Why Does the World Ignore Africa Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Why Does the World Ignore Africa - Essay Example Despite the abundance in Africa's natural resources it is still one of the world's poorest and most underdeveloped continents. This economy is often the reason for a number of deadly conflicts, guerilla warfare and genocides within different African states: the Darfur conflict. Human rights are also a cause of major cause as they are brutally violated in states like Zimbabwe and Sierra Leone. Basic amenities like healthcare are also severely lacking with deadly diseases and viruses like HIV/AIDS on the rise. With high levels of illiteracy, African states are unable to emerge from their developing status to provide any sort of contribution to the creation of an industrial or service sector. Poverty, illiteracy, malnutrition and inadequate water supply and sanitation affect the African population. The result is that the situation is severe enough for the last 25 ranks in the United Nations Human Development Report to be African states (Reuters). The reasons given for Africa's backwards condition are diverse and complicated. While countries like the United States swoop in to prevent and curb the spread of AIDS in Africa, little is done for the conflicts ranging in the African states. The civil wars are ignored because the world sees them as wars between the Africans to seize and exploit human rights. Tragedies like the Rwandan genocide were shown by the Western media as just another incident of tribal violence in Africa (Heleta 2009). The weapons used to kill the victims were the most simple and brutal available: men, women and children were hacked to death with simple machetes. The death of nearly a million Tutsis and moderate Hutus by the brutal extremists in Rwanda created not a stir of sympathy or assistance. Instead, the UN Security Council was pressurized by its major components: United States and Britain to cut down the number of UN troops in the region from 2500 to 270, right in the midst of the genocide. The French were no less severe as they were held responsible for training the Hutu troops that attacked the Tutsis, all in the name of retaining their French influence in the region. History today sees Ramada as one of the biggest UN failures not only because of its inability to curb the violence but also because while it drew out troops from Rwanda it increased the numbers being sent to Bosnia and Herzegovina. On a trip to Rwanda in 1998 Clinton did apologize stating "We in the United States and the world community did not do as much as we could have and should have done to try to limit what occurred in Rwanda in 1994" (The Radford Reviews). The question arising is that why did the world not do anything Many claim this to be a move to protect the white man while ignoring the black one. Western governments' were said to be aware of this genocide and yet it did nothing to intervene. So after Rwanda's atrocities why did the developed world not prevent the tragedy of Darfur 300,000 people were killed in this region and no action was taken by any government to intervene. The Darfur Daily News complains and rightly so that the United Nations has been created to prevent such atrocities and has been unable to fulfill its responsibilities (2009). So maybe all the accusations placed on the world for favoring a certain race or ignoring the problems of another country is well-founded in the lack of interest shown for Rwanda and Darfur. It has already been mentioned that Africa has