Capitalisms Street Entrepreneurs

One thing about the third world is that, despite the rampant corruption and street crime, that often threatens to take away any and everything that an enterprising small business man works hard for, they just keep sprouting up all over the place anyway. This fact by the way is proof positive, if ever it was needed, that capitalism is mankind's natural economic model.

When A Market Exists, Someone Will Attempt To Fill It.

This picture, which appeared on the BBC website, shows one such entrepreneur's street stall on Ngong road in Nairobi, Kenya.  As well the usual second hand clothes and bric-a-bric items, they have a sideline in sign writing.  So apart from the basic signs such as 'RESERVED PARKING', and the classic 'We give credit to those over 80 years accompanied by both parents', they also have my favourite 'LADYGAL ART'.

African Aid Model

As is usual, the sub Saharan states of Africa are debating what having a black American as US president has meant .... and the conclusion seems to be .. not a lot. They seem to have been expecting either a lot of US attention in the form of money or possibly in political settlements .... in fact they got much the same as under a white US president. Total Indifference.

Obama Not A Saviour For Africa

The question as to whether China is a better bedfellow and aid model to the Africans, is the one currently being asked ..... I would argue yes.

 

Man and Machines

Modern Man has been around for about 50,000 years as homo-sapiens, and since then, as busy little beavers, we have been remaking the planet and all it contains to reflect our requirements.

Man's Impact - Africa

 

The ultimate end product of which is likely to be a disaster for us, and all the other creatures sharing this Earth, although once we have gone, another evolutionary round will probably repopulate the planet eventually.

In The Heart Of Darkness

Talking of failed democratic states and elections, the ironically named 'Democratic Republic of Congo' prepares for just its second general elections in four decades - when the citizens of this ever failing state come out with statements such as "the state is dying but not yet dead" or "the state is ever present but completely useless", or "when you are rock bottom, you can still dig deeper", you realise that not much is expected in this exercise of 'democracy'.

DR Congo - Compared with Europe.

 

This country is two thirds the size of Western Europe, with all the resources in land, mineral wealth and natural resources than you can point a pointy stick at, yet the Failed States Index lists it as fourth in the list of the critically failed category of states. 

 

When you read that Zoe Kabila, the current President's brother, ordered his Republican Guard escort to beat up two police traffic officers because they did not give his 4x4 priority, you can see that the words "free and fair" are not going to apply here ..... to elections or anything else.Given its size and resources the DR Congo should be a very prosperous country, but decades of war, military incompetence and brutality, corruption and absolute economic mismanagement have left it desperately poor.

This state truly is "The Heart Of Darkness"

Little Thief Loses Assets

Teodoro (or Teodrin) Nguema Obiang Mangue is the son of  the corrupt President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea.

Corruption Buys A Lot Of House

 

As discussed in the past, he's as corrupt as his father and has amassed a huge fortune in monies stolen from his poor countrymen.

 

The Long Road To Wealth Creation

In one in the eye for the welfare state ethos of 'welfare benefits' for life (which has made sections of us the poorest and fattest society in Western Europe), it was revealed this week that peasants living in medieval England, were better off under the feudal system, than the poor in many African countries today!

I had heard this idea of English peasants lives before (notably on Terry Jones history show about peasants that showed that with all the religious holidays and other holidays, they actually worked less than most of us today ..... they averaged three days a week off), but this latest study suggests that economically, they were doing OK as well. This despite the fact that the period was a particularly violent, with warfare and plagues a regular set of events.

Rich Medieval Peasants?

The report showed that the average income per head was $1,000 (around £638 in 1990 terms), and living standards were higher then, than in countries such as Zaire (now known as the Democratic Republic of Congo), with an average income of $249, and Burundi ($479), in 1990. Even on the eve of the eruption of the Black Death, which first struck in 1348-49, peasant per capita incomes were more than £510, the report "British Economic Growth 1270-1870" has disclosed.

This means that people could afford a much more varied diet rather than the one based on grains and oatmeal, which is normally described in books, according to Prof Stephen Broadberry from the University of Warwick. He based his research upon a wide variety of records that have survived since the Norman conquest, which produced the most literate and numerate society (judging from the court records from the time, in which peasants were forever in court suing for their 'rights'), in Europe, and possibly in the world at this time.

