Colonialism
Why don’t we hear much about Africa?
Submitted 7 hours ago by 
Sunshine@piefed.ca to ask@piefed.social
Comments
Mk23simp@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 hours ago
Arcanepotato@crazypeople.online 6 hours ago Who is “we”? And what parts of Africa?
Large western news orgs have sections on their websites about need from Africa, but generally not hyper local stories:
- https://www.cnn.com/world/africa
- https://www.bbc.com/news/world/africa
- https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/
Like 20 years ago I would see newspapers from various diasporas in the GTA. Not really finding those online right now, but they catered to expats so focused on news that would be relevant to them.
There english language coverage from orgs headquartered in different parts of the world, like Al Jazeera: https://www.aljazeera.com/africa/
On another topic: Academics from African nations can find it difficult to get travel authorization to come to north america or europe, but I have attended international conferences with delegates from African countries, and helped host visiting delegations. My particular field of engineering is really dependant on geography so the details of what we do are different, but we do get to learn from each other which is great. It’s only been twice in the past 15 years though, but I’m also not an academic myself. There is limited benefit to either myself or my African colleges meeting often because there are so many practical differences. In contrast, I meet with US colleagues several times a year. There are major differences between us too, but enough is shared (including buying the same equipment) that it makes sense to do that.
Back in university the African international students were largely expecting to go back and work in oil and gas, so perhaps that industry would see more collaboration. I guess what I’m trying to say is that opportunities to work together will likely be dependent on how similar the fields are between the two regions.
- Sunshine@piefed.ca 6 hours ago
Name one African company or band.
felsiq@piefed.zip 4 hours ago
I don’t know any companies offhand, but die antwoord from South Africa is a really fun band and a lot of their songs are worth a listen (music videos are great too).
Amadou and Mariam is another African band that’s seriously worth a listen, they’re really talented and have some bangers. I only learned this right now but apparently they’re both blind and sometimes perform concerts in the dark??? “Dougou badia” played live in the pitch dark would be such an experience fr
- Sunshine@piefed.ca 4 hours ago
I didn’t mean my comment as a slight to Africa.
SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca 6 hours ago
Africa is not a country.
Sasol Chemical is in South Africa.
gastroglizzy@piefed.social 5 hours ago
Africa is not a country.
So? Bands and companies can be American or European; why not African?
skeezix@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
We tried to get them to talk about it. But there’s nothing we can do. Nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do.
gastroglizzy@piefed.social 5 hours ago
King Edward II really did a number on the whole place. They still haven’t recovered. Despite having the money and medicine to fight it, malaria is allowed to run rampant there.
Historically, Africa has only been exploited for its natural resources (mostly gold and rubber) by enslaving the local population. Once the resources are extracted, the people are considered useless and allowed to die.
Fighting malaria in Africa is the single cheapest way to save human lives, but we still don’t do it. Every nation regards Africa as a continent full of hungry mouths to feed because all of its resources were stripped away centuries ago.
No one cares because there’s no incentive to care. Every nation looks at them and says, “Why should we be the ones to fix this problem? What’s in it for us? We’re going to save these people, and they’re going to be so grateful, but what do they have to give us in return that we haven’t already taken?”
TheLeadenSea@sh.itjust.works 4 hours ago
ummm do no leaders hage empathy at all?
gastroglizzy@piefed.social 3 hours ago
Surprisingly, George W. “Dubya” Bush gave a huge amount of funding and a sincere plea for countries to follow suit, on the basis that he was elected as a pro-life candidate and there’s nothing more pro-life than fighting malaria in Africa. Talk about doing the right thing for the wrong reason, eh?
Naturally, Trump cut the funding in half, then fired the agency responsible for the program. So, even though there’s technically still some funding, there’s no one to make use of it, leaving the program in limbo.