At a local bar tonight, I met a political advisor to the UN in CAR who is Nigerian. Over a beer for him and a coke for me, I raided his mind for thoughts on Central Africa and poverty at large. Please keep in mind all this is completely anecdotal and not a prepared discourse on poverty in Africa.
He described the reasons for suffering and instability in a variety of different countries. The poverty found in CAR (Central African Republic) is primarily poverty-based, resulting in a quiet, docile suffering. He believes this sort of instability only needs a reasonable cash inflow so that people are not hungry and always looking for their next meal. Quickly ameliorated through foreign investment, a less corrupt government - all in order to bring opportunity. On the other hand, a failed country like Sudan with reasonable infrastructure and technology is in need of a strong, military show of power in order to bring peace against constantly warring factions. And then we come to his birthplace: Nigeria. He sadly but firmly gave his thoughts on how it is completely hopeless to solve poverty in a place like Nigeria because there is SO much money there. A handful of citizens can literally CREATE an army, CREATE a government that they themselves control they have that much money, connections and resources at their fingertips. He indicated that Nigeria will necessitate much time for the people to realize that bribes and short term gains will not last with each regime change.
We then migrated over to the topic of Chavez and Venezuela. I never knew that Venezuela was a dozen years ago - a playboy's paradise. Private islands, multiple private jet strips, homes with a pool on the top floor and a discotec the floor below - it was probably like Dubai in terms of extravagance but with much, much better weather! This political advisor knew Chavez personally and he shared how that particular revolution came about. Latin America has a history of bloody revolution, countrymen putting their lives on the line to stand up for what they believe in. I really do believe Latin American truly perfected the concept of revolution.
Rather than ask protestors to put their lives at risk, he broadcast to all the people a single task: At 1pm, everyone who was starving - grab an empty pot, go outside and bang as hard as you can on this pot. Give your hunger an audible sound. Apparently the clanging resonated throughout the land and this very symbolic gesture let people throughout the country know that they were not isolated in their poverty and their anger. And that is how he came into power.
He mentioned Chad briefly and I was at once frightened that it was the neighboring country to the north of us and relieved that I wasn't physically IN Chad. Chad is known in the humanitarian world as a country where a soldier or rebel will not just wave his gun around in your face, but actually pull the trigger and put a bullet in you without uttering a word. But his talk about Chad reminded me that Africa is clearly a land of massive refugees. Chadians and Sudanians escape to CAR, Rwandans flee to Tanzania, and Somalis find refuge in Kenya. Sometimes this is due to political/ethnic war, sometimes it's for something as simple as finding grass to graze goats because your land is so arid and as a goatherder, what other choice do you have but to keep walking until you find food for your flock. But these goatherders will indeed carry sub-machine guns to protect their flock, causing all sorts of problems in the lands they venture to. Tensions obviously arise when an outsider tries to take what little resources your country has, even something we consider as paltry as grass to feed on.
A big topic amongst Afro-centric intellectuals is apparently the dichotomy between tribal violence vs. colonial violence. And from tribal violence they refer to things like cannibalism, scalping, etc. From the story above, and countless others I'm sure you've heard of, you can see how colonial violence is massive and can seriously alter the psychology towards violence of an otherwise modern people. Coups in Africa have been extremely violent, perhaps due to all that they were exposed to from colonial powers, this became the only way in which to assert authority.
We then moved onto the topic of prostitution. It is impossible to go anywhere in Africa - bars, restaurants are all full of prostitutes. But it's a little different here than in the US. At least in Bangui, there is little in the sense of a power dynamic of pimps and prostitutes. It's entirely poverty-related and the supply is so vast that it's considered a casual thing that even college students do to make a little money. They get very little, maybe enough to feed themselves for the next day or two. The violence that is rampant in American prostitution doesn't seem to be the case here, and there's actually no guarantee of sex. It's seen kind of like arm candy or companionship I guess. I don't know, I thought that was interesting because I absolutely loathe the concept of prostitution. This version doesn't make it anymore palatable, or the degradation any milder, but it sits differently in my head for some reason. Well, people will always do what they can to survive. And at the very least there isn't the violent territoriality of an organized underground sex trade.
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