Which country was a better place for Blacks to live? enews.earthlink.net/article/hea?guid=20081212/4941efd0_3426_13350200812121916670901
That is an easy one. Mugabe had no funds to implement the Land Reform and Resetllement program in an equitable fashion and the British refused to pump more foreign aid into the country. Mugabe was under pressure from the white farmers and opposition candidates and bowed to the mob, aka "War Veterans" (many of whom were 3 years old at the time of military conflict). It has slow moving anarchy since then.
Is there some underlying point to this thread? a lot of countries move backwards in their "progress." Africa has an extreme problem with corruption because its believed to be the only way to move ahead. They don't a system where achievement is rewarding. Grabbing what you can, when you can; might be the only way to get your family into the middle class. Its 100% wrong to do this but that is how it is. do you feel that Africa should go back to colonialism days?
It is simplistic to say the Europeans just walked away. It was different all over Africa. The French fought and tried to stay in Algeria and Tunisia (not necessarily for altruistic reasons.) The Portuguese tried the same in Angola and Mozambique to some degree (until their own change of government in 1974). The United Nations, with both the U.S. and USSR fully backing the move but obviously for different reasons, advocated self-determination following WWII and for the next 25-30 years the colonial powers left under pressure from the world. The number one problem for Africa is corruption from their own leaders. Trying to blame colonialism now is preposterous. And I've always wondered what hand socialism/communism had making Africa the disaster it is now. Many of the independence movements were left leaning and when they go into power, they went about enriching their cronies instead of setting up viable governments.
They have to now. There is no one else to help them. My main point, though not well made, was that moralizing about their needing to address corruption is hypocritical and stating the obvious. We must continue to exert diplomatic pressure where we can and provide medical and food aid as necessary. But to do nothing because of endemic corruption is short-sided.
the best way to combat corruption is for there to be good paying jobs. When a police officer is paid in the poverty level for that country, what is expected except corruption.
But where is a poor country like Zimbabwe, or even India, going to get the necessary money to pay police officers a substantial wage? They have extremely meager revenues as it is and can't borrow a lot (and usually are burdened by high debt loads as it is).
Zimbabwe or Rhodesia is kind of a stupid choice set. The desire of large portions of black Africans to control their own destiny precludes this dichotomy from being meaningful, and that is in no small part due to the nature of the Rhodesian regime, the way it relinquished power, and the way whites, especially the British, interacted with the post-colonial/post-minority rule regime. Colonialism and Neo-Colonialism absolutely have had a hand in many of the messes that plague various African nations. It is not just the carving up and exploiting of Africa, it was the set up and maintenance of systems of economic production that were built to feed foreign markets while ignoring the needs and circumstances of the native populations, it was systems of government that were not democratic and which played up ethnic strife and division, it was a system of nationalization and border creation that did an extremely poor job of attending to on-the-ground realities (ethnic and religious tensions) while at the same time forcing these new political entities to interact as nations, etc. Africans will be the first to tell you that corruption is a problem. It is hardly an issue of Africans failing to take responsibility for their own ills, etc. They started by kicking out the colonialists, after all (one might glibly say 'How's that working out for them?,' but that misses the biggest point -- there was no other way -- the colonialists were not interested in sharing power or creating some kind of hybridized, truly democratized African continent -- Zimbabwe or Rhodesia is a false choice set). Corruption has also been a prime way of doing business in Africa for decades, both for blacks and whites. One of the interesting things about African history since the late19th century onset of colonialism is that, even though there has always been an incredible diversity of ethnicities, religions, and languages shoehorned into ill-fitting and ill-serving political boundaries, African nations have done very little if any conquering of one another. There has been little in the way of a consolidation of power. Most governments are on shaky ground from day one and expend a great deal of political and cultural capital simply staying afloat. I have always thought that Nigeria, the most populous and oil rich nation on the continent, would usurp some of its neighbors, extend its coastal presence, etc. But that **** doesn't happen. It's one of the tried and true ways to advance one's culture or way of life. I think that part of the reason you don't see too much of that is that none of these 'nations' really work like nations as we are used to thinking of that term. One must realize that, for the most part, de-colonization was accompanied by great hopes for democratic reform, etc. African nations, for the most part, have little in the way of democratic traditions, the 'nations' were not well prepared or set up for that kind of thing, and the path of least resistance and quickest return is corruption, cronyism, and military rule, which, in an atmosphere of exploitation, ethnic strife, proxy wars, civil wars, etc., utterly undermines attempts to normalize political interaction. It is going to take time for African to come to terms with itself, and, as with any continent filled with diverse peoples, it is going to involve bloodshed, corruption, shaky steps toward economic growth, etc. America's history is filled with these types of events, especially bloodshed. America rose in economic stature in spite of its best political tendencies being ignored or degraded by corruption and worse. In fact, its rise to power was largely fueled by the two biggest politico-philosophical affronts in our history, genocide and slavery. Those horrendous series of events helped establish control and prosperity that later generations enjoyed. In Africa the path will be different, and, as it turns out, likely more fitful, more varied, and hard to predict. Think about what Europe and North America wrought upon the world in order to reach the place they are now. The incredible upheavals, injustices, nightmarish failures of civilization (famine, disease, civil wars, etc.). It goes without saying that great progress, beauty, etc., came out of all of that, as well, but it was an ugly process to be sure. Africa has remained in many ways unpenetrated, untamed, unmolded, and unremade. It is a continent processing its own history on terms that are not easy to fully comprehend, especially when we hold up our current standards of political transparency as the guide (consider the 2008 international corruption index (www.infoplease.com/world/statistics/2008-transparency-international-corruption-perceptions.html) and note that developing countries, i.e., those nations struggling to find a place in the ever globalizing economic system, places wherein modern, political self-determination are relatively new, are all problematic areas. Iraq, which is in the throes of trying to reconstitute itself, is just about DFL (if one looks at a nation like Nigeria, which is bifurcated along religious fault lines and cut up into many other subdivisions by language and ethnicity, one can see that ongoing calls for and experimentation with democracy are often scuttled by coups, civil war, corruption wildly abetted by oil cash, etc. -- Iraq might reasonably be expected to spend the next couple of generations swaying this way and that in re the goal of democracy, or even political stability).
