Does the rioting in the wake of the "elections" in Kenya surprise anybody?
If you lived in abject poverty that was brought on by your government's greed and by the rape of your country's natural resources by western multi-national corporations and when you went to vote your vote was ignored or tossed aside, then I'm betting you'd riot too. If you saw that the only way out of a miserable existence was to attach yourself to whatever dictatorial strong man was in power then I guess you'd take up a machete and try to hack off the heads of the people who wanted him out. If you skimmed food and cash off all the charity that flows into your country and you got fat and rich off it then I'm sure you'd do whatever it took to keep that flow going.

For years western countries like the US and Britain have forced alien political systems on African nations. They've told them, "You must be a democracy like we are!" Of course it doesn't matter to the US or to Britain that for hundreds of thousands of years Africans got along fine without democracy. The US, Britain, and other countries have insisted that multi-national corporations be allowed to plunder Africa's resources and to make low paid wage slaves out of their citizens. We've also shoved our twisted brand of Christianity down their throats for hundreds of years and we've done our best to obliterate their tribal past.
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I can't help but see that the past 40 years of trying to remake Africa into the USA and Britain has been a disaster for most every African and for Africa in general. Of course there have been some who have profited and have done well from our plunder of the dark continent, and as usual it's been the corporate CEO's and their henchmen in our governments.
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Maybe if we got the hell out of Africa and we stop forcing our political and economic systems down their throats, then Africans might just work things out for themselves. After all, the one country that has rejected the IMF and the World Bank, Botswana, is one of the most peaceful and economically sound countries in Africa. They do things in Botswana the way they think best and not the way the technocrats in Washington and London think they ought to. Most every other country in Africa has adopted western style economics and aped western style political systems to their detriment. If we got the politicians, the missionaries, the corporations, and the zealots out of Africa then life would be better for millions of Africans once again.