The G8 summit is over, aging hipsters have finished playing concerts the nostalgic world over, and experience as old as their songs has been cast out the window in favor of some feel-good debt relief lovin’. Dictators from the Middle East to Asia are outraged and harping on endlessly; not because they’re being forced into reform by democratic crusaders, but because they aren’t getting it as good as their brethren in the sub-Sahara.

You see, for twenty years the West has made the disastrous mistake of attempting to correct the genocides, famines, and poverty of Africa by fueling unchecked billions of dollars into the very root of the problem. These strongmen maxed out their Visas, shot the political opposition with their gleaming AK-47s, and then cruised around in their brand new Hummers with some hoes in the back. It’s enough to make the mad mullahs bounce for some bling.

Now, we with hard-earned productive and democratic countries are supposed to roll over, play dead, and forget all about it. “Sure,” the dictators will say, “we’ll do better this time! Just forget the billions wasted and the millions dead and we’ll single-handedly bring democracy to Africa!” Just, of course, as they single-handedly trashed decades of progress in a matter of years. The problem is not a lack of support for leaders in Africa; it is our support for them within systems of government that guarantee their corruption.

Tying the debt relief to measurable reform is one of the better ideas floated of late, but international pressure has no guarantees. Presidents-by-fraud heralded as progressives generally circumvent these catches whenever possible because there is no accountability. The greater risk is that these leaders will simply give the West the middle finger — an act sure to cross cultural divides — and systematically destroy their countries like Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe. Trading in that Hummer for a Mercedes isn’t such a big deal to them.

The only real solution for Africa is for the West to stop subsidizing despotism and start empowering the people constantly trampled by it. Africans don’t have freedom and democracy because they have not been able to earn it like we have. And the best way to earn anything, especially democracy, is by making money.

In other words, out with the aid and in with the trade.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, speaking in Senegal on July 20, renewed the United States’ commitment to preferential trade conditions for the world’s poorest continent in the form of the African Growth and Opportunity Act signed five years ago. The aim of the legislation is to open up U.S. markets to African goods, which would allow businesses to create more and better-paying jobs, circumventing dependence on unstable stooges and taking Africa’s growth directly to how hard the people are willing to work for it.

Significant obstacles remain in achieving this goal, however. Although imports from AGOA countries has increased 88% to $26.6 billion in 2004 alone, 87% of this total was petroleum products from just five out of 37 eligible countries, meaning that total imports only equalled $3.5 billion. Most of these leftovers are made up of minerals, metals, and textiles. Out of some 6000 eligible products, only these are exported in any significant quantity.

Unfortunately, the majority of Africans are small-scale farmers living on less than two dollars a day. In order to make free trade with Africa work, therefore ensuring its prosperity and democratization, the United States and Europe need to deal blows to a more covert enemy: agricultural subsidies. Artificially lowered prices in the West prevent their produce from entering the market, trapping them in a fake poverty with very real effects. When the G8 met in Scotland, they promised to cut deep into these subsidies; however, no timeline has been set and Africans are doubtful that one ever will be.

With Africans steadily losing hope in the promises made to them, it’s time for the Unites States and Europe to put up or shut up. The past twenty years have shown that aiding and relieving governments in Africa has been the greatest contribution to the obliteration of human rights for the most amount of people in such a short amount of time. Bypassing these governments and taking trade straight to the everyday African will not only alleviate poverty, but put into place the conditions necessary for democratic governments that respect human rights.