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A MAN-MADE PROBLEM:
"Reasons for Poverty in Africa"

Question: "Can you explain African poverty, starvation and devastation to us? There has to be a bigger explanation."

"Psychic Advice" : Africa is the mother country: it is one of the cradles of civilization on Earth. Africa was once lush with vegetation and wildlife of all kinds. Mass deforestation for centuries has led to desertification, erosion, drought, and extinction of many species. The reasons for poverty in Africa are a lesson and a warning for the rest of the world.

Throughout the world, man has systematically subjugated nature and the feminine, which has led to constant war, famine, poverty and devastation. We call our planet "Mother Earth", and we call our environment "Mother Nature", yet the policies of man have no respect or reverence for the Earth, for nature, or for the feminine. Everything is for the taking, resources are to be claimed and plundered, even plants are being patented and genetically manipulated. In man's desire for power and dominion, man has sought to dominate all of nature, even if that means destroying it. If this continues, we will kill the mother of us all.

The essence of the feminine is the energy of nurturing, of creating, of giving life. This is the vital nature of our planet. Women are the embodied expression of this feminine energy, yet as the patriarchy has become more and more dominant on Earth, even women are relinquishing much of their feminine attributes, taking on masculine energy in order to compete in the world of men.

The competition for power, dominance and control is devastating our global civilization, and this is most evident in Africa. Men began to kill beasts for food, then for commerce, then for sport, until men have now become the beasts. Of course, this is not true of all men, but there are few role models for men in this world who demonstrate true balanced masculine power. One of these great male role models for our world is, in fact, an African: Nelson Mandela, who sought freedom and equality through peace and persistence.

The problems facing Africa are great and varied, but they are essentially man-made, and can only be solved by the will of man. Aids is an enormous epidemic, with 25 million people infected with HIV (out of 38 million worldwide!). Most of those infected are women, many because of a myth that having sex with a virgin will cure the disease, so men rape female children to try to cure themselves, and end up infecting a whole new generation. (Man's sexual appetite has led to the barbaric practice in many African countries of so-called "female circumcision" in order to "protect" their women from rape.)

The number of people dying from Aids is leaving an unprecedented number of orphans, left to fend for themselves and each other. These children are often rounded up by warlords to fight as soldiers in their genocidal wars. This battle for power and supremacy has been raging for centuries, as one tribe or group has fought another, killing and enslaving its enemies, and selling these slaves to others. These maniacal factions impede the relief efforts of world organizations by stealing the food, medicines and supplies before they can reach the people who most need them. There is no value to human life when greed for power and money at all costs is the predominant force.

Some years ago, the world was made aware of the great famine in Ethiopia, yet ironically, Ethiopia holds one of the largest seek banks on the planet, which preserves seeds from ancient varieties of food producing plants. Drought, famine and starvation are the result of long-term deforestation, a problem recognized by 2004 Nobel Prize Laureate Wangari Maathai who was awarded the Nobel Prize for her "Green Belt Movement" that supports women in villages and communities in poor countries such as Kenya to plant trees in order to restore the health and life-sustaining properties of the environment. She said "It's a matter of life and death for this country. The Kenyan forests are facing extinction and it is a man-made problem."

Maathai explains: "I placed my faith in the rural women of Kenya from the very beginning, and they have been key to the success of the Green Belt Movement. Through this very hands-on method of growing and planting trees, women have seen that they have real choices about whether they are going to sustain and restore the environment or destroy it. In the process of education that takes place when someone joins the Green Belt Movement, women have become aware that planting trees or fighting to save forests from being chopped down is part of a larger mission to create a society that respects democracy, decency, adherence to the rule of law, human rights, and the rights of women. Women also take on leadership roles, running nurseries, working with foresters, planning and implementing community-based projects for water harvesting and food security. All of these experiences contribute to their developing more confidence in themselves and more power over the direction of their lives."

Women like Wangari Maathai and Oprah Winfrey are supporting others to plant seeds for the future. Oprah is building schools in Africa to educate and empower the children, particularly female children, to be the leaders of the future. The only way to change the outcome in the future is to make changes in the present, such as these women are doing.

The answer to these man-made problems is to empower the feminine to have a voice that is respected in this world. This is not just about supporting the empowerment of women around the globe, but also about supporting men, particularly male leaders, to come into a greater balance with their own feminine power. In order for humanity to survive on Earth, we must achieve and maintain a greater state of balance within ourselves, in our environment and in our civilizations.

Africa is the heart of our world, and we are being made aware that our heart is sick, and our planet is ailing. We are faced with images of starving children to awaken our compassion, to open our heart, and to make us conscious that we need to change how we treat each other, and how we treat our Earth in order to heal ourselves as a whole.

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