Mixed media: The trouble with Africa

IT'S NOT THAT EASY

Right-leaning newspaper: There is a magnificence about the anger of Bob Geldof as he challenges the world to do something about the state of the continent. But it is important to be clear-headed about the causes of Africa's dismal economic performance in the years since independence.

Certainly, disease, ruinous levels of international debt and unfair trading rules have wreaked havoc. But corruption and grotesque misgovernance of the sort that scars Zimbabwe today are critical factors. Until African leaders themselves get angry about these abuses, many in the North Hemisphere will remain cynical.

- Daily Telegraph, London

Leftie newspaper column: My fear is that the dynamics of the G8 summit involve too much of the naive leading the naive. Too much of the Make Poverty History campaign reeks of middle-class Europeans trying to feel good about themselves by prescribing very radical but practically dubious solutions to Africa's problems. Unusually, though, a similar criticism can be levelled against our normally pragmatic and careful Government, too. Geldof and Gordon Brown are in the same game. Both are brilliant at playing on liberal guilt. Neither of them is nearly as good at helping us to understand Africa.

- Martin Kettle in the Guardian

US newspaper: The first and largest slice of responsibility for these dismal conditions belongs to post-independence African leaders. They've had decades to improve their countries. Yet corrupt and vicious men have been more interested in advancing themselves than their nations. Clean and transparent governance are two conditions foreign donors should expect in return for their money.

- Philadelphia Inquirer

Independent voice: It's ironic that pop music believes it is an appropriate conduit to "save" Africa, to make us aware of poverty and debt, suffering and injustice. Pop music in the 21st century is also the industry of conspicuous waste, a business so obsessed with the next big thing that every week young men and women are routinely hyped up and then dropped when they don't fit this year's marketing strategy.

The only way to impress African leaders is for our own statesmen to set an example - unfortunately, a bunch of pop stars impressed with their own self-importance will have less impact.

- Janet Street-Porter in the Independent

WEST HAS RESPONSIBILITY

Glasgow columnist: It is very convenient to blame Africa's plight on Africans and to sneer at woolly-minded idealists and pop plutocrats. It gets us off the hook. But it is bad history, bad economics and it is morally repugnant. What could be worse than turning our backs on the African continent at the very moment it appears to be turning the corner?

- Iain Macwhirter in the Herald

African view: Behind the cold statistics of failed promises and empty rhetoric are lives of real children and youth - millions of children and youth abandoned, without basic health care, sleeping on the pavements in our cities.

We remind the G8 leaders and world leaders in the UN summit and WTO that with greatness comes responsibility: 2005 is the time to demand they take responsibility.

- Hellen Tombo writing on www.pambazuka.org

Kenyan newspaper: Besides establishing the Commission for Africa, Mr Blair has dedicated this year's G8 Summit, which he is chairing next month, to Africa. Why all the trouble? Some see his actions as motivated by guilt, Britain having contributed vitally to Africa's underdevelopment through colonialism and now neo-colonialism.

But ... whatever theory may be advanced to explain his commitment to Africa is neither here nor there. He seems to mean well and every effort must be made to assist him.

- Daily Nation

Muso blog: I'm getting pretty tired of all the naysayers going on about Live 8. Why can't someone just try to do something good with music? What's wrong with making more people aware of poverty in Africa and trying to influence the G8 summit at the same time? The artists that have been asked, and some still yet to be confirmed, support what they're doing. I don't care if there are more motives to the musicians' actions other than charity. They're going to be there and that is what is important.

- www.bandweblogs.com