-
-
- It doesn’t sound pretty to say as much, but PJ O’Rourke said it well in one of his books: " . . there are large problems in Africa, and the people causing them are largely African." - Which is true, like it or not. So really changing anything would involve removing control from the locals, which is gonna take armed forces, which leads me to question if it would be worth it for any foreign country to do; and who else might bother - how many countries other than the US could casually afford such an undertaking? -And that’s also the same reason I tend to avoid giving money to charities that work in such areas; I consider the situation to be practically hopeless. I am more likely to believe that if the US took control and actually did start fixing things, after the local peoples get a little fat and happy they’ll start with the “live free or die” tripe. At least if they die by starvation, they won’t take me or any enlisted friends with them. - MC
-
I thought this was a pretty interestig topic and rather than start it over I thought I’d bump it up to see if anyone else had any thought?
I do, but don’t have much time to post at the moment. Just wanted to pop in and say that I am about a third of the way into John Reader’s A Biography of the Continent Africa. If anyone has any critiques to share or impressions, let me know. So far I have found it an exceptional history book, very well referenced and footnoted. He begins with geology, moves to the foundations of evolution and man (primate’s) ascent to sentience and culture, infant civilizations and … and… well, I’ll find out when I get there. Seems very well done, though I have a few reservations about some of his evolutionary assumptions / conclusions. These probably stem from his work as a journalist, rather than a scientist. Overall though, he does a good job of synthesizing diverse fields of study. Again, if anyone’s familiar with the work, let me know.
Rhythmdvl
Disease, disease, disease, and…Disease anyone?
I am probably going into International Public Health and Africa is ground zero.
Some of the stuff we learn, see, and hear is incredibly scary.
The West makes the mistake of just thinking about Africa and HIV/AIDS, but there are so many other diseases on that continent that are as just as destructive. Malaria and Tuberculosis, for instance, are two examples.
“The World’s Most Dangerous Places” by Robert Young Pelton goes into historical detail on countries where the “government” is the guy with the biggest gun. It’s quite a good reference, and enjoyably sarcastic, too.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0062737384/qid=977119549/sr=1-1/002-1027039-8638460
A few comments:
I think this is something like third time since I signed up with SD that I’ve seen an Africa going to hell thread. No wonder, of course given the poor general conditions, but I do think people are overgeneralzing and a bit too pessimistic.
A few comments on the main points:
(1) Tribal and Ancient Hatreds. This journalistic device is one of the least accurate characterizations. The Hutu-Tutu example is particularly glaring. We have fairly good historical indications that the “ethnicity” as opposed to social classes of Hutu and Tutsi are the direct result of a concerted campaign by the Belgians, the colonial rulers, to set up permanent divides. In the pre-colonial period, according to what I have read from serious histories, Tutsi was as much a descriptor of elite status as an ethnic label. That is someone of modern “hutu” ethnicity, if they rose to power, became “tutsi” and vice-versa. Rather a medieval system, to my impression, so there was some “blood” talk just like European nobles tried to cover up less than “noble” backgrounds. The Belgians exploited this, and with at least partial complicity of course of the ruling “Tutsi”, helped elaborate a “tribal” even a racial understanding of this. Of course there are records from prior to this and not everyone bought into it, so we know something about how this came about.
Lesson: most “ancient” hatreds, and this goes for the whole world, are not as ancient as the haters like to claim. Usually the history is more complicated. But the haters who are usually also ambitious exploiters (e.g. Hitler) work hard to elaborate a mythology which makes folks feel good about themselves, exploits social tensions and gives a convenient scapegoat. Such is what led to Rwanda’s holocaust in 1994.
Now, for tribes, again, most of what is called “tribal” is nothing of the sort, analytically speaking. Yoruba, Hausa, Xhosa, Ibo. All names you here described in the press, in journalistic books with little deeper learning and the like, described as “tribes.” Rubbish. These are languages. A little history is in order. In the late 19th century Europeans “knew” that peoples=nations=languages. E.g. the following line of though: Germanic dialect speakers should be one “people” — despite religious, cultural, dialectal differences, and they should be one nation etc. Old Romantic Nationalism. (Not the only model around, but the predominant one). They also “knew” Africa had no states, culture etc. (All false of course, as a reading of European sources from the 16,17, and even 18th century would show). Just ‘primitives’ in ‘tribal’ cultures. This of course ignores the multi-ethnic West African empires, to use but one example. But such was the “knowledge” of the day.
So, when colonial rule arrived or was imposed from the 1880s forward, ethnographers/colonial administrators (often one in the same, or working together) and the like busily starting fitting everyone into the preconceived boxes. And as Europeans knew People=Tribe (in Africa)= language, anyone speaking Yoruba for example was assumed to be part of a larger entity called the Yoruba tribe. Of course no such thing had ever existed (rather there were separate kingdoms, some of which were actually multi-ethnic). But tribe it was, and that’s how schools taught, and that’s how colonial life organized folks, no matter the appropriateness or lack thereof. Further, most colonial policy rested on a kind of divide and conquer principal, so one can count on colonial administrators helping sow dissension or rather encouraging inter-ethnic dissension to prevent unified responses to European rule.
The modern things many mistakenly call “tribe” are in fact quite modern phenomena and analytically are really nascent nations, best called ethnic groups. They bear little relation to pre-colonial socio-political structures and are in fact a very modern phenomena. I provide a link to an excellent on-line essay going into this in much more detail:
http://www.africapolicy.org/bp/ethnic.htm
Up until now you’re probably thinking this is all a nitpick. However it radically changes ones analysis of what is going in terms of so-called tribal conflict (which inherently implied a sort of atavism and backwardness): When one understands this as the conflict of emerging modern nations struggling for dominance within one state, one gets a picture which is radically different. It looks like the violent emergence of nations in Europe. The use of the media, everything is quite modern, although not in a good sense. All quite modern phenomena.
Solutions? I’ve