Africa

[ryanvergel]

Actually, it doesn't surprise me one bit. People like to rationalize their position to ease the guilt over others not having it, or the fact that it was through our exploitation and sloth that nothing gets helped. Why it goes straight to cultural elitism is beyond me, but as I said, it's just them rationalizing themselves.

Yeah, when I rationalize my actions of the same sort, it usually leads me to conclude that I am inferior in some way, or have some fault about me to where I am too greedy haha.

But all these people saying that Africans (in general, too, not even Nambia or Zambia or Zimbabwe lol where the AIDS overpopulation is the worst or Sudan too) have an inferior culture, and that somehow their people deserve their state- as if the state we inherit is our own doing.

 

[drrty byl]

A Moral Case for Inaction

'Modernization' and 'economics' are colonial constructs when applied to Africa.

Feeding people is good, but should it be done on "our" own moral and political terms? I'm sure you get a lot of interesting viewpoints from folks over in Iraq and Afghanistan that have been democratized in recent years.

When will our global rampage of freedom, prosperity, and "charity" come to an end? The Romans colonized much of present-day Britain under the auspices of un-Barbarianizing the local population, just as the British went 'round the world on a "civilizing" mission twenty centuries later -- it's the same old story.

What we really need is population control, everywhere -- but on a practical level, that boils down to disease, starvation, and warring.

 

[ryanvergel]

'Modernization' and 'economics' are colonial constructs when applied to Africa.

Feeding people is good, but should it be done on "our" own moral and political terms? I'm sure you get a lot of interesting viewpoints from folks over in Iraq and Afghanistan that have been democratized in recent years.

When will our global rampage of freedom, prosperity, and "charity" come to an end? The Romans colonized much of present-day Britain under the auspices of un-Barbarianizing the local population, just as the British went 'round the world on a "civilizing" mission twenty centuries later -- it's the same old story.

What we really need is population control, everywhere -- but on a practical level, that boils down to disease, starvation, and warring.

That's one very outdated, and cruel way to control the population, I agree.

We going to let India die from disease and war too, lol?

If we need population control, why don't you convince you and your family, and everyone you know to contract AIDS or something? That would be a way to control the population, right?

We can just start testing for IQs and give AIDS to those with an IQ below 90.

 

[drrty byl]

That's one very outdated, and cruel way to control the population, I agree.

We going to let India die from disease and war too, lol?

If we need population control, why don't you convince you and your family, and everyone you know to contract AIDS or something? That would be a way to control the population, right?

We can just start testing for IQs and give AIDS to those with an IQ below 90.

What are you advocating? That we trade materialism for food stamps, to be distributed by an arm of the US federal government and in the spirit of nineteenth century humanism?

I just don't see this working on a practical or even purely idealistic level. Don't we have to become the Borg before we can value all members of the species?

I'm just suggesting that solving world hunger, violence, and disease isn't so simple: European colonialism exported a lot of the problems the African continent faces, and that by re-intervening in the same way, we stand the chance of simply doing more damage at a great cost.

 

[ryanvergel]

What are you advocating? That we trade materialism for food stamps, to be distributed by an arm of the US federal government and in the spirit of nineteenth century humanism?

I just don't see this working on a practical or even purely idealistic level. Don't we have to become the Borg before we can value all members of the species?

I'm just suggesting that solving world hunger, violence, and disease isn't so simple: European colonialism exported a lot of the problems the African continent faces, and that by re-intervening in the same way, we stand the chance of simply doing more damage at a great cost.

I think we need to re-intervene to solve the problems that colonialism brought to the continent. We, as in the Western world, have a lot of responsibility to take for the current state of Africa, and to shrug off those problems for the reasoning that it's good for the planet because of population control just brings to mind more elitist thought- why not just kill yourself then, if you are so concerned? Why should their families die over yours- especially when no one has to die.

There is no short-term solution to this problem, but if we had been working to REALLY solve problems, instead of just postponing them, we could have made real progress by now. The longer we wait the worse it will likely get, and more innocent people will just die.