• Zaire ($249)
• Burundi ($479)
• Niger ($514)
• Central African Republic ($536)
• Comora Islands ($606)
• Togo ($617)
• Guinea Bissau ($628)
• Sierre Leone ($686)
• Haiti ($686)
• Chad ($706)
• England in the late Middle Ages ($1,000) 

African Peasants

‘The path to the Industrial Revolution began far earlier than commonly has been understood,’ said Prof Broadberry ...... According to the World Bank, countries which had a per capita income of less than $1,000 last year (2009) included Ghana ($700), Cambodia ($650), Tanzania ($500), Ethiopia ($300) and Burundi ($150), while in India, one of the BRIC emerging economies, the gross income per capita stands only just above European medieval levels at a mere $1,180.

NB: The other episodes from Terry Jones series on the middle ages are here:

The Monk
The Damsel
The King
The Minstrel
The Knight
The Philosopher

Nigerians Do What They Are World Beaters At .....

By some strange quirk of fate, immediately after I blogged on the countries 50yrs of achievements, Nigerians excelled in their national pastimes of corruption, cheating, and drug dealing .....



Would You Buy A World Cup from This Man?

 ..... and all in connection to sports events.

 

Fifty Years Of Independance?

Apparently, its fifty years since the independence of Nigeria. According to some, its been a very good thing, and Nigeria has boomed in those fifty years.

Fifty Years Since Nigerian Independence



• Average life expectancy up a whopping 10 years from 38 to 48 ...(wow! .... I'd be dead in Nigeria).
• Infant Mortality down from 165 to 98 per 1000 births.
• Average births per female down from 6, to 5.
• Number of doctors per 1,000 up from  0.017148 to 0.40.

However looked at another way, Nigeria remains one of the worst performing countries in the world even on these measures of 'success'. I might add that outside of these official measures of success, Nigeria is also renowned for its total corruption, Internet scams, and racial and religious genocides (Remember Biafra?).

I blame us British for some of this failure. We should have split Nigeria into two countries for independence: A Muslim Northern state (which could retreated into ignorance and backwardness by itself - widespread suspicions over Western morals in schools, mean that girls in northern Nigeria rarely go to school), and a Christian / Animist Southern one, which might have made some progress.

Instead, we hitched separate tribes, languages, and religions together, and hoped to 'make a country'  out of this hodgepodge. Instead we got, well a mess. But there our blame ends, the incompetence and corruption they created all for themselves ....  It's estimated that in Nigeria, more than $400 billion was stolen from the state treasury by Nigeria's leaders between 1960 and 1999.

It is interesting to note that Indonesia is also celebrating fifty years of independence ..... they started from around the same base level of measurements, but look at the figures now.

Nigeria and Indonesia compared:

Life expectancy

• Nigeria: Men, 47. Women, 48
• Indonesia: Men, 69. Women, 73

Gross national income, per capita

• Nigeria: $1,160
• Indonesia: $2,010

Gross domestic product

• Nigeria: $207.12 billion (mostly oil revenue)
• Indonesia: $510.73 billion

Population below poverty line

• Nigeria: 70%
• Indonesia: 17.8% 

Tells you everything about both Africa and Africans ......    

'TinTin' To Be Banned

'TinTin' banned ....... Ah, a sign of the 'PC' times, where revisionism is the 'new reality'.

TinTin In The Congo

Yes a Congolese man, Mr Mbutu, who 'moved' to Belgium, is trying to get a Tintin book banned in the cartoon star's home country of Belgium. 

African Moral Standards

Who would have thought that in a continent where 25% of males in one country can admit to being rapists, where theft is a way of life, and where entire coach loads of footballers can fall under sustained machine gun attacks, that there would be wide ranging prudery.

But the "African Renaissance" statue in Senegal has caused a storm for many reasons, not least apparently because the bare breasted woman is showing too much leg! Yes, her breasts exposed to the sky are apparently OK, but her thighs are considered to be immoral.

