Posted on 07/03/2005 4:16:59 PM PDT by Piefloater
"OH Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes-Benz," prayed Janis Joplin, and the Lord obliged. With or without divine intervention, the late Pope had one. Mao Tse-tung had 23 Mercs. Today, Kim Jong-il owns dozens, all filled to the gunwales with imported Hennessy cognac.
Hitler, Franco, Hirohito, Tito, the Shah, Ceausescu, Pinochet, Somoza - they all swore by Mercedes. Saddam Hussein liked them so much he probably had shares in the company.
Today, though, there is one man who is doing more than the Lord himself to buy a Mercedes-Benz for the leading creeps of the world. That man is, of course, Bob Geldof, the spur to our global conscience.
Africa's leaders cannot wait for the G8 leaders - hectored by rock star Bob and his Live8 concerts into bracelet-wearing submission - to double aid and forgive the continent's debts. They know that such acts of generosity will finance their future purchases of very swish, customised Mercedes-Benz cars, while 315 million poor Africans stay without shoes and Western taxpayers get by with Hondas. This is the way it goes with the WaBenzi, a Swahili term for the Big Men of Africa.
After joyriding their way through six Marshall Plans worth of aid, Africa is poorer today than 25 years ago; and now the WaBenzi want more.
The WaBenzi's preferred Mercedes is the S600L, a long-wheelbase limo with a monstrous 7.3-litre V12 twin-turbo-charged engine. It's as powerful as a Ferrari and 6.4m long. Its basic price is pound stg. 93,090 ($218,000), but extras could be pound stg. 250,000 more.
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's was custom-built in Germany and armoured so it can withstand machine-gun bullets, grenades and landmines.
It is fitted with a CD player, movies, the internet and anti-bugging devices. At 4500kg, it does about 2km per litre of fuel. It has to be followed by a tanker of petrol in a country running on empty.
Mugabe has purchased a car pool of dozens of lesser Mercedes for his wife, vice-presidents and ministers.
Of course, not all Africans who own Mercedes cars are WaBenzi and nor am I suggesting DaimlerChrysler are at fault in any way. Thanks in large part to anti-state corruption drives by the World Bank, a middle class of hard-working, talented entrepreneurs has emerged in Africa in the past two decades.
Africa's future depends on these young entrepreneurs, and they want to buy quality cars for the same reason successful Westerners do. Free trade for Africa would certainly create more Mercedes-Benz owners.
The WaBenzi, by the way, loathe free trade. Reduced bureaucracy means less opportunity for graft, and the traditional way of getting someone else to buy your German-built machine. Last year, King Mswati III of Swaziland went against the grain.
He passed over a Mercedes and went for a pound stg. 264,000 Maybach 62 for himself plus a fleet of BMWs for each of his 10 wives and three fiancees.
Imagine if he continues buying BMWs for his wives; his dad collected 50 spouses and 350 kids. But in May he changed his mind about Mercedes and roared up to parliament in a new S600L limo.
The total bill for his car purchases will be about pound stg. 750,000, or three-quarters of the annual figure for British assistance. Of the pound stg. 14million Swaziland gets in foreign aid, pound stg. 9million goes on the king's balls, picnics, parties - and cars. Yet 70 per cent of Swazis languish in absolute poverty and four out of 10 have HIV/AIDS.
Here's how the WaBenzi get around. Nigeria's Olusegun Obasanjo and Libya's Muammar Gaddafi have motorcades that can extend 1.6km.
At the very minimum, an African president needs 30 cars: the S600L for himself, perhaps a couple more identical vehicles to confuse assassins and for outriders, ministers, yes men and chase cars bristling with guns. Snarling police in advance vehicles force you off the road up to an hour before the big man zooms past.
In Kenya, I often wonder how much it costs to make the capital, Nairobi, grind to a halt. While almost the entire city police force is ordered to line the roads from State House to the airport, how many rapes, murders and robberies are perpetrated in the slums?
When you hear Him coming, the back of your neck tingles as the tension mounts. Zimbabweans call Mugabe's motorcade "Bob and the Wailers" on account of the blaring sirens.
In the past five years, Tanzanian President Benjamin Mkapa's motorcade has been involved in three accidents, in which 22 people have died, including a child aged 3, and 47 others have been injured.
Aid has not worked. A Merrill Lynch report estimates there are 100,000 Africans who own pound stg. 380billion in wealth. At the same time, more than 300million other Africans live on 50pence a day.
Forget about the gap between north and south. The wealth gap within countries like Kenya is far worse than in any other part of the globe.
Get off the corruption thing, says Bob Geldof. The point is that nobody has got on to it properly yet.
Aid-giving nations pretend to be tough on corruption, while African leaders pretend to change. Aid bureaucrats care less about financial probity than the press releases claiming that an economy is on a positive reform track.
They are not helping Africa's young entrepreneurs. By throwing fiscal discipline to the wind and shovelling aid at Africa, the international bureaucrats will fuel a renaissance in corruption.
Meanwhile, non-government organisations refuse to focus on African corruption because it is simply not a priority for them. They blame Western multinationals instead.
Charities are ideological museums stuffed with socialists and anti-globalisation activists. They loathe private enterprise. I sometimes wonder if they would prefer to see Africans stay poor so that aid workers could carry on doing good works for them.
The Spectator
Am I out of touch or was this Live 8 thing just a big yawn that the media is trying to portray as a big deal.
Further proof for my contention that Lil' Kim is a wannabe gangsta.
Yes, by all means - more money to Africa! < /sarcasm>
Us evil western devils just don't understand poverty. After all there are still 300 kazillion Africans who do NOT yet have Mercedes of their own! TRAVESTY!
Other than Pink Floyd, yes.
Slow news weekend. If you've ever worked anywhere in the media...you know the 4th of July weekend is an endless parade of parades (or fireworks...or traffic). The libs get bored and want something else to talk about.
I thought Subaru was the marque of choice of the "swish" crowd.
Huh?
The article was about how things like Live 8 and forgiveness of debt do not address the ACTUAL CAUSES of poverty in Africa and other parts of the Third World.
You read something into it that wasn't there.
And what might those causes be?
Oh, I'd start with the various disfunctional cultural aspects.
They are jerks. Evinrudes last longer.
Germain-Robin, despite the name, is 100% American made. It's as good as any of the French swill, in my limited experience. The Robb Report says their XO is the best liquor in the world.
-ccm
Unfortunately, my budget does not allow for trying $100 bottles of brandy, (my last two bottles which were Hine and Godet VSOP, were gifts). I am not particularly boycotting France, as boycotting China (as much as possible) is more than a handful. The French also get a little consideriation for dumping the EU Constitution.
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