Black Culture Discussion Thread

Ethiopian, Eritrean Leaders Officially Open Their Border
AP18254298464742-300x190.jpg

FILE – In this Saturday, July 14, 2018 file photo, Eritrea’s President Isaias Afwerki, right, is welcomed by Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, 2nd right, for his first visit in 22 years, at the airport in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. (AP Photo/Mulugeta Ayene, File)

https://atlantablackstar.com/2018/09/11/ethiopian-eritrean-leaders-officially-open-their-border/

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) — Taking the next step in their dramatic diplomatic thaw, the leaders of Ethiopia and Eritrea on Tuesday officially opened the border where a bloody war divided them for decades, with emotional residents embracing after years of separation. Ethiopia later announced that troops on both sides would withdraw.

Ethiopia’s reformist new Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and longtime Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki “marked the radical transformation of the Ethio-Eritrea border into a frontier of peace & friendship,” Abiy’s chief of staff Fitsum Arega said in a Twitter post.

The leaders visited the Bure Front with members of their militaries to mark the Ethiopian new year and later did the same at the Serha-Zalambesa crossing, Eritrean Information Minister Yemane Meskel said on Twitter.

Photos showed Abiy in camouflage walking alongside Isaias in olive drab, while a ribbon stretched across one border post bristled with military personnel carrying not guns but cameras. Hundreds of civilians waved the countries’ flags. People of the countries’ Tigray region, who share close cultural ties, danced while flag-draped camels wandered by.

In comments carried hours later by the state-affiliated Fana Broadcasting Corporate, Abiy announced that “to ease the tense atmosphere that existed in border areas, Ethiopian Defense Forces will return to various camps to recover and obtain additional training. The same will be done on the Eritrean side. Until then, soldiers will assist local farmers and shift to development activities.”

The former bitter rivals have made a stunning reconciliation since Abiy weeks after taking office in April announced that Ethiopia would fully embrace a peace deal that ended a 1998-2000 border war that killed tens of thousands. At the time, he said the countries would celebrate the Ethiopian new year together: “We want our brothers and sisters to come here and visit us as soon as possible.”

Embassies have reopened, telephone lines have been restored and commercial flights between the capitals have resumed as some long-separated families have held tearful reunions. Landlocked Ethiopia, one of Africa’s fastest-growing economies, and Eritrea, one of the world’s most closed-off nations, also plan development cooperation around Eritrea’s Red Sea ports in particular.

Reports on social media on Monday indicated that mine-clearing activities were underway in one border area, signaling that an opening was planned. The United Nations has called the border one of the world’s most heavily mined.

Abiy on Monday told a new year’s eve concert crowd of thousands in Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa, that “as of today, Ethiopian and Eritrean people will prosper together and march in unison. … The last five months have brought hope and reconciliation.”

The Ethiopian new year has roots in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and is related to the Julian calendar. Eritrea has used the Gregorian calendar since it gained independence from Ethiopia in 1993.

The reconciliation between Ethiopia and Eritrea has been warmly welcomed by the international community and has led to a series of further thaws in the fragile Horn of Africa region, with Eritrea resuming diplomatic ties with both turbulent Somalia and the small but strategic port and military nation of Djibouti.

Observers now wonder whether the thaw will inspire Eritrea’s leader, who has led since independence without elections, to embrace reforms and loosen a strict military conscription system that has led the small country to become one of the largest sources of migrants fleeing toward Europe, Israel and elsewhere.
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Yo i saw some clown in another thread bring up the land redistribution issue in south africa.

Basically, they are taking land from white south Africans and distributing it to black south africans.

I'm asking how do y'all feel on that issue, it was posted here but not really discussed.
 
Let us revisit this.



Dude said everything I've ever thought. Without being able to describe it. Peep the white chick being uncomfortable even calling herself white. Laughable.
 
nawghtyhare said:
africa needs to let china upgrade everything
then kick em out
i hope they finesse them too
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I watched the Chinese build a sports arena across the street from my brother's high school (I had already graduated) without input from local tradespeople. All workers on that site came from China.

There is no development without technology transfer: somebody still gotta maintain the infrastructure after the builders leave. In addition, without technology transfer, a country is merely a consumer, and not a maker. In other words, when the time comes to create another bridge/road/younameit, they have to rely on outside knowledge, and that comes at a high price (usually covered by loans that governments can't repay without going on massive privatization campaigns and adopting austerity measures that eventually bankrupt the country). Technology transfers don't happen if local people are not employed by these foreign companies that want to "develop" African countries.
 
gry60 said:
I watched the Chinese build a sports arena across the street from my brother's high school (I had already graduated) without input from local tradespeople. All workers on that site came from China.

