Loca Lingo Multicultural

when there is no money, there is imagination, creativity & dream, when there is no imagination & no more dreams, there is a problem…
I personally don’t need money. I hope I will never have problems.

Could you guess ?
Try on…
For other localingo quizzes

Yann Arthus Bertrand - a french photographer - has been prolific in photo projects (”terre vue du ciel” where he took pictures from a hot air balloon all around the earth). His current one is about describing people from all around the world. If you want to meet your global neighbour, click here, and enjoy, even if because these interviews are quite short, I believe they are stereotyped… let’s say it’s just nice.

no comment… witty…

There is as well this petition about the Congo forest (discovered on PunkPrincess website). Timber industry overthere is just looting the forest, local population being just powerless to stop such tragedy,… even during peace situations, Congo bleeds. Read the rest of this entry »

Why are there so many wars and armed conflicts in Africa ?

If you have already been through the previous posts, you could already get an idea of the various components. Summary below. Read the rest of this entry »

Tough topic - tough to find out statisitics about this topic. Base yourself on the African GDP per capita, consider it like an indicator. The following mainly talks for the countries with the lowest GDP / capita.
Here are a few questions :

• Could you name one processed African product you could find on the shelves of your supermarket (except of course raw logs, unprocessed oil, fish and diamond minerals) ?
• How can you develop an industry when you export unfinished products, and sometimes re-import them (finished) ? What about the flood of Chinese goods to the detriment of a potential local industry ?
• How can you develop an industry when Western governments carry on sending their surplus – which private company can compete against free donate goods ? Charity’s drawbacks…
• How, as a developing country, can you develop an industry within this WTO context ? Re international matters, the bargaining power of an African country is just non-existent… Strongly subsidized and mechanized agriculture from developed countries is this type of competition, local african peasants can’t compete with, however cheap the labour is.Without undermining the global and long-term benefits of the WTO (because globalization is already present, and it has to be organized), at first sight, rules are not really at the advantage of developing countries… when price is an issue, you won’t especially defend your local industry, because you can’t afford it.On topic documentaries to be watched… Djourou, la corde à ton cou (quite technical sometimes from an economic point of view, but a very complete one - watch it), Darwin nightmare’s (it’s an alright one, more accessible,…).

In the poorest countries, Administration (Civil Servants) or the Army constitute sometimes the only “acceptable” job possibilities – only the ones provided and (badly) paid by the State. Better than no job. The appeal of such a job, is the responsibility related to it. When you have some responsibility, you have power. When you have power, you are entitled to bribery - and this is unfortunately related to any poor countries in the world.

Compare this GDP / capita map with the “corruption” one. For Africa, there is clearly some correlation between the two maps (interesting to notice South America and Asia, with a slightly higher GDP per capita, seem to be as corrupted as its poorest neighbour).

Sometimes, when someone retires, he (informally) sells his function (for a sum of money), like if it was a private business. A position at the Customs is usually highly desirable…

I personnally experienced corruption while living in Asia. Very strange feeling ; at first, you are pretty happy, “I tricked the system”, but then you realized what you have done, as the impact for the whole society - it gives a bit the same feeling as if you would have prostituted yourself, or stole something… very strange feeling, you are not very proud of.. but sometimes you have no choice (actually you always have it).

Corruption is maybe the worst barrier for a sane economy to develop itself ; civil servants primarily work for themselves, secondarily for their country… The state does not control his own machinery, bribers do.
Imagine now the feeling within the “non-civil servant population” ; what could be its impact within its own structure ? it would clearly higher up the global level of discontent…

How could you respect a cop stopping you every morning for his $ commission ? How could you respect officials taking every opportunities to get some money from you ? How could you respect the sentence of a court, when the judge offers “himself” to the wealthiest ? How could you respect the state and play by his rules ?

How could you build up something sustainable in such context ?

Now the economical background is settled, I would clearly encourage you going back to this culture and language map. Have a look to the African continent (click on it).
Yep, each dot represents a different culture.

Have a look now hereunder to the political map of Africa

Read the rest of this entry »