Really, now, why is Africa poor?
Nice excuses do you have more concocted for the next 100 years or so? I mean its been over 50 years and using the same excuse does not attract pity anymore. I mean take the case of India for example, their population alone is greater than that of the African continent, colonized for more than 300 years,Gained independance [sic] 60 years ago and you can see substantial development. How come this is not the case in many African countries? English is not their mother tongue either.The above comment was in response to my 20 June 2006 post called, "Why is Africa poor?" And I just wanted to react to the comment. I know full well that the commenter, Reid, won't listen to me because his/her mind's made up already, but what the heck, I'll give it a shot. I wish Reid would come out so we could talk things over (my email is at the top of http://sotho.blogsome.com, in case you're reading this, Reid).
Comment by Reid — 28 March 2008 @ 10:53 pm
Nice excuses do you have more concocted for the next 100 years or so?
As a matter of fact, yes, I do. Except they aren't excuses per se but what I believe to be the truth. Much as you have accusations and insults stocked up for the next one hundred years, your side of the story, I have what I believe in stocked up, too, my side of the story. And what I believe is that a series of events have contributed to stunting the economic development of many African countries. And, yes, slavery and colonialism are part of that series.
The same thing happened to the American Indian and the Australian Aborigine. It is no surprise that these peoples, who were subjected to the same conditions Africans endured, have been marginalised and are actually struggling to survive in the land of their birth. Only a very short-sighted brain will fail to see this, and choose to label it something else. And skin colour has no bearing on intelligence or stupidity, Reid. None whatsoever.
Skin colour is the organism's reaction to the intensity of sun rays. The stronger the rays, the more pigmentation cells in the epidermis, called melanocytes, become active, producing melanin, the dye that gives dark people their tan.
I mean its been over 50 years and using the same excuse does not attract pity anymore.
Today we're still going on about the facts of Alexander the Great's life, which did not occur 50 years ago but more than 20 000 years ago! What grounds could you possibly stand on to suggest we should not speak about historical facts of half a decade ago? And what historical facts would those be?
By 1905, African soil was almost completely controlled by European governments, with the only exceptions being Liberia (which had been settled by African-American former slaves) and Ethiopia (which had successfully resisted colonization by Italy). Britain and France had the largest holdings, but Germany, Spain, Italy, Belgium, and Portugal also had colonies. As a result of colonialism and imperialism, Africa suffered long term effects, such as the loss of important natural resources like gold and rubber, economic devastation, cultural confusion, geopolitical division, and political subjugation. Europeans often justified this using the concept of the White Man's Burden, an obligation to "civilize" the peoples of Africa.Colonialism came after slavery, mind you. Slavery devastated the continent, depleting it of its healthiest, most viable, strongest citizens. Then colonialism came in to finish the job. When I bring these facts up, it is neither to attract pity nor to seek revenge. It is to bring them up in order to respond to comments such as the one you left on my blog.
[source...]
And why in the world would the African seek pity? From whom? As far as I know, the African wants the European and the American off the continent. But there's just too many raw materials and minerals in Africa, aren't there? And the Occident ain't getting out unless it has to, is it?
I mean take the case of India for example, their population alone is greater than that of the African continent, colonized for more than 300 years,Gained independance [sic] 60 years ago and you can see substantial development. How come this is not the case in many African countries? English is not their mother tongue either.
It seems to me you might be making an error made by many, which is taking Africa to be a country. For the sake of clarity, Africa is a continent, a continent with many countries; India is a country, and is equivalent to one among the 53 states on the African continent. Due to this, India could not have undergone the same fate under colonialism as Africa. Let me explain.
In the nineteenth century Europe scrambled for Africa, and proceeded to carve it up like pie to suit its strategic needs. No concern was given to how the pie was carved, nor to what toppings were on each piece. In fact, "some 10,000 African polities were amalgamated into 40 European colonies and protectorates [source...]." Imagine that. 10 000 boiled down to 40!
Traditional foes were placed within the same borders, and villages were divided by new boundaries. Take a look at the map of Africa and see how many straight lines there are. India is one country and did not suffer this fate.
Upon independence, when colonial armies were no longer present to keep foe from foe, wars broke out in many places on the continent. And this has nothing to do with skin colour. Take the former Soviet Union, or Yugoslavia. These places, like Africa, had artificial frontiers held together by an ideology backed by a well-trained army. Take away the army, and the rest is history, among black people as among white ones (actually brown and pink respectively. Sort of). Like I've said, if you'd like to talk, you've got the comments section, and you've got e-mail.
15 voices:
you know ret,, i am almost embarrassed to admit my own ignorance,, but never once in the course of my life did i
1. understand that the plight of the indigenous african people was in many ways similar to that of the american indian or the australian aborigine... but that is absolutely what has been going on right under our noses!!! good god man,, why isn't that very simple statement made world wide so that we could bring it home and finally gain the insight that one little sentence provided me with!!!!
