Africa’s Dark Age

The end of colonialism throughout Africa was several generations premature.
Colonialism began in Africa on the wrong foot and left it on the wrong foot.
It went in with imperialistic expansionist aspirations. A century of European occupation put an effective end to a Bronze Age agricultural system of traditions and customs that had been orderly administered by clan chiefs for a thousand generations. It then abandoned its colonies when the administration costs got too high, leaving 800 million people without the farming smarts they once had, nor the industrial smarts to compete on the world market. Hence the chaos we see today.

Part of the responsibility for the chaos in Africa today can be laid at the door of African intellectuals of post WWII, who where all educated in European universities and then thought that book knowledge was enough to lead their peoples into the 20th Century. Almost all of them studied for degrees in law or medicine. None in economics or engineering technologies. As a result they were not practically orientated enough to realize that their nations needed modern infrastructures as well as a solid base of well-trained conscientious tradesmen able to establish a viable industrial base, and that the colonials at vast expense were slowly doing that job for them. It was those intellectuals who first agitated for freedom of colonial rule and gave the Europeans the excuse they needed to get out, knowing full well the economic difficulties that lay ahead for Africans.

From a more general point of view related to the evolution of human consciousness, colonialism, since before the Greeks, helped to spread scientific ideologies and technology to less advanced indigenous populations. If we had been wise enough from the very beginning to realize that the spread of scientific knowledge should have been conducted in a teacher/pupil milieu instead of an attitude of master/servant, Africa and world society in general would be far more peaceful and more advanced than it is. To a certain degree this is what Christian missionaries tried to accomplish in sub-Saharan Africa. Though they helped to spread literacy among a vast oral-based culture, they had the problem of selling a superior white God.

In the 1980’s I lectured on two dozen American universities and argued against divestment in South Africa. Post-colonial Africa needed more involvement from the developed world not less. But the anti-apartheid rhetoric was far too loud to get my voice heard.

The evolutionary imperative that drives all specie to colonize and have significant impacts on indigenous populations is far from simple. None more so than humans. The great value I discovered when studying the colonization of Africa was how clearly it shows the repetitions of history. Africa is a living repository of much of the social turmoil and spiritual complexities of what happened two thousand years ago when Rome colonized the tribes of Europe and the resultant post-Roman chaos of the Dark Ages. Post-colonial Africa is now heading in her own Dark Ages. If not re-enlightened by us, she may well remain there for a thousand years

That need for technological training in Africa is desperate. Without it there is little hope. Tens of Millions of cooking fires every day is denuding her already sparse bushveld.

Or, maybe, intelligence is largely a genetic factor and you simply cannot teach animals to be what they’re not…?

If, as you seem to be suggesting, you would advocate technological as opposed to epistemological solutions to humanity’s evolutionary imperative, how is it that the very group that you identify as responsible for encouraging the epistemological outlook in Africa - i.e. the colonialists - can provide the appropriate technological training to achieve the ends you seek? Isn’t that premise counter-intuitive? Wouldn’t it make far more sense to encourage African liberation and self-expression given that you seem to see Africans as the ethnic group most closely connected to their pre-historical roots? Is the alternative not a case of the blind leading the partially sighted?

Or, maybe, you cannot “liberate” and “force” animals to be civilized when intelligence can be necessarily linked to genetic nature and not nurture education.

The technological assistence Africa needs must come in two forms.
Africa is still in the process of leaving a Bronze Age agricultural milieu. At least half of the people remain iliterate and another quarter barely able to read with little or no work-skills. Africa’s transition into Her own Iron Age of industrial development must encompass a generation or two of training in basic industrial trades. This effort must be accompanmied by an orthodox scriptural dogma that ensures conscientious crafstmanship. Africa needs a solid foundation of well-trained school-techers, doctors, nurses, buiilders, plumbers, electricians, miners etc to build, man aand maintain a modern infrastructure. Roads, rails, communication lines, schools, clinics etc. originally built by the colonials was only partially done and is now falling to pieces.

