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>Unstable governments have been an endemic problem (See "colonialism," above). That implies other causes (which you yourself mentioned above) are minor by comp

>Unstable governments have been an endemic problem (See "colonialism," above). That implies other causes (which you yourself mentioned above) are minor by comparison. Surely this was true in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s. But now, 50-60 years later, that explanation alone just doesn't cut it. A lot of places were colonized outside of Africa too, often much more brutally than many parts of Africa (whose colonial legacy is as heterogenous as other things you mention), and are on average doing better (hence the ugly 'poor man Africa' caricature this piece lampoons so well). And yet the onset, length or brutality of colonization doesn't seem to coincide well with stability or quality of governance. Heck, Ethiopia almost got away with not being colonized at all. Like yourself, I don't know what to prescribe. I do know that it should be Africans themselves doing the prescribing.

bingohbangoh 5y ago
I think his broader point was that unstable governments exist today and also existed before with colonialism as one example of many.
rayiner 5y ago
Blooming unstable governments on colonialism requires more evidence than is offered. Most people in the Indian subcontinent, where I’m from, perceive British colonialism as positive with respect to government, institutions, and rule of law. Former colonies like Hong Kong and Singapore have developed into thriving civilizations.
- tptacek 5y ago
  Are you asking for evidence that colonialism was damaging to African governance? Or just for evidence that British colonialism was?
  - rayiner 5y ago
    I’m asking for evidence that colonialism caused African governments to be unstable. If Africa hasn’t been colonized, what would the continent be full of countries with stable governments today?
    - tptacek 5y ago
      I don't know, but I can't help but notice that your examples of colonies considered long-term beneficial are all British, and, obviously, Africa was not colonized exclusively by the British. It wasn't the British who, in the 20th century, chopped off the hands and castrated rubber farmers who couldn't make their quotas. For that matter, India gained independence in 1947; Singapore in 1959. Africa was colonized into the 1970s.
      - rayiner 5y ago
        > It wasn't the British who, in the 20th century, chopped off the hands and castrated rubber farmers who couldn't make their quotas. So is that the reason governments in African countries are unstable? Castrated rubber farmers?
        sangnoir 5y ago
        I know you're being snarky, but the answer is yes. Once a country establishes a norm that the authority is never to be questioned (under pain of castration), subsequent governments will follow the same path and no one will question it - rather, no one can question it and live to tell the tale. It is not uncommon for colonial laws to be preserved for use against political enemies, so now it's not rubber farmers getting castrated, but journalists who show "traitorous behavior" or an opposition leader that "insults the president". The only authoritarian countries that overcome that hurdle are those lucky to get benevolent dictators who go undertake genuine reform to decentralize power.
    - ashwagary 5y ago
      Sad this basic history is not known by the taxpayers that actually fund it... If a democratically elected African leader isnt willing to play ball, he is assassinated, usually by ex-colonial powers (Patrice Lumumba and dozens of others come to mind). So even if the locals want something better, mercenaries will be sent in to deliver the opposite. Similarly, assassinating George Washington and the founding fathers would've affected the trajectory of the US and it would seem silly to ask why...
- quadrifoliate 5y ago
  I am also from the Indian subcontinent. A lot of this derives from the fact that the British uprooted a bunch of existing monarchies, replaced them with Governmental institutions run according to Anglo-Saxon norms, and then left rather suddenly in 1947 saying “You run it” to a set of countries with geographical and population size comparable to Europe; with equivalent if not more linguistic and cultural diversity. I think colonialism gets blamed because it's the closest external thing in time that can be blamed. Counterexamples like Singapore get bandied around, but the difference between a state the size of Singapore and something like India or Bangladesh is staggering enough to make the comparison essentially useless. It is an interesting thought experiment to imagine what the consequences would have been of a more gradual transition away from British rule in the Indian subcontinent. My imperfect amateur historical study makes me think it would have been a net positive, but potentially would have led to partition into at least 5-6 different independent states before they did leave for good.
