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                                                    Commentary

            Stereotypes

            Some of the stereotypes that affect people’s views on Africa & International Aid


                  ‘This is Africa’

                  Africans can’t rule themselves

                  Africa is a place of corruption, famine, & war

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                  The British Empire was a good thing

                  We don’t owe Africa anything. Africa owes us.

                  Africans should be more grateful for what we have done for them

                                                           ***
                  International aid is a waste of our money
                  We’ve got our own problems, we should spend less on International Aid

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            A confrontation of values & motives


                  "For centuries, Europeans dominated the African continent. The white man arrogated to
                  himself the right to rule and to be obeyed by the non-white; his mission, he claimed, was

                  to "civilize" Africa. Under this cloak, the Europeans robbed the continent of vast riches
                  and inflicted unimaginable suffering on the African people.”

                                                                                Kwame Nkrumah


                                                          *****
            The m’zungu came to Africa for selfish reasons. To exploit and extract  from Africa





            whatever the m’zungu could in order to increase the wealth of the m’zungu.
            m’zungu colonisation of Africa followed the initial colonisation of the Americas and the
            wealth creation for western European countries that resulted from the Colombian
            Exchange.


                  The 19th century m’zungu scramble for Africa was simply a competition to get there
            first. Nothing exemplifies this more than the Berlin Conference (1884). And the

            determination of the Belgian King Leopold II to enrich himself by having an African colony
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