Of good intentions

I read something lately that reminded me of the cliche "The road to hell is paved with good intentions". It was some sort of a feedback article to the historic Live 8 concert some weeks back. I wrote about the concert in a previous blog (dated July 2 & 3) after staying up all night watching it. As we know by now, Live 8 was simply meant to make poverty in Africa, history.

But some Africans beg to differ. An African himself, Jean-Claude Chanda Tonme of the New York Times, wrote a searing article in the International Herald Tribune's July 16 edition titled "Let us Africans do the talking" that analyzed and questioned Live 8.

The author's contention is that Africans know what the problem is, therefore no one else should speak in their name. Tonme says "Don't insult Africa, this continent so rich yet so badly led. Instead, insult its leaders, who have ruined everything. Our anger is all the greater because despite all the presidents for life, despite all the evidence of genocide, we didn't hear anyone at Live 8 raise a cry for democracy in Africa: ...

Read on and understand...