Quarter Life Crisis

The world according to Sven-S. Porst

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Africa¶

370 words

Somehow I must have caught a light flu of some variety. Perhaps due to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs gig, or more likely due to the following days with a light wind always present and me not being sufficiently careful. Thus I spent most of my weekend in bed sleeping and reading various papers.

One thing these days is that Africa seems to be more present than it used to be. While our daily, die tageszeitung, is sort of alternative and has always covered the 'forgotten' parts of the world, including Africa, the Middle East, South America and the poor parts of Asia, even the mainstream press seems to deliver greater detail for the situation in Liberia these days, perhaps because we have some kind of bad conscience – or should feel responsible in some way at least.

Of course saying that Africa isn't getting a terribly good deal out of free trade either, won't surprise many people. But it's good to be reminded of the sheer hypocrisy the rich countries afford on this matter. Regarding our subsidies for the agricultural industries (and others), there is no free trade. No wonder, everybody suspects the alleged free trade that has been established is just a there to the disadvantage of workers rather than to the advantage of those who do the better job regardless of their location. Fun numbers: Apparently every European cow receives thrice the money in subsidies that is spent on every African in development aid. Similarly, subsidies for the 25000 people working in the U.S. American cotton industry are about three times of the budget for supporting twenty times as many people in Africa. It's a bit silly. And sad.

Other news: About the mathematics of stacking oranges and why the computer proof isn't published properly because people feel they can't verify it completely. Thus, When is a proof? is a more interesting question that it may seem at first. An article about privatised school experiments in the U.S. and how they don't look too promising. The music industry is currently having their annual Popkomm show – a reasonable analysis of its situation – even mentions the iTunes Music store although its introduction in Europe still seems distant.

August 17, 2003, 22:01