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http://dict.die.net/forge/

"Forge ahead" is normal usage.

Interesting article, seems a bit harsh on mindset of Africans. I don't believe that most think like that. Given proper access to education and opportunities to use it those that do would be less disenfranchised.

Yes, one has to consider that it was a speech to wake up the students, to make them "forge ahead", and not a political discussion with westerners, so the harshness is probably intended.

For the other visitors, JP has made a comment on this on:
http://jaypee.org.uk/wordpress/2006/10/13/africa-in-self-pity/

NPR just finished a 5-part series on why Africa continues to lag in economic success. Recommended if you're interested in this topic.

Top page of the series at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6213358

"forge ahead" from [1913 Webster] :
(Naut.) To move heavily and slowly, as a ship after the sails are furled; to work one's way, as one ship in outsailing another; -- used especially in the phrase to forge ahead. --Totten.

Regarding African slavery: Europeans did not have to chase thru the hot, steamy, jungles after Africans to capture them. Slavery was common all over the continent for 2000 years before the White Man arrived. West African kingdoms did a huge trade with the Portugese and Brits, trading guns and other advanced goods for slaves.

Sadly, it's bad manners to talk about that anymore.

If bad things were done by Caucasians in Africa in colonial times and they had then left then things might be different now.

Consider blood diamonds (http://www.onesky.ca/diamonds/), the same thing applies to most natural resources in Africa.

No doubt.

However, it is human nature that the strong conquors the weak. For 250 years, that was The West.

Now the Chinese have broken out of their isolationist mold, and, just as Europe learned of Ancient Rome & Greece from the Arabs, China is learning "science and technology" from the West and is becoming ascendant, while the West is (slowly) declining, just as other great civs before it did.

Do I begrudge them that? No.

Hi,

There's an old adage about might makes right. The reason that states think twice before attacking a nuclear state is the same thing.

Africa's position of weakness, has grown out of its legacy past, but the problem has never been the past. It has always been the present. And the present then becomes the past.

If today, we decide to take a look at how things are done here in Ghana, you will see a lot of influence from foreign interests and it usually goes hand in hand with corrupt local interests. The two are almost inextricably linked.

You can always say, well, stop moaning about the past. I would like to moan about the present. Such as why our consumers don't have credit cards but we do have Barclays and Standard Chartered, so I know the technology is there. Or why our goods are sold for prices determined by the commodity exchanges which are located in the financial centers of the world. Or how the EU and US keep on subsidizing their farmers to moronic levels. Or on specific policies linking the development of the third world to decreased Western prosperity and the inevitable conclusion that our growth should be slowed down as much as possible.

Or why the West keeps on pumping in money to refugees, water for people etc and totally neglecting things like education and health, the real things that will benefit us in the long term. Or how Ashanti Goldfields (the largest gold mining company, owner of one of the single richest gold mines in the world here in Ghana) and how they used a hedge mechanism to put the company in debt and sold it out when leveraged to the traditional big boys. Or how Mark Thatcher was planning to overthrow an African government. Or how the Swiss government is seriously dragging its feet over returning billions of dollars to America. Or how the Swiss government and the other governments know how much people here have stolen and yet let them keep it, without returning it to the countries. Or how US congressmen have been linked to people like Charles Taylor and to shady deals in Nigeria.

So yes, let's not moan about the past, but let's not be ignorant either about how the present becomes the past and about how Africa is not given a really fair chance and everyone turns around and blames us (we have a fair share of that, but are by no means the only culprits).