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Although colonialism and aid might appear to be similar on the surface, there are big differences between the two. The motives were not at all the same, and the

Although colonialism and aid might appear to be similar on the surface, there are big differences between the two. The motives were not at all the same, and they had very different results.

samueladam 17y ago
Of course, they are completely different. Some of the guilt of colonialism has been transformed into aid. I was referring to the influence both have on not considering Africans as people who can handle themselves. It will take time, trial and error, but those can't be avoided.
- johnnybgoode 17y ago
  I agree. They certainly can handle themselves.
  - eru 17y ago
    Yes. I guess corruption, not material needs, is the big and hard to tackle problem for most of Africa. We like to complain about our civil servants and politicians in the rich world, but we have more than a head start in this regard. (Perhaps someone should export honest and competent civil servants and politicians. Perhaps the Swiss can be coaxed to spare some? Italy would certainly benefit from an influx, too.)
    - sho 17y ago
      "Perhaps someone should export honest and competent civil servants and politicians." They'd probably just be imprisoned/killed by the corrupt incumbents. You'd have to replace the whole power structure at once, and back it with force of arms - which kind of brings us back to colonialism.
    - vidarh 17y ago
      Actually, the UN does have a program for "exporting" competent and honest civil servants and politicians, or rather of paying to repatriating well qualified expats that could otherwise not afford to move back. A recent example was one of Nigeria's previous ministers of finance who was paid by the UN to move back from the US. Nigerian ministers were at the time paid only ca $6000/year - no wonder corruption is high in many of these countries when these same people often could make hundreds of thousands, or millions, in the private sector. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ngozi_Okonjo-Iweala http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ngozi_Okonjo-Iweala In her case it didn't go down to well with the other ministers, and that's likely a problem. A solution might be to set up a fund to provide better salaries in return for the government agreeing to regular independent audits of ministers finances and publishing the findings (... we saw how much fun that could be even in a country like the UK). Of course many governments would decline, but some at least seem to want to clean house. It's a lot easier to clean house if the financial situation doesn't provide ridiculous levels of temptation on a daily basis.
      - eru 17y ago
        Interesting. Thanks. I remember I even watched some TED talks by Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala earlier.
anamax 17y ago
> The motives were not at all the same, and they had very different results. Yes, the results of colonialism were significantly better for the colonized. However, to be fair to the folks who think that intent matters even when the result is a horrorshow time and time again, the colonial-era missionary work was significantly more effective than post-colonial non-religious aid. Then again, the post-colonial missionary work has been more effective than post-colonial non-religious aid. That's not to say that missionary work has always been a great thing. On the other hand, beating the record of non-religious aid isn't all that hard.

Although colonialism and aid might appear to be similar on the surface, there are big differences between the two. The motives were not at all the same, and they had very different results.

samueladam 17y ago

Of course, they are completely different. Some of the guilt of colonialism has been transformed into aid. I was referring to the influence both have on not considering Africans as people who can handle themselves. It will take time, trial and error, but those can't be avoided.

johnnybgoode 17y ago
I agree. They certainly can handle themselves.
- eru 17y ago
  Yes. I guess corruption, not material needs, is the big and hard to tackle problem for most of Africa. We like to complain about our civil servants and politicians in the rich world, but we have more than a head start in this regard. (Perhaps someone should export honest and competent civil servants and politicians. Perhaps the Swiss can be coaxed to spare some? Italy would certainly benefit from an influx, too.)
  - sho 17y ago
    "Perhaps someone should export honest and competent civil servants and politicians." They'd probably just be imprisoned/killed by the corrupt incumbents. You'd have to replace the whole power structure at once, and back it with force of arms - which kind of brings us back to colonialism.
  - vidarh 17y ago
    Actually, the UN does have a program for "exporting" competent and honest civil servants and politicians, or rather of paying to repatriating well qualified expats that could otherwise not afford to move back. A recent example was one of Nigeria's previous ministers of finance who was paid by the UN to move back from the US. Nigerian ministers were at the time paid only ca $6000/year - no wonder corruption is high in many of these countries when these same people often could make hundreds of thousands, or millions, in the private sector. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ngozi_Okonjo-Iweala http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ngozi_Okonjo-Iweala In her case it didn't go down to well with the other ministers, and that's likely a problem. A solution might be to set up a fund to provide better salaries in return for the government agreeing to regular independent audits of ministers finances and publishing the findings (... we saw how much fun that could be even in a country like the UK). Of course many governments would decline, but some at least seem to want to clean house. It's a lot easier to clean house if the financial situation doesn't provide ridiculous levels of temptation on a daily basis.
    - eru 17y ago
      Interesting. Thanks. I remember I even watched some TED talks by Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala earlier.

anamax 17y ago

> The motives were not at all the same, and they had very different results. Yes, the results of colonialism were significantly better for the colonized. However, to be fair to the folks who think that intent matters even when the result is a horrorshow time and time again, the colonial-era missionary work was significantly more effective than post-colonial non-religious aid. Then again, the post-colonial missionary work has been more effective than post-colonial non-religious aid. That's not to say that missionary work has always been a great thing. On the other hand, beating the record of non-religious aid isn't all that hard.