what do you think?.. are we poor because God is punishing us?.. not that Africans are lazy. Africans work all day under the hot sun yet a child dies every three seconds from hunger and extreme poverty in Africa. what do you think?

God isn't punishing you. That's impossible, because there is no God.

Africa is being left behind.

You may not have a God, but I sure do.

Africa is poor because of it's leaders, or rather lack of leaders.

Andrei is right. The cold war didn't help and afterwards the continent was largely forgotten since much of it doesn't hold strategic value for the West except those countries that have oil.

Of course there are many reasons but one is Sub-saharan Africa was somewhat isolated because of the Saharan desert and the continent is spread out on a north-south axis. A good read is Jared Diamond's "Guns, Germs, and Steel"

There aren't really much to succeed from in Africa or from Africans. They are busy working not to get better/rich but to get medications in curing or preventing AIDS....

Africa is a rich continent with minerals and natural resources, I think it is poor because most of their leaders are extremely corrupted. But not all are poor, South Africa is a well governed democracy, it is a rich and advanced society.

A number of reasons - the age old reason though is exploitation. Africa is very wealthy, or at least the natural resources are there to make it so. However, the African peoples have long been exploited by others, whether it was corrupt leaders or the West and the slave trade.

The Imperial forces didn't leave much in Africa, but took a lot from it. Many nations have made promises to Africa and not kept them. Wars are ongoing in a number of the countries....

It's a very sad state of affairs, and something that will hopefully heal over time. Africa has only really been developing (by itself at least) for the past 50 or 60 years which is a very short amount of time. Europe on the other hand has been developing slowly but surely over a much longer period. I do believe Africa will catch up with the rest of the world in the 21st century but there will be some hard times ahead before it reaches a state equal to that of the Western world.

Dan

Predatory debt.
Corrupt leaders.
Scars from colonialism.

The west has left Africa to China. After Bush's WMD never turned up in Iraq, he and Tony Blaire changed the reason we had gone into Iraq (aka rewrote history) to humanitarian worries. This is laughable in that Bush's War in Iraq has killed far more than Saddam Hussein. But this is cryable in that Darfur has been the scene of a horrific humanitarian disaster since 2003 (when the Iraq fun began) and the west has seen this as occasionally worth talking about.

Originally Posted by Learning Newbie

But this is cryable in that Darfur has been the scene of a horrific humanitarian disaster since 2003 (when the Iraq fun began) and the west has seen this as occasionally worth talking about.

Kind of like Clinton and Rwanda. At least Bush had the excuse that the U.S. was stretched thin policing some other part of the world. Clinton was busy banging his interns.

they are not poor its just that their govt is corrupt in golds they dont share it with RUF or with the other people..

well Personally I think its partly because there is so many ******ned religious people in africa.

they think everything happens for a reason and that gods will has some kind of purpose.

waste their time praying when they could be out doing practical stuff.
god doesn't do Bugger all. science, work, and progress does.

science and technology is the way foward no matter how many people dont like it. this is how we advance. sure the government can help out a bit more and get off their asses. and I'm sure all the africans are trying their best.

but put your f-ing bibles down and go pick up a science book or something!

Religion causes wars.... much like everything else, no matter how much u disagree with that!

Source: research on wars and an annoyingly religious (african) friend

Africa in general is poor because the people are unarmed, thus making them subject to anything their armed leaders want. And from everything I have read, the leaders of many African countries are barbaric and uneducated, meaning they cannot even pretend to manage an economy because they have no understanding of economics to start with, so they take and take and take until eventually there is nothing left to take and their empire falls for another who will repeat the same mistakes.

Couple this with a lack of education for the general populace and you have a bleak present with a bleak future.

IMO the simplest way to break this cycle would be for an African who comes to America or Europe to study and work, and then builds a business they can export to their homeland to provide jobs (not a sweat shop mind you) for the people and give them the opportunity to fund education there for their children, or to send their children off for education in order to return and expand the business and build new business. Someone who has a vested interest in the area developing. But none of that can happen if their leaders rule with an iron fist.

Originally Posted by green2griffin

well Personally I think its partly because there is so many ******ned religious people in africa.

they think everything happens for a reason and that gods will has some kind of purpose.

waste their time praying when they could be out doing practical stuff.
god doesn't do Bugger all. science, work, and progress does.

Do you know what most of those missionaries are REALLY over there doing? Digging wells. Starting schools. Do you think they're so naiive that they don't realize you can't minister to someone without taking care of physical needs? And a great many put their lives on the line and die to help care for those needs. I highly doubt you have the courage to do that.

Originally Posted by green2griffin

but put your f-ing bibles down and go pick up a science book or something!

Source: research on wars and an annoyingly religious (african) friend

Buddy, I could wipe the floor with you on any religious AND/OR science subject. Nice talk, BTW, for someone with a lot of preconceived notions, believing to be an expert after speaking with one African friend? Do you even know from what COUNTRY in Africa? Could you name one or tell us the political situation there?

tim

Buddy, I could wipe the floor with you on any religious AND/OR science subject.

Thank you SIR.
May I have another, SIR?

:-))

tim

People HArdworking But No good source of work...

Maybe God has a purpose in doing such thing.
Another is, "is this God's punishment for them?" -- If so, what's their sin?

Reine, I have to say that I must use all my temper to not write a full diatribe against the sentence you just wrote.

I'll stay with:
1) There is no such thing as a god
2) Life is hard, but humans make it harder on themselves
3) Don't try to make them responsible for the current situation.

It's century of exploitation from the "civilized peoples", let them be from USA, France, Belgium or Netherlands that put them in this situation.
If every countries would put as much as 1/10 of energy to boycott goods exported from totalitarian countries, it would certainly be enough.

But no, too many arms are bought from both USA and Europe to stop them.
And they sell their oil and uranium soooo cheap, why would we do that.
It would be against all economical reasons.

Africa is poor, because it profit others for it to be poor.
And that's the sole reason.
It will take a lot of work for it to change.
But you can start already:
http://www.kiva.org/app.php?page=bus...=Expiring+Soon

I think a lot of it is to do with corruption. Money gets sent to Africa from the west but most of it is snapped up by the ruling class, and precious little gets to the people who need it most.

These corrupt elites want to keep the majority poor and desperate to ensure that the first world keeps sending the aid, which only they benefit from. That's why nothing changes.

hi
not every child born rich but he should never die being poor their lots of sources and the hidden wealth in the world and to get that out one must work hard to achieve the goal.so African could not achieve their goal due to some reasons