The Fate of Africa leaves some aspects of Africa's modern history untouched, but it provides an accessible introduction to the subject and a solid framework from which further explorations can be carried out. This is how one observer quoted saw the famine, which was to prompt Bob Geldof's Live Aid concerts and awaken the world to the plight of Africans: "People who had not eaten for days, weak and deathly ill, were climbing the mountain in an endless, winding stream of suffering. In the past two decades Africa has received more than $US200 billion in aid from the West, the equivalent of six Marshall plans, while it continues to go backwards in terms of human development. How did this continent so rich in natural resources, history and culture, once so full of energy and hope, become, in the words of British Prime Minister Tony Blair, "a scar on the conscience of the world"? There was famine in Ethiopia for years before we took power - it was the way nature kept the balance.". If it's not our fault Africa is poor, we are under no moral obligation to help, their argument goes. THE STATE OF AFRICA: A HISTORY OF FIFTY YEARS OF INDEPENDENCE By Martin Meredith, Simon & Schuster $39.95. A couple of years ago in Malawi, I went with some aid workers and a local politician to visit some "child-headed households" - children whose parents have died of AIDS, the eldest, usually a girl of 12 or 14 trying to keep the family together, to get enough food to keep them alive, to send them to school. Some blame goes to the European colonisers who plundered the continent for its riches and who drew up the map of Africa in straight lines, without taking account of ethnic allegiances. Registered in England & Wales No. To say it of countries in which the people don't have any vote at all is downright cruel. It is by far the poorest region on earth, its people unable to reach their full potential because of chronic malnutrition and lack of education. ", Mengistu, whose forced resettlement policies had greatly worsened the famine, told a relief official not to be "so panicky": "Don't let these petty human problems that always exist in transition periods consume you. Between 1970 and 1983 Africa's external debts rose from $6 billion to $66 billion. December 2005 External links: - buy from Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk - share this review on Facebook or Twitter Related reviews: Writing in The Independent Alex Duval Smith described The State of Africa as a "dispassionate analysis" that "does more than perhaps he (Meredith) realises to set the past 50 African years in a continuum"[2], Chris Nkwatsibwe, a human rights activist from Uganda praised the book. The politician, who was fat and wore crocodile-skin shoes, wept at the condition in which the children were living. Then there is a coup led by some young, idealistic leader declaring an end to mismanagement, but who within a short time becomes a copy of the tyrant he deposed. Then all other political parties are banned, opponents jailed and tortured, the economy collapses and the people endure decades of tyranny. Meredith acknowledges the debt burden but does not note that the original loans were enthusiastically encouraged by Western banks. Lumumba became one of the most famous political martyrs of modern times, but was himself responsible for much of the "cauldron of chaos, fear and violence into which the Congo descended", according to Meredith. book review Africa and the Indian Ocean Region edited by Timothy Doyle and Dennis Rumley, New York, Routledge, 2017, 124 pp., $51.95 (Hardcover), ISBN 13:978-1138205345 3099067 The Ethiopian people surely didn't deserve Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam, who in 1984 could concentrate only on his plans for a spectacular celebration to mark the 10th anniversary of Ethiopia's revolution, while in the countryside millions of his people were near death from starvation. The African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) is a mutually agreed instrument voluntarily acceded to by the member states of the African Union (AU) as a self-monitoring mechanism. But his book misses something. Meredith is right. We use cookies to improve your website experience. It documents, country by country, decade by decade, a depressing litany of wars, revolutions, dictatorships, famines, genocide, coups and economic collapse. List of issues Latest articles Partial Access; Volume 12 2020 Volume 11 2019 Volume 10 2018 Volume 9 2017 Volume 8 2016 Volume 7 2015 Volume 6 2014 Volume 5 2013 Volume 4 2012 Volume 3 2011 Volume 2 2010 Volume 1 2009 Browse journals by subject. In this big, exhaustive history Martin Meredith leaves us in little doubt as to what he believes is the primary cause of Africa's pain: its corrupt, tyrannical, incompetent, thieving, "vampire-like" leaders. To service the debts, social welfare is cut - hospitals run out of medicines, schools out of textbooks, factories are closed through lack of raw materials, telephone systems break down, unemployment soars.

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