As you might have read in my TIG profile, searching for the real motivation to act is, for me, really important, and as some philosopher has said (sry, dont remember the name) 'Action without belief is the ruin of the soul' well, its the ruin of the person's soul but also of the recipient's soul in an African development project.

It was such a slap in the face when i visited a big supermarket here in Bamako last week. I went in to buy a few bottles of wine for my birthday and wow... dozens of lots souls. I must admit that, unlike most expatriates in Africa, i have not surrounded myself with other expatriates and so, this is all new to me. It was my second time in years walking in such a store.

These dozens of international development workers are here to 'help Africans develop' or something like that and well, if so, why the hell are they driving top-of-the-line 4X4 trucks to drive around the city, buying and consuming only expensive imported products, accepting a huge salary, going out to expensive restaurants and nightclubs owned by other foreigners, and not connecting with the African culture and people the least bit?

That just proves that my theory is right. If you ask them why they are here, they will promtly tell you for the sake of Africans but then, if that is so, if they really love and care about African, why the hell are they living in isolated guarded villas in specially made neighborhood for whites, why do they not bother to sit with them and talk?, why don't they make the effort to learn their language? why don't they try to understand them, why do they make extra efforts to live in a separate world? 'Oh, we want Africans to have a better life but not if i have to lower my own rich, expensive, consuming lifestyle!' Such bullshit!!!

I met a french chick who's been living and working here for years and, the other day, i met her through a friend and she asked me 'What does 'awo' mean?' The woman did not even know what 'yes' was in the local language... after so many years!...so pathetic and so very sad.

If foreigners really did care, in their hearts, for the Africans, they would love it here, not complain, they would talk to locals, they would encourage local economies buy buying the great local products, they would truly help and share, they would have pity over beggers on the streets and at least have the decency to LOOK at them!

Hey all!
Remember me from the orientation? Anyways, just a little Hello, keep up the incredible work and, of course, come check out what your little African CLC brothers are up to!
www.projects.takingitglobal.org/clcwa

Add yourselves as memebers, lets cooperate.. north-south Local connections... C'mon! its gotta be done!

Ok so, working in a developing country, i meet lots of foreigners also working here on international development and cooperation projects. I have been having lots of conversation. No matter what, i seem to have no other way to end a conversation than to ask 'What do you mean by 'development'? Thats the thing, it is such a basic issue that not enough people question themselves about.

Lots of what i see being done in the African 'development' world is totally based on the assumption and idea that the western-style development is the model to follow. How crazy is that? This is not my personal conclusion, its a fact, locals and foreigners share this objective.

Well, i don't agree. Lots think that colonization was the initial milestone marking the beginning of the development of the African continent. Africa, and it is proven, is the motherland of the human race on this planet. It has gone though a very impressive and respectful development. They had developped in a very unique way. It is only when the whites came in that things quickly turned sour. How many societies on this planet has developed and fought for such a sustainable development? They have, as a society, the longest history and, at the same time, they have had the least impact on their environment.

Look at the western civilisation closely. Not only is it NOT possible for African nations to reach it, it would also be the worst thing that could happen to all of us. For 20% of the population to consume like westerners, lots (the rest, 80%) have to be kept in poverty to keep the balance and 'eat' the crumbs. Its just a very basic capitalist rule.

Africa, in a sense, is the lucky one. It is the only civilisation that has not been able to reach that westerner's point of no-return. It is too late for most westerner's societies to change their lifestyles especially knowing the fact that humans don't modify their societal habits until their own lives are at stake. No matter what, something's gonna blow, its inevitable, we are consuming more than any other vital system is capable of coping with. Africa can analyse us, our development, lifestyle, technology and decide on what should be kept and what should be left out. Technology for example, is something that can easily be acquired and adapted to the African reality and used to leverage its peoples lifestyles. Other things like mass consumption, individualism, globalization, capitalism etc... things that are bad in every way imaginable, can be left out.

