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Make corruption toast - A for Africa (5th Jul 2005 - 03:03:17) What a fine ideal if the emotions and aspirations of the Live8 intentions of the weekend were to be achieved. I personally watched the latter bit live at the point w here Geldolf introduced the young Ethiopian, Mirhan . I cried. I could not look at the film of her as a child on a death sentence and her ,in person,standing there in rude health and quite beautiful without feeling very moved. I am more moved to pure despair by the simple slogan "make poverty history". No right thinking human could disagree with the wish behind the message,but how?. The needs of Africa are barely understood by themselves, how on Earth can the compex requiments of a continent with a population of in excess of 770m.be addressed by simply chanting "Make Poverty History" As a continent in vast swaithes of area the land is so infertile that it cannot sustaine human life--yet life exists in drought and famine raged parts that, when t.v documentary evidence is shown in the "West" we look upon it as though it has just happened for the first time. The fact is, it is not a new phenomenon. For centuries it has been the norm. Modern media has highlighted the extent of the problem in the last 25 to 30 years as if it was a new problem. It isn't. The only new part of it "our" new concience. Africa is a disparate continent of nation states , carved up at the behest of the European Empirical colonising nations with no regard to the cultural implications to follow in time to come .In the late 1880's a meeting was convened in Berlin to decide how the contient was to be divided between the colonising countries. The simplest solution they could arrive at seems to be that if you draw several vertical lines and an almost equal amount of horizontal lines, the spaces in between we will call countries. That , of course, is a wee exaggeration, but not much. In the carve up, the tribal interest of over a thousand indiginous tribes were ignorantly ignored. Historic rivalries and friendships were disregarded in the interest of European convenience. The tragedy for for African NATIONS is that they do not all live in the same geographical countries as designated by our colonising forebears. So, peoples of decidedly different thought,ambition culture, religion and creed are all lumped together in an area of geographical commonency and told that you are all now Kenyans , Ugandans, Malawis, etc. Tell that to them. It's a bit like giving an Everton fan a red shirt and TELLING them they are now a Liverpool fan. This national and tribal conflict has been used to massive and sophisticated effect by more dictators and despots than you could probably name. The opportunity to "Make Poverty History" simply cannot be even remotely approached whilst they exist. So, sorry I am to say so, it was a good concert, but that will NOT change the ills of centuries

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