Architect Pierre Goudiaby Atepa told journalists in the capital, Dakar, that he had received complaints about the woman's "naked legs". He said that he has now proposed to Mr Wade that the legs be covered with a concrete cloth.

Senegal is largely a Muslim nation but there seems not to be mobs burning Christians or attacking President Wade, because they know what would happen if they did. President Wade has only apologised once over the statue, and this was to Senegal's Christian minority after he compared the "Africa Renaissance" statue to Jesus Christ.

It's really the hopeless continent

Army Rapist Of Guinea

This report on the government sanctioned raping in the street of women pro-democracy protesters in Guinea, is possibly the most disturbing account of how close most African societies are to tribal barbarism. This despite a veneer of 50 yrs of 'independence' and self rule.

I won't attempt to paraphrase the women's accounts of the attacks, which are harrowing in the extreme, but sadly these sorts of event occur with depressing regularity in Sub Saharan Africa.

Western politicians barely remark on it.

Africa Still Struggles

Mr Kofi Annan launched a report that urged Africa to drive its own development but (and theres always a but with Africa), he still wanted the aid donors to honour their commitments too.

However the report highlighted that corruption is costing Africa around $150bn (£92bn) a year.

Mr Annan said "Africa has transformed in my lifetime and the progress reached so far is proof that concrete achievements are possible amidst adversity. The economic, climate change and food security crises are all linked. They cannot be tackled separately. We need a new development model that provides security, stability, and addresses people's needs. Everyone needs to contribute. Business has a key role, as do Africa's trading and donor partners. But the primary responsibility to make it happen rests with Africa's political leaders."

The Africa panel who produced the report said the number of wars was sharply down. Fifteen years ago there were 13 civil wars. Now they claim that there are just three: Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Somalia.

However African Analysts point out that this report ignores conflicts in Chad, the Central African Republic and Ethiopia, not to mention low-level insurgencies in at least another four states - including Nigeria.

In otherwords, Africa is still a basket case of wars and corruption.

Is it Wolfman? Not its Goatman!

If ever there was a story that proved that some the human race is still only partially out of the worlds of sorcery and ignorance, its the news from Nigeria that a crowd of local vigilantes have arrested and handed a goat over to the police.

They claimed that the goat was actually a car thief who had changed into a goat to (unsuccessfully it appears) escape capture. Many members of African communities still believe in witchcraft, voodoo, shape changing and zombies etc.

These kinds of stories come out far too regularly to be dismissed as just 'eccentricity' and this small sample from this century;

• 19 arrested in Kenya for burning 11 witches to death.
• Sudanese woman (who is described as Danish in the BBC world) arrested for genital mutilation.
• Nigerian 'child witch killer' arrested.
• Zimbabwe makes it legal to practice (good) witchcraft.
• DR Congo society accuses young girls of kindoki (witchcraft).
• South African "Healers" to treat HIV.
• Witch doctors claim they helped Ivory Coast win African Nations Cup.
• South Africa employs "traditional healers" in World Cup.
• Tanzanian 'witch killers' charged.
• Tanzania gets 'voodoo newspaper'.
• Tanzania fights human skinning.
• Benin readies for Voodoo Day.
• Angola's witchcraft's child victims.
• London - 'Witch' child cruelty trio guilty of torture (Angolan asylum seekers).
• London - Muti torso found in Thames (Victim African boy).
  

shows that its well spread both in Africa and amongst African/Caribbean communities.

Of course non African cultures such as the Saudis believe in witchcraft as well, and no doubt in the multicultural world in which we now live, these beliefs are of 'equal value and validity' as science and the age of reason ..... however the wisdom of that kind of PC nonsense aside, and ignoring the fact that there is much laughter in Nigeria, and elsewhere, at the story, there is a more serious point to this story.

Much of Africa is ill educated and ignorant (frankly not much different than before the colonial era), and there lies the key to its continuing failure as a continent.

Until all Africans are given a free, secular education, they will never escape the primitism and tribalism that scar the post colonial history of sub Saharan Africa.

African Innovation

The Ivory Coast, despite a civil war and political troubles has displayed an unexpected bit of self reliance ..... 

SOTRA Designed Bus

...... and produced the first locally designed and produced bus (I think South Africa produces buses but they are foreign designed).