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Bridging the Digital Divide In Uganda, By Freight
jtrust27 writes "Slow or non-existent Internet connections have meant that the people of Uganda have not been able to harness the many advantages of the online economy. This social and economic exclusion of the poorest of the poor was further accentuated by the impossibility for a Ugandan to obtain a credit card or make PayPal payments — a simple requirement to be able to pay for goods and services online. Most merchants and payment gateway providers automatically block all credit cards from Africa, and it is not possible to get a verified PayPal account in many African nations."
Now, a Ugandan company called EasyPayUganda is helping people sidestep these restrictions, by allowing customers to make online payments by proxy in order to pay for services and goods. EasyPayUganda is also providing a logistics solution, forwarding customers' shipments to Uganda, as most online merchants will not ship to Africa.
It's interesting that people complain how Africa is a third world country and how we should help them, but interestingly everyone sets artificial restrictions on them and restricts them from the other world. Many countries in the world ship food help and money there but if African countries are banned from using the services the rest of the world uses their region will never develop to the same level.
Instead of spending billions dollars to help Africa every year, what about if we open the services and let African countries develop normally like rest of the world?
Obviously theres the danger of fraud single they're still developing countries, but it's better to think long term. We can use the aid to cover the cost from frauds, and maybe in a few years we can stop spending so much money to help them. It will save us a lot more, especially in the long run.
I'm glad theres those single individuals who fight for it and try to make the world a better place.
Let's just hope those people are reliable ;-))
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
Why don't they just get the friendly African prince to buy their goods online. He is always willing to send me money.
People in the USA have the weird experience of public schools going on about Africa having wonderful culture and natural resources, then as adults slowly realizing that the place is totally fucked up.
The online _economy_ really only came to prominence the last decade and a half or so in North America. How have the Ugandans been missing out for 3 decades?
so, bridging the digital divide means being able to order stuff from abroad and pay online? Great.
That's the way international ordering used to work. You had to order stuff through some import company or freight forwarder, which had business relationships with foreign suppliers. You paid the import company, they ordered, handled the shipping, and sold the item to you with a markup. That's how it worked back in the days of sailing ships.
Note that this Ugandan company doesn't have a posted price list. You have to ask for a quote before they tell you how much they're going to mark up your Amazon.com order. So they're probably expensive.
"Most merchants and payment gateway providers automatically block all credit cards from Africa"
Would someone knowledgable explain the reasoning behind this? I know Africa has more than its share of scammers, but why couldn't a merchant simply set rules requiring the funds to clear, a minimum amount of time between the purchase date and ship date, etc.? Why is an outright ban needed?
Some of us are better informed. We know that it's a continent containing a large number of third world countries.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I've been there several times, and Uganda - like most former colonies in Africa - isn't so much fucked up as it was fucked over. Faced with the lack of a middle-class (since of course they didn't want to stoop to being middle class, nor did they want any of the Africans to rise to that status) the British empire imported Indians by the score. Post-independence, there was all kinds of unrest, eventually culminating with Idi Amin kicking out all the Indians, which of course failed to solve anything because it wasn't like the locals were ready to take over their jobs or anything. Cue another 10-15 years of unrest, a couple coups, Museveni lets the Indians back in, they go right back to business and become more wealthy and powerful than ever, and aside from lingering problems with transboundary rebel groups in the far northwest near the borders with Sudan and Congo, the place has actually been relatively peaceful and stable for 25 years.
Unfortunately, given the history 1960-1985, development was starting from a pretty bad position - but it's been developing crazy-fast. The African Union's NEPAD (New Partnership for Africa's Development) project has been pushing good governance, anti-corruption, computers in schools and all that stuff, and Uganda's national planning authority just released a 5-year development plan, written by development professionals without consulting the parliament (which the parliament are pissed about, hehe!), and emphasizing electrification, high-tech industry, mass transit, and a bunch of other good ideas.
Of course, Uganda's still less developed than anywhere in the US except for maybe some back-woods hillbilly shack - my fiancée helped with editing the 5-year plan, and her apartment, just a few km from downtown Kampala, is at the end of a dirt lane, off another dirt lane, off a dirt road, off a paved road. And it's more surprising if the power stays on all day than if it doesn't.
