[Jared]

I will not even go into my honorable colleague, Jerry’s, implication that Africa was not a land of kings. I will not discuss how disappointing it is that you, as a Latter-day Saint, are apparently convinced of this ‘best interest’ of the [white] ‘race’ doctrine, especially given the checkered history of the LDS Church on the subject of race. I do, however, take issue with your obviously selective perspective of the African problem. It is important to realize that: a) The West effectively gets back all bilions of dollars it ‘dumps’ in aid. How? (i) Repayments of said aid, which comes in the form of loans. Those repayments, in the case of many or even most African countries, can take up more than HALF the national budget. (ii) Weapons purchases. Or did you think those Kalashnikovs, M-16s and F-4’s were made locally, what with the vibrant industrial economy? (iii) Imports. Mercedeses and BMWs aren’t made in Africa, either. b) It is, has been and will continue to be the case that it is the very participation of external forces in Africa that is the cause of at least half the African problem, and the lack of a ‘minimal level of…security and respect’. The other half is, admittedly, the complicity of a small number of Africans. Nevertheless, Africans do not need a Messiah, sir, they need the West to stop meddling in their affairs. The West is not, as you may have come to believe, a benevolent parent preventing purpotedly savage and semi-human group of people from dying from more war and famine, rather, it is at the root of those wars and famines. You must be asking how I can even begin to assert that, and I will answer with a little illustration: The Democratic Republic of Congo contains, for one thing, at least a third of the world’s cobalt reserves, in addition to great abundancies of gold, diamonds, copper, and other such valuable minerals. Chad has uranium, Angola has oil. The list goes on. Now, really, Jerry, do you think it would be in the immediate best interests of certain elements in the West that resource-rich countries such as these should get organized and exercise real, OPEC-like control over their natural bounty, and by extension, control over the *entire* global economy? That is not all there is to it, but it is an outline. Finally, while poverty and instability in Africa suits the interests of a few, poverty and instability anywhere can never be of long-term benefit to us as a planet, indeed, they may be our downfall.

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Name : Jared, Gender : M, Race : Human, Age : 19, City : Logan, State : UT, Country : United States, Occupation : Student, Education level : 2 Years of College, Social class : Lower middle class, 

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