I think all they need is to realize that they will NEVER attain a similar development as the western world, and that they are lucky to still have the roots of a sustainable and respectful society.

For me, 'development' is the action of advancing as a society, fulfilling the nation's basic needs, developing new sustainable technologies... being at one and respecting our environment.

*The futur will be green, or not at all. This truth lies at the heart of human kind's most pressing challenge: to learn to live in harmony with the Earth on a genuinely sustainable basis*

-Sir Jonathan Porrit

What is your definition of 'development'?

Where Is Africa Off To?

Colonization has, in fact, deeply scared African people but I think what needs to be done is to get Africans to start believing in themselves again, to work together, to appreciate the greatness of their own culture, to stop trying to be what they are not, overall, to stop wishing for a development western-style. Slavery in its original sense was abolished over 40 years ago; it’s time to move on. We have to get the African youth to start building up their self-esteem again. They will have to love who they are, they will have to love each other and they will most definitely have to start loving their own countries for any development to occur. Africans don’t have interest in building themselves a sustainable society and this needs to change. They receive international cooperation as a gift, they take it for granted but their IS no cooperation. They think foreigners have the power to change a society… they don’t, it can build very superficial stuff but real changes will only start when Africans will roll up their sleeves and undertake their own development! (But then, I admit it must be hard to get people to mobilize when some can barely feed their family!) Nothing will ever change if Africans don’t take part in it and help create the world they want to live in. Africans have learned not to care about their culture, everything's always about the colonist's culture (and I totally understand why that is so.). Still, people are ashamed of what they are or they have no interest in finding out who they really are. I believe we will never see a culture develop itself in someone else's culture. They will have to accept who they are before accessing to something better.
If we want a great new world, we’ll have to deconstruct some conceptions and beliefs that now make up African people's mind. (And I won’t even start with what needs to be deconstructed in western people's minds!!)
Never, in our world’s history, has there been such a long and cruel genocide as the one Africa has been living since the first foreigners set foot in Africa. Generations after generations, African people have been brought down to an inferior race. Now, when you repeat something to someone for such a long time, they will truly believe it. This is what needs to be unlearned. Africa had thousands of years of healthy, respectful and very admirable development (they actually lived for thousands of years on the same continent without destroying it as we, in the west, did in a couple hundred years!) But then, they got enslaved, abused, raped, and killed to the profit of the brave new world. Once that new world had a satisfying head start and was powerful enough, slavery became socially unacceptable, Africans are let back down in a global system they never heard of, with the obligation to keep up and play by the rules. Consequently, another problem came up; African countries adopted the western political and development models as their own even though they never can be.
I really know nothing about politics but I think African people don’t want to get involved or take position because of what African politics and its leaders represent (corrupted selfish liars or something like that) Also, I think present African leaders are only there to serve foreign commercial needs. This being said I think slavery in modern Africa comes from both urban African centers, (people get educated, and they learn how to apply western capitalist methodologies in their favor, in their country) and also as a result of western commercial demands. African leaders don’t manage their countries as they should; they still manage them under the same system put up by colonizers. The objectives have not changed. During the colonization, westerners could take anything they wanted off the African continent but since their independences, they had to find a whole new way of doing so. The method they found not only covers-up the exploitation but also gives them a good image while doing so. This new method is called International Aid.
It is just a very westernized term used to cover-up a very capitalistic and political oriented business. And that’s what it is, a business. It is used to profit the donor’s economy (As a general rule, 60 cents out of a dollar given to development projects comes back to the donor’s pockets. It is called linked aid (e.g.; in a famine, Canada will give well publicized amounts of money to the needy country but what is not publicly announced is that beneficiaries will have to buy the food from Canadian producers, even if they could get it cheaper in or around their own country)). It is used to keep commercial and political agreements well greased-up (e.g.; Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) sends money to countries where it has important commercial agreements or interests. (e.g.; Mali and its mines)). It is also sometimes used to benefit to the donor’s private sectors (France has a development program that implants the use of chemical fertilizers in many rural parts of sub-Saharan Africa (the farmers now depend on an expensive product which has to be imported (of course no one told them about the long term effects of such products on the fertility of the soil)). Over all this, international cooperation only accentuates the inferiority complex African’s live with and its taken-for-granted aid. On the westerner’s point of view, it’s sort of a very subtle way to cover up our egotistical and greedy lifestyle. How else could we, 20% of the earth’s population, be able to justify consuming 80% of the world’s resources??? This being said, here’s what I think cooperation between the north and the south should be all about. Cooperation should teach young westerners and young Africans what international Aid is really about and how it has to change. I also think cooperation is all about the links and exchanges that are created in between the cooperant and the African. It’s all about the exchanges of information, intercultural comprehension and the pacification of humanity. We got to stop talking about individuals and profits and start talking about exchanges, equality, partnerships and freedom. Everyone needs to stop thinking westerners have the key to the great African development (starting with the westerners themselves!). Even if they had that key, I really doubt they’d want to use it. If we compare our present world societies to animals, the western society is the stupidest of them all. Any animal will stop hunting once its basic needs are satisfied. All what westerners are doing right now is killing everything they see even though they are not hungry anymore. Not a very sustainable lifestyle I would say.
Let’s stop kidding ourselves! Africans are living what the western society tells them to live. Plus, look at what we have done in the west! Is this really what we want for them? Is this really what they want for themselves? Would this really be possible anyways?? They should know there is more to it than what they see in American soap operas. For a society to live the way we do in the west, others, a lot of others have to suffer and live in poverty. Plus, I know it’s hard to imagine for them but I think Africans should realize the chance they have of being the last society holding the opportunity to a better development. We now know, in the West, that our lifestyle has great consequences and very tangible limits. Wouldn’t it be wise to learn from this mistake instead of wanting to jump off the same cliff as us? But anyways, if you want my advice, at least forget about western aid and its American Dream. Accepting it is like agreeing to slavery and dependence, if Africans want changes in their lives, they will have to do it themselves and in a more sustainable way. This is not a recommendation, it’s a fact. They will have to open their eyes to the real world, hold hands and put their feet down while saying: *No thanks, we’ll do it.*

