Africa

Saw the movie The Constant Gardner last night, as expected was not a very good adaptation of the John Le Carre book, much like Russia House and Tailor of Panama, but i like movies based on foreign policy issues,,,, anyway the movie was a usual spin-off but it got me thinking about Africa and its relationship with the West. Being from India i understand third-world concerns, well that statement is partly true, i have personally never experienced third-world concerns but have read about it and seen enough living in a big city in India to comment on it. Poverty, illiteracy, lack of basic necessities, most importantly mortality rates,,,, all these being linked together in a vicious cycle which seems never ending. But the point is, compared to countries in Africa(there are of course the arab nations in the north of africa,also south-africa and a few other african nations which are exceptions, when i say "Africa" i mean central,east and parts of west africa) India does not seem to be a third-world nation, true that India has the largest number of people living below the poverty line, i mean we have very very poor people living in India, but i have never heard of deaths due to starvation,,,, a phenomenon which seems to be prevalent in african countries esp. with children. If any natural disaster occurs in India or for that matter some disaster of catastrophic proportions occurs which is as a result of human fallacies, there is aid pouring in from all over , because the West shows it cares and why would they not care, India an economic powerhouse is set to overtake most developed nations in a few years time, we in India have something to offer whereas the African countries have nothing,,, most of them have a vast abundance of mineral wealth but then that is already being mined by the west. This is not to say that people in the West do not care, people care and are doing all they can to help and i admire a lot of canadians, britons and other europeans selflessly working for the african cause, it is the governments that do not care. The Classic example of the African cause is Sudan,a country where children die in the thousands everyday due to malnutrition and genocide is commonplace, what is genocide? for those not familiar with what it is or think they know what it is,read this! will help clear up any misconceptions http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/3853157.stm . I came across an article on Sudan in the new york times which had some pictures accompanying it, and i could not bear to look at the pictures, such is the state,,,, how selfish can i be, or for that matter all of us, all we do is complain about everything, about problems in life, relationship problems,money matters, work issues etc etc the list is endless, but one look at these unfortunate souls and we should realize how lucky we are,but we never will(myself included), momentarily we think about it,feel sad,move on with our lives, always craving for more cause such is human nature, we are never content, we always want more, the one's who conquer this feeling are the people who are truly great and you won't hear their names anywhere or find them living amongst you, cause they are where they are needed most, in countries like Sudan, helping,,,

P.S:- One of those days when i am spewing out a lot of philosophical garbage!