2. once again i flabbergasted,, in that never once did it occur to me the africa as a nation was negatively affected by slavery.. you know it never even occurred to me to wonder what effect if any it had on africa as a nation... never... my goodness.. this post has opened my eyes... you have a way of doing that tho' don't you!!!!
i know i will have to save this essay to my twitter and think further before i make an educated statement,, but i will be deep in thought i assure you......
meant to say tumblr... don't even have a twitter... not even sure i know what it is!!!!!
paisley,
Thanks for your comments. I, too, have to admit that there's a lot of things going on that I didn't know about till I started digging and sniffing around, and asking myself the constant question, "Is this true?"
Cheers, mate.
well said rethabile!
I too, am embarrassed to admit my ignorance when dealing with African issues. I always tended to look outside the continent.
Rat* thx for this post. Like Paisley I will need to save, print, consume before I can comment intelligently!
Nice comment over at Commentary about Tibet. You are right - John needed to look deeper into non-violence before expressing an urge towards armed struggle. For the life of me I cannot understand a preference to an end-game scenario over peaceful co-existence. Then, perhaps, I am a coward.
Rethabile, Thanks for this. I will come back later with my response. Infact, I have been looking up African history and kind of appalled by how it has been destroyed by colonization.
India too has too many issues and it seems in a few places we are living in the stone ages.
As I said, I will be back later...
Ignorance and arrogance always go hand in hand it seems. Excellent reply!
Excellent write up, Rethabile. Yes, so much damage has been done to the African and the descendants of those Africans living here in America and the Diaspora. The world seems to overlook the pain of Africans. I'm reminded of the American media and how they report black pain on a daily. Every night they report the greif and death of a young black man, boy, woman, or girl. There is very little outcry and sympathy for the young who are slain daily--not even from the black community at large. Are these young people killing each other because they were born black and crazy? We can find evidence of this all over the Black Diaspora, but where did it come from? Why is it happening? Who is responsible? Was Colonialism, Tribalism, Racism, Slavery, Satan or all of the above? I don't know.
So . . . why do I suppose it is that I sit here in front of a shelf full of books on African History yet I remain astounded at the ignorance about it?
Rethabile, most of us do not want to know about the slavery, the French in the North, the English in the south,the Boer's, The Belgians in the Congo or Germans in Southwest Africa, where the phrase "final solution" was first used.
That's history. It is over. It's is clearly time to move on!
Perhaps to Dafur.
Oh, but that is not "us". It's those Chinese! God must truely love the ignorant, he made so many of them. Cold and brutal avarice also knows no color.
Please forgive my cynicism. I cling to the belief that "peoples" do not do these things. Individual people do these things. Just as individual people do the good deeds in the world.
Your patient and thoughtful response was appreciated.
Tim
Dear Tim,
"We" can't freely move anywhere, to Darfur or elsewhere, if any survival attempt on the African's part is clouded with taunts and suspicions of incompetence and stupidity. "We" can truly start moving when the African has got the respect (s)he deserves.
History is never over as it always has a bearing on the present. It stands to reason that what happened yesterday influences what happens today and what will happen tomorrow. America is a gun-wielding, trigger-happy nation because the Far-west happened. Many African nations are poor today because their people were stolen, their economic and political structures destroyed, their land occupied, and so on.
Tim, of course people, not peoples, do things. People enslaved the African, colonised the African, Jim-crowed the heck out of the black person. But you must admit that very few, if any, American Indians did these things. Few Canadians, few Peruvians, few Inuits, few Mexicans. Perhaps they did other ills, I don't know. The question here is not that.
It is interesting that you might say, '...most of us do not want to know about the slavery, the French in the North, the English in the south,the Boer's, The Belgians in the Congo or Germans in Southwest Africa, where the phrase 'final solution' was first used.'
Why in Heaven's name would you want to zap that? In that case, zap Lincoln, and his four-score speech. Zap Franklin and his kite. Zap the Pilgrims and that rock they landed on. The Wright brothers, the American's struggle of independence against England, and in a few years, zap Vietnam, too, the atom bombs in Japan, zap Iraq, zap Michael Jackson and his best-selling album. Zap the hostage-taking crisis in Iran when Carter was president, Elvis and Martin Luther king Jr (?) and Malcolm X (?) and Monica Lewinsky and Reaganomics and 9/11 and all the history of the blooming world. Let's zap the big bang, too, while we're at it. I went to prison in South Africa for pass laws. Let's zap that. Zap slavery and colonisation and Apartheid, as you suggest.
China. China is another question. It is messing up in Tibet and has messed up in Darfur. Does that give me the right to say, 'Don't talk about the fact that I pounded your face into the ground yesterday. Chun-Lee here is pounding it into the ground now.' Perhaps Chun-Lee is doing it because I got away with it. Learning from history isn't just a cliché, it's something we must do. We must all be accountable. You, me, them, everybody. If we're all equal on this planet, then no one gets away with pounding another's face into the ground. China is beginning to have the sort of fiduciary influence on Africa that leads straight to dependence, and the notion that the money-lender can do whatever they want. That's very bad, and Africans should not let it happen. Why they might is beyond the scope of this post.