The good news, though, is that thanks to some development aid partners (like Norway), it's being given development options other than "get as much oil as possible and build your economy around it" (a.k.a. the US-China model). Norway is huge on hydropower, and Uganda has a lot of potential in that area. Straddling the equator, there's plenty of solar potential too. So there's hope, at least, to preserve some of the environment, which of course is being exploited through eco-tourism.
As far as getting goods to Uganda, though... sheez, this is dead on. Never, ever try to mail anything there. I don't know whether it's customs or the postal service that's corrupt, but it's like mailing things into a black hole. I think one or two postcards I sent might have made it through. Even Express Mail doesn't get any respect. If you want to get anything to anyone, it's FedEx/DHL or bust.
The goods sold in stores have pretty much been shipped overland from Mombasa (in a barroom, drinking gin *weeps for Warren*). Former UK colony, so they're all UK-spec electrically. In '05 or '06, a clock-radio you'd pay $19 for at WalMart cost $100 due to all that shipping. Thankfully, things have gotten a little better now, but an unlocked iPhone 3G S is still $1200+. Oh, yes, there are iPhones. There's an Apple authorized reseller right downtown in Kampala, although there's an unhealthy lag for them to actually get each new revision of things in-stock. Some of the bigger regional supermarkets even carry US brands.
But credit cards... yeah, they're a novelty over there. Ugandans hardly use credit. A young man will bust his ass to get through school, then work like crazy and live on almost nothing, until he saves up enough cash to buy land and build enough of his dream house to live in. They're insanely hard-working. So basically you either meet people who have nothing (because they're working and saving) or you meet guys who are 25 and already have a large house, nice car, etc. Not so much in-between. And not on credit.
4 years ago, you could walk aroun
Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.
To promote aid in most regions of Africa, you have to be prepared to deliver that aid against armed resistance, or accept that that aid might be coopted to feed the army that oppresses people who need aid. That's not really helping.
I really do want to help these folk, and I can think of no better way to do that than to repeat the message of the great (and missed) Sam Kinnison: Move to where the food is. You're in a freaking desert where things don't grow. MOVE.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Whose fault was that? Sure, the situation he inherited wasn't ideal, but you have to play the cards in your hand.
Amin could equally have chosen not to expel the Indians.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Now the tables have turned:
I am an American prince and I need your help to access my millions of dollars being held in a bank, and in return I will let you keep 10%.
All you have to do to get you share of the money is to wire me $3000 for the unlocking fee at the bank.
Patent nonsense.
Most regions of Africa don't need food aid.
Most regions of African don't have ongoing armed conflict.
So you campaign for open borders?
Most of the inhabited regions of Africa are not deserts. Things grow.
Africa has problems, but it is not the starving hell-hole you seem to think it is.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
Dude, Idi Amin did that like 40 years ago - that's at least two generations, maybe more given the mortality rate there.
Sounds like they are playing the cards in their hard.
They will seize your money. Happens all the time.
First, the moral position: If I was them, I'd come here. I can't hold it against them if they do what I would do if I were in their place. How could I do that? I could tell myself I was an idiot? Legal? What is legal? If your daughter needs bread you do what you have to do to get her bread - weather, obstacles, international borders notwithstanding. The borders don't matter to her - if she doesn't get calories she'll die no matter which side of a border she's on.
Telling the people of Africa to "move to where the food is" is cynical at best.
Actually, none of them are reading this because Internet access is sparse in the Sahele, and they have other stuff to look at. That means I'm being insentive for show to my fellow Internet geeks. Yeah, that's what this is about.
You're probably pinning me as some "don't care" prick. I really do care. I just don't see what I can do. If I give these people money, it winds up in the hands of the junta that's killing them.
Look, this is Africa. I have a reasonable amount of disposabe income and if I could actually help the poor there with it they could have it. But I can't. The best I can do is to say: move to where the food is. If you can find a path out of Africa, go!.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Terrible summary again. In good /. fashion I didn't RTFA - it may be better but not likely.
TFS suggests this helps "the poorest of the poor". Now how those people would get the money to buy goods over the Internet (almost by definition luxury goods - if only due to the added cost of shipping) is beyond me. The poor generally spend most of their money on housing and food, neither you can buy over the internet (basic food of course; not the luxury stuff). They will buy their stuff at the local markets, generally cheaper than over the Internet.