One of the lasting legacies of colonialism is that Africa's geographic lines are not drawn along natural ethnic and religious lines.
How is majority rule working out in South Africa? They went from an economic power to a ********. Our framers wanted no part of majority rule and thought that the elites should more or less govern the vast majority of the population. Given the right elites that's a far better prescription for success then what's going on there now. I say go colonialism, it's better than the **** that they have going on in most of the continent right now. You have a place that is not civilized enough to have self government imo. I'm sure that will sound elitist, racist, biggoted or whatever to some ears, but that entire continent is a freaking disaster. The inmates are clearly not capable of running the assylum over there.
Well I would say all of the native Africans I met this past week at a MI culture class would disagree strongly with you. Also take off your cultural blinders, quality of life should not be based on an American or Western nation standard. Yes, they will have to address by themselves corruption in their government, ethnic/clan divisions and loose interpretation of borders...but to say they would be better off as colonies is mind boggling.
So 8 year olds going to war and systematic programs of genocide, rape, mutilation and the like are ok? As for me being a tory during the revolutionary war I think that's a bit of a stretch. I'm all for self government and the will of the people and all that great stuff but I don't think that republican government or elections or self determination can work without a base line floor of knowlege and education in the populace that is lacking in Africa. And anyone using current events in Africa to argue against my point has lost their freaking mind. You are looking at the world through a politically correct lens or how you wish it to be as opposed to how it actually is. I'm not saying africa will never be able to govern itself effectively I'm saying that it isn't close to being able to do so at the moment. As is evidenced, by, oh, I don't know, what is actually happening in Africa.
And if we've reached a point in time where someone argues that mass rapes, genocides, cutting off of hands and the like is ok culturally or to judge that as bad is using a western norm then the world is even more of a ******* disaster than I believe it to be and I am bearish on it in the first place. Im not saying there are no intelligent people in africa. I'm saying that there are not enough educated people to make a society work and govern themselves. I think that a benevolent dictator is needed. And that's not torrism that's aristotle. Or plato, or one of those other dead greek guys that framed most of western society. And guess ******* what- they lived in a time where most of the population wasn't exactly educated or capable of self governance. Wonder if that has anything to do with his musings on ideal form of government.
Also, I'd hardly consider myself a tory as the founding fathers were afraid of this exact same thing, i.e. we were enfranchised only male, white landowners) and even then, the system of government was set up such that the senate was not directly elected. There were huge concerns and worries about the very fact that you are disputing. It wasn't torrism, it was what our framers set up. Who knows how this countries development might have been different if we let every tom dick and harry vote the way they are allowed to now. The difference is we now have a more or less educated populace capable of filling civil service branches and running the day to day life of our economy. Africa has no infrastructure in place (by and large) and they are jumping past a ton of steps in a way that our founding fathers never envisioned. How did it work in france without those safeguards at that time? And I'd be in favor of net-tax payers being the voters and that means that in 2009, unless something changes I wouldn't have the vote. Such is life. Democracy can't last when the majority of the population can vote themselves a raise without paying for it themselves imo.
disingenuous biggot? I'm not in the least disingenous and never have been. Biggot? Maybe but I don't think so but it's a closer call. Throw stones all you want, I don't give a ****. And I wasn't trying to "solve" any of africa's problems but whatever. If I was going to try to solve Africa's problems I would try to do something like allow their resources to be harnessed by the industrialized world, paying them full market value for them into a sort of trust to set up infrastructure and education for their population. This trust would then be used to train them into jobs that they could do, build infra structure and educate the majority of the population. I would attempt to harness some sort of tourist trade and industry and move as many people as possible into those kind of jobs as a first step. Military presence to keep the peace. Sounds kinda socialistic I guess, but something like that might work. Oil, diamonds, gold, arable land and natural beauty exist there. That's what I mean by natural resources that need to be harnessed. Somthing to create a middle class which is what is necessary for a representative democracy to work. Nice job ignoring my counterpoints to you calling me a tory and going for the easy insult though, fabulous work, truly fabulous.
I know it's been tried, but generally by private entities interested only in their own corporate profit. Put it this way, they don't have enough human capital to develop their way out of whatever is going on but they have a lot of resources. The trick is to make sure they get fair return for their resources and it enriches the society as a whole, as opposed to only a select few that would be happy to burn the country down around themselves for control of said resources. I think it has to be done on the state level and not on the corporation level. How that happens I'm not sure. But the money needs to go to the creation of middle class and the betterment of everyone. This is something that just doesn't happen if the fox is allowed to guard the hen house. It needs to be set up like a trust and run like a disinterested trustee would run it, not for personalized benefit but for the good of the corpus. How that happens on a nationstate level I don't know, but it has to be someone who doesn't benefit from the running of it.