  - rayiner 5y ago
    My point is that India and Bangladesh were colonies as well, but they are quite a bit more functional than your typical African country. You have a fair point that African countries have more diversity than Singapore, but that begs the question-what makes diversity a bad thing?
    - quadrifoliate 5y ago
      > You have a fair point that African countries have more diversity than Singapore I don't say anything about African countries in my comment, that must be from upthread. But I would think that most African countries are also at a scale different from Singapore's; enough to just make Singaporean solutions unworkable. This does not mean that it's a bad thing, just different. If one were to press the point, I'd say that scaling anything up is just harder – this applies to nation states just as it does to websites. > India and Bangladesh were colonies as well, but they are quite a bit more functional than your typical African country. I am not entirely sure this is true if you consider the rural parts. Rural India (with 65% of the population) has more in common with most African countries than it does with anywhere in the West. A large part of this is due to the fact that the British never had any interest in settling there in large numbers; and consequently never invested significant efforts into building infrastructure for the rural parts. They preferred to strike deals with existing power structures that allowed them to profiteer off the land. I could reasonably see African countries having similar problems given their relatively low population density in the 19th and 20th centuries.
- chillacy 5y ago
  Even Lee Kwan Yee the Singaporean PM said that he was grateful that if Sg was colonized, it was the British instead of the French or Belgians for instance. The British established institutions and provided a smooth transition… compared to the French or Belgian colonies.
ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
That's a fair point. In the main country I lived in, that gave me that PoV (Uganda), colonialism was very much at the root of the problems, there. When the British pulled out, they left a vacuum behind, which was filled by the most brutal strongman (Obote), who was then deposed by an even more brutal strongman (Amin). Amin also brought baggage from tribal conflicts that may have predated the British. There's also the need for infrastructure to have an environment to grow. Infrastructure is a lot more than roads and rails; it's also constitutions, laws, education systems, and what I term "social infrastructure." When you have a succession of warlords and looters, infrastructure never has a chance to layer, so it's entirely possible to remain in crisis for decades. But also, in my experience, the internecine tribal conflict was deep-rooted, and virulent. The colonial powers, in some cases, exacerbated that, and in others, suppressed it. Much like Tito, in Yugoslavia. He never fixed the Balkan problem; just held it down. When he died, the tribes went right back to where they started.
- kspacewalk2 5y ago
  >Infrastructure is a lot more than roads and rails; it's also constitutions, laws, education systems, and what I term "social infrastructure." Colonial powers created infrastructure (physical and social) that fitted their form of government, i.e. a colony controlled from the outside, and then just left. Although colonialism itself is the "original sin", the sudden abdication of all responsibility is almost worse, at least in the case of relatively mildly oppressive colonial systems. But it is what the locals wanted in the 1960s, by all accounts. In fact, they worked to scuttle efforts to have more gradual transitions, because they wanted independence now. Very understandable but very naive. Here's a great archival BBC documentary[0] from 1972 about the collapse of social infrastructure in action - the expulsion of south Asians from Uganda under Amin. It's instructive to see how enthusiastically the interviewed native Ugandans support this policy, in retrospect clearly more disastrous for them than for people they uprooted and expelled. Not blaming or judging them, just find it quite sad for all involved. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-i0JVip9N4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-i0JVip9N4
  - ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago

bingohbangoh 5y ago

I think his broader point was that unstable governments exist today and also existed before with colonialism as one example of many.

rayiner 5y ago

Blooming unstable governments on colonialism requires more evidence than is offered. Most people in the Indian subcontinent, where I’m from, perceive British colonialism as positive with respect to government, institutions, and rule of law. Former colonies like Hong Kong and Singapore have developed into thriving civilizations.

tptacek 5y ago
Are you asking for evidence that colonialism was damaging to African governance? Or just for evidence that British colonialism was?
- rayiner 5y ago
  I’m asking for evidence that colonialism caused African governments to be unstable. If Africa hasn’t been colonized, what would the continent be full of countries with stable governments today?
  - tptacek 5y ago
    I don't know, but I can't help but notice that your examples of colonies considered long-term beneficial are all British, and, obviously, Africa was not colonized exclusively by the British. It wasn't the British who, in the 20th century, chopped off the hands and castrated rubber farmers who couldn't make their quotas. For that matter, India gained independence in 1947; Singapore in 1959. Africa was colonized into the 1970s.
    - rayiner 5y ago
      > It wasn't the British who, in the 20th century, chopped off the hands and castrated rubber farmers who couldn't make their quotas. So is that the reason governments in African countries are unstable? Castrated rubber farmers?
      - sangnoir 5y ago
        I know you're being snarky, but the answer is yes. Once a country establishes a norm that the authority is never to be questioned (under pain of castration), subsequent governments will follow the same path and no one will question it - rather, no one can question it and live to tell the tale. It is not uncommon for colonial laws to be preserved for use against political enemies, so now it's not rubber farmers getting castrated, but journalists who show "traitorous behavior" or an opposition leader that "insults the president". The only authoritarian countries that overcome that hurdle are those lucky to get benevolent dictators who go undertake genuine reform to decentralize power.
  - ashwagary 5y ago
    Sad this basic history is not known by the taxpayers that actually fund it... If a democratically elected African leader isnt willing to play ball, he is assassinated, usually by ex-colonial powers (Patrice Lumumba and dozens of others come to mind). So even if the locals want something better, mercenaries will be sent in to deliver the opposite. Similarly, assassinating George Washington and the founding fathers would've affected the trajectory of the US and it would seem silly to ask why...
quadrifoliate 5y ago
I am also from the Indian subcontinent. A lot of this derives from the fact that the British uprooted a bunch of existing monarchies, replaced them with Governmental institutions run according to Anglo-Saxon norms, and then left rather suddenly in 1947 saying “You run it” to a set of countries with geographical and population size comparable to Europe; with equivalent if not more linguistic and cultural diversity. I think colonialism gets blamed because it's the closest external thing in time that can be blamed. Counterexamples like Singapore get bandied around, but the difference between a state the size of Singapore and something like India or Bangladesh is staggering enough to make the comparison essentially useless. It is an interesting thought experiment to imagine what the consequences would have been of a more gradual transition away from British rule in the Indian subcontinent. My imperfect amateur historical study makes me think it would have been a net positive, but potentially would have led to partition into at least 5-6 different independent states before they did leave for good.
- rayiner 5y ago
  My point is that India and Bangladesh were colonies as well, but they are quite a bit more functional than your typical African country. You have a fair point that African countries have more diversity than Singapore, but that begs the question-what makes diversity a bad thing?
  - quadrifoliate 5y ago
    > You have a fair point that African countries have more diversity than Singapore I don't say anything about African countries in my comment, that must be from upthread. But I would think that most African countries are also at a scale different from Singapore's; enough to just make Singaporean solutions unworkable. This does not mean that it's a bad thing, just different. If one were to press the point, I'd say that scaling anything up is just harder – this applies to nation states just as it does to websites. > India and Bangladesh were colonies as well, but they are quite a bit more functional than your typical African country. I am not entirely sure this is true if you consider the rural parts. Rural India (with 65% of the population) has more in common with most African countries than it does with anywhere in the West. A large part of this is due to the fact that the British never had any interest in settling there in large numbers; and consequently never invested significant efforts into building infrastructure for the rural parts. They preferred to strike deals with existing power structures that allowed them to profiteer off the land. I could reasonably see African countries having similar problems given their relatively low population density in the 19th and 20th centuries.
chillacy 5y ago
Even Lee Kwan Yee the Singaporean PM said that he was grateful that if Sg was colonized, it was the British instead of the French or Belgians for instance. The British established institutions and provided a smooth transition… compared to the French or Belgian colonies.

ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago

That's a fair point. In the main country I lived in, that gave me that PoV (Uganda), colonialism was very much at the root of the problems, there. When the British pulled out, they left a vacuum behind, which was filled by the most brutal strongman (Obote), who was then deposed by an even more brutal strongman (Amin). Amin also brought baggage from tribal conflicts that may have predated the British. There's also the need for infrastructure to have an environment to grow. Infrastructure is a lot more than roads and rails; it's also constitutions, laws, education systems, and what I term "social infrastructure." When you have a succession of warlords and looters, infrastructure never has a chance to layer, so it's entirely possible to remain in crisis for decades. But also, in my experience, the internecine tribal conflict was deep-rooted, and virulent. The colonial powers, in some cases, exacerbated that, and in others, suppressed it. Much like Tito, in Yugoslavia. He never fixed the Balkan problem; just held it down. When he died, the tribes went right back to where they started.

kspacewalk2 5y ago
>Infrastructure is a lot more than roads and rails; it's also constitutions, laws, education systems, and what I term "social infrastructure." Colonial powers created infrastructure (physical and social) that fitted their form of government, i.e. a colony controlled from the outside, and then just left. Although colonialism itself is the "original sin", the sudden abdication of all responsibility is almost worse, at least in the case of relatively mildly oppressive colonial systems. But it is what the locals wanted in the 1960s, by all accounts. In fact, they worked to scuttle efforts to have more gradual transitions, because they wanted independence now. Very understandable but very naive. Here's a great archival BBC documentary[0] from 1972 about the collapse of social infrastructure in action - the expulsion of south Asians from Uganda under Amin. It's instructive to see how enthusiastically the interviewed native Ugandans support this policy, in retrospect clearly more disastrous for them than for people they uprooted and expelled. Not blaming or judging them, just find it quite sad for all involved. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-i0JVip9N4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-i0JVip9N4
- ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago