Africa must take the first steps into modernity on its own. There must be a change in mentality. We have to stop perceiving ourselves as beggars.

No one can really picture an African as a businessman. In order to change the current situation, it would be helpful if the aid organizations were to pull out.

Africans are taught to be beggars and not to be independent.

Because it's unacceptable that the aid worker's chauffeur only speaks his own tribal language, an applicant is needed who also speaks English fluently - and, ideally, one who is also well mannered. So you end up with some African biochemist driving an aid worker around, distributing European food, and forcing local farmers out of their jobs. That's just crazy!

Development aid is one of the reasons for Africa's problems. If the West were to cancel these payments, normal Africans wouldn't even notice. Only the functionaries would be hard hit. Which is why they maintain that the world would stop turning without this development aid.

Africa must take the first steps into modernity on its own. There must be a change in mentality. We have to stop perceiving ourselves as beggars.

AIDS is big business, maybe Africa's biggest business. There's nothing else that can generate as much aid money as shocking figures on AIDS. AIDS is a political disease here, and we should be very skeptical.