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There's a very big difference between marrying at the age of 16 and marrying at the age of 9. It does take emotional maturity to raise a child, at least if you want to raise it properly. But it doesn't matter what I say, your only answer will be to bash the US. .
This whole thread was created to bash Africa, for no other reason than that Africa is NOT like the US. The title of the thread is intolerant -- intolerant compare to what? Are we allowed to say?
But you got one part right. This thread is about intolerance, and and most of the posters are proving that they are intolerant of everything that does not comform with America's failing and bankrupt social model.
It is not idly and gratuitously bashing America to point out that America has about 50 times the per capita GDP of all of sub Saharan Africa, and we still have 25% of our children officially classified as living below the poverty level, and daily subjected to the indignity, shame and hardship that that entails. And you hold American social criteria up to be a standard in countries with 1/50 of our wealth (some countries 1/100), on a day when American workers walked out and protested wages that are lower than the average wage in Panama, Botswana and Lebanon.
Stop holding up American values as the universal standard, if you are unprepared to talk about American values in comparison.
As for your comment about 9 year olds, in countries that have arranged marriages, many girls are married in infancy, but they are not turned over by their family to the husband until they reach puberty, which has for many thousands of years been the recognized age at which humans reproduce. Yes, there are violations of this custom, but they are infrequent, and the risk of girls under 9 being sexually experienced is probably higher in your precious and innocent USA than in almost any third world country. And in the third world, children are raised by entire extended families, not by a single mom working at McDonalds for $7.25 an hour, and it doesn't matter if the actual birth mother is intellectually immature. And if you want to keep on using anecdotal examples of extremes to make your points, I have a friend who had two children by the time she was 15. In America.
Yes "homosexual behavior" is a choice, but so is "heterosexual behavior". Sex and intimate relationships are not like breathing. Although it's not ideal, many people can and do live without both.
If homosexuality is not a choice then neither is homosexual behaviour. You cannot ask people to deny an essential part of their own identity, one of their strongest instincts. You cannot force people to marry someone they don't love and to have sex with someone they're not in the least attracted to. It's easy for us to say that gays should just "get over it" but imagine if the shoe was on the other foot. Imagine if the law suddenly said that heterosexual relationships would be outlawed (and anyone who engages in it will be severely persecuted) and we must all marry and have sex with someone of the same gender, whom we're not attracted to. Do you really think that would be a minor sacrifice? As for the last part, what about people who are already in Africa and have no way to leave?
There are two essential things that you westerners don't seem to understand. The first is that women, who make up more than 50% of the African population, do not have equality on any real level. Logically it is absurd to think that homosexuals, who make up less than 5% of the population, will achieve equality before women. Many African women lead sexually unfulfilled lives (female circumcision mean anything to you?) so perhaps you need to recognize that if Kofi can't bonk Kwame and kiss him in public the African world is not going to end.
The second essential thing is that Africans are not individualistic in any way, shape, or form. We are a communal people. We are used to sacrificing individual desires to uphold social mores. We are not like westerners who do whatever (and whoever) for the sake of a second of pleasure. Western culture is absolutely foundationless in how low its members will sink for personal gratification. Moreover there is virtually no social cohesion or shared value system. So there are plusses and minuses in both societies. Again you stay wherever you are if you prefer things that way.
Also you're talking to a Ghanaian woman with two lesbian sisters. Don't preach to me about leaving or not leaving or having choices. I walk the talk as do my sisters. Westerners need to be concerned about cleaning their own kitchens which are awfully messy.
This is quite possibly the best post I've read in awhile. It's so true. This is why I've begun to hypothesize that the breakdown of the African-American family didn't come into being because of Great Society programs although it didn't help but simply through migration North. Before the Great migration Blacks led similarly sedentary lives and being in good standing with your neighbors was especially important considering the oppressive climate they lived in. If you alienated your neighbors you were left exposed.
There's also a history that goes back to the beginning in terms of families being broken up, but I think there are many factors that contribute to such a complex topic.
What I think many fail to realize is that these answers about "different race" does not mean the people who responded don't want to live near whites or asians or whatever, in fact they probably never even considered it - because how many whites or asians even live in Africa?
No, it means that someone who is Hutu (black) does not want to live next to someone who is Tutsi (also black). It means that someone who is Igbo (black) does not want to live next to someone who is Yoruba (also black). Etc.
The vast majority of conflicts in Africa are ethnic clashes.
Whereas, conflicts in the Americas and Europe are generally not (especially now that Yugoslavia is gone).
So a German answering this question, they generally wouldn't even think twice about having a Polish or French neighbor. They likely wouldn't even care what ethnicity their neighbor was. But, again, a Hutu does not want to have a Tutsi living near them, it would be a big deal to them.
The vast majority of blood that has been shed has not been between differences 'races' but between different groups within the same race. Nations, religions, ethnic groups, clans, tribes.etc.
I was looking at various surveys regarding some social issues and it shocked me how high African countries tend to rank in these. Here are a few:
The survey about racism asked a representative group of people in various countries the following:
Could you please sort out any that you would not like to have as neighbors?
