Subject: let them eat cake

just saw a nice WFP add... "next time you eat out, donate the price of a desert to the World Food Program"

i like it. my next Micky D's ice cream goes to africa :)

it already is in Africa!

nah... we are trully blessed in Namibia... NO MAC DONALDS!!!

We have Kentucky Fried Rat, and table service Wimpy.

but its a fair cop... ok, i'll send it to asia
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i saw a cricket match between namibia and holland and most of the namibia players where white, is it like southe africa? obviously it has a border but..

in that most of the people aren't white, but most of the cricketers are, probably.

yeah very much so. it only gained independence 20 years ago from SA, through the war of independence. Cricket & rugby are very much a white man's game here. Black Namibians are into football, athletics, and cycling mostly.

must be some racial tension then, i was in sa a few years ago and it was horrible the amount of kids begging on the street, they go up to cars in traffic jams, terrible times.

there is little or no open tension. the "policy of reconcilliation" is working pretty well here. It mostly sneaks up on you - I was giving my "expert" input into a meeting with the traditional authority (local king) when I was told "our people have been disadvantaged by yours before. it will not happen again" and then had the (excellent) advice i gave completely ignored. but most of the time i am made to feel very welcome. in SA the whites tend to live apart and therefore do not help themselves. I am learning the local dialect (English is the official language) and mix freely with everyone - this probably helps. I have been told by my coleagues i am a Whimbo - a White Ovambo - 9and that my skin is white but my heart is african!

SA is a complete mess. Terrible times indeed

seems interesting, i do not see the need in racism or discrimination, lets just make everyone feel welcome and hold no grudges and the world will be a better place.

Hehe yeah, the world will be a better place...for those kings and shamans in Africa. Mind you, in some countries 75% of farmers have only 4% of all fields. That makes 25% having 96% of it. If African countries were ruled by someone with brain and good heart, then there would be no starvation problem. Just imagine that in Zimbabwe,after giving 60% of fields to people who had none there was too much corn? They were able to produce enough for whole country and for export. Even though there was drought for 10 years.

I'm not racist, but come on. How can the country be led by someone who has not much of an idea what to do to make his people live better or even worse - cares only about himself?

Educate Africa, not feed it. That should be the main slogan.

namibia is not zimbabwe... check out the geography. the problem is indeed education and culture. But more the problem is that we sell them an ideal of western life that they cannot afford. The himba tribes look like they have nothing, but by their values they have imense wealth and live the life they want. it is only when they are forced into our lifestyle that they end up in poverty. the San had all they needed until the whites took their land and killed or farmed their game, and then hunted them down for "poaching". We imposed the idea of countries onto tribal lands and then are surprised that tribal rulers don't know how to run them.

i agree, when you look at mugabe, he killed a lot of white farmers, who actually made food for the whole country, virtually nobody starved, they do need good rulers who know the importance of aid money, a lot of moey people give to the charities go into the rulers back pockets to increase their wealth while their people starve to death.

Well I agree it's all mainly because of the colonism. But on the other hand it's a difficult issue whether we should leave them with their tribal type of life or try to give them, or at least their descendants some more civilised life.

the ideal would be to take the land as they do here - by paying a fair price but insisting on the sale - but keep on the former owners as managers. you cannot take subsistance farmers and turn them into commercial farmers just by giving them land. i would like to take a couple of 60,000 hectare game farms and give them to the San to reclaim their old life

thats nice, you must have some dough.

ha if i had the money i would do it. But i tell you this, more is spent on aid for the San to compensate for taking away their lives than those farms would cost or ever make