There is no development without technology transfer: somebody still gotta maintain the infrastructure after the builders leave. In addition, without technology transfer, a country is merely a consumer, and not a maker. In other words, when the time comes to create another bridge/road/younameit, they have to rely on outside knowledge, and that comes at a high price (usually covered by loans that governments can't repay without going on massive privatization campaigns and adopting austerity measures that eventually bankrupt the country). Technology transfers don't happen if local people are not employed by these foreign companies that want to "develop" African countries.
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is there an explanation as to why the chinese do not employ/use any local workers? i recently visited nigeria for the 1st time, spent just about a month out there most of which was spent in & around lagos, tho i din't really see much...the contrast/dichotomy between areas around estates was kinda surprising...i expected to see more of a chinese presence i actually only managed to see one asian person (which i assume would be chinese) and i when i mentioned this to someone who was a local shop worker she explained that the chinese mostly stay to themselves and are rarely seen during the day but more times they only saw them coming from and going to work

enlightenedespot said:
Yo i saw some clown in another thread bring up the land redistribution issue in south africa.

Basically, they are taking land from white south Africans and distributing it to black south africans.

I'm asking how do y'all feel on that issue, it was posted here but not really discussed.
Click to expand...

yea i read a few pieces on this, in addition to watching some longform documentary & individual youtuber vids, and i still don't really understand what is going on...there is also some issue where some companies excludes whites from employee shareholding plans; it's all complicated thing because it really depends on how the acquisition, the historical inequity that previously advantaged white exclusively, and redistribution is addressed/done.

it doesn't seem like the right solution to just flip the board to the exclusion of whites (gry60's explanation of technolgy/knowledge transfer is applicable here as well), but then there is just the fact that (some) whites were able to get wealth and that whites 'own' the majority of the land and aren't that keen to sell to the government without really being cashing out at outrageous valuations. i don't know what the solution should be but it is obvious that major reparations are necessary...
 
tokes99 said:
is there an explanation as to why the chinese do not employ/use any local workers? i recently visited nigeria for the 1st time, spent just about a month out there most of which was spent in & around lagos, tho i din't really see much...the contrast/dichotomy between areas around estates was kinda surprising...i expected to see more of a chinese presence i actually only managed to see one asian person (which i assume would be chinese) and i when i mentioned this to someone who was a local shop worker she explained that the chinese mostly stay to themselves and are rarely seen during the day but more times they only saw them coming from and going to work



yea i read a few pieces on this, in addition to watching some longform documentary & individual youtuber vids, and i still don't really understand what is going on...there is also some issue where some companies excludes whites from employee shareholding plans; it's all complicated thing because it really depends on how the acquisition, the historical inequity that previously advantaged white exclusively, and redistribution is addressed/done.

it doesn't seem like the right solution to just flip the board to the exclusion of whites (gry60's explanation of technolgy/knowledge transfer is applicable here as well), but then there is just the fact that (some) whites were able to get wealth and that whites 'own' the majority of the land and aren't that keen to sell to the government without really being cashing out at outrageous valuations. i don't know what the solution should be but it is obvious that major reparations are necessary...
Click to expand...

Where I live, equatorial guinea, the law states that foreign companies must try to hire nationals first and foremost, and if they can't find one to fill the position they are seeking to fill... then they can bring in their own guys. Problem is, there are certainly Chinese laborers here, doing even unskilled labor. That means these Chinese companies don't even look for Africans and the big African guys that brought them here don't even check their hiring processes.

Thats how it works here, but I'm sure its the same all over africa. The problem with this is it leads to sustained unemployment by people who actually could be working.
 
enlightenedespot said:
Where I live, equatorial guinea, the law states that foreign companies must try to hire nationals first and foremost, and if they can't find one to fill the position they are seeking to fill... then they can bring in their own guys. Problem is, there are certainly Chinese laborers here, doing even unskilled labor. That means these Chinese companies don't even look for Africans and the big African guys that brought them here don't even check their hiring processes.

Thats how it works here, but I'm sure its the same all over africa. The problem with this is it leads to sustained unemployment by people who actually could be working.
Click to expand...

To clarify my previous comment, the part in bold is my main issue with the economic situation on the continent.

Most leaders and government officials are much more concerned with how much of a cut they'll personally get out of an infrastructure contract than how many of their countrymen the project will feed and specialize. I don't have an issue with Chinese immigrants who come to Africa (as that would be hypocritical of me considering that I am an African immigrant in the US) because I believe that there is wealth in diversity. I just want our officials to realize that just having someone else build a road or a building doesn't mean developing a country. We need to acquire the means to make those things ourselves and apply those skills in order to increase our productivity.

I would have never left Cameroon if there was a real investment in engineering. Instead, for a country as educated as ours, there was only one engineering school for a country of 20 million people. That's BS. And to make matters worse, our government refuses to harness the intellectual potential of Cameroonians abroad by not recognizing dual citizenship and by belittling those who have advanced degrees, especially if they are somewhat critical of what is going on in the country. They are more interested in keeping their power than investing in the country and it's people.

/Rant.
 
Bruh, you know I know. And you know I can't really speak further on this issue regarding the big men, definitely not publicly.

And I understand the hypocrisy that you speak of but Africans in America actively add to the U.S. economy, whereas the Chinese literally do the bare minimum. They literally import vegetables from China. Outside of taxes, which some of these companies find ways to avoid. Almost none of the money that we give them is reintroduced into the local economy.

I have Asian coworkers who literally send 90% of their salary back home. And this isn't a knock on Asians in Africa, this is knock on our own leaders, but like I said, can't really get into that.
 
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