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Originally Posted by Frank_Carbonni
I'd rather live in South Central or East LA or the South Bronx or West Philly or South Side Chicago or Camden or East St. Louis than Soweto or Lagos or Mogadishu or Kinshasa or Monrovia or Freetown.
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That will depend on where in Kinshasa, where in Lagos, no? I dunno about Monrovia and Freetown, but in Kinshasa, if you live in Montfleury, in the District of Gombe or in hills of IPN, then there will be no reason for you to live in the West unless you have a visceral love for own country and can't bare the sight of millions of Africans.
So you’ll rather live in poor South Central and East LA or the South Bronx than in the rich areas of Lagos, Nigeria and Luanda, Angola even if you could afford it? Hmmm…it sounds like you’ve already have your mindset because there Penthouses and Mansions in those cities just like in rich Western neighborhood. But again, it’s just your opinion. Some people can’t live anywhere in Norway and Sweden despite the high standard of living and quality of life. Many of those Scandinavians buy homes in Florida just for the climate. A lot of people live France to come to the USA, and many of these Europeans go live in African countries.
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About 10% give or take, but none of them live in the kind of poverty that Africans do. Poor people in Western nations tend to have things like electricity and indoor plumbing.
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Pal, poverty is poverty. The difference and relevance isn’t in details such as having electricity and indoor plumbing; what counts is the way abject poverty affect people worldwide, in the West, in the East, or in Africa. Poor people suffer and are desperate and between those millions of people, the common denominator is the same: They’re poor. I know some people in the West like to find comfort by telling themselves, even that they’re very poor, that they live better than people in China, India, and anywhere in Africa, but…this isn’t a self esteem boosting issue, it’s human condition issue.
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Staggering compared to what? Compared to most African nations (and Latin American and Former Communist nations) the murder rate in America is very low.
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Compared to which African nations? I will name you South Africa for being notorious to have a high crime rate, but name me a single African country and Latin American country and former communist nation (Russia excepted) that has a higher crime than the US. And please provide sources and documentation to support your claim. It’s always interesting to learn new things. And by crime, I meant all kinds of crime, not just murders. There are more people in prisons in the United States than there are people in Equatorial Guinea and Gabon combined. And even proportionally, by the number of people in prison for 100,000 in population, the US dwarfs any nation on earth including the closest second, Russia with 627 prisoners for every 100,000 people. The US has 751 people in prison or jail for every 100,000 in population.
I don’t know why you overlooked that I included rate of depression, suicide, divorced and drug abuse. I was merely trying to demonstrate that there are other issues other than wealth and poverty that affect many societies, and the richest society on earth is affected by all sorts of problem. Individual right to civil liberty and the pursuit of happiness, isn’t what America all about? You can’t argue or prove that despite being far richer, people in this society are happier than on other area around the globe.
The United States has less than 5 percent of the world's population. But it has almost a quarter of the world's prisoners.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/23/wo....12253738.html
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It is to an extent. I knew an Ethiopian man who would comment extensively on it. He would also point out that when people think they have it bad or have seen some horrible things that they were dead wrong. I would also like to mention that he was a war veteran by 16.
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That’s anecdotal. I know many people in Brazzaville, Libreville, Kinshasa etc who would never come here in the US to live because they are well off and have everything they need. What you’re arguing is the significant portion of the population that lives below the poverty line, and no one would dispute you on this. But again, those are very poor and new countries even. How old is Nigeria? There’s a rich elite and middle class population in Ethiopia, no? There’s an elite class in the ex-Zaire and anywhere else in the world.
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I have to agree with you here.
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Oh, so finally, we agree on something. Look: I am not trying to write a term paper for a college course here, so you will have to give me more latitude and try to understand what I was trying to say. What I am trying to say is that keep telling people that Africa is poor, Africans are “backwards” etc doesn’t help humanity. We get it, it’s poor, there’s endemic violence, but it’s time for the people who say this to offer some solution. Would you keep telling a child that he is illiterate or you would help him to learn how to read and write? That’s the only problem I have with such criticism of the African continent because most of the time, they are not constructive and are just used to denigrate and humiliate a continent that has been suffering for 5 centuries.
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But so much of Africa fits the mold. Virtually the entire place is poor and backwards. Plus most of it suffers from epidemic crime or warfare or disease or things like having more landmines than people.
