Stardate 20010628.0622 (On Screen): Africa is in a terrible plight, and absolutely does need more foreign aid than it has been getting, including from the US. I accept this. Still, this news report betrays an attitude I keep running into. What is "Africa"?
In this, as in so much else, "Africa" seems to mean sub-Saharan Africa, or the part of Africa not inhabited primarily by caucasions. In other words, it doesn't include the part of the continent historically inhabited by Arabs, Berbers, Romans, Greeks, and the like: The parts bordering the Mediterranean, where they speak semitic languages.
In this news article, "Africa" doesn't seem to include Egypt. You can tell because it says that the US gives $745 million annually to "Africa". In fact, the number is far, far higher than that. But nearly all of our foreign aid to that continent goes to Egypt. In 1999, Egypt alone received $2 billion in foreign aid from the US (a legacy of the Camp David peace accord). On the other hand, to lump Egypt in with the rest of Africa when calculating US foreign aid to the continent would be deceptive, in a sense. (But leaving it out is also deceptive. It depends on what you're trying to prove.)(discuss)
