Does that answer your question, cupcake?

Yes, if the question was “are there people who still believe the fairytale that due to their high-precision mass-manufacturing industrial base in the 19th century, the manifest destiny and natural right of the colonial powers was to hang on to Africa, the Middle East, India, China, Southeast Asia, the Pacific Islands and South America forever?”

Which, as history tells us, is exactly what happened next.

Yours truly,

Sugar Plum-Fizzlebritches III.

Self-rule isn’t a leftist position, it’s the default position for all countries. You seem to have the bizarre notion that being ruled by others is, for Africa, the natural way to go. The colonial mindset is mighty ingrained.

The “cupcake” bullshit isn’t at all helpful, BTW.

Well if that were the case, Mercurius, then I reckon you’d be forced to abandon leftist positions wholesale. Somehow I don’t see that coming, so I reckon there are other forces remaining at play (not to your credit).

“…what do you suggest….?”

You know, after the battle of Little Big Horn, in which the US Army was decisively routed by the Lakota Sioux, somebody asked a victorious Lakota warrior how long the battle had lasted.

He famously replied, “about as long as it takes for a hungry man to eat his dinner.”

How poetic. But if you had asked the same question of a defeated US Army soldier, he would have answered, “Well let me look at my high-precision mass-manufactured time-measuring device and I’ll tell you.”. And in that moment you could tell who would win the battle, and who would win the war.

Does that answer your question, cupcake?

The economic consequence of the Black Death (or at least a temporal correlation) was a period of stagnant economies as well (lasting at least a century), so I’m not sure why he’s wishing that on Africa and other countries dealing with an HIV/AIDS crisis.

Robert suggested that this whole episode is a “tragic example of what happens when politicians ignore scientific advice they don’t like”. That, to me, seems like a worthwhile point and one we could usefully apply here in Australia and elsewhere in all sorts of areas including resource management, medicine and, heck, just about anything.

But what does Razor do? Ignores the potential lesson and asserts a lot of pious nostrums about self rule and leftists. What’s Razor getting at here? That a colonial right government which ignored the medical advice about AIDS would somehow magically *avoid* having hundreds of thousands of AIDS babies?

JPZ, what do *you* suggest is a logical, reasoned response to such mindless twaddle?

Personally, I think a loud raspberry accompanied by flatulent flapping of right hand under left armpit would be a response roughly on par with the level of grown-upedness that Razor’s remark suggests. In that light, my response was a paragon of forbearance.

Is it just me, or does anyone else think it’s beneath contempt to use dead AIDS babies to push a political barrow?

So, like I said, man up Razor and go tell those Africans what’s good for ‘em: a nice bit of colonial oversight is just what they need, eh, what?

Ocka, pleez.

The only potentially good thing is that AIDS/HIV may have the same economic impact as the Black Death did in Europe.

http://www.avert.org/aids-south-africa.htm

And you just can’t say enough angry things about Mbeki (and Mugabe etc) – however, the rates of HIV-Aids in many sub-Saharan African countries is still so devastating even without what denialists like Mbeki and Tshabalala-Msimang have wrought in SA, which I agree could be rated as a crime against humanity.

Botswana even though it responded in a completely different way has a rate of 26% from a much smaller population base. There has been a slowing in transmission rates in many countries and areas with successful prevention campaigns, but the mortality rate will remain high for quite some time.

http://www.avert.org/subaadults.htm

On top of everything else Africa has to deal with – civil/colonial/cold wars for decades, then a ‘third world war’ mostly involving civilians which has raged for more than a decade and hasn’t ended, famines and food shortages, malaria and a hundred other ‘orrible diseases, HIV-Aids has been a cruel blow.

I was hoping many years ago now, that this century would be an African century but these days I’m just hoping that I’ll still be alive to see the continent emerge from such terrible times. Obviously there are some countries and regions which have to some degree remained fairly sane islands of stability in comparison to the the chaos surrounding them, but too few and far between for so many millions & millions of people.

A donation to an African Aids Charity is a great idea, thanks Harley for the timely reminder!

‘ I have sinnned ‘ sorta deal. ‘ Never again!’. Call it a PR strategy.

You may have seen that a new party has been formed called ‘Congress of the People’. It’d led by Terror Lekota (former Defence Minister and Premier of the Free State) and it’s in large part for people in the ANC who were unhappy with the way Mbeki was removed. So we might expect that Mbeki will have influence within COPE. It’s not so simple though, Lekota and Shilowa (the Deputy and former Premier of Gauteng) are big characters themselves. Where will each of the Parties stand on HIV? Well, I suspect that neither will return to the bad old days of Mbeki and Tshabalala-Msimang. The current president has appointed Barbara Hogan and Health Minister, and she is absolutely fantastic. COPE has many supporters who have joined because they are dismayed with the outrageous sexism and corruption of Jacob Zuma… Not sure if that answered your question!