Your post to me is uch a mixed bag of both truths and some weird conclusions. The one crucial thing they failed to do? Not taking the water lines and railways

Your post to me is uch a mixed bag of both truths and some weird conclusions. The one crucial thing they failed to do? Not taking the water lines and railways etc, is the one crucial failure of colonialism in Africa? Talk about ignorant, with all due respect. As for the connection between the west pouring in money and millions of deaths, as if the west funded the second Congo war... It's ridiculous. And please don't even try conflating legitimate FDI in tens of countries with procurement conflict minerals in Congo. I won't even mention the standard 'africa is not a country' stuff. Although you'll obviously be aware of that, stating that the west shouldn't invest in Africa because of atrocities in Congo is saying the US shouldn't do business with France, because of the situation in the Ukraine. It's completely ridiculous. Just look at plans like these, large solar energy infrastructure projects with European money, in part for the European market: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_Morocco#/media/File:DESERTEC-Map_large.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_Morocco#/media/F... and tell me this project shouldn't happen, because it fuels war. If anything, it'd bring Morocco and Algeria closer together through economic cooperation and interdependence for mutual benefit. Note that these are the exact same founding principles that largely initiated the European Union, a set of countries that waged brutal war for centuries yet have seen only peaceful cooperation between its members since its inception. I guess as you said, most people do underestimate how big Africa is, and how diverse its political landscape.