 

[ryanvergel]

Ethnocentrism is the tendency to look at the world primarily from the perspective of one's own culture. The term was introduced in 1906 by William Graham Sumner, a Yale professor and anti-imperialist, in his book Folkways. Ethnocentrism often entails the belief that one's own race or ethnic group is the most important and/or that some or all aspects of its culture are superior to those of other groups. Within this ideology, individuals will judge other groups in relation to their own particular ethnic group or culture, especially with concern to language, behavior, customs, and religion. These ethnic distinctions and sub-divisions serve to define each ethnicity's unique cultural identity.

It is based on these ethnocentric ideals that many of you people on the Gym base your assumptions and reasoning on. There is no real base or logic behind this ethnocentrism, and to base an argument that people deserve or do not deserve assistance and life-giving materials based on an illogical, primitive, ethnocentric basis is what makes so many of these comments move into racial comments instead of merely ethnocentric (bad in its own right, but a different kind of bad). These comments are racist because you believe your SUPERIOR ethnocentric views to be substantial reasoning to treat these particular people as lesser people, or less deserving of assistance.

That is why I have been using the word racist. Those comments and beliefs that have been spread here are RACIST ideas.


Moving on,

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we've come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the "unalienable Rights" of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds."

But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so, we've come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.

We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. And those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. And there will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice: In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.

The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.

We cannot walk alone.

And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead.

We cannot turn back.

There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their self-hood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating: "For Whites Only." We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until "justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream."¹



I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. And some of you have come from areas where your quest -- quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.

Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.

---
EDITOR'S NOTE:

Clarence Jones, who helped King draft the speech the night before in the Willard Hotel was interviewed by CNN after they showed the speech and he said that at some point the great gospel singer Mahalia Jackson, who was on the podium with King, yelled out to King to "tell them about the dream!," a theme that he had used in other speeches, but had not planned to incorporate in that day's oration.

Jones said he saw King turn his prepared notes over and told someone nearby, "These people don't know it, but they are fixing to go to church."

---
And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of "interposition" and "nullification" -- one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; "and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together."2

This is our hope, and this is the faith that I go back to the South with.

With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

And this will be the day -- this will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning:

My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.

Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim's pride,

From every mountainside, let freedom ring!

And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.

And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.

Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.

Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.

Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.

But not only that:

Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi.

From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:

Free at last! Free at last!

Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbUtL_0vAJk

I can't even begin to go over how beautiful and perfect this speech was. The man didn't even live to see fourty, and was brutally murdered for his ideas of spreading equality and extinguishing the flames of injustice perpetuated by the cultural elitism and ethnocentrism that breeds the racist scorns and acts of violence. Even this, the denial of food and means of living can be seen as an act of violence. We are gorging ourselves on food, the Western world growing fat and obese, while a large number of the world's population gets thinner and thinner, dying of starvation. The shift and classist gap that has emerged is absolutely staggering to me. We have a Western world with obesity and heart disease and cancer to fear, and I look at the "dark continent" and see starvation, disease, and AIDS wreaking havoc. Our problems are a result of excess, and their problems are a result of lacking- and we continue to stuff ourselves to overfill.

If the United States wants to be a TRUE beacon of hope, of prosperity, of democracy, of FREEDOM, the freedom to LIVE, to NOT DIE WHEN INNOCENT. To not starve to death before seeing your fifth birthday. Not being kidnapped, *****, killed, infected, or left to die in some other way. If we wish to truly support these fundamental ideas which drive the purpose for our country's existence, we must be able to extend our hand and help those around us, even if it means the sacrifice of luxury.

We can act as we did in World War II, shrug off the wars and destruction on another continent, and eventually act as we know we will inevitably have to, or we can prevent the further killing of innocent human lives.

I was hoping when I started this thread to see people asking, HOW can I help! What did I see? Not even WHY should I help, but why I should NOT help. A complete and utter shift to me. If morality and the preservation of innocent human life calls for a restriction on our luxuries, then we have a moral duty to restrict our luxuries.

There are very few things which many cultures agree upon. One thing which stands pretty firmly, however, is the Golden Rule. It has been said and re-said many ways. Here is Kant's wording:

Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.

I don't really want to get into the discussion of justifying this moral principle, and discussing imperatives and whatever, because that's a different discussion. However, this idea is something that most cultures, and certainly ours, tries to appeal to. Only do unto others as you would have them do unto you. What goes around comes around. Golden Rule.

I want to express the idea that we cannot turn a blind eye to problems that we know exist. In our own law, the witnessing of a crime or an injustice and doing nothing is criminal activity itself. If we, as the West, as America, as whatever responsible global, emerging entity who will speak for the well-being of not just the US, but of the entire human race, wants to be the beacon of freedom, then we must help our fellow man right now.

I know it's a sad say when I have to argue for the idea that people needlessly dying horrible ways despite our having the resources to prevent it is a BAD thing and that because of how bad a thing it is we ought to prevent it and begin stopping it, even if it means the sacrificing of a few luxuries so that others may not have to DIE. It seems like a pretty easy thing to do. If everyone just tried to increase their global awareness and realize how affected we are by one another...

I will repeat a section of Dr. King's speech:

The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.

We must realize that our destiny is tied up with the destiny of our world. We have begun to modernize our energy, we have realized our effect on the environment, but what about truly realizing our effect and possible affect on each other? Our freedom, our democracy, how bright and shining and beautiful these ideals can never be as beautiful when it does not live up to its true meaning and purpose- a beacon. To a beacon, something must exude light. It must be filled with a luminosity that spreads out onto the darker areas. We do not have to infect as we have done in the past.

We do not have to colonize to help. We do not have to push our culture over their own. We can help them, as it inevitably will help us. What good is it to prosper and to know of wealth when the world around us becomes wretched and diseased and withers into dust? How bright and shining can our world be when surrounded with the stench of rotting corpses and haunted by the cries of starving children? Will we let innocents die until our own innocence is dead?

 

[afstandopleren]

What I belive the reason is that we can't really help them is because we can't even help ourselfs.

People don't want to know about the mistakes they make and cover them up instead of looking at themselves.
And how can you help another if you can't help yourself?
Economy is going through a crisis, people crab every coin they can in the highest places and it seems the the moral of the children today is very low. Unless something big happens to help ourself, we can't help others.

 

[drrty byl]

Why should the US gov't. help everyone in the world?

By the same logic -- why hasn't Europe paid reparations for its colonial endeavors? Why don't we hold ourselves accountable for the extermination of native America?

Determining that helping another culture is necessary is in itself an affirmation of ethnocentrist, orientalist thought.

 

[ryanvergel]

Why should the US gov't. help everyone in the world?
Because we can.

By the same logic -- why hasn't Europe paid reparations for its colonial endeavors?
IDK
Why don't we hold ourselves accountable for the extermination of native America?
We should.

Determining that helping another culture is necessary is in itself an affirmation of ethnocentrist, orientalist thought.

I do not wish to help their culture. I wish to give food to starving people, and medicine to those afflicted with disease.

yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

 

[hitmonchan93]

yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

So you would rather us delve farther into the hole of debt to help Africa because "we can"?

 

[Brady1]

Whats the point of having money if it could be used to SAVE HUMAN LIFE??? This is common freaking sence here. Would you give up your banking acount to prevent 9/11 from happenging. OF COURSE YOU WOULD. So why would you give away all your money to save 2000~ lives when you could give only a fraction and save THOUSANDS from starvation?? Do you know how much the families of 9/11 got for thier family members deaths? On average, 2.1 MILLION dollars. If the statements from my church are correct, just one of those 2.1 million dollar payments could feed an entire village with the nessicities of life for months at a time. Part of what I've noticed here is that people think that all this money is going to for food/water. Its also going for education, basic medicine, housing...things we obviously take for granted when we call all whine about not getting the new ipod and have to settle with our 2 year old versions.

Again, for people's benefit: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=logo#/group.php?gid=6324544002&ref=ts
The links are 100% free to do and YOU FEED PEOPLE. I'm sure 95% of us here are doing nothing as important as saving human lives.

 

[DarthPika]

If we really want to get into this... why should the US clean up the mess England left? Seriously, England screwed up MAJORLY when it came to settling places. Look at the US and Australia, we made it out ok, but only because we fought them off. Look what England left for many places in Africa, NOTHING. The went in, destroyd any form of goverment the people had (admittedly it probably wasnt very good) and then leave, paving the road to comiunism. Why don't we start asking why other countries don't do more? Why should it JUST be the US and a few European countries?

