Worst places on Earth to be a mother
A recent study shows that Africa is the worst continent for mothers and their children. Why is this the case? What are the causes? The study also says that Scandinavian countries are among the best for mothers and children. Why aren't more countries concerned about the fate of African nations? Would relief aid be too expensive? Or too disorganized? Are the people not receptive to outside help? It has been an ongoing process, curing disease and ending famine and teaching people effective methods of birth control, but couldn't we help more?
Part of me believes that the reason why so many African countries (outside of South Africa) are failing in this regard is because of the abuse its people and land suffered through colonization. Basically, Africa was used for centuries for its resources -- humans included, and the result is a place that has been basically "used up." There was nothing being given to the continent, just taken. And this goes on even today. Westerners' travels there are limited to pleasure trips to South Africa and Kenya. Most other places are verboten, due to high levels of crime, disease, or political instability. Past events have scarred the continent, so most of the Western world has left it for dead.
Note: The same could be said for some South American countries, outside of Brazil and Argentina... but are we warned to NOT travel there?
posted by Steph! at 2:13 PM
2 Comments:
You're right -- it is difficult to trust outsiders (read: Westerners) when you and/or your nation have been abused by outsiders in the past.
5:46 PM
I read a fascinating book by Paul ONeil the treasury secretary in the Bush administration who more or less got booted during the first term for questioning policies of the administration.
He is a traditional conservative guy, sort of a common sense type of policy wonk. He went on a trip to Africa and visited with a government (I forget which one) who was having trouble with clean water in a certain section of the country. In a couple of small towns in one part of the country, however, they had a good water system, with a bunch of wells that were supplying clean water to a couple of villages.
ONeill met with the president of the country and talked to him about his water problem and was like, "this is an easy fix, one could build these wells in these areas having clean water issues..." the president cut him off and said, "it's too expensive, we hired a firm to do a plan, we don't have the money..."
the president pulls out a report/plan from some fancy consulting group proposing a billion dollar water system, something that would be installed in a semi-major city, like denver or houston.
ONeill nearly pissed himself. Are you crazy, he thought. This is ridiculous. You need under a million dollars to build a series of wells to get clean water to literally thousands of people who do not have access to it, and you're sitting here twiddling your thumbs because you think you need a billion dollar water system? ONeill could arrange for the money to be ready in an instant. Shit, he could probably pay for it out of his own pocket, if he wanted, and save thousands of lives.
Now, sure historically, colonialism has had all types of effects (good and bad) on tons of different regions, Africa, South America, the Middle East, Asia...
But not having clean water when it is easily possible has nothing to do with colonialism, but everything to do with ineptitude and retardness....
I also once read that more wealth could be generated in one year in the third world by simply having secure governments protect private property, so people could build houses and businesses and their land would increase in value, than all the money in aid COMBINED from all countries given each year.
In film, we talk about finding creative, cost effective solutions to making good movies. The same shit applies, and it's possible, if people put their heads toward it and not just lament past wrongdoings or pretend like the future is impossible to improve by shrugging their shoulders and worrying about how impossible improvement seems.
11:16 PM
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