4 ms·

So you're saying colonialism was a net negative for the African people because of small pox? And therefore should never have occurred? I disagree, and say it wa

by cb18 11y ago

So you're saying colonialism was a net negative for the African people because of small pox? And therefore should never have occurred? I disagree, and say it was a net positive for the African people. If it had never occurred and Africans never learned to read or write, and gained the help of western science and medicine, then the descendants of those affected by small pox would be succumbing to preventable maladies far more than they are today. Which would total a far greater poor health and suffering tally, far beyond the initial small pox problem or what have you. But then again, maybe you're right that the world be better off if Africa had just been left entirely alone, an island unto itself.

GFK_of_xmaspast 11y ago
> If it had never occurred and Africans never learned to read or write Do you have any familiarity with the history of Africa pre-colonization, because this is a little bit counterfactual. "Timbuktu's rapid economic growth in the 13th and 14th centuries drew many scholars from nearby Walata (today in Mauretania),[72] leading up to the city's golden age in the 15th and 16th centuries that proved fertile ground for scholarship of religions, arts and sciences. An active trade in books between Timbuktu and other parts of the Islamic world and emperor Askia Mohammed's strong support led to the writing of thousands of manuscripts.[73]" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timbuktu#Centre_of_learning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timbuktu#Centre_of_learning See also: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musa_I_of_Mali https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musa_I_of_Mali * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Zimbabwe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Zimbabwe
- astrodust 11y ago
  I'm sure those living in Timbuktu were writing books about how the English living in London at the time were barbarians in capable of learning to read or write. The only people that think Africa was devoid of culture or civilization are those that look only at the debris that was left after the colonial powers beat everyone down into submission and stripped everything bare. Reading about what the colonial powers did is just plain depressing. Being ignorant of this past and blaming the victims is also a pretty severe injustice. http://www.siliconafrica.com/terra-nullius/ http://www.siliconafrica.com/terra-nullius/
  - cb18 11y ago
    I'm sure those living in Timbuktu were writing books about how the English living in London at the time were barbarians in capable of learning to read or write. You're sure about that, even though there is zero evidence whatsoever for it? Also, nowhere in this discussion has anyone said that anybody was incapable of learning to read or write. But rather that this was a skill imparted to the Africans by the Europeans.
    - astrodust 11y ago
      > But rather that this was a skill imparted to the Africans by the Europeans. Well, wow. Nope. Africans have been reading and writing before there even was such a thing as Europe. They had Aramaic and Arabic by way of Egypt and Ethiopia alone.
- cb18 11y ago
  Timbuktu/Mali is on the outskirts of the Arab/Islamic world. Not the area the text referenced as lacking literacy. What does the Great Zimbabwe link have to do with literacy? Other than lack of any evidence for. Gertrude Caton-Thompson recognised that the builders were indigenous Africans, but she characterised the site as the "product of an infantile mind" built by a subjugated society. Archaeologists generally agree that the builders probably spoke one of the Shona languages The writing system for Shona is Latin Script, meaning it was introduced at a much later date.
astrodust 11y ago
False dichotomy. There's degrees of engagement between oppressive colonization and complete indifference.
- cb18 11y ago
  The point is that it wasn't just blatant oppression, for oppression's sake. As people like to pretend because it better serves their victimhood narrative. Neither were Europeans acting in a purely altruistic manner of course, nobody ever does. The Africans had a choice in matters as well, they chose to cooperate for the most part because they felt that was in their best interest. People always like to take the agency away from whoever's 'victim' story they are telling. It's demeaning. Two entities interacting, pursuing their own interests, resulting in mutual benefit. That's called symbiotic. Sure you can drill down and find good and bad, you can't have one without the other. What's the balance between the two? The main point and the absurdity of these discussions is that people so often try to say that the descendants of the colonizers are somehow to blame for the present state of the descendants of the colonized, whatever that may be, when it is crystal clear that without the European intervention the descendants of the colonized would be in a far worse state today.
  - astrodust 11y ago
    You have such a ridiculously warped view of history it's both shocking and hilarious simultaneously. I'm sure your views on slavery are similarly enlightening. Don't look at me trying to blame anyone for anything. I'm simply refusing to ignore historical fact. As far as I'm concerned what's done is done, we can move on, that the more we try and pin blame the more of a mess we'll end up in. White-washing history and pretending it resulted in "mutual benefit" is absolutely monstrous, though. The colonial powers differed in their attitudes from country to country, from era to era, but on the whole they were belligerent, greedy, and utterly indifferent to the people they were subjugating. If there's one reason why it's hard to paint a picture of how brutal colonial powers treated the people it's because they often erased the other side of the story. We're only just beginning to put together the pieces of the true story of what happened.
  - stuxnet79 11y ago

