I find the hell afflicting Africa most troubling. At least with Afghanistan, as for Iran, one can see a possible path to improvement - if not too much outside intervention keeps stirring, that is, and IMO Pakistan is really going to regret its involvement and support for the Taliban.
Sub-Saharan Africa, OTOH, seems not to learn anything. As each nasty corrupt murderous kleptocratic dictatorship crumbles, so another waits in the wings in the next country... and now, 40 years on (in a continent where life expectancy is barely more) it's getting rather late to blame colonialism. Even if one counts the Cold War as an extension of such, since after all this wasn't so cold over there, Vietnam and (South) Korea seem to be recovering well...
Right now, sometimes I think their best hope is that AIDS kills off so many young men that there aren't enough left to fight, and enough of their elders that there aren't so many leading the fighting... then give any surviving women the chance: they cannot do worse. |