Welcome to my Blog. I decided to use this as a place where to post and share sometime small, sometimes significant observations on the African culture, society and its situation in a globalized world. Almost everyday i have soft or intense conversations on the issues with either local Africans or other foreigners also living in an African nation. I have recently started taking notes when i found it good to remember but decided that, instead of writing it to myself, which i will probably never read again, i will post them. By doing this, i am risking sharing my thoughts and attracting others. I'll take the risk.

Mon nouveau TIGBlog - Observation jours a jours
Translated into French by: Francis
Bienvenue sur mon Blog! J'ai decide d'utiliser mon BlogTIG comme endroit ou poster de petites et grandes observations qui me viennent, par moi-meme ou lors de conversation, a propos de l'Afrique, sa culture, son developpement, sa societe et sa situation dans un monde globalise. Presqu'a tout les jours, j'ai de douces ou intenses conversations avec des locaux africains ou avec d'autres etrangers qui vivent egalement, comme moi, en Afrique. J'avais commence a prendre des notes de ces observation car souvent, elle sont super interessantes et je veux m'en souvenir mais, je viens de penser que, tant qu'a les ecrire pour moi-meme et jamais les relire, ce serait mieux de risquer de les partager et d'attirer d'autres commentaires/opinions. Je prend le risque!

Welcome to my Blog. I decided to use this as a place where to post and share sometime small, sometimes significant observations on the African culture, society and its situation in a globalized world. Almost everyday i have soft or intense conversations on the issues with either local Africans or other foreigners also living in an African nation. I have recently started taking notes when i found it good to remember but decided that, instead of writing it to myself, which i will probably never read again, i will post them. By doing this, i am risking sharing my thoughts and attracting others. I'll take the risk.