In the meantime, for all that to happen, a vast workforce of young foreign graduates, trained in the most advanced technological disciplines, needs to be injected into the continent to halt environmental decay and install the clean and sustainable energy needed for the industrial base to be laid. They must also help with the teaching process and deal with the disaster of AIDS.

The massive humanitarian requirement described above is one of the main reasons why I believe that the artificial barrier of money needs to be removed. While a monetary-based world economic system continues to determine human development and global management, Africa will continue to die and the rest of us will carry the guilt load into the future. It is our fixation that the carrot of money is the only way to get humans to behave like humans that is blinding us to reality. Trying to squeeze a profit out of every penny invetsed for the benefit of a tiny few takes all of us into the realm of insanity

Or, maybe, you should leave Africa to its African traditions and mentalities in more of a hands-off approach, allowing them to sort it out themselves naturally through violence and other means. (except where the First World needs to steal their resources – then the hypocrisy preached in this thread is OK)

More than forty million African children are starving to death as we speak. They never asked for it. Europe rammed themselves down Africa’s throat. America took ten million slaves. Both mined its reasources. I have African blood. Now you tell me who the hell is the hypocrit. Explain your careless remarks and your baseless accusation.

You’re the one making careless remarks and baseless accusations.

Maybe you should save yourself a lot of time and money and just have first world citizens go to the third world and breed intelligence into their tribes. Oh wait – why do I get the feeling nobody would want to do that unless you paid them a lot of money…?

Leave them to their own responsibility. If they can’t take care of themselves, then why should Christians take it upon themselves to teach animals to not be animals. After how many millenniums, not much has changed, yet you think you will change anything? I’m just being realistic. I don’t want people to starve, but then again, I don’t want myself to starve either. Maybe if I’m too stupid to not learn how to feed myself, I shouldn’t be eating in the first place.

What about that??? You’ll avoid this point like the plague though since it destroys this thread: [size=120]self-responsibility[/size].

Look for racism on another thread.

Wouldn’t Africa know what’s best for Africa? after-all, the West’s good intentions seem to fail or be abused by whichever dictator is in power, in any given African state.

Is this survival of the fittest doing it’s very worst… :-k

Look for ignorance in every thread. No more of your nonsense is needed here.

That’s exactly right. Perhaps the rest of the world just needs to let Africa work it out?

Whenever the Amerikan Empire touches Afrika, it just gets worse.

Not a single person who has taklen the trouble to go to Africa and see what the conditions are for themselves and has held a starving child in their arms, has ever come back and said that nothing can be done or should be done. I would advise all armchair experts to pay a little more attention to first hand reports instead of listening to the racist jargon. Shame on you.

Then everyone who has been to the US knows exactly what the US needs?

Many european powers have been involved in Afirca, as you know. Would you not, by your own reasoning, have to have been in those countries during the colonial era to know what they should and should not have done?

It’s okay to be an advocate for Africa, but you are using only your own moral compass. Others have their own, too.

I could not possibly know what to do about Africa - I haven’t been there. So I cannot know if you are right.

And you have no way of convincing me. Haven’t been there - no way to evaluate your argument.

Well there are two rather fundamental problems with that approach:

1). The current state of Africa as a continent (actually, can we honestly stop referring to it as Africa here? It’s almost meaningless, it’s a continent with vastly different countries, religions, dialects… It’s like talking about Canada, North America and South America at the same time and expecting everything you say to make sense) is almost entirely Europe’s fault case example:

Zimbabwe; currently under the control of a Dictator (President Mugabe) whose position in charge can be, fundamentally, traced back to the British. Hell, we even supported him when he first came to power, sort of.

In some way Zimbabwe is one of the worst areas of Africa, but its state is indicative of what damage we did in Africa after the second World War, desperate, bankrupt countries pulling out of Africa, taking anything of value with them. Then if you add on events like the Suez Crisis where we showed NO regard for Egypt’s sovereignty, it’s understandable why we’re viewed with a certain level of hostility.

But you’re right. We should pull out of Africa in one regard. We should STOP SELLING THEM WEAPONS.