This is obviously a service for the upper class only, those with money that can afford such luxury goods.
And this is even less "bridging the digital divide" as all it does is allowing people that have an Internet connection already to actually use it to spend money overseas. It does not bring digital tech to the poor that do not have it yet, nor does it make Internet connections cheaper, faster, or more readily available.
This is just a commercial business, intent on making money by exploiting some hole in the market: in this case trying to solve the problem of payments from Africa and transportation of goods to Africa. Both which I can imagine are real issues. But there is surely no philanthropy involved as suggested in TFS.
Life expectancy is an aggregate, of course, and you can drag it down real fast with childhood, neonatal and maternal mortality. Sure, I know Ugandans whose kids died young, and I know ones whose kids died as young adults, and I know of people who died in their 50s or 60s, but I also know ones who are 70+ and have heard of them living to 90 or more. And of course, among the Indians, who tend to be moderately well-off, the numbers may be different. The richest man in the country, Sudhir Ruparelia (you can google him) is a hotelier who was a teenager when they were ejected; I'd put him in perhaps his late 50s now, and certainly he can afford the best medical care.
By the way, I've nothing against Uganda's Indians or Mr. Ruparelia; I've stayed at his flagship property before and my fiancée is well-acquainted with his people as well. Had the Brits handled things differently 100 years ago, perhaps the kind of perverse logic Amin espoused would never have arisen, but what's done is done.
Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.
learn English. Your reply has nothing to do with the post you're replying to.
I'm an African, a white one that is. My progenitor arrived in the Cape of Good hope in 1697, the latest family register counts the member of white descendent of my family close to 6k, the number of brown/black descendants are unknown, those that kept the original family name and are classified "coloured*" are a 1000 or so, but I digress. Africa is indeed fucked up, this is primarily due to Africans, not Europeans or "Colonialists" but africans themselves. Africans are not simply less fortunate white people with black skin. They have fundamentally different world views and cognitive abilities. I cannot compete with a black African digging a ditch, he can keep at it for hours and hours, the last 30 years has seen most of the Olympic track and field go to black Africans. The average black African cannot plan or appreciate cause and effect to the degree that another member of the species would find to be "common sense". I believe this to be a wetware problem, not simply due to culture or lack of education or opportunities. This, of course makes me a racist, or at best, or a white supremacists. I have grown comfortable with that label. I'd rather be that than delusional.
I've also realised that most non african whites simply have no clue or opinions worth considering when it comes to race related matters. You have no clue, have no real experience dealing with people significantly more different than yourselves. Come to South Africa for the Soccer World Cup, you will gain what you lack. You might not like what you may become.
* Americans note: Your president is "coloured", not black, regardless of what he claims to be. If Africa had 10% of the calibre of Obama's the continent would be a unstoppable superpower. But be not alarmed, barring a mind-enhancing super virile pandemic mind-enhancing air-borne virus, infecting every african, your position is save.
You ship your goods from your small story to Africa then and just take the 100% fraud as the cost of doing ethical business. See how long you survive.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
If some African countries don't give you problems why would you block them?
Because there is an indication that they are more likely than not to give us problems. Too many countries on that continent that aren't South Africa or Egypt fit the following pattern: We see an unacceptable rate of fraud from the country's neighbors, enough to extrapolate the likelihood of fraud within the borders of that country, and not enough complaints from people in the country.
Textbooks that aren't licensed freely are a luxury. If there isn't yet a good free book on a given subject, whose fault is that?
IIRC, even in the U.S., no one has been harnessing the advantages of the online economy for the last 30 years, more like 15.
Anyone who complains about foreign companies not "helping Uganda" or Africa in general by denying sales transactions with them has obviously never seriously ran an online business. I ran a moderate ecommerce site (google PR6 at the time) and during the 5 years I had it I received about 10 fake or bad orders from Africa daily. Of course, they were all from Nigeria and wanted ridiculous shipping requests (mail to lagarda bus stop (or something like that)) and for exorbitant amounts (40 DVD players) with insane shipping charges (international UPS expedited!). You can't blame a merchant for not wanting to take the risks of dealing with Africa. One bad experience can cost you quite a bit and credit card companies will never side with the merchant. If you want to blame somebody, blame the credit card companies who place most of the blame on merchants for any fraud that occurs.
