Images of Africa

[Saigon]

Away from the poverty and starvation we often see on our TV screens, Africa can be stunningly beautiful, and it always saddens me we don't see more of that side of the continent.

It is poor, it can be dangerous, but it is also a continent of immense diversity (and 51 countries), hope, life and generosity.

I have been lucky enough to travel the continent widely, and particularly to spend time far out in the wilds around the wildlife. Click on the images to see them full size.

Here are a few of my favourite pictues of the continent, from Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Rwanda, DR Congo and Botswana.

Climbing Mt Nyiragongo, DR Congo, and the worlds largest lava lake







Rwanda mountain gorillas:




Namibia, Botswana and South Africa's Kruger.

 

[Katzndogz]

I love Africa. I have an entire series of paintings that I did of Africa. I just sold a giclee to a bank of one of my paintings. I did an exhibition of paintings of Africa for Black History month and they decided to keep one.

This one.

 

[Mr. H.]

Damn, you two are talented.

Hey Saigon, the dead tree photo is my fave.

 

[old navy]

I love Africa and her people. With the right leadership and effort, she could be the gem of the world.

 

[Katzndogz]

I love Africa and her people. With the right leadership and effort, she could be the gem of the world.

True, but the leadership was thrown out in favor of black despots.

 

[Unkotare]

I love Africa. I have an entire series of paintings that I did of Africa. I just sold a giclee to a bank of one of my paintings. I did an exhibition of paintings of Africa for Black History month and they decided to keep one.

How long were you in Africa?

 

[ScienceRocks]

The animals are amazing and there's plenty of resources to create a great civilization or two, but its people aren't capable of taking advantage of it. Sadly.

 

[Saigon]

The animals are amazing and there's plenty of resources to create a great civilization or two, but its people aren't capable of taking advantage of it. Sadly.

You can't making a sweeping generalisation about 51 countries - and I'm amazed you try.

 

[Saigon]

Damn, you two are talented.

Hey Saigon, the dead tree photo is my fave.

Thanks Mr H - it's from Sossusvlei in Namibia - a place of absolutelly staggering beauty - if you like your beauty harsh and sandy!

 

[Saigon]

I love Africa. I have an entire series of paintings that I did of Africa. I just sold a giclee to a bank of one of my paintings. I did an exhibition of paintings of Africa for Black History month and they decided to keep one.

This one.

This is a beautiful image - I can see why the bank bought it!

True, but the leadership was thrown out in favor of black despots.

But this is a terrible thing to say - keep in mind that Portugal alone took 4.65 million slaves from Africa and you might want to consider how good European leadership was for Africa.

Belgian rule in the Congo saw the population fall by 20% due to murder and imposed starvation - hardly what I look for in good government.

 

[Mr. H.]

Damn, you two are talented.

Hey Saigon, the dead tree photo is my fave.

Thanks Mr H - it's from Sossusvlei in Namibia - a place of absolutelly staggering beauty - if you like your beauty harsh and sandy!

Oh there's enough sandy beauty here at USMB.
Some ugly too.

 

[Katzndogz]

I love Africa. I have an entire series of paintings that I did of Africa. I just sold a giclee to a bank of one of my paintings. I did an exhibition of paintings of Africa for Black History month and they decided to keep one.

This one.

This is a beautiful image - I can see why the bank bought it!

True, but the leadership was thrown out in favor of black despots.

But this is a terrible thing to say - keep in mind that Portugal alone took 4.65 million slaves from Africa and you might want to consider how good European leadership was for Africa.

Belgian rule in the Congo saw the population fall by 20% due to murder and imposed starvation - hardly what I look for in good government.

Nothing has been worse for the Africans than black leadership. As bad as white rule was, and it was bad, it was never as bad as black leadership. Genocidal wars, mass starvation due to the destruction of the farmland and livestock, followed by attacks on aid convoys and theft of supplies. If Belgian rule in the Congo reduced the population by 20%, what did the Hutu/Tutsi war do? Zimbabwe was turned from the most fertile fields on the continent to starvation by Robert Mugabe.

There should have been a better solution for Africa to remove capricious white rule than to turn it over to the unimaginable cruelty of black leadership.

 

[Unkotare]

How long were you in Africa?

 

[Saigon]

Nothing has been worse for the Africans than black leadership. As bad as white rule was, and it was bad, it was never as bad as black leadership. .

Right.

So the 20% of Congolese who died under Belgian rule should be thankful.

The 4.65 million Africans shipped as slaves by the Portugese should be happy they were taken.

The millions who suffered oppression under apartheid should want it back.

Really, man, this couldn't be much siller.

Of the countries you refer to, I think only Zimbabwe was genuinely better off before Mugabe, but there is no reason it can not be a wealthy country in future once he has gone. People in a dozen other African countries (Angola, Rwanda, Ghana, Namibia, Botwsana. Mozambique) are far better off now than they were under European rule.


btw. The Hutu/Tutsi war was in Rwanda, not Congo (altough it did spill over into neighbouring Kivu provinces)

 

[Katzndogz]

Nothing has been worse for the Africans than black leadership. As bad as white rule was, and it was bad, it was never as bad as black leadership. .

Right.

So the 20% of Congolese who died under Belgian rule should be thankful.

The 4.65 million Africans shipped as slaves by the Portugese should be happy they were taken.

The millions who suffered oppression under apartheid should want it back.

Really, man, this couldn't be much siller.

