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"On a continent once synonymous with war, famine and poverty," I always find it interesting how the west so easily glosses over colonization, which is integral
by cup 11y ago
"On a continent once synonymous with war, famine and poverty,"
I always find it interesting how the west so easily glosses over colonization, which is integral to all three of those other things.
The interesting thing though that they miss completely, is that in the last 10 years the percentage of people living middle class lives have nearly doubled in a lot of African countries, which is a huge achievement.
- Retric 11y ago"Gloss over colonization" Don't whitewash history, the wars where generally smaller scale, but pre colonization there was plenty of war, famine, and poverty.
- cup 11y agoSure, just like there was plenty of war, famine and poverty around the world but lets not "whitewash" history by suggesting what we see in Africa and other countries aren't a direct effect of European colonization.
- a3voices 11y agoSo you're saying Africa would've been better off without colonization? I bet life would be much worse in Africa if it was never colonized. Did you know the homicide rate was 10-20% in prehistoric societies, and the life expectancy was only 30-40 years or so?
- cup 11y agoAre you suggesting without colonisation that Africans would still be living in a per-historic society?
- a3voices 11y agoYes, much closer to one. Somewhere on a scale between what it currently is and a prehistoric society. Why do you think it wouldn't be? Africans wouldn't just magically absorb Western culture without exposure. I'm not sure if 1% were even aware of Western civilization, trade, and such until colonization happened. Do you think Africans would learn how to read and write if the Europeans didn't alter things?
- cup 11y agoI don't really know what to say to that. The depth of your ignorance is new to me, regarding the history of African societies. Can I suggest a few books for you to read?
- a3voices 11y agoOr perhaps you're the ignorant one? Are you saying Africa was having economic growth and technological development before the Europeans came? On the contrary, most of it was in a permanent state of poverty.
- dang 11y ago> The depth of your ignorance is new to me Please don't be personally rude, even when someone else is ignorant.
- afarrell 11y agoI'm not the person you are replying to, but do you have a recommendation for a book on the Songhai Empire?
- puredemo 11y agoI wish you would just post the books you have in mind, rather than writing a snarky response like this.
- dadakuada 11y agoI wish some of these could be translated to English. Would probably help clarify some huge misunderstandings. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timbuktu_Manuscripts https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timbuktu_Manuscripts
- ps4fanboy 11y agoHere comes the PC downvote brigade, dont expect rational counter arguments, they dont have them.
- mikeash 11y agoThank you so much for demonstrating.
- jnwrd 11y agoAfrica was not blessed with the greatest geography for capital formation. The most interesting question is why Africa did not develop prior to the period of colonization, in the time period from say 1000-1500 CE when Europe when from a position of relatively inferior capital, to relatively superior capital: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_regions_by_past_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_regions_by_past_GDP_(P.... At this stage in human development capital generation is pretty much completely agricultural, and thus the productivity of the land is the chief determinant of societal outcomes.
- meric 11y agoIn fact they did, Carthage and Egypt. These African powers at the time competed against the Romans and Greeks to the north. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Carthage https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Carthage
- thaumasiotes 11y agoThose are hardly "African" in any sense a modern American would think of. They're on the same continent, with different climate, demographics, and cultural affinities, across an extreme geographic barrier. And Egypt never competed against Romans and Greeks to the north; at any point in history where the Romans and Greeks would have been relevant, Egypt was under Persian (Greek times) or Greek (Roman times) rule. Egypt competed with the Hittites, and with various Mesopotamian states -- although it was usually much bigger, richer, and stronger than the Mesopotamian states.
- meric 11y agoThose are hardly "African" in any sense a modern American would think of. Really? "An african society is any society that grew in Africa, excluding the most technologically and economically developed ones, therefore African societies were undeveloped. This is true because technologically and economically advanced africans aren't africans in any sense a modern American would think of." Last I heard, the Celts and Goths were barbarians during those times too. Those are true Europeans. Europe was undeveloped and backwards until the 10th century. Romans and Greeks were technologically and economically advanced but they live in a different climate, demographics, and cultural affinities across and extreme geographic barrier. It's the Goths and Celts who were really the forbears of today's Europeans. There must be something strange about Europeans that caused them to be backwards for so many centuries until the Romans civilised them, compared to, say Chinese, or Egyptians, who've developed advanced societies since before 1000BC. Ridiculously biased, don't you think?
- douche 11y agoThe history of mankind is a long tapestry of colonization. If we accept that Homo Sapiens expanded out of Africa, into the Middle East, Europe, Asia, and then across the Bering land bridge into North America, and eventually down into South America, that is all a series of colonization events. As is Polynesian expansion throughout the South Pacific. As is the series of invasions that rocked the Mediterranean world around 1200 BCE, or the expansions of the Celtic culture in Iron Age Europe, or the Classic Greek diaspora, or the migrations of the Goths, Vandals, Huns, Lombards, and others in that era. The colonization of the Yangtze valley and Guangdong by the northern Han Chinese culture. The Slavic migrations into eastern Europe and the Balkans. The migrations of the Turks, Muslim Arabs, and Mongols. The Romans who colonized Celtic Britain, who were colonized by the Saxons, Angles and Jutes, who were colonized by Danes and other Norse, who were colonized by the Franco-Normans. The Irish colonized Scotland, and were in turn colonized in a series of waves by England. In Sub-Saharan Africa, you have the Bantu expansion[1], which displaced or assimilated other pre-existing cultures. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bantu_expansion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bantu_expansion