President Barack Obama is en route to Ghana on his first official trip to Africa and Bono writes about it in today’s New York Times. Here’s an excerpt:
"No one’s leaked me a copy of the president’s speech in Ghana, but it’s pretty clear he’s going to focus not on the problems that afflict the continent but on the opportunities of an Africa on the rise. If that’s what he does, the biggest cheers will come from members of the growing African middle class, who are fed up with being patronized and hearing the song of their majestic continent in a minor key.
I’ve played that tune. I’ve talked of tragedy, of emergency. And it is an emergency when almost 2,000 children in Africa a day die of a mosquito bite; this kind of hemorrhaging of human capital is not something we can accept as normal.
But as the example of Ghana makes clear, that’s only one chord. Amid poverty and disease are opportunities for investment and growth — investment and growth that won’t eliminate overnight the need for assistance, much as we and Africans yearn for it to end, but that in time can build roads, schools and power grids and propel commerce to the point where aid is replaced by trade pacts, business deals and home-grown income."
Click here to read the full article.
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Watch ONE’s video ‘Yes, Africa Can’ that captures Ghana’s excitement about the President’s visit
Friday, July 10, 2009
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1 comments:
Thanks (RED) for your coverage of this BRILLIANT essay by Bono right before President Obama's historic trip to Africa.
The ideas that Bono sets forth in this piece is at the Heart of our movement to end AIDS & extreme poverty. They are the ideas upon which the organizations which Bono has been a part of establishing for Africa's Future (including RED) are founded: increased fairer trade with African countries, sufficient aid to these countries while they are building up their economies and a spiritual affiliation with & appreciation of Africa, the original home of humankind.
When we can fully see our advocacy for Africa and our financial support of efforts such as (RED) and EDUN not as something that we do out of our love & respect for a Rock star but as something that we do out of our Love & Respect for the Mother Continent of humankind, then we will see the true flourishing of our efforts.
Until then, please continue to raise your voice for Africa, B0N0.
It is the MOST EFFECTIVE
international voice for Africa that we have. THANK YOU.
ALWAYS (RED) AT HEART, debbie :)
www.myspace.com/mulago
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