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Virtually the entire place? So you would say about 90% of the continent suffer from epidemic crime or warfare? I think you confuse armed conflicts, civil war with epidemic crime…like there is in the US and Russia. I mean, the West is so organized it even has Organized crime. But you lack of precision on these issues, the fact that you’re didn’t name the African countries you have in mind and explained the complexities of the problems is an indication that you’re not very well informed on the continent and you rather have a biased and prejudiced vision of it.
So you agree with me then support that negative portrayal of the entire African continent are the ones who wants to justify their overall ignorance about it? Okay then. That’s why I am here, as an African American(I became an American citizen in August) who lived in an African countries and who is very familiar with some the regions, the issues, the people etc, to give another perspective. Would you go online and tell all those people who live in Africa, Eastern Europe etc that dream about coming to the US that the United States is a paradise? Of course not. I will be your civic duty to explain to them the reality of life in America and put things in proper context. Yes, the quality of life is much higher in the US, but you must tell them that things will not be easier for them merely because they get a better job.
I mean, most sub-Saharan Africans who have access to television and have never been to the US think that once they come to the States, they will drive Bentleys like 50 cent, date models, live in big houses etc because they think that those image that sells the American dream on TV, movies, video clips etc. Why do you think so many people want to come here? So just like you would not sell them the image of the USA as heaven on earth, I can’t sucribe to that image of the African continent as hell on earth. Because, it makes people want to come to the US for the wrong reason, not being aware of certain realities and it makes Westerners not wanting to go anywhere in Africa merely because they have misconceptions.
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The corruption and warfare insure that. Investors usually base long term investments in infrastructure on more than a rumor or popular image. The fact that they will be "taxed" by corrupt civil servants, the military, and sometimes guerrilla groups does enough to discourage them.
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In some case, some of that corruption and warfare was organized by the West to remove a government they didn’t like. But overall, the Africans leaders and members of the elite are responsible most of their problem and the image of the continent.
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And because a lot of it is true. Rwanda, Congo, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, Burundi, Nigeria, Sudan, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, Angola...
To name a few.
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Rwanda is doing well right now, they are rebuilding their country and the economy is fairly stable. Regarding Congo, I assume you mean the Democratic Republic of Congo, right? Well, the country has the size of Western Europe and the conflict is in the East of the country. In other words, you will not travel to the South of France because there’s trouble somewhere in the Netherlands?
Sudan, it’s just Darfur, a region that has the size of France. In the capital, Khartoum, and elsewhere people are “fine”. For the rest of the countries you cited, there are problems and those problems are endemic to the world, it's not an African phenomenon.
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No, they were not "safe". They just did not have to deal with the mass rapes. They were still subject to all the other wonders (and by that I mean "pure horror") of being a resident of the Congo.
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You really lost me here. You mean that being a resident of Congo systematically mean “pure horror”? Then what are the expatriate doing there? What are all those Chinese immigrants doing in the entire country? What about the Lebanese? I don’t know why people would live their own country to settle and live in a place where “pure hell” is rampant.
Hmmm, so Congo is “pure hell” for its resident, even for bank owners, CEOs, businessmen and the majority of the people who are involved in the informal economy. I am sorry, pal, I am from the Congo and you will need to explain to me what you mean by” pure hell”. If you mean poverty, well, people in the west aren’t immune to it. Just ask all these people who are homeless, who live in their car, who are riddled in debt and spend money they don’t have etc. If Congo-Kinshasa could reform it banking system and more people could get access to credit cards like here in the US, you would also get the illusion that people live very well…well in fact, they live beyond their means, little if not zero net worth.
For the rest, you actually completed some of points for me, so no need to add or attempt to refute anything. But we must agree that keep repeating what the whole worlds knows already, suspects or is accustomed to doesn't help. There are plenty of places for tourists to enjoy in African countries. There’s Morocco, there’s Kenya, there’s Tanzania, South Africa etc.
We can’t really compare the West to Africa because the West is rich, and Africa is poor, and poor people are usually desperate and often have strange behavior. In other words, don't judge an entire continent by Western standards and through western lenses. Like I've mentionned in one my post earlier, I was in Ukraine and I saw absolute poverty compared to anywhere in the West. But I don't denigrate Ukraine and on the contrary, I wish them well and wish they could enter the European Union so they can raise the standard of living. You can find the same poverty in Russia and it's horrible. So depending on your values, it's not right to focus on poverty, calling people backward and imply that they have a congenital incapacity to live in dignity.
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