In another thread on this forum we are asked the question whether or not we should care about Africans.

To those who have posted on this thread castigating the days of colonial rule, I would like to ask the question what they thought Africa was like before the advent of colonisation.

I can give you a hint. Take a good look at Africa today and imagine it ten times as bad, with the unrepressed evils of continual war, famine, disease and slavery. Now as Charley seems to have focused on the evils of "The British Empire", probably because in this thread we are discussing Zimbabwe, or Southern Rhodesia as it was known under British rule, please note that under British rule three of those evils were eliminated and the fourth (disease) was brought under control.

To those who knew and know Africa, through childhood and a lifetime of working there, the downwards slide since "Independence" in many places came as no surprise and to them was as obvious and inevitable as night following day.