by cb18 11y ago

GFK_of_xmaspast 11y ago

> If it had never occurred and Africans never learned to read or write Do you have any familiarity with the history of Africa pre-colonization, because this is a little bit counterfactual. "Timbuktu's rapid economic growth in the 13th and 14th centuries drew many scholars from nearby Walata (today in Mauretania),[72] leading up to the city's golden age in the 15th and 16th centuries that proved fertile ground for scholarship of religions, arts and sciences. An active trade in books between Timbuktu and other parts of the Islamic world and emperor Askia Mohammed's strong support led to the writing of thousands of manuscripts.[73]" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timbuktu#Centre_of_learning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timbuktu#Centre_of_learning See also: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musa_I_of_Mali https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musa_I_of_Mali * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Zimbabwe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Zimbabwe

astrodust 11y ago
I'm sure those living in Timbuktu were writing books about how the English living in London at the time were barbarians in capable of learning to read or write. The only people that think Africa was devoid of culture or civilization are those that look only at the debris that was left after the colonial powers beat everyone down into submission and stripped everything bare. Reading about what the colonial powers did is just plain depressing. Being ignorant of this past and blaming the victims is also a pretty severe injustice. http://www.siliconafrica.com/terra-nullius/ http://www.siliconafrica.com/terra-nullius/
- cb18 11y ago
  I'm sure those living in Timbuktu were writing books about how the English living in London at the time were barbarians in capable of learning to read or write. You're sure about that, even though there is zero evidence whatsoever for it? Also, nowhere in this discussion has anyone said that anybody was incapable of learning to read or write. But rather that this was a skill imparted to the Africans by the Europeans.
  - astrodust 11y ago
    > But rather that this was a skill imparted to the Africans by the Europeans. Well, wow. Nope. Africans have been reading and writing before there even was such a thing as Europe. They had Aramaic and Arabic by way of Egypt and Ethiopia alone.
cb18 11y ago
Timbuktu/Mali is on the outskirts of the Arab/Islamic world. Not the area the text referenced as lacking literacy. What does the Great Zimbabwe link have to do with literacy? Other than lack of any evidence for. Gertrude Caton-Thompson recognised that the builders were indigenous Africans, but she characterised the site as the "product of an infantile mind" built by a subjugated society. Archaeologists generally agree that the builders probably spoke one of the Shona languages The writing system for Shona is Latin Script, meaning it was introduced at a much later date.

astrodust 11y ago

False dichotomy. There's degrees of engagement between oppressive colonization and complete indifference.

cb18 11y ago
The point is that it wasn't just blatant oppression, for oppression's sake. As people like to pretend because it better serves their victimhood narrative. Neither were Europeans acting in a purely altruistic manner of course, nobody ever does. The Africans had a choice in matters as well, they chose to cooperate for the most part because they felt that was in their best interest. People always like to take the agency away from whoever's 'victim' story they are telling. It's demeaning. Two entities interacting, pursuing their own interests, resulting in mutual benefit. That's called symbiotic. Sure you can drill down and find good and bad, you can't have one without the other. What's the balance between the two? The main point and the absurdity of these discussions is that people so often try to say that the descendants of the colonizers are somehow to blame for the present state of the descendants of the colonized, whatever that may be, when it is crystal clear that without the European intervention the descendants of the colonized would be in a far worse state today.
- astrodust 11y ago
  You have such a ridiculously warped view of history it's both shocking and hilarious simultaneously. I'm sure your views on slavery are similarly enlightening. Don't look at me trying to blame anyone for anything. I'm simply refusing to ignore historical fact. As far as I'm concerned what's done is done, we can move on, that the more we try and pin blame the more of a mess we'll end up in. White-washing history and pretending it resulted in "mutual benefit" is absolutely monstrous, though. The colonial powers differed in their attitudes from country to country, from era to era, but on the whole they were belligerent, greedy, and utterly indifferent to the people they were subjugating. If there's one reason why it's hard to paint a picture of how brutal colonial powers treated the people it's because they often erased the other side of the story. We're only just beginning to put together the pieces of the true story of what happened.
- stuxnet79 11y ago