Are the after effects of colonialism to blame for most African countries current problems?

Great Debates
81

I find it depressing that an interesting thread about the causes of poverty in Africa is, once again, dominated by “race realists” who bring their ahistorical, apolitical, intellectually dishonest, racist bilge to the direct forefront of all discussion. It’s like creationists who storm an evolutionary discussion and demand “equal time.” Their goal is simply to steer all debate to combating their fantasy, pseudo-biological, “race science”; then feel good that they got their message “out there.”

Now that I said that I would like to steer this thread into a more rational-analytical direction.

It is important to keep in mind that African States are not interchangeable. To analyze the economic state of “Africans” you must first realize that there are many different political states that have cultured widely differening economic enviroments. You need to focus your resolution onto a political entity if you are to get any coherent answer. For example Zimbabwe faces drasticallyy different economic problems then Ethiopia or Senagal due to many vasy different factors (Due to differening enviroment/political-climate/history/socio-cultural divisions/religious-ethnic divsion/etc). Here are a list of African countries according to their GDP per capita:

GDP Name
17,700 Algeria
16,312 Equatorial Guinea
13,703 Mauritius
12,700 Libya
12,161 South Africa
11,818 Seychelles
11,400 Botswana
8,800 Tunisia
7,478 Namibia
7,055 Gabon
6,418 Cape Verde
5,245 Swaziland
4,836 Egypt
4,600 Morocco
3,919 Republic of the Congo
2,813 Angola
2,700 Ghana
2,607 Zimbabwe
2,600 Mayotte
2,522 Sudan
2,421 Cameroon
2,402 Mauritania
2,113 Lesotho
2,070 Djibouti
2,035 Guinea
2,002 The Gambia
1,759 Senegal
1,700 Togo
1,700 Uganda
1,660 Comoros
1,600 Côte d’Ivoire
1,519 Chad
1,445 Kenya
1,389 Mozambique
1,300 Rwanda
1,284 Burkina Faso
1,266 São Tomé and Príncipe
1,198 Central African Republic
1,188 Nigeria
1,176 Benin
1,154 Mali
1,003 Liberia
1,000 Eritrea
931 Zambia
905 Madagascar
903 Sierra Leone
872 Niger
823 Ethiopia
774 Democratic Republic of the Congo
739 Burundi
736 Guinea-Bissau
723 Tanzania
600 Somalia
600 Somaliland
596 Malawi

Lets take a couple of these countries as case studies.

82

The current economic situation:

Political background info on the country:

Important demgraphic questions
Poplulation size: 34,178,188
Urban population: 65%
Religious makeup: Sunni Muslim (state religion) 99%
Ethnic makeup: Arab-Berber 99% (but “the minority who identify themselves as Berber live mostly in the mountainous region of Kabylie east of Algiers; the Berbers are also Muslim but identify with their Berber rather than Arab cultural heritage”)
Literacy: 69.9%
Labour force - by occupation:
[ul]
[li]agriculture: 14%[/li][li]industry: 13.4%[/li][li]construction and public works: 10%[/li][li]trade: 14.6%[/li][li]government: 32%[/li][li]other: 16% (2003 est.)[/li][/ul]
Exports: $52.03 billion (2009 est.)
[ul]
[li]petroleum, natural gas, and petroleum products 97%[/li][/ul]
Imports: $39.51 billion (2009 est.)
[ul]
[li]capital goods, foodstuffs, consumer goods[/li][/ul]

Good questions to ask to get an idea of internal cohesion/mobility: Is there an ethnic plurality or not? a religious one? How does ethnic groups and religious groups mix? Does religion split along ethnic lines or not? What about language? ethnic groups and language groups are usually not the same. Which groups speak which language? How different are the languages in question? What about dialects? How do they split among the language groups? Does the country border any unstable state? Do they share a border with another state who has a simiular ethnic makeup?

If you want a more historical approach then you will need to read about the political history of that nation. This includes pre and post colonial. Start in the pre-colonial history to show how things were run and how groups interacted with the other groups. It also will help you learn about which groups are more closely related to which other groups and if there is a deep history of ethnic/religious strife between them. Starting from that you should continue the colonial history which –most likely- shaped the modern state that you are interested. There are a thousand questions to ask for this time period but to keep it (too) simple the most important things to learn are: Who was the colonizer? How was the colony run? Did they build an educated administrative class? What basic infrastructure was laid down? Did the state act as a political cohesive unit?

Now read about the post colonial history. Who were the rulers? How was it run? What economic system was followed (communist/capitalist/mix)? Was they political security? Was there a strong concept of national pride? Was there strong sense of demographical tension? Is there any political, linguistical, cultural, historical, or religious cohesiveness that was forged before/during/after the creation of the modern nation? These are simple questions that need to be asked.
However we rarely go this deep when we ask a question like the one in the OP “Why is Africa poor?” It’s a good question, but it requires a lot more knowledge and research then any of us even try to do.

83

And even that is complicated. For example, Equatorial Guinea is #2 on the list thanks to oil, but 60% of the population makes under $1.00 a day. Pretty amazing, huh?

84

I thought the italics would have given the sarcasm away. Any time this stuff comes up, Chen019 and Chief Pedant come in with their, “Time and science will show why my particular race is smarter and more successful than the rest.” How much do you want to bet Chen is east Asian and Chief is white?

85

“Palish”, sure, but they were, and are still, a Semitic people, and therefore NOT White by any measure I know. *I *never said they were Africans, just brown.

86

The current economic situation:

Political background info on the country:

Important demographic questions
Poplulation size: 18,879,301
Urban population: 57%
Religious makeup: indigenous beliefs 40%, Christian 40%, Muslim 20%
Ethnic makeup: Cameroon Highlanders 31%, Equatorial Bantu 19%, Kirdi 11%, Fulani 10%, Northwestern Bantu 8%, Eastern Nigritic 7%, other African 13%, non-African less than 1%
Linguistic makeup: 24 major African language groups, English (official), French (official)
Literacy: 67.9%
Labour force - by occupation:

* agriculture: 70%
* industry: 13%
* services: 17%

Exports: $3.409 billion (2009 est.)

* crude oil and petroleum products, lumber, cocoa beans, aluminum, coffee, cotton

Imports: $3.739 billion (2009 est.)

* machinery, electrical equipment, transport equipment, fuel, food

In comparing Cameroon to Algeria a few key things jump up at me.

Politically: Algeria has a far more controlling government while Cameron’s rulers have (at least) been paying lip service to democratic reform. Algeria came out of colonization as a cohesive unit (France was the only colonizer) while Cameroon is made up of two separate colonies (English and French). Algeria seems to have been also colonized for a bit longer (1830-1962) then Cameroon (1919-1960).

Demographically: Cameroon has a wide mix of religious/ethnic/language groups in a population half the size of Algeria. Literacy seems to be equal and Cameroon seems to be less urbanized then Algeria.

Economically: Both economies are fueled by petroleum. Algeria seems to be more strongly based on Oil then Cameroon (probably based on the vastly different land-size/population ratio). Cameroon’s labour force seems to be wholly dedicated to farming (an economically poor choice for making a living) while Algerians have a paltry 14% on that. Cameroon also has a import/export deficit while Algeria is (very much) in the black. Last but not least Cameroon’s export economy is more diverse, but drastically smaller then Algeria.

Next stop… **Benin **

87

Yeah, we need a metric that measures what percent of the population is making what percentage of the GDP. Income inequality perhaps? Do you know of any good sources?

…I used “Labour force by occupation” as an ad hoc metric for this…

88

The GINI coefficient is often used. It is imperfect, but so is the underlying data.

This wiki list gives a sensation:

89

Semite is a language grouping, not a “race” - the dominant phenotype in that area (modern lebanon) is right bloody pale, not ‘brown.’ Neither are most of the Berbers of the area that Carthage ruled. Not calling them “white” is a cultural distinction, every bit as white as your average Greek. Not that 19th century racial hairsplitting is enlightening of anything.

Of course that says fuck all about anything, I’m not defending the crazy back-door racialism.

90

Nope, not really. Brutal, corrupt dictators who view their countries as their own private playgrounds for theft, rape and murder are pretty common, sadly. It always amazes me how men with all that power and wealth at their disposal seem to revert to the age of twelve. (Though even at that age, I’d have been appalled at their excesses, as would most of humanity.)

Obiang is so utterly, irredeemably wretched that I’ve actually some sympathy for the Wonga Coup plotters: 2004 Equatorial Guinea coup attempt - Wikipedia

Sure the new regime would have been pretty darned corrupt itself, and dominated by foreign interests. But it’s difficult to imagine it actually being worse than the current government.

Note: I am not excusing neo-colonial adventurism generally. And had the coup actually succeeded, my sympathy for it would be far more muted. But it’s hard not to look at Equatorial Guinea and not despise its government.

91

Methinks we all miss the point here. :frowning: Africa is poor. Yes. But by what standards? Some of the African poor (if you are willing to ignore the media pictures of starved children with hands held out for alms) subsist very well on their land. Before the pale-face economy they could very well supply their needs and those of their families. The population was low enough to keep them relatively satisfied. The climate and population density did not make it necessary to build multi-story concrete buildings, or castles with large fireplaces. Neither, because most needs could be met locally, did they require elaborate transport infrastructure.

Colonialism not only brought in the exploiter, it brought in a whole new economic way that was not suited to that area at the time. Consider that in places like Kenya and Uganda hut tax was introduced so that the lazy natives could be forced to work for civilised projects instead of staying at home and enjoying what they felt was their due. Part of the problem was that a way of life was introduced without making the native population understand why this way of life was necessary. When the colonist left the same people were expected to live in a civilised manner in spite of the fact that large areas of the continent had only seen the exploitative part of civilisation and presumed that that was how civilisation works

At the time of most African countries independence only areas of interest to the colonist were civilised while areas that were deemed to have no use where left untouched other than on maps. Some areas took several years after independence to even know which country they belong to, and some, to date, still have land and family spreading across borders of, sometimes, feuding countries. In addition many of the colonial powers left in place structures that were meant to exploit the raw materials of these countries for the benefit of the advanced economies. Notice that to date many African countries still have a law that prohibits the cutting down of coffee tries even while the farmer could more profitable use the land for other crops. Many of these raw materials were required to be processed in the developed countries and brought back to African to be consumed maintaining a dependency on the colonial industries and economies. And before anybody asks why Africa couldn’t develop there own processing facilities please study your own patent laws first.

Africa is slowly coming to grips with the western way of life, in spite of the complete lack of understanding for many as of the necessity of this way of life. You’ve heard the saying, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Africa is one continent that was fixed way before it became broke.

True colonialism is not the only reason to blame for the woes of Africa but it did, and still does, contribute a whole lot to the problem.

92

Semitic is an ethnicity.

They look brown enough to me. Not as dark-brown as Egyptians, more on the same level as Persians or Turks. I’m mostly going by a NatGeo article from a couple years ago on the Human Genetics project, which showed that Lebanese are almost identical to their regional Canaanite ancestors, with something like a 5% European admixture (Crusaders, I think) - the pictures of the fishermen they did the studies on were all pretty brown. Yes, probably indistinguishable from a Greek or Sicilian or a Spaniard fisherman. I’d call those brown people too. They may deny the Turkish/Moorish/Semitic part of their ancestry, but I don’t think you have to look to hard to see it.

Note - I’m not getting all Afrocentric here - I agree with the current thought that the Semitic peoples are aboriginal to the Anatolia-Med coast-Arabian peninsula area, that they’re completely distinct from any African ethic types. But I think it’s a bit much to lump them in with the Celts and Nordics under some overall White umbrella term, when they’re clearly a little more gifted in the melanin department. The point isn’t to set up some modern version of Von Luschan’s chromatic scale - that’d be pointless. It’s more to emphasise that whatever they were, the Phonecians (and Egyptians) did not fall under the banner of “European”.

Yeah, that’s a better way of putting it - they were non-European.

93

My understanding was that the existence of any hereditary differences in intelligence between “races” had long since been discredited (rendering moot any evolutionary explanations for such) – I thought that was pretty well established after The Bell Curve came out (see The Bell Curve Wars, 1995). But, if you somehow think it’s still an open question, I’ve opened a new thread to debate that.

94

And what exactly is your point?

PS, I’d like to thank Orcenio for bringing some rational discourse back to this thread.

95

Again, I didn’t say they were all like that, although citing foreign domination by the Ottomans as a period of internal stability is a bit far-fetched. My major point is that even the North African states have undergone a heck of a lot of change and are no longer recognizable as the same entities which dominated those regions even a century ago.

96

are North African states any better or worse or in any way different from the Arab states in the Middle East? If not, why include them into this discussion? The Arabs have their problems, but the sub-Saharan Africans have a lot more problems, and of different kinds.

And yes, I guess there is always the borderland cases like Mauritania, Mali or parts of Sudan where there is a mix of the Arab and African ethnicities and cultures.

97

Originally Posted by Chief Pedant:
“*The overall performance of Africa as a continent comptetitive on the world stage by any number of measures wasn’t particularly impressive at any point in history, pre- or post colonialism. *”

Perhaps you missed the “overall” part of my post, and perhaps I should have emphasized sub-saharan Africa instead. I agree that the populations of those two regions were spectacularly successful competing on the stage of world history. Or perhaps we disagree on whether Carthage and Egypt are an adequate synecdoche for “Africa.”

98

The academics were referring to what is now the Sahara, when it wasn’t a desert. Some of these populations then migrated into SSA.

I’ve never seen anyone claim that cattle were domesticated in SSA. In fact, most of SSA is unsuited for cattle because of the tsetse fly.

99

So you don’t buy the idea that Afro Asiatic language speakers had a common origin in the horn of Africa? I still find it convincing, keeping in mind that the migrants would have mixed thoroughly with the aboriginal populations, so Hausa speakers are blue black, and Arabic speakers are brown skinned Mediterranean types. A trivial point, I suppose, but the offspring of Somali -European and Ethiopian - European pairings look very much like Semites.

Not to go too far off topic, but what do you make of the the latest genetic research shows that the Oromos of Ethiopia and the Khoisan peoples of South Africa share some the oldest clades. The theory being that the Bantu expansion out of West Africa separated what was originally a continuous population.

100

Then again, CP and Chen019 aren’t really interested in Africa. They’re interested in US ethnic politics, and they interpret everything through that framework. They don’t know anything about Africa, and they have no interest in learning.