We had war-torn countries before. Europe was in a bad mess after WW2. My own country, Holland had to build up from mass starvation in the last winter of the war to a modern western nation. But that did NOT happen at once. Dutch living standards took decades to reach American living standards. And in those decades, people did NOT have huge American cars or huge American style homes or living on credit. The post war years were spend working hard and saving lots and then buying modest AND domestic.
And that seems to be missing in your story. Granted, the working hard is there, but then they buy a iPhone and a big car... understandable, everyone else in the world has it, but it means local industry can't develop. If you buy a Chinese clock radio instead of an african windup clock, then that African factory can never develop to build clock radio's. Why do you think the tiger economies were so hot on producing cars, their own cars? Because if they had just bought American, they would never have developed their own economy long term.
The African economies/cultures seem to be close to cargo-cults.
A lot is made of the fact that Africa is skipping the landline and a lot of westerners think this is a great thing. WRONG.
What pacified the west? The telegraph. Telegraph lines were an essential part of conquering America, they had to be kept safe and so as a side result, any land with a line on it became safe. Same with the rail lines. As the network spread, the lands around them were made safer and became safer.
If landlines can't be installed in Africa because it is not safe, then installing a wireless network is NOT dealing with this safety issue. It doesn't matter wheter you attribute the taming of the west to train, the postal service or the telegraph. The building of these networks and the need to protect this network protected the lands around it.
When something is beyond the pale. What does that mean? Hignfy refreshed my mind on the recently, it refers to the old european punishment of putting wrong do'ers beyond the city limits. Not so long ago, being outside a city and its protection was a serious form of punishment.
If you can understand the difference that has come over europe were we can't even see why that would be a bad thing, we leave the city for FUN!!!!!, then you can't understand how Africa where lawlessness reigns is missing an essential foundation, an infrastructure for its development.
It is like building a skycraper on sand. It might look the part, but an essential part is missing, the foundation.
While this new service might sound like a good idea, I think it is very wrong indeed. It is shipping in western goods and skipping the development of the local economy, industry, infrastructure to truly support it. That you mention you need to use FOREIGN postal services to ship anything is telling enough.
The postal service is the most fundemental service of any country. Without it, nothing else can function. There is not a single developed country that did not have its own postal service and most still do.
Skip it and you are a cargo-cult, completly dependent on a foreign entity, who may bear you no malice but simply might one day not come around anymore. An African buying an iPhone at inflated prices is NOT a sign of progress.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
As an african third-worlder who welcomes the service, , I'd like to mitigate people's expectations. Shipping prices to Africa are prohibitively expensive and anyone with enough income to afford them knows someone overseas who can facilitate the same service and is part of the elite 1%.
In other words, this service is mainly for the rich and thus not doing much about the very real digital divide alluded to by the title.
Irrelevant even if a full set of Free textbooks would fit on an XO laptop?
the impossibility for a Ugandan to obtain a credit card
Sorry, but in what weird society is a credit card an ideal over actually non-customer-raping alternatives?
Credit cards are by their very design made to fuck you over. There is no such thing as a credit card that doesn’t.
If you do digital payment, do it right. If you do money, do it right.
Hell, half the reason the US economy is so bad for people, is the money system behind it. For which credit cards — the concept of giving you imaginary money and taking back more than there is actual money, to get free work from you without you noticing ” are an essential part.
Credit cards? No thanks. I won’t ever in my life take a credit. And if I can, I’ll avoid imaginary money (e.g. €) altogether.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
I volunteered in Ghana for six months last year. Ghana's one of the wealthiest countries in Africa, and it's still royally screwed.
The first problem is simply the result of Mother Nature: Many regions lack sufficient resources to live. Try growing crops in an ever-advancing Sahara. There's barely enough food to live on, let alone sell off elsewhere for profit. Where there is food, there's no building materials, or no electricity, or something else. There are very few places where everything needed is all in one place.
The solution is transportation, right? Again, it's not that easy. The current national borders are more or less arbitrary, drawn by colonists with only a vague understanding of local culture. In reality, there are many tribes everywhere, each with its own ancestral feuds and allegiances. In trying to force tribes together, war becomes constant. Some shipments leave for their destination and never arrive.
