or poor governance; that this was somehow the consequence of neo-colonialism, or the West has been oppressive, or racism,” Mr. Obama said. “I’m not a believer in excuses.
“The fact is we’re in 2009. The West and the United States has not been responsible for what’s happened to Zimbabwe’s economy over the last 15 or 20 years,” he said. “It hasn’t been responsible for some of the disastrous policies that we’ve seen elsewhere in Africa. And I think that it’s very important for African leadership to take responsibility and be held accountable.”
Still, he said the world has a responsibility to help African people who are suffering, and that the $20 billion in food aid—of which $3.5 billion has been pledged by the U.S.—will help.
He recounted for reporters a story he had told leaders at a meeting earlier Friday in which he said he has family members in Kenya who live in villages where “hunger is real”—though he stressed his family members do not go hungry.
Aid groups praised the $20 billion figure, but some—including the One campaign, co-founded by rock group U2 singer Bono—said pledges don’t matter until the money comes through. Italy, in particular, has been blasted for being recalcitrant in the past.
“The food initiative looks promising, but what will Italy’s contribution be?” said Bob Geldof, another singer involved with One, who said Italy has delivered on only 3 percent of its commitment to African aid since 2005. “Mr. Berlusconi, you owe the poor a billion euros. Where is it, Mr. Three Percent?”
Mr. Obama said 1 billion people worldwide are hungry, and 100 million have dropped into dire poverty because of the world financial collapse.
Well, I don’t know about those last statistics. But still, suffice it to say, there are a lot of people around the world, especially Africa, living in poverty.
First, kudos to Obama for taking to task the many despotic heads-of-state who keep their nations dangerous and destitute for decades on end. Maybe it actually took a black president to say this to the despotic leaders of Africa. So that in and of itself is a good thing.
Nevertheless, I find it hard not to view Obama as disingenuous. Isn't the president calling the proverbial kettle, um ... black? Doesn’t he realize that many of these leaders are left-wing central government ideologues, just as he is, and that they have simply implemented the same left-wing central government policies that Obama is trying to impose at home?
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying Obama is machete-ing refugees in the streets of America. But let’s be clear here: These leader whom Obama is chastising are his brethren, pure and simple.
Too harsh? Case in point: In Obama’s ancestral homeland of Kenya there sits a corrupt Marxist leader Raila Odinga who not only received public support from Obama, but who himself claims to be Obama’s cousin. Although Odinga took office already two years ago, in 2007, the Obama-worshiping mainstream media here in the U.S. was not interested at all in this story. (They were more interested in infesting Wasilla, Alaska snooping for ginned-up ethics scandals to pin on Sarah Palin.)
See this January, 2008, post from Pam Geller’s Atlas Shrugged blog for a pretty thorough account of the Obama-Odinga relationship. Of all the myriad links therein you will find only one mainstream media citation (NY Times). A much more recent post (October, 2008) is found here at the Logistics Monster blog.
Will Obama ever recognize thay his own Marxist-socialist ideology and the actions stemming from this mindset have kept most of Africa in a third-world prison? Does he find it the least bit hypocritical that he admonishes the leaders of Africa when in some ways all they are guilty of is running their countries based on the same philosophies of him himself, as well as his much-revered father the self-described Marxist Obama Sr.? What’s more, Obama has yet to put his own money where his mouth is, himself having a half-brother in Nairobi who languishes in poverty and as recently as this January has had run-ins with the law due to drug possession. But arguably the most contradictory of Obama’s desire to further African prosperity is his demand that developing countries (which, I imagine, given the location of Obama’s speech, are mostly African) adopt Don’t these megalomaniacal Marxists realize that climate change is the least of Africa’s worries. Most of the continent is still electricity, clean water systems, and even standard plumbing for bathing and going to the bathroom. Millions of Africans a year die from malaria. Even more die from diarrhea—caused by the injection of dirty drinking water. Even in the U.S. climate change is at the bottom of “concern” polls. One would probably be hard-pressed to even find it on the radar among Africans. Cited by me before on this blog, this article from AllAfrica.com by Ghanan professor and business consultant Kofi Bentil says all one needs to know about Africa and man-made … In Africa, we have much more serious things to worry about than climate change. Indeed, if they achieve their objective the concerts will have done harm to the people of Africa. Britain’s former Secretary of State for the Environment, David Miliband, recently said that the rest of the world cannot aspire to the UK’s standard of living because: “If the world were to have the same living standards as we have in the UK, then we’d need three planets to support us.” Presumably Mr. Miliband would disagree with Indira Ghandi, who famously said, “Poverty is the greatest polluter.” Miliband was replaced by Hilary Benn, who as Minister for International Development ran the Department for International Development (DfID). One might have thought that DfID would have supported economic development as a means of escaping from poverty and pollution. But in its Rough Guide to a Better World it advocates “Development by Dung” and claims that “As poor countries develop, it is essential that they do not follow the same failed patterns of energy use.” So it’s dung not diesel for Africa - while India and China soar ahead because they are too big, and nuclear-armed, to stop. Even if we accept that global warming may have a significant effect on our climate, limiting the use of fossil fuels in Africa would be counterproductive. Respiratory infections are the leading cause of childhood deaths on my continent, mainly from inhaling the smoke produced by burning wood and dung in our quaint mud huts. Why do we burn these “renewable” but very dirty fuels? Not because we have some desire to save the Earth. No sir! It is because we don’t have access to natural gas or electricity. The second leading cause of childhood deaths is not malaria or Aids, it is diarrhoea, caused by drinking dirty water. Why is our water dirty? Mainly because we lack cheap, efficient means of pumping and cleaning it. That requires fossil fuels--either directly or to produce electricity. An underlying cause of many health problems in Africa is malnutrition. This is a consequence both of inefficient farming and poor food distribution. To rectify this situation will mean using cheap and relatively clean fuels, such as gasoline and diesel. (Of course we also need better roads--which can only be built using machines that burn fossil fuels.) Our already poor and struggling countries are being sucked into a giant movement to save the Earth--with aid money as the carrot and the stick. If we are cajoled into using more expensive “renewable” forms of energy, we will remain uncompetitive and our rates of economic growth will remain low or shrinking. That would be a tragedy because economic growth has been shown to be the best way to reduce poverty and improve health. Please, Europe and America, spare us! You can cut your own emissions if you want, but don’t tell us what to do. We really have much more serious and urgent threats to deal with. Unfortunately, our beggarly governments are very susceptible to diktats from on high, especially when they are offered aid (which they use to line the coffers of their bank accounts): don’t encourage them! […] I wonder if Barack Obama will come across Bentil while in Ghana this weekend. And if so, will Obama be convinced that imposing climate change restrictions, which are draconian even for developed nations, will do nothing but consign the developing world to more decades of third-world poverty. Doubt it.global warming climate change energy policies along with the G-8 countries. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon even raised the stakes by suggesting G-8 countries finance poorer nations to “change their carbon-heavy growth patterns and adapt to the effects of global warming. He said the G-8 must do both if developing countries are to cut their own emissions.”global warming climate change. By sheer eerie coincidence, it was written exactly two years ago—July 11, 2007—in response to Al Gore’s “Live Earth” concerts, which had taken place a couple weeks prior.
Recent Comments