Africa: rice and neo-colonialism

What has rice got to do with neo-colonialism in Africa? Mining Exploration has the answer:
“Africa is home to 8% of the world’s oil reserves, which has prompted Beijing to spend billions of dollars to secure drilling rights in Nigeria, Sudan and Angola and to negotiate exploration contracts with Chad, Gabon, Mauritania, Kenya, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia and the Republic of the Congo. The continent now accounts for 25% of China’s oil imports.
In addition, the Chinese are also key investors in the copper industry in Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo. And they are buying timber in Mozambique, Liberia, Gabon, Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea.”

5 comments

  • […] Global Voices Online » Blog Archive » Africa: rice and neo-colonialism […]

  • BETTY

    i JUST DON’T UNDERSTAND THE “FEED AFRICA” CAMPAIGN!! FEED THEM SO THEY BREED MORE THAT HAVE NO FOOD? BIRTH CONTROL!!!!!!
    I’LL DONATE MONEY FOR THAT!!

  • BETTY

    WHY RICE?? WHY NOT BIRTH CONTROL?
    DOESN’T MAKE SENSE. FEED…..BREED….MORE TO FEED.
    BIRTH CONTROL IS THE ANSWER!!

  • Telesphor Magobe

    Africa is faced with complex problems but needs down-to-earth solutions. We just need to be serious in the way we think and do things. According to me, we are not serious enough and that is why we are always surrounded by problems even those, which can be solved once for all.

    In fact, most of the problems we have can be solved by ourselves without donor funds. If we get used to donor funds we will always be dependent and cannot stand on our own.

    Peace does not need any funding. It simply needs a change of attitude and behaviour – conversion. If we shun hatred and violence, forgive one another and reconcile, we will certainly change many things in the continent. We can train ourselves to be peaceful and loving people. It is just a matter of choice.

    Why continue displacing and killing innocent people, raping girls and women and depleting our natural resources selfishly?

    Honesty is needed in the use of resources and public funds. The wealth we have and the way it is used cannot help us in any way apart from leaving us poorer day by day.

    In order to address such issues sufficiently, we need honest and charismatic leaders. The wealth we have in Tanzania – gold, tanzanite, diamond, natural gas, ecosystems and biodiversity – is continually depleted by unscrupulous leaders and their collaborators.

    Most of our leaders are corrupt and put private interests before the public good. With that hardly can we move beyond the vicious circle of poverty. We really need structural and social transformation. It is only after that, that we will be able to be focused, self-sufficient and result-oriented people.

    We should try to build capacities and this cannot be done better than through transformative education. Once we are transformed, we will also transform the whole of Africa and the world at large.

  • tuffa Hamda

    There is a good Chinese saying that says “teach someone how to catch a fish.” Whenever people come to Africa for raw material exploration; they do not share with African people the know-how. Unless African learn to do things by ourselves and catch up with the rest of the world in using modern technologies; we will stay dependant on foreign aids. Hands that do not know how to make great industrial products cannot feed their bodies. We will remain poor, and beggars. Therefore we African must learn how to make things for world market and build capital so that we can compete anywhere in the world. That is what Chinese have been doing since 1949. It has been a mere half a century. They became so powerful within such a short time because they really avoided corruption and sent their citizens to schools to learn science and engineering. The Chinese learned all forms of modern knowledge and technology and they effectively
    used it to turn around their backward nation to become
    one of the greatest in the world. Can Africans do what the Chinese accomplished within a half century? Why not.

    The same is true for India. When the British left India
    in 1947, the visionary leaders of the country opened up
    great schools for their citizens that was denied during 400 years of colonial rule. Within a half a century the
    Indians have turned themselves to be Mecca of modern technology. Hope African leaders will learn from those two countries.

    Nobody will teach us how to catch a fish; we Africans have to teach ourselves how to drop the net and catch the technology. Otherwise we will remain being exploited and whoever comes to our land and villages will rip us off our resources and raw materials. The Europeans did that for centuries and the Chinese and the Indians are going to repeat it in the 21st Century. We have not got anybody to blame; except ourselves.

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