Furthermore, whichever tribe controls the government has a major influence on what areas are repaired. Africa's environment is harsh. If you think potholes in Detroit are bad, try going down a road that is 100 miles of six-inch washboarding. The government could fix it with a bit of chain and a tractor once a month, but they don't, because another road elsewhere has their attention. After a while, vital roads are simply lost, and communities lose commerce.
The solution is money, right? If we just send enough aid, every road can be fixed. Still not that simple. Partly because everyone's broke, partly due to the lack of unity, and partly just due to human failure, corruption is rampant. The Western world has a long history of serving the kingdom/colony/country, even when it means taking a bit of harm to oneself. In Africa, the family comes first. If your family wants something, it is the single most important priority. Most of the foreign aid that is sent over disappears into family pockets, and rarely actually contributes to the intended project.
For example, consider a road-building project. If a manager goes to Africa to build a road, he'll have a hundred men claiming they'll make the best road. Of course they'll outbid each other, but since they've been collaborating beforehand, even the lowest bid is far more expensive than it should be. Once the builder is selected, he has to purchase materials. By amazing coincidence, he has a brother in the next village that has exactly what's needed. The price is high, but the quality is supposedly much better than anything available locally. During construction, there is an inspector that must approve every detail of the project. He'll never travel down the road, so he's willing to allow a few mistakes in exchange for a small bribe. Try fixing the mistakes (whether they actually exist or not), and that's when it's discovered that those high-quality materials weren't so great after all. More money gets spent on new materials, and the old materials mysteriously vanish.
Surely, with enough money entering Africa, something good is coming out, right? I hate to say it, but again, it's not that simple. There is a heavy emphasis on looking nice, and no emphasis on actually being functional. School children are required to have uniforms, but may not have a pencil or notebook. The school may have a gate, but no walls. Money that could go toward actual improvement is instead spent on showing off how much money a family has.
Even when a family does try to improve themselves, the culture as a whole is against them. The bribes are always needed, and the harsh environment mandates continual repair.
The only real solution is for large regions to band together, decide they want to enter the modern world, and campaign to convince their people to improve their ethic. The first thing to go must be the nepotism. Work should be done to benefit the country as a whole, not just the family. Next should be the appearance. Africans must not be afraid to show what they need, and should strive to achieve mediocrity before greatness.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
*clap* *clap* *clap* *clap* *clap* *clap* *clap* ...
The good news, though, is that thanks to some development aid partners (like Norway), it's being given development options other than "get as much oil as possible and build your economy around it" (a.k.a. the US-China model). Norway is huge on hydropower, and Uganda has a lot of potential in that area.
Good luck on good hydro power.
Never, ever try to mail anything there. I don't know whether it's customs or the postal service that's corrupt, but it's like mailing things into a black hole. I think one or two postcards I sent might have made it through. Even Express Mail doesn't get any respect. If you want to get anything to anyone, it's FedEx/DHL or bust.
Both are corrupt but customs will give you more trouble. I've had FedEx packages held hostage at customs over ridiculous excuses, same as postal service. The difference between the postal service and FedEx/DHL is that with the latter, once it clears customs, it will actually get to you. Postal service is a crapshoot.
The goods sold in stores have pretty much been shipped overland from Mombasa (in a barroom, drinking gin *weeps for Warren*). Former UK colony, so they're all UK-spec electrically. In '05 or '06, a clock-radio you'd pay $19 for at WalMart cost $100 due to all that shipping. Thankfully, things have gotten a little better now, but an unlocked iPhone 3G S is still $1200+. Oh, yes, there are iPhones. There's an Apple authorized reseller right downtown in Kampala, although there's an unhealthy lag for them to actually get each new revision of things in-stock.
Four years ago, my power supply for my Powerbook went bad while I was upcountry. The Kampala Apple guy was happy to sell me a spare for 200USD. It only took a four day round trip to go pick it up.
The bad news, though, is they're intent on pissing away all that foreign aid by passing legislation to kill all homosexuals at the behest of American evangelist fucktards..
"...maybe I'll be on flights that are less than 50% missionaries."
Amen.
