*I found this article very interesting*
Compiled by the DiversityInc staff
June 25, 2005
Japanese cosmetics firm Mandom apologized this month for airing a TV commercial that showed black people wiping off sweat with a Mandom wipe while a chimpanzee wearing an Afro wig imitated them. "We are very sorry and apologize to viewers and other people who felt offended," the company said in a statement. Such offensive and patronizing attitudes about Africa are more commonly found in Japan than in the United States because the percentage of blacks in the Asian country is so small. "But patronizing attitudes about Africa are chronic in all the rich countries," the Canadian newspaper Embassy opines.
The newspaper points to the debate about increasing aid to Africa. Some people think Africa has blown too many opportunities in the past to be given more, but others argue that new leadership is less corrupt and more likely to make reforms. "Both sides essentially believe that Africans are childlike," Embassy contends. "One side assumes it openly: don't give them any more aid until they behave better. The other side is subtler: yes, they are backward, but now they have better leaders who won't steal the money.
"We give monkeys in the zoo more respect than that."
Much has been made of the upcoming meeting of the Group of Eight (G8), the world's top industrial powers, but will it actually lead to a breakthrough for Africa? Possibly, says Nancy Soderberg, vice president and acting Africa program director of the International Crisis Group. British Prime Minister Tony Blair has turned a meeting normally focused on Western economic issues into a second chance (subscription required) for Africa. "Suddenly," Soderberg writes in the Financial Times, "after decades of misguided and misdirected aid, there is hope that the world will finally get smart about how to help Africa's long-suffering people."
There is a risk, though, that while discussing the continent's development needs, the G8 countries could ignore Africa's desperate security requirements, Soderberg says. "Development aid and sometimes even emergency relief cannot be delivered when the security environment is chaotic," she notes. "Whatever the size of the aid budget, development cannot and will not happen where the civilian population lives in constant fear. If development assistance is offered by donors without thought to its impact on conflict prevention and resolution, it is likely to be unproductive at best and counterproductive at worst."
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Sunday, June 26th 2005 at 4:49PM
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