Ryan, its VERY sad that there are people suffering but we just can't spend every second of our lives worrying about it. There always has been suffering and there always will be. If you never want to be happy worrying about something as major as this all the time is the right way to go. I know I could be a heck of a lot worse off then I am, but at the same time I DO have a life. I help people in the ways I am able, but constantly thinking about suffereing people isnt exactly something I want to spend my life doing.

This is something like the idea of, you don't have to do these huge, importent, difficult things to be a good person. The importent thing is to do what your able to do. If that means saying hi to your neighbor on your way out to work, then thats fine. Solving world problems just isnt something EVERYONE is gonig to be able to do.

 

[Articjedi]

Actually England didn't do a bad job of civilizing their former colonies, at least compared to other nations, they do have the commonwealth after all.

 

[Cyrus]

I for one applaud DrrtyByl's efforts to make you all recognize that overpopulation is a big part of the problem. In a world of unlimited wants, there are limited resources - that is a basic concept in economics, and the more people we have to cry for wants, the more strain our system suffers.

Part of us helping Africa is Africa showing that it can help itself.

 

[Bippa201]

I don't think it is a matter of who wants to help. Secretly, we all have seen those ads about how bad the conditions are in Africa.

Anyway, the problem isn't that we don't want to help, but that we feel that there is nothing that we can do (but we can make a difference)

 

[ryanvergel]

I for one applaud DrrtyByl's efforts to make you all recognize that overpopulation is a big part of the problem. In a world of unlimited wants, there are limited resources - that is a basic concept in economics, and the more people we have to cry for wants, the more strain our system suffers.

Part of us helping Africa is Africa showing that it can help itself.

The arguments fails and has already been addressed much earlier in the thread. Please read Hargin's argument, which is a MUCH more sophisticated version of drrty's, but which is ultimately proven to be faulty.

I don't even understand what "Part of us helping Africa is Africa showing that it can help itself." means lol. Trying to sound nice and fancy by creating a chiasmus of sorts? Won't work.

The overpopulation things only works if we didn't have the means to help these people, but again, we obviously do. We are dying of obesity in America, not starvation.

I guess I can applaud a guy for re-stating an argument already addressed that ultimately fails? But why would I want to do that.

 

[Cyrus]

Why would you not want to applaud.

Applause is, in most instances, articulated appreciation. Mankind yearns for appreciation beyond even the meatiest feast.

Ergo, your applause for others will promote goodwill among your immediate peers,and then, in a convoluted way, lead to people actually caring about Africa on a children's message board.

It might just work...

 

[PuRpLe]

^ I may not agree with some stuff he's said but I definetly do agree that if a place needs help America can be the one to do it! Why are you guys acting like we aren't the greatest country in the world?
Although it is naive to think that alot of people would/should be willing. This is the place where 15 year olds who are too lazy to excercise get gastric bypass surgery lol.

Don't get me wrong, I love America, no place I'd rather be but I also agree with Clint Eastwood, America is full of spoiled wimps. (And nuturing them even further =/)

 

[Articjedi]

Does Kim Jong Il want his country to get kudos from the rest of the international community? How about the junta in Burma? Does China really care unless they're doing some international sports festival? I'm pretty sure all those military dictatorships in Africa don't really care what the rest of the world thinks of them, as long as they can exploit the people there for their own ends.

And if they really wanted it, why hasn't it happened yet? Why aren't at least the seeds of economic and personal freedom there so they are moving out of their poverty? I'm not advocating dumping a pile of resources there, but I do believe they need a nudge in the right direction.

 

[drrty byl]

Why aren't at least the seeds of economic and personal freedom there so they are moving out of their poverty? I'm not advocating dumping a pile of resources there, but I do believe they need a nudge in the right direction.

So we should invade and give the people their freedom, right?

The arguments fails and has already been addressed much earlier in the thread. Please read Hargin's argument, which is a MUCH more sophisticated version of drrty's, but which is ultimately proven to be faulty.

You can diss my pokegymreader length aid-is-orientalism view all you want bro, but when it comes down to "helping" other parts of the world in a practical, applied sense, history teaches us that it inevitably involves military invasion, missionary work, or "civilizing."

Can we create some sort of french fry dropping drone? Because if that can be done, I'm all for it.