This Is Africa

If you've seen the movie Blood Diamond, there's probably one phrase that you remember clearly like I do. "T.I.A., This is Africa," is what Leonardo DiCaprio's mercenary character says as the situation around him rapidly disintegrates into civil war. TIA. This is Africa. Of course it's fucked up, you can't expect it to be like the rest of the world, is what he means.

It seems like a week doesn't go by without some new violence making headlines in Africa, or some old violence making headlines again since it never went away even though we all stopped paying attention. Today,rebels in Chad, before Kenyan election violence, genocide in Darfur, there's still fighting in the Congo, Somalia has never really improved. Oh and don't forget AIDS, oil, and diamonds! All I can even fathom doing on reading another headline about violence in Africa is shake my head and think, T.I.A.

I can't keep it all straight! Try as I might there are too many conflicts, too many ethnic groups, too many underlying issues to make even coming close to understanding the problems a daunting task.

What I'm really asking for is someone to put together a nice summary map of conflicts in Africa, so I can figure out exactly which countries are stable at all, or else I'm just going to operate on the assumption that none of them are.

Maybe I'll go buy a 'Save Darfur' t-shirt.