Word: africas
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...segment of your article on Africa that focused on Mali [WORLD, March 30], you quoted me as saying the government here "understands human capital." To be precise, I was referring to Mali's strong social capital: "something" that makes some societies function or heal themselves better than others. Harvard professor Robert Putnam first developed the idea in the late 1980s, when comparing northern and southern Italy. Social capital is rather like the dark (missing) matter of the universe: we know it's there because we can see its consequences, but it is terribly hard to get hold of and examine...
...AFRICA ON THE RISE
Thanks for your interesting article about President Clinton's trip to Africa and conditions there [WORLD, March 30]. In reading about the positive aspects of Clinton's visit, people should not forget that genocide took place in the heart of Africa, where about a million people lost their lives in a cruel civil war. I didn't see Clinton or the U.N. in Africa when that was happening. Now Big Industry smells a potential market in the "rising African countries," and here is Clinton to pave the way. But how can you talk of a renaissance in Africa when...
...Novak arrogantly said that "if it hadn't been for slavery, they wouldn't even be in America, would they?" Pat Buchanan seems to be in denial about the horrors of slavery, remarking in his syndicated column that "America deserves better than to have Clinton romping around sub-Saharan Africa, counting cheap graces by apologizing for sins this nation never committed." What's more, Buchanan believes that since his own ancestors never owned slaves, and--being of Irish descent, were persecuted themselves--he should be absolved from the crime of slavery...
...these ideas, Novak's suggestion that the black people of this country ought be grateful that our ancestors were taken away from everything familiar to them on the coasts of West Africa and kept as slaves for centuries is the most banal. I don't want to shock Novak, but the Middle Passage was not quite a Carnival cruise. Patterns of whip lashes on the backs of slaves weren't regarded as pretty decorations. And being raped to breed bastard children that would be sold away from you wasn't exactly a good ol' romp...