Take Africa...Please

I've been trying to write a blog post about Africa for three days now. Last night I pulled out some of my theory books, and thought to myself, "hell maybe I'll write a for real paper" I reread all the comic books involved and then I realized something. There was no way in hell I could do this.

It started with a comic called The Unknown Soldier which is what the fuck mega awesome and you need to go read it right the fuck now. It deals with the stuff going down in Uguanda. I also have another comic that is dealing with what is going in Darlfur, and there is a one shot of Thor where he visits some no name country in Africa. So I started getting all my source material together and I started to realize things. First off I didn't even know if Darlfur and Uguanda were the same place (Darfur is a region of Sudan not Uguanda). I then realized that the country in Thor was a real place. I did a little bit more preliminary reading and I realized that...holy shit this is big. I abandoned the project because of this problem. See we aren't talking about just Darfur, or Uguanda. We are talking about the better part of an entire continent. If they aren't genociding each other than there is famine, waste and corruption. Aids is sweeping across the entire continent at such a pace that if we stick our heads in the sand for long enough the Africa problem will solve itself. The entire continent is a disaster on a scale that simply hasn't been seen before or since. People like to blame colonialism but I think colonialism is mearly the thing that shined an ugly light on the problem.

See if it was down to one region I could say something, but this is a continent, I can't even imagine operating on that sort of scale. Okay I can, but it would be bad.

So lets turn to history. Europe used to be a shitty place to live. That place was in a series of wars more or less constantly up until WW1, WW2 was there to make sure that they never have an argument ever again about anything. Going through and looking at all the crap they used to do to each other? I mean man that was some fucked up shit. Then something happened and it all stopped.

China was roughly the same way. The whole of modern day china used to be several smaller warring factions, it wasn't until Cao Cao united the land through war and bloodshed that things began to settle down.

Japan had the same thing happen under Tokagowa, Ceaser conquored the known world and Alexander the Great did the same thing before him. Lets take a look at Pax Romana. 200 years of peace. There wasn't 200 years of peace everwhere mind you, I'm sure the Incas were kicking up a fuss, and Navahos were off making someone's life miserable, but you get the idea. Big sweeping war, then peace.

Now there is Africa, the cesspool of the world. Even if I were to go in and conquor it tomarrow I wouldn't want to keep it. The roman empire was more modern then that place.

There see that's it though. That is the voice of colonialism. The voice which says my way is better and here I am going to show you how, then I am going to make you do it that way. But...at the moment our way is better. It is LOOK. I mean my god there are people there who just want to go home and not have to worry about getting raped, then hacked apart by machettes. We aren't the best country in the world, not by a long shot. I also don't think democracy is the one true way. I do think that just ignore Africa under the mantra of, "they can figgure it out for themselves" is more than just a little bit bullshitty.

Big projects don't really scare me but lets face it, we can't even not fuck up Iraq. Imagine trying to deal with all of or even part of Africa? We would have to kill millions just so that they could be slightly safe.

As far as I am concerned this is a problem that won't go away as a result of diplomacy or any of that other crap. But ignoring it? Ignoring it is just unacceptable to me.

The most I can think of is this. Protect those who wish to live peacefully as best as we are able. They are the future of that country. While we protect them we can show them sustainable farming and such so they don't end up with the same problems as us. I dunno, the answer is actually very simple. It is however, just to big. It is something the whole world needs to be concerned with, it is something the rest of africa needs to be concerned with. No one wants another Ceaser, Cao Cao, et cetera, but the better way requires all of us.