Maggie's Farm

I have two indelible memories of my time flitting in and out of Africa:

1. Seeing kids with their schoolbooks out under the street lights of Bangui in the evening doing their homework - because that was the only place where there was enough constant illumination. What a contrast with my own son whining to me about how we needed to improve our high-sped Internet service! The kids in Africa are great, especially those big, bright, ear-to-ear, cynicism-free smiles.

2. The rise of the mobile phone across Africa has toppled the useless and corrupt state "PTT" telephone monopolies. Individual African entrepreneurship is amazing too. For example, in many villages, one man gets a mobile phone then offsets the cost by setting himself up as an unofficial "phone booth", charging other villagers a small fee to use his device. And DVD players become local ad hoc movie theatres.

Africans deserve a chance at the same prosperity we have been blessed with. To deny them that, in the interests of some putative environmental cause or another, is to confirm our self-absorbed arrogance in their eyes.

(Most recent example: President Obama hectoring Kenyans about gay rights.)