In case you haven't noticed, things are going badly in Africa. Internecine and civil wars flare and rage all across the continent. Poverty, famine, and disease fester and grow amongst its populace -- a fertile breeding ground for the very worst in human behavior, as starvation, hopelessness, and ennui take hold of a people constantly deprived.
 
The thing is, this has not happened because the Africans 'messed up', or are in some way 'backwards'. This state of affairs is our inheritance from the great colonial days of imperialism, and from our own society's meddling.
 
Africa has tremendous natural resources. Good old WolframAlpha lists these:
 
antimony | arable land | asbestos | bauxite | cadmium | cassiterite | chrome | chrome ore | cinnamon | clay | coal | cobalt | cocoa | coconut | coffee | construction materials | copper | diamonds | diatomite | feldspar | fish | fluorspar | gemstones | geothermal power | gold | granite | graphite | gypsum | hydropower | iron | kaolin | lead | lithium | magnesium | manganese | methane | mica | molybdenum | natron | natural gas | nickel | niobium | oil | palm oil | peat | phosphates | platinum | potash | pumice | quartz | rare earth metals | rubber | salt | seafood | silica | silver | soda ash | stone | talc | tantalum | tar sands | timber | tin | titanium | tungsten | uranium | vanadium | water | wildlife | zinc | zircon
 
Discerning observation of this data will show that it includes virtually everything needed for industrial society to, well...be industrial.
 
In the late 19th century, the great “Scramble for Africa” began. First the great European nations ruled African nations purely through military influence; eventually, they were 'inducted' as actual members of the various Empires. Always was the population exploited brutally and kept servile to their Western 'betters'.
 
Racism, and later the faux-science of Eugenics, rationalized and justified this horrifying treatment. Over the course of the last century and a half, we took these resources for a trifle, giving the population nowhere near their actual value. When the days of legal empire wanted, we installed and supported regimes that would allow us to retain this kind of access. As a result, the disparity in wealth in Africa is startling – the vast, vast majority of the population lives in a state of squalor that cannot be described, while the country's rulers live a lifestyle to rival that of the world's most wealthy people.
 
And -- because of it all -- we here in the 'First World' can have and afford all of these nice things.
 
Matthew 18:1-6, King James Translation
 
“1At the same time came the disciples unto Jesus, saying, Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?
 2And Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in the midst of them,
 3And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.
 4Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
 5And whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me.
 6But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.”
 
We need to be giving back. If you enjoy the life that industrial and post-industrial society has given you, then you owe the people of Africa a large debt. They have been robbed, at gunpoint, of the very things that might have allowed them to achieve as well. Even now, children starve, families are destroyed, people are murdered...largely because so few have ever returned to Africa bearing gifts – they have only ever taken.

 
The time has come for that to end.
 
I call out for people to step forward – in the name of whatever or whomever they hold to be sacred – to fulfill our obligation to the people of Africa. This is our mess, not theirs. They are, by and large, merely the victims of worldwide greed and exploitation on a continental scale. They are human beings, like us, suffering beyond what most of us can understand or will ever know -- and they are in desperate need of help.
 
Please, let's help them. We owe them one.