Of the countries you refer to, I think only Zimbabwe was genuinely better off before Mugabe, but there is no reason it can not be a wealthy country in future once he has gone. People in a dozen other African countries (Angola, Rwanda, Ghana, Namibia, Botwsana. Mozambique) are far better off now than they were under European rule.


btw. The Hutu/Tutsi war was in Rwanda, not Congo (altough it did spill over into neighbouring Kivu provinces)

The ones taken as slaves were certainly more fortunate than those left behind. At least according to Muhammad Ali who went to Africa observed and said he was glad his great great granddaddy got on the boat.

The Hutu/Tutsi war happened in Rwanda, Africa. A country that you say is now better off. Africa is torn apart by factions fighting one another. The continent lives on the cusp of war for some reason or other. The countries that have advanced to being marginal, have done so because of a heavy UN influence. In Nigeria there's Boko Haram. In Uganda it's Shahab. At any moment the next collapse could happen and it could happen anywhere because there is no African leadership. Where African's are marginally better off than they were under the rule of the white Belgians, Dutch and Afrikkans it's because they are wards of the largely white United Nations. White agencies that use their stewardship to siphon off fortunes for themselves and leave the Africans only slightly better off than they were before.

Unfortunately each African leader who gets in a position of leadership uses that position to fill French bank accounts while the people STILL have to stand in line at UN feeding stations. The Congo has been a Marxist/Leninist dictatorship since 1968.

I feel terribly for the African people who are worth so much more than what they got from anyone, including their own.

 

[Saigon]

The ones taken as slaves were certainly more fortunate than those left behind.

I don't think anything more needs to be added to this statement, really. This really is one of the breathtaking claims I have ever seen made on a discussion forum.

I think the thing you are forgetting is that there are 51 countries in Africa. At anyone time one of those countries will likely be having a coup or a war or a famine, and certainly a half dozen will be suffering bad government, but so they will also in Asia and South America.

Many other countries in Africa will be doing well, and I mentioned a dozen earlier that are doing well. I will add that Rwanda is doing extremely well these days - it's just thriving. The Congo has been a democracy since 2003 - and as a dictatorship, it was installed and backed by the US - not the UN.

 

[Artevelde]

The ones taken as slaves were certainly more fortunate than those left behind.

I don't think anything more needs to be added to this statement, really. This really is one of the breathtaking claims I have ever seen made on a discussion forum.

I think the thing you are forgetting is that there are 51 countries in Africa. At anyone time one of those countries will likely be having a coup or a war or a famine, and certainly a half dozen will be suffering bad government, but so they will also in Asia and South America.

Many other countries in Africa will be doing well, and I mentioned a dozen earlier that are doing well. I will add that Rwanda is doing extremely well these days - it's just thriving. The Congo has been a democracy since 2003 - and as a dictatorship, it was installed and backed by the US - not the UN.

Rwanda is a dictatorship. And claiming that Congo is a democracy is simply funny. It hardly exists as a country anymore (in part thanks to Rwanda).

 

[Artevelde]

Nothing has been worse for the Africans than black leadership. As bad as white rule was, and it was bad, it was never as bad as black leadership. .

Right.

So the 20% of Congolese who died under Belgian rule should be thankful.

The 4.65 million Africans shipped as slaves by the Portugese should be happy they were taken.

The millions who suffered oppression under apartheid should want it back.

Really, man, this couldn't be much siller.

Of the countries you refer to, I think only Zimbabwe was genuinely better off before Mugabe, but there is no reason it can not be a wealthy country in future once he has gone. People in a dozen other African countries (Angola, Rwanda, Ghana, Namibia, Botwsana. Mozambique) are far better off now than they were under European rule.


btw. The Hutu/Tutsi war was in Rwanda, not Congo (altough it did spill over into neighbouring Kivu provinces)

Just another illustration of how much of a fraud you are.

 

[Douger]

Remove all food,medical aid and multi-national corporations(employment) and lets let them show the world what they've got !
They'll be on the endangered species list in less than two decades.

 

[Katzndogz]

If Rwanda is thriving today, it is certainly a stretch for the definition of thriving.

Daily Times - Leading News Resource of Pakistan

DRC refugees head to Rwanda fleeing latest unrest

Designed to take a maximum of 5,400 people, Nkamira now holds 12,000, crammed into a former dairy and under tents supplied by the UN refugee agency

ON the hillside hundreds of people are felling trees and flattening the ground to make space for new tents, while others are hanging up their washing. Kigeme camp in southern Rwanda, which for a long time housed Burundian refugees, reopened on June 10 to take in some of those fleeing a new wave of unrest in neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Two weeks later it is already home to some 2,500 people. “We’ve speeded up the work on the camp,” the official in charge of Kigeme, Emmanuel Niyibaho, said. The refugees are arriving from Nkamira transit centre in northern Rwanda, which has been completely overwhelmed by the latest refugee influx.

Most of those who have fled this time around say they were being persecuted because they speak Kinyarwanda, the language spoken in neighbouring Rwanda. Many complain of being preyed on by soldiers of the regular Congolese army, whom they accuse of raping and looting, on the grounds that they are from the same ethnic group as the mutineers.

The figure behind the mutiny - although he denies it - is Bosco Ntaganda, a former rebel who was integrated into the Congolese army in early 2009. A Tutsi, Ntaganda has benefited from the complicity, or possibly even the support, of Rwanda, according to Kinshasa and to Human Rights Watch. Kigali denies the charge. The abuses “are always committed by the government troops,” according to Divine Uwimana, 36, who says she represents the refugees at Nkamira. Uwimana said she had not been attacked but that others were raped.

I don't exactly call this thriving, or that it's so good in the Congo.