Damn you G8, listen to these people!

There is an interesting piece in the Christian Science Monitor asking Africans and Live 8 attendees about the solutions to Africa's problems. I think it's fair to say that the concert goers could do with a little bit more 'consciousness raising' of their own before the G8 leaders listen to them. My personal favourite was the Italian who couldn't name a single African leader (only half of those asked could), who claimed that he himself was a victim: a victim of a lack of information. Because that's the big problem at the start of the 21st Century, there just aren't enough sources for information. A person who gives a damn about Africa could never find out about Thabo Mbeki's strange beliefs about HIV/AIDS or how Robert Mugabe is destroying Zimbabwe, or how Joseph Kabila is supposed to be leading DR Congo toward democracy despite a complete lack of ability, or the attempts of Yoweri Museveni's supporters to change Uganda's constitution so that he could run for another term in office. Even assuming that your only source for information (you poor victim) is the TV news, you might have heard about how Moammar Gadhafi gave up his nuclear weapons program last year. No? Well, don't let that stop you from having an opinion on the solution to Africa's problems!

It is telling that the Africans interviewed had far less faith in their leader's to spend aid money effectively than the incredibly well informed concert-goers. They must have been brainwashed by Western imperialists or something.