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/posted.php?id=100000630030732
Definition of "boorish":
adjective - like or characteristic of a boor; rude; awkward; ill-mannered
I think it fits like a fiddle. Even if the name for dutch, land grabbing motherfuckers of the previous centuries was "Boer", they were and still are "boorish" in nature.
To be honest, I don't give a damn what they call themselves. Given the fact that, after what they did for centuries to the locals in South Africa, the whites are still allowed to keep the lion share of wealth in SA to themselves and that under an ANC government of the 3rd generation, I got no patience for any boorish Boer coming in here and bad mouthing his own, fellow black countrymen with racist slander that could have come straight out of Goebbels vocabulary.
If blacks would have been committing such crimes against whites for centuries, they'd been exterminated as a whole as soon as whites would have gained the upper hand.
So what is that musmax moron complaining about again? Ah, yes. That he won't enjoy the soccer world championship as there are too many black guys around.
Got a problem with all the blacks surrounding you musmax? The cure to that one would be LEAVE AFRICA NOW!
Free will is the illusion that our wits could compensate for our brain's faulty circuitry.
Hey Mr.
I am from Africa and I wouldn't want to do business online with Nigerians.
They are notorious for their schemes and even in the rest of West-Africa people view many Nigerians somewhat like Ferengi with dark skin.
The problem is the Nigerian legal system, which is so clumsy that it effectively blocks prosecution for most online criminals.
The country is just too huge for its ineffective police force and judiciary.
Please notice: There are many honest, hard working Nigerians. But the bad apples just have such an easy time that they spoil it for everyone else.
Free will is the illusion that our wits could compensate for our brain's faulty circuitry.
I'm not saying that helping a family member is bad. What's bad is the choice of promoting the family over following economics. If a family member sells a product, but a competitor offers better quality at a lower price, buy from the competitor, especially when foreign aid is paying the bill. Capitalism works. Support quality, and quality will improve.
Reading your reply, I truly, really wonder what u were doing during your 6 month stay in Ghana?
That time was obviously not spend learning about the local way of life.
So you say that for a few $ in savings I am supposed to snub a family member who would gladly lay down his life to get me out of trouble?
Maybe you should spend less time reading Adam Smith and more time walking the streets of the slums and shanty towns of Africa.
If my very existence depends in my brothers, cousins and Aunties being there for me on a moment's notice, then I would rather consult a witch doctor before I would follow your advise
Capitalism works you claim?! EVER FOLLOWED THE ECONOMIC NEWS LATELY?
People complain about the havoc your kind of capitalism has created in the western world. Can you even imagine the devastation it has caused in sub-Saharan Africa?
Capitalism doesn't work, its just the best non-working form of economics currently available to us - but that still doesn't mean you should even try to enforce the rules of Wall Street and Wal-Mart in the badlands of Africa.
I've seen Socialism first hand and it works even less than Capitalism. But that still doesn't make Wall Street the savior of the poor and downtrodden.
By the way, when I travel back home, I will *always* prefer the taxi service one of my Aunties owns.
Because I know that with her driver at least I won't end up robbed and clubbed to death in a ditch along the road.
Something that happens quiet frequently to single passengers in taxi cabs - the other reason (besides saving money) why people prefer to share a ride when using a taxi in many parts of African.
You can call that anything you want, I call it "common sense".
Choosing economics over family is also a contributing factor to the public's confidence in a leader.
OK, that does it. IMHO you got NO CLUE about Africa and the Africans.
Taking care of ones family, or even giving them preference in private purchasing decisions, is not the same as corruption!
And in Africa *no* government leader will *ever* win the respect of his people, if he/she does not respect family first.
The equal application of rule of law is the cornerstone of a real democracy.
WRONG> One (wo)man one vote is the cornerstone of Democracy.
The ancient Greeks, who invented Democracy, also had slaves and the British who developed the Western Style Democracy people in the West use as a template today, also have a Monarchy to this very day, where Lords and Nobles are given rights and privileges not offered to anyone else within the realm.
On the other hand, Prussia's Frederick the Great is called "great" amongst historians, because he insisted in the equal application of the rule of law within his domain.
Even in matters affecting the king himself.
You should stop trying to apply dry text book "knowledge" to real life places like Africa and listen to what the Africans tell you.
What the people of Africa (speaking mostly of "my part" of Africa here, as different peoples have different preferences) want from a leader is stabillity and self-restraint.
They don't want a government that changes all the time, but they don't want a tyrannical despot you just can't get rid of either.
Mr. people who are not part of the elites in Africa are STARVING, each and every day.
Education is the answer you claim? Geez, have you ever visited an African school?
A place where most teachers are so poor that they threaten to beat up the children if they don't bring them extra money.
A night watchman has to feed his enti
Free will is the illusion that our wits could compensate for our brain's faulty circuitry.
Sorry for my lousy spelling, but its late and to be honest, right now I don't give a damn ;-)
Free will is the illusion that our wits could compensate for our brain's faulty circuitry.
I was asking about what AFRICAN windup clock radio company could benefit from the suggested boycott of cheaper and better overseas products by African customers.
If you got difficulties comprehending the concept, then go and finish grade school before replying.
There is no African consumer goods industry, much less an African car or computer industry.
So the entire suggestion is just bullocks and bullshit!
Free will is the illusion that our wits could compensate for our brain's faulty circuitry.
Primarily, I was volunteering in a primary school. I was also getting robbed, harassed, and poisoned. I saw the culture, and I still stand by my earlier statements.
Note: For clarity, assume all references to 'man' include women, children, etc. I prefer clarity to absolute political correctness.
Because I know that with her driver at least I won't end up robbed and clubbed to death in a ditch along the road.
That's a measurement of quality. Choosing her cab because of the driver's reputation is a valid decision. What isn't valid would be to choose her cab because she's family, even though you know they kill and rob others. That's nepotism.
Capitalism doesn't work, its just the best non-working form of economics currently available to us
That's pretty close to working. The alternatives are worse. Yes, extreme capitalism (Wal-mart, oil companies, etc) cause some local problems, but you must also consider the benefit of having large companies with lots of money available. As an example, consider the Coca-cola bottling plant in (Accra or Kumasi... I don't recall offhand) Ghana. It was founded from an American company, with American money, and now it provides stable jobs, with above-average pay.
Taking care of ones family, or even giving them preference in private purchasing decisions, is not the same as corruption!
The key word there is "private". I don't care where the town's leader buys his bread. I don't care if the town leader gives his personal money to a friend who needs it. I care about who the town leader pays with government (or aid) money. The public money should go to whoever best serves the public, not whoever is the closest kin to the leader. I'm not suggesting family should be abandoned.
*no* government leader will *ever* win the respect of his people, if he/she does not respect family first.
If the town leader gives his personal money to a friend who needs it, I'd vote for him in the next election. Respect and nepotism are very different. A leader who shows he will take care of all his followers deserves to be in charge. A leader who shows that only his close friends will benefit has no place as a leader.
Note that my original comment mentioned a "real democracy", referring to the ideal concept of a democratic republic. To my knowledge, there is no nation which actually implements an ideal democracy. The USA is close, but still screwed up. An ideal democracy would require more processing than has been previously feasible.
One (wo)man one vote is the cornerstone of Democracy.
Or in other words, "No man is worth any more than any other man." Taking this concept further leads us to "No man has power above any other", which implies "No man is exempt to the laws that govern any other." That's the logic that's been followed over the past 200 years in the USA to grant women the right to vote, abolish slavery, and outlaw discrimination.
With only an equality of votes, you end up with a state where the ruler declares elections be repeated until he wins.
What the people of Africa ... want from a leader is stabillity and self-restraint.
Like I said earlier, democracy works well for that. If you can get the democracy working to the point where power is turned over without significant trouble, you can be sure that the government will change at a consistent rate. Likewise, a leader who wants to be reelected can't be a tyrant. This all depends on having a democracy in place where elections work.
Education is the answer you claim? Geez, have you ever visited an African school?
Yes. I saw starving children being beaten almost daily for six months. Education is still the best answer. Note that I say 'education', not 'attending a place named a school'. The buildings where adults beat chil
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
The times when our borders were open were also the times when we experienced the greatest growth, the most innovation, the best reputation in the world.
Assimilate the immigrants? Hell, they assimilated us. By all reckoning, we're better for it.
Help stamp out iliturcy.