Now what am I talking about? Well go on over to Ms. Hudson’s Ambiguous Adventure and you can read all about it. Don’t miss my little side story in the comments section of her posting on Togo’s new self-appointed President. According to this article from BBC News online the new president, Faure Gnassingbe, was educated by the French at the Sorbonne Université and he earned an MBA in the U.S.A. at George Washington University (4 blocks down from the White House mind you). I wonder where he was taught about “Le coup d’etat” strategies for the 21st century? Folks around Africa don’t seem to be too happy about it either. You can read about it here.
UPDATE (February 11th): I changed and improved some links in the paragraph below because the former URL link to the Infoplease.com website had all kinds of strange pop-ups and stuff. I hate unwanted pop-ups and spyware launching in my readers' browers, so Infoplease has been axed from this blog.
Togo was a military protectorate of The German Empire II briefly in the late 1800’s as you can learn here in English or "auf Deutsch" or " auf D-Englisch". The German language site has some great photos and graphics from the period. The open encyclopedia project Wikipedia has detailed info on the country of Togo. AllAfrica.com has some of the best and most comprehensive coverage on the developing story in Togo by African journalists from around the continent.
“STAND UP People of Togo! Stand Up for Your Rights as Human Beings!
Stand Up and you just may be surprised who will stand up with you, and who won’t. Togo is in the House doggone it, and the people of Togo ‘aint goin’ back out in them fields no more!” Amen.
1 comment:
I should have known that one of my readers would eventually ask, "Hey, what's going on with Germany in regards to Africa...and the War in Iraq...and U.S. relations...and...?". Just when Dr. Condeleezza Rice is trying to wrap up her whirlwind "Let's be friends again" tour I'm being forced to throw a monkey wrench into the whole deal by speaking out about Deutschland. Darn!
Seriously though I do want to do some future postings on German attitudes and actions toward Africa and I intend to have participation in those postings from my German friends and colleagues. Some of them do read this blog regularly by the way, but they are kind of shy due to my (perceived) brutal psychological abuse toward them personally and their government(s) over the years. Actually I am a nice guy if you don't piss me off.
So, to provide a brief answer to your question. The German Foreign Ministry headed by Joschka Fischer and his sidekick Kerstin Müller is involved with several crisis, issues, and opporutunities in Afrika. These two are the "Good Germans" in the present government administration and as being members of the Green Party they unfortunately don't have any real support from their senior coalition partner (Schröder and the SPD) and certainly not from the opposition parties (CDU, CSU, FDP, PDS-the former Communists, and the NPD-the Neo-Nazis). In other words whatever they attempt to do for the good of people in Afrika (and in Germany) they get screwed or not listened to. Then there are the many problems with Dem Deutschem Volk (the German public) and the German Business Community (Greed is Good!) and there you have it___ a political disaster for the whole world "Made in Germany".
So, until I can find the time to get back to this subject with more objectivity and less vinegar in my blood I can suggest that you look at the following resources for the "official" German line on Afrika:
German Auswärtiges Amt website:
http://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/
Note that you can use the site's menues and search for specific bilateral policies for Togo, Cameroon, and Namibia. Also note that you can read a lot about the German Government's policies and activities in Africa at the following official government site:
http://www.germany-info.org/
Use the Government & Politics dropdown menue buttons to find resources on Afrika.
Sorry that I cannot give you better links to pages on these sites but the new Blogger Comments Tool truncates long URL's unfortuantely. Hope that this little bit of info helps you out.
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