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Yes, they definitely believe the West stole their money. This is what you hear every day from government propaganda (based on personal experience; refer to my o

by JaDogg 3y ago

Yes, they definitely believe the West stole their money. This is what you hear every day from government propaganda (based on personal experience; refer to my other comment on the original post). Breaking out of propaganda is not a simple task for any individual. While the West may have colonized these countries in the past, it is the government and corruption that are currently responsible for the theft. Moreover, people from these countries are exposed to scams from as early as 5-10 years old. Eventually, this exposure leads to normalization, I believe. As a side note, I believe one of the worst outcomes of colonization is that these countries lost their monarchies and lacked a natural progression to diplomacy. The only way for these countries to develop and reduce corruption is through educated youth engaging in politics and joining political parties to a degree where they dilute corruption, similar to how acid is diluted.

FrenchDevRemote 3y ago
Believe? Propaganda? Did you ever have a single history lesson in your life? Where do you think Afro-americans came from? Why do you think half the continent is speaking french or English? Why do you think 14 African countries use a money created and still controlled by France? Plenty of mines and oil depots are still profiting European countries. Multiple generations of slave descendants had to pay reparations to France. Leopold II was chopping hands off Congolese people for rubber.
- JaDogg 3y ago
  >>> Believe? Propaganda? I'm fairly certain I was discussing scammers. However, I admit my phrasing wasn't as good as I had hoped. Unfortunately, I come from a former colony (Sri Lanka) and English is not my native language. I apologize if my words triggered any PTSD or brought back unpleasant memories for you. I never stated that what they believe is wrong or inaccurate. The idea is not to scam the West, but rather to work hard so that the West becomes envious. (India recently achieved a milestone by reaching the moon, which stirred jealousy and anger among many people; it was amusing to witness.) >>> Did you ever have a single history lesson in your life? Yes, surprisingly, the Sri Lankan syllabus (which constantly changes with each political party shift) did not cover much about Africa or black slaves. >>> Where do you think Afro-americans came from? Clearly, they originated from Africa. >>> Why do you think half the continent is speaking french or English? Colonization. >>> Why do you think 14 African countries use a money created and still controlled by France? Do not know. What is being done to combat this? >>> Plenty of mines and oil depots are still profiting European countries. Certainly, I agree. >>> Multiple generations of slave descendants had to pay reparations to France. Yes, I agree. >>> Leopold II was chopping hands off Congolese people for rubber. Fair point. --- I'm still not sure why historical atrocities matter. Constant talk about the bad past only serves to victimize people, making them unable to achieve their full potential. Don't waste time dwelling on the past; it's called the past for a reason.
  - xp84 3y ago
    At the risk of making my most political comment on HN, which I usually like to avoid, some people (both the elite and the rest) prefer to rehash the past to avoid any uncomfortable discussions about their direct role in what’s presently wrong, and their responsibility or role in improving it. Easier and more popularly appealing to just blame 200-year-old dead Europeans for all the problems than to talk about your corrupt plutocracy.
    - JaDogg 3y ago
      I concur with your viewpoint. Furthermore, I believe that blaming dead Europeans and holding skilled immigrants accountable for job displacement are two sides of the same coin.
monadINtop 3y ago
> I believe one of the worst outcomes of colonization is that these countries lost their monarchies and lacked a natural progression to diplomacy I think this is a very loaded and fraught perspective that ignores a large amount of context. Colonial powers generally co-opt local heirarchies and utilise the pre-existing state machinery to expediate the process of resource extraction and pacification since doing it from scratch is usually too costly and prone to instability. In many cases this may inflame pre-existing class confict and further entrench social division. It is rarely the case that pre-colonial power structures simply just vanish and are replaced by the colonial force, and furthermore they don't simply vanish post-colonisation leaving behind a template-less society. Ex-colonies don't exist in a vacuum. Every society on the face of the earth is embedded in a complex global web of economic and political influence. Post-colonial nations can still be implicitly, and sometimes covertly, subjugated through asymmetric trade agreements, power projection, and a whole range of other processes. It is naive to assign blame of a corrupt or floundering region to a simple moral decay in an isolated system of people that just never figured out how to govern themselves. The answer is found when one instead considers the given region's place in the continuum of economic and historic processes that are far too complex to simplify into an narrative independent of context. And finally, how does a monarchy naturally progress to "diplomacy"? To my knowledge there doesn't exists a single theory that can describe a universal archetype of a how a given human society is supposed to "naturally" develop. Even in western countries, the process of economic development from a feudal mode of production to the current capitalist parliamentary-democracy, is an extremely complicated and poorly understood topic that covers an area of research far larger than the scope any single historian or political theorist. Everything we see indicates that there is absolutely no fixed model of social development, especially not one that isn't contigent on an unimaginable number of nonlinear factors. I think it's reasonable to say that the development of any given society is completely unique to itself, and is the result of it's own unique position in relation to the outside world, and to history.
- JaDogg 3y ago
  Apologies, I agree with everything you mentioned in your comment. I realize now that I made a significant mistake in my previous sentence. I understand a different perspective on how someone could interpret and understand it, and I appreciate you enlightening me. In any case, what I was attempting to convey is that it is preferable to learn from your own rights and wrongs rather than dealing with the aftermath of a mess left by a third party.