This was the percentage in African countries that mentioned people of a different race:
Rwanda 36.8%
Egypt 34.2%
Nigeria 30.4%
Zambia 29.5%
Morocco 23.1%
Ghana 22.4%
Mali 22%
Uganda 19.4%
Zimbabwe 18.6%
Tanzania 16.7%
Ethiopia 16.6%
Burkina Faso 10%
South Africa 6.4%
This is how some European and American countries ranked:
France 22.7%
Russia 16.6%
Italy 11.1%
Mexico 8.3%
Netherlands 8.1%
Germany 7.6%
Spain 6.9%
Peru 5.9%
Switzerland 5.9%
Great Britain 4.9%
Brazil 4.4%
Puerto Rico 4.4%
Colombia 4.3%
Australia 4.2%
Uruguay 3.9%
United States 3.8%
Canada 2.9%
Trinidad & Tobago 2.5%
Argentina 2%
Another survey, but this time regarding the acceptance of homosexuals, asked the following:
Could you please sort out any that you would not like to have as neighbors?
This is the percentage in African countries that mentioned homosexuals:
Egypt 99.6%
Ethiopia 82.2%
Algeria 80.7%
Burkina Faso 80.5%
Ghana 79%
Uganda 75%
Tanzania 74.1%
Nigeria 73.6%
Zambia 73.3%
Zimbabwe 67.8%
Mali 66.2%
South Africa 42%
This is how some European and American countries fared:
El Salvador 78.3%
Trinidad & Tobago 65.2%
Venezuela 57.4%
Mexico 29.8%
France 28.7%
United States 26.1%
Puerto Rico 21.9%
Italy 21.7%
Brazil 21.3%
Australia 20.2%
Great Britain 16.3%
Uruguay 16.2%
Guatemala 15.8%
Germany 15.1%
Argentina 14.5%
Canada 14%
Switzerland 11.1%
Spain 7.4%
Norway 5.7%
Sweden 4%
Does anyone knows what might explain this?
Before this I thought African countries were much more accepting of different people and on par with Western countries.
I would say,african countries fare pretty well compared to the so-called democraties.
Most african countries are considered to be 3rd world countries most of them are ruled by dictatures or archaic monarchies,most of them have been independent for 50 years or less and many of them are still controled economically or even militarly,directly or indirectly by the same former colonizers,so it's not fair to ask such question to african countries while most western countries are still treating women and emigrants as 2nd class citizens.
By the way most polls are made and manipulated by western countries so i don't trust these polls.
I was looking at various surveys regarding some social issues and it shocked me how high African countries tend to rank in these. Here are a few:
The survey about racism asked a representative group of people in various countries the following:
Could you please sort out any that you would not like to have as neighbors?
This was the percentage in African countries that mentioned people of a different race:
Rwanda 36.8%
Egypt 34.2%
Nigeria 30.4%
Zambia 29.5%
Morocco 23.1%
Ghana 22.4%
Mali 22%
Uganda 19.4%
Zimbabwe 18.6%
Tanzania 16.7%
Ethiopia 16.6%
Burkina Faso 10%
South Africa 6.4%
This is how some European and American countries ranked:
France 22.7%
Russia 16.6%
Italy 11.1%
Mexico 8.3%
Netherlands 8.1%
Germany 7.6%
Spain 6.9%
Peru 5.9%
Switzerland 5.9%
Great Britain 4.9%
Brazil 4.4%
Puerto Rico 4.4%
Colombia 4.3%
Australia 4.2%
Uruguay 3.9%
United States 3.8%
Canada 2.9%
Trinidad & Tobago 2.5%
Argentina 2%
Another survey, but this time regarding the acceptance of homosexuals, asked the following:
Could you please sort out any that you would not like to have as neighbors?
This is the percentage in African countries that mentioned homosexuals:
Egypt 99.6%
Ethiopia 82.2%
Algeria 80.7%
Burkina Faso 80.5%
Ghana 79%
Uganda 75%
Tanzania 74.1%
Nigeria 73.6%
Zambia 73.3%
Zimbabwe 67.8%
Mali 66.2%
South Africa 42%
This is how some European and American countries fared:
El Salvador 78.3%
Trinidad & Tobago 65.2%
Venezuela 57.4%
Mexico 29.8%
France 28.7%
United States 26.1%
Puerto Rico 21.9%
Italy 21.7%
Brazil 21.3%
Australia 20.2%
Great Britain 16.3%
Uruguay 16.2%
Guatemala 15.8%
Germany 15.1%
Argentina 14.5%
Canada 14%
Switzerland 11.1%
Spain 7.4%
Norway 5.7%
Sweden 4%
Does anyone knows what might explain this?
Before this I thought African countries were much more accepting of different people and on par with Western countries.
Yes "homosexual behavior" is a choice, but so is "heterosexual behavior". Sex and intimate relationships are not like breathing. Although it's not ideal, many people can and do live without both.
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