D.A.F.U.R and the rest of Africa

How astounding are the stories that are coming out of the country of Dafur? As they are being read one imagines the mayhem and the genocide and destruction that is going on in real time while the very words that are painting the pictures of destruction are being uttered. And what is one to do? Recently a letter campaign was waged to the local and national politicians of the US of all who were concerned with the goings on in Dafur and who wished to voice their opposition and to do so via someone who could possibly change what is going on in this ravished country. Some believe that the answer to effect change ultimately lies in the hands of politicians. And so recently a musician, Bob Geldof, made an expletive ridden speech on a stage in front of Tony Blair, The British PM, to do something about the general poverty on not only Dafar but in all of the continent of Africa. Bob wants poverty to be ended in this beautiful continent and can not think of a worthier cause, and reminded those in attendance of the gathering that much money has been thrown about haphazardly for far less worthy causes by some of the richest countries. So why not the same be done for a continent, which when in receipt of anything similar in funding, can be turned into a continent that can rival Asia in its economic resources?

The United Nations has started The Millennium Development Project that pledges to have those countries who sign on to the project to donate 0.7 percent of their Gross Domestic Product towards the reduction of the current number of the world's people living in poverty - 1.1 billion - in half by the year 2015. Of course there are other matters that occur that go hand in hand with poverty, allowing it to subsists and grow, and therefore need to be addressed, that cannot be alleviated by money. It is certain that dictatorships, autocrats, corruption, the such that is going on for example in Dafur, are some of the things that allow poverty to happen. But certainly to give funding to those same people who are affected by such conditions and they then have the means to buy and make food which can allow them to fight such negative influences, and then perhaps, with the strength of heart, mind, and body that food in their bellies provides, they would then have a better chance at ridding themselves of those very things that allow poverty to flourish.

If the industrialized countries of this world, especially The United States, join in the fight against poverty, perhaps the dream of it ending can come true. Bob Geldof exclaimed the need for Tony Blair to get the President of The United States to do the right thing in joining a commission formed by Blair to fight poverty in Africa, and did so in very base language. Any and all other commissions whose purpose is it to wipe out poverty in Africa and any and all other places that experiences it may lie the answer to the very base problem that is poverty.