by JaDogg 3y ago

FrenchDevRemote 3y ago

Believe? Propaganda? Did you ever have a single history lesson in your life? Where do you think Afro-americans came from? Why do you think half the continent is speaking french or English? Why do you think 14 African countries use a money created and still controlled by France? Plenty of mines and oil depots are still profiting European countries. Multiple generations of slave descendants had to pay reparations to France. Leopold II was chopping hands off Congolese people for rubber.

JaDogg 3y ago
>>> Believe? Propaganda? I'm fairly certain I was discussing scammers. However, I admit my phrasing wasn't as good as I had hoped. Unfortunately, I come from a former colony (Sri Lanka) and English is not my native language. I apologize if my words triggered any PTSD or brought back unpleasant memories for you. I never stated that what they believe is wrong or inaccurate. The idea is not to scam the West, but rather to work hard so that the West becomes envious. (India recently achieved a milestone by reaching the moon, which stirred jealousy and anger among many people; it was amusing to witness.) >>> Did you ever have a single history lesson in your life? Yes, surprisingly, the Sri Lankan syllabus (which constantly changes with each political party shift) did not cover much about Africa or black slaves. >>> Where do you think Afro-americans came from? Clearly, they originated from Africa. >>> Why do you think half the continent is speaking french or English? Colonization. >>> Why do you think 14 African countries use a money created and still controlled by France? Do not know. What is being done to combat this? >>> Plenty of mines and oil depots are still profiting European countries. Certainly, I agree. >>> Multiple generations of slave descendants had to pay reparations to France. Yes, I agree. >>> Leopold II was chopping hands off Congolese people for rubber. Fair point. --- I'm still not sure why historical atrocities matter. Constant talk about the bad past only serves to victimize people, making them unable to achieve their full potential. Don't waste time dwelling on the past; it's called the past for a reason.
- xp84 3y ago
  At the risk of making my most political comment on HN, which I usually like to avoid, some people (both the elite and the rest) prefer to rehash the past to avoid any uncomfortable discussions about their direct role in what’s presently wrong, and their responsibility or role in improving it. Easier and more popularly appealing to just blame 200-year-old dead Europeans for all the problems than to talk about your corrupt plutocracy.
  - JaDogg 3y ago
    I concur with your viewpoint. Furthermore, I believe that blaming dead Europeans and holding skilled immigrants accountable for job displacement are two sides of the same coin.

monadINtop 3y ago

> I believe one of the worst outcomes of colonization is that these countries lost their monarchies and lacked a natural progression to diplomacy I think this is a very loaded and fraught perspective that ignores a large amount of context. Colonial powers generally co-opt local heirarchies and utilise the pre-existing state machinery to expediate the process of resource extraction and pacification since doing it from scratch is usually too costly and prone to instability. In many cases this may inflame pre-existing class confict and further entrench social division. It is rarely the case that pre-colonial power structures simply just vanish and are replaced by the colonial force, and furthermore they don't simply vanish post-colonisation leaving behind a template-less society. Ex-colonies don't exist in a vacuum. Every society on the face of the earth is embedded in a complex global web of economic and political influence. Post-colonial nations can still be implicitly, and sometimes covertly, subjugated through asymmetric trade agreements, power projection, and a whole range of other processes. It is naive to assign blame of a corrupt or floundering region to a simple moral decay in an isolated system of people that just never figured out how to govern themselves. The answer is found when one instead considers the given region's place in the continuum of economic and historic processes that are far too complex to simplify into an narrative independent of context. And finally, how does a monarchy naturally progress to "diplomacy"? To my knowledge there doesn't exists a single theory that can describe a universal archetype of a how a given human society is supposed to "naturally" develop. Even in western countries, the process of economic development from a feudal mode of production to the current capitalist parliamentary-democracy, is an extremely complicated and poorly understood topic that covers an area of research far larger than the scope any single historian or political theorist. Everything we see indicates that there is absolutely no fixed model of social development, especially not one that isn't contigent on an unimaginable number of nonlinear factors. I think it's reasonable to say that the development of any given society is completely unique to itself, and is the result of it's own unique position in relation to the outside world, and to history.

JaDogg 3y ago
Apologies, I agree with everything you mentioned in your comment. I realize now that I made a significant mistake in my previous sentence. I understand a different perspective on how someone could interpret and understand it, and I appreciate you enlightening me. In any case, what I was attempting to convey is that it is preferable to learn from your own rights and wrongs rather than dealing with the aftermath of a mess left by a third party.