2). The first point is almost entirely about Europe, America is absolved of a certain amount of fundamental responsibility cause, ya know, you lot didn’t exist. Second point is everyone’s concern. The economic investment in the infrastructure buys you a certain amount of political power. The question you want to ask yourself here is simple; who do you want to have political power in Africa, the west or China? Not trying to be divisive here, but that’s essentially what the choice comes down to. Now you may think there’s nothing wrong with that… except that China have shown themselves to be willing to extort the wealth from Africa again, just as we did 100 years ago. At least Europe nowadays has got to the point now where the public can hold governments accountable if they do that and we don’t need the resources as much, but Africa doesn’t need another round of abuse.

Unreasonable: Whilst this

I can understand, I would disagree. The whole ‘responsibility’ thing has been discussed above, but when we left, the power vacuums we left behind allowed military dictators to rule by violence and we must seek to undo what we have done without creating another cycle of violence. How this is to be done I’m not sure but, to me, it requires the development of the fundamental state infrastructures, health, policing, and most importantly education to be established and get Africa to a position where they can help themselves.

However;

If you honestly believe what you say here then you are arrogant and ignorant beyond anything i thought i’d see here. You do realise that Africa was the epicentre of the first civilisations of man, where some of the earliest forms of writing come from? I don’t just mean cave paintings either, shows that they had Classic period civilisation prior to Rome or Athens, in the 4000BC era. Then, there was the rise of the Egyptian civilisation. Then there was Carthage. Then, after the fall of the Roman Empire, the Muslim / North African culture inherited Greek learning and was the most advanced civilisation on the planet for a good few hundred years, leading technological developments and Mathematical developments that became the basis for the Renaissance development in Europe.

Plus, I challenge you to give me undeniable proof that Africans are somehow genetically inferior or animalistic as the last reports I read on such studies showed the exact opposite; that the only difference in ability between whites and blacks was purely institutionalised.

Reading your posts made my blood boil, it really did.

I understand where you’re coming from, and whilst I think going there helps, I don’t think it’s the only way and Faust, I don’t think ‘not going there’ equates to ‘having no way to evaluate your argument’.

Edit: Moved a sentence for clarity

That was sarcasm, Phoebus.

:slight_smile:

I’ll read more carefully next time. I got a bit grumpy reading some earlier posts and I lost the ability to detect any form of subtlety.

Btw, ‘blood boil’ comment was directed at Unreasonable, not you (in case you were wondering :stuck_out_tongue:)

What about ten million slaves?
Where did all the gold mined in South Africa end up? Especially during all the decades America helped to keep it pegged at $35 per ounce and would not let it float freely against the dollar.

I agree with all the rest you have to say.

While I realise that this will mean nothing to MM, I am an american. America (the US) is and has been for a long time, an imperial power. No modern nation has been great without empire, military, political and/or economic. I have, every minute of my life, enjoyed the fruits of empire. There is no way to divorce my way of life from empire. The financial wherewithall to help poor and starving africans is the result of empire. We enslaved Native Americans, Africans, and Central Americans - this first and last we still do. The economic enslavement of Central and even South Americans continues. And a different but no less potent economic enslavement of many other people from many different lands continues, and even expands.

As Americans, we have a lot more on our plates as owners of empire than starving Africans. If I really regretted it, I guess I could move - but the First World is the First World for a reason, and I do not wish to leave it. Neither does MM, evidently.

Send ten percent of your income to Save the Children. Your words mean nothing - they are words on a computer screen. Me - I’m thinking about buying a boat.

I am completely serious - this is not sarcasm.

I meant as a mature country with political responsibilities of its own. I don’t blame America for slavery, I blame Europe. Same with the mining in South Africa. I find it hard to hold a country to account for something until they’ve developed into some sort of cohesive whole and government. I’d struggle to put a date on this, although it’d probably be around the Civil War, although since my knowledge of American history is limited I don’t onto this idea very tightly

Well, this has been going on for decades/centuries, or is that because some don’t want this situation to be resolved? :confused:

…approach? you saw an approach where there was none, only comment: which is probably where-in Africa’s current problems and situation, lie :unamused: