On Martin Meredith's The State of Africa"

1. After I finished reading Zaid Ibrahim's, "I, too, am a Malay" I moved to Martin Meredith's The State of Africa. It is about a history of 50 years of Independence of many of the African nations. According to The Economists it is a highly readable digest of half a century of woes in the cradle of mankind. It is in the horn of Africa where I believe the man originated and I think here too mankind would bring unto himself self-destruction.

2. Malaysia gains her Independence from Britain in 1957, about 52 years ago. It was the same time as many African countries under the European powers gained their Independence. In other words what had happened in some African countries are not much different from what had happened in Malaysia. However, we were quite lucky in having our Prime Ministers and their ministers, armies and police who were not that corrupt. As a country bestowed with rich natural resources we, however, became rich by utilising foreign species, namely the rubber and oilpalm, neglecting our own indigenous species.

3. President Nkrumah, President Gamal Nasser, President Felix Houphouet-Boigny, President Hasting Banda, President Robert Mugabe, President Mobutu, and I can go on mentioning the dictators of Algeria, Libya, Sudan, Ethiopia, Uganda, South Africa, Mozambique, Angola, Cameroon, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Ghana, Congo etc who had plundered their golds, diamonds, copper, oil to enrich themselves and their cronies.

4. Millions of Africans died in tribal wars becoming the ponds between waring nations and provinces within the nation while their elite were enjoying their champagne and cereals, including human flesh. The killing fields of Rwanda when Hutu and Tutsi took turm to kill each other were testimony of the greed those dictators had.

5. I thought it was only in Khmer that Pol Pot used the chidren army to kill adults. I was wrong, in Liberia they did the same thing earlier. Apparently, Pol Pot copied what had happened in Liberia. And the super-powers the US, Russia, France, Britain, Cuba, Belgium etc were making money selling weapons of African destruction. These western powers were indeed behind the waring parties. It was no different from the politics of this decade when the US, Britain and Russia conspired to punish other less-developed nations. This is politics of the highest order of hypocricy.

6. Zaid Ibrahim cynically compare Malaysia with Mugabe's Zambia which was a beautiful country with rich natural resources. Today 1 billion of their currency could but 3 eggs! I pray that my beloved country will not get near of being 10% of Mugabe's greed. What who knows if what Zaid Ibrahim wrote in his little book might come through in 10 years time if they are not checked by the Malaysians.