Still, I think your comment of 'the ignorant' concerning the Chinese is not fair. Nowhere in your comment do you say that Caucasian people are ignorant, although they're the ones that have done a lot of atrocities against the African (and the Australian Aborigine and the American Indian)
I'm not sure I know what you mean by the following, Tim: 'So ... why do I suppose it is that I sit here in front of a shelf full of books on African History yet I remain astounded at the ignorance about it?' But let me take a jab at it: What I say and other Africans say isn't in your history books? Or, you haven't actually read the history books on your book-shelf? In either case, what happened in the past still happened. Give you the South African example. History books never mentioned the African hero, of the African good deed, or the African innovation, or the African suffering. That was until some African scholars decided to write real history books that told it all, good and bad, and across the spectrum of southern African life.
Get back to me if you'd like, Tim. If you'd rather not post openly (and not anonymously), my e-mail address is retjoun/gmail/com. And if it is your wish, I'll keep such correspondence private.
Cheers.
Rethabile
I was under the impression that one of the more monumental failings of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) in its genesis was that it straight-up accepted all sovereign borders of countries in Africa as part of its charter even though the members knew full well who had constructed these borders and that tensions and conflicts over such an issue were already pressing and would, almost instantaneously with the end of colonialisation en-masse, result in wars.
The after effects of these wars are what the continent and the OAU was then primarily dealing with, i.e. refugees, famine, poverty, instable governments etc.
Further, the organisation also included a doctrine of non-interference in African nations' domestic affairs (with Apartheid South Africa being the notable exception), another factor in developing the issues mentioned above. Also, the OAU represented the oft illegitimate or apathetic autocratic leadership of nations which did not give voice to the actual people and their direct needs...
I would gladly go into further details unfortunately I am now living abroad and do not have access to the materials upon which I drew these dissertations. Comments still welcome.
That you, Tim? You haven't said anything about anything I've said. Did you even read me? I, too, could rattle off lists without taking into account what you've said.
No, Rethabile, that was not me. I had not read your post until this morning and I sent you my own response by email.
For what it is worth to you, and for other readers, here it is.
"Rethabile, thank you for your response. It seems to me that nothing is as destructive as unrecognized sarcasm.
I apprecite the opportunity to make what amends I can.
My comments were in reaction to the orignal poster whose theme was that 50 years should have been "enough" I regret to write this truth: That belief is tragically common in America.
Virtually none of the rapacious history of Western Civilization is common knowledge here.
Slavery, in many forms, devastated Africa and still devastes Africa in all the ways you discuss and more. Beyond the brutality of chattel, the assumption of might equating with right of ownership generates social devastation of its own, and is an extention, a cancerous secondary growth, on the the hideous tumor of slavery.
Allow me two shallow examples:
Where are the jobs the tantalum, copper and timber of the Congo produce? They are in Belgium, China, Canada and the United States.
Where are many of the best minds Africa has produced in the last 50 years? They have followed those jobs to the north. I see this too as slavery.
My friend, my words were directed, poorly it seems, at your correspondent and others like him, who have never been exposed to these realities.
Allow me also this criticism of your perception of my own country's history. We too, were a product of what came before us. The genocidal wars fought between the terror based theocracies of Spain and Tenochtitlan established the model of violence for my country's frontier and it is still loose in the world today.
And the wars of Spain and the Aztecs had their own roots.
Today, China carries on with that brutal history, most egregiously in Dafur, with the violence directed through surrogates.
Never knowing, or understanding, the roots of such behavior, many of my countrymen are left to the conclusion that China's behavior today is a unique product of China.
In my opinion, it is not. It is the logical extension of behavior for a country seeking to join with with economy European, and American, history produced. They are following a model.
That is the reason I "zapped" as I did. Will it challange your correspondent to actually dig out the history?
Probably not, but it might. If it does, will it lead the readers to my own conclusions? Or to yours? Again, probably not, but they will be reacting from a base of knowledge instead of ignorance.
This, it seems to me, would be an improvement.
It is my hope that the day will come when the people of the countries of Africa will control their own destinies. Lumumba remains dead but in our lives we have seen epochal changes.
Ubuntu and the courage of the people who carry it in their hearts changed the face of South Africa.
There will be more changes, may they bring peace and justice.
My apologies for whatever hurt my words caused.
Tim Pfau
Thank you for your response, Tim. I'm afraid I took you for one of my regular harassers. I apologise for being like a bull in a Spanish arena.
I do not take back what I said. It's what I would have liked to have said to the comment that my upset mind read into yours. But I was wrong because I thought you were someone else, and you actually meant something else.
The power of words. How easy it is to bend them to one's will, interpret them into a context, take them out of it.
I re-read your message, and understand that I missed the subtlety and irony in it, even if it was meant to protect me and agree with me. For that, I'm sorry, my friend.
I must not let these things get to me so.
Most gracious, my friend.
One quibble with your post: "protect" you? That hardly seems necessary, but if I should ever find myself under threat, I hope there is a poet-warrior of your stature standing next to me.
Khotso ntate,
Tim
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