Criticism

When Africans talk about Africa, America is often blamed for not doing enough to help this poor continent. America is to blame for AIDS, poverty, high rates of infant mortality, etc. Often these anti-Americans call on the country they despise to help America, if necessary by starting a new Marshall Plan. Now, I've called for a Marshall Plan for Africa as well (and am by no means anti-American), but Revel is quite right when he writes that people seem to forget that "the international aid received by Africa since decolonization is equivalent to four or five Marshall Plans, all of which was squandered, embezzled or outright stolen, when it wasn't swallowed up in incessant wars or wiped out in stupid 'agrarian reforms' modeled on the suffocating collectivism of Russia and China." However, despite that, it remains "convenient to throw back on America all responsibility for one's own mistakes or crimes – while still appealing to her for rescue."