So, the military of Mauritania overthrew the ruling government. They did this while President Taya was away at King Fahd's funeral in Saudi Arabia. "The African Union said it was concerned about the situation and condemned all seizures of power."
I wonder how this will affect Peace Corps there. Since Mauritania was my first choice, I am a bit concerned, but I guess we will just have to wait and see.
Here's a link to the whole story
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I have also been following the diary of Mark Snelling, a Red Cross worker in Niger. He and his team are struggling to get things running and start handing out the food. He wrote this of the famine:
"According to reliable reports, the drought last year did not erase as much of the annual harvest as people think. Natural causes played their part, but so did the remorseless pressures of the open market."
Niger is becoming an example of how capitalism is a fierce monster that works only to make the rich grow richer and the poor become poorer. And now those poor are starving. Starving. Watching their children DIE because they have no food. This is absurd.
Can you imagine being the poorest people in one of the world's poorest countries and having to watch your children die? Then can you imagine being this person and trying to comprehend the wealth of some in your country? Some are grilling meat nearby, according to Mr. Snelling - can you imagine passing that smell and trying to understand?
Now, can you imagine, as an American, facing a starving woman from Niger, looking in her eyes, she looking in yours - both of you trying to figure out why you will get to live and she will die?
The answer to this question of why? Capitalism.
[ok, I am done....stepping down from the soapbox now]
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5 comments:
really?
wow.
i was talking to someone who has lived in mauritania - but her family relocated there from russia about 15 years ago. her parents are still there. anyhow, she said that she thinks the mauritanian coup won't necessarily change the overall situation because the military and the current president are ideologically pretty similar... her (personal) assessment is that things will be unstable for a while (and that there have been 3 other coup attempts in the past 3 years) but return to their status quo stability levels. nothing like what's happening in darfur.
she's very young, however, and has been living in europe for the past 3 years, and i don't know how accurate her assessment of the situation is, i just thought it was interesting. [shrug]
looky at me, li'l miss comment mccommenty!
however, i do need to add that i'm not a fan of coups in general, and although it's not the fastest, i believe in appeal to international organizations by the dissenting parties is a far better way to change government (assuming it is not possible to do so democratically).
Thanks Heather!
Young and living in Europe - I agree with her - I doubt things will change too much right now, but I guess I just think that the continued instability will have a bad ending if people keep going about things in this manner - coup attempt after coup attempt.
Strange - I still want to go there sooo much!
Capitalism does not make the rich richer and the poor poorer. The truth is that capitalism in a true form (not Socialism) give everyone the opportunity to succeed. The problem lies in corrupt governments pure and simple. Why is Africa poor and starving? The governments do it to keep themselves in power. Give any African nation a decent government and a open market and the people with rise up and lift themselves out of poverty. All the aid in the world has done very little in the last century, nothing will change until the people and leaders remove the corruption and strive for progress through industry. It is the only way they will stay the tide of poverty. Without capitalism they will stay poor and starving and nothing the governments do will fix it.
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