[madradavid]

I did read that article; it is just a generic article about how funerals are expensive, you could replace Kampala with New York, and it would still hold.

My point is that the Author has picked a practice by a couple of tribes on a Continent so diverse and large you could fit the states, the UK, and still have space for 30 or so more countries, and passed it off as the norm.

Funerals can be expensive, anywhere. I don't want you going away with the impression that all these poor Africans are using up all their hard-earned savings to throw these outlandish burial ceremonies.

[cineticdaffodil]

That counter argument is valueless. Yes, it might be unequally spread but unless you can proof the locality of the phenomena the cliche still communicates. Not everything in the west is California but thanks to hollywood it is.

[dbdr]

That sounds like a reversal of the burden of the proof to me. David Oks is claiming in his blog that "funerals keep Africa poor". The job of showing whether it is widespread and generally true in Africa belongs to David Oks, not to Madradavid.

[cineticdaffodil]

Clanfamily culture unable to form states is keeping africa poor, the scoundrels of the family parlaying the patriarch to institute family internal socialism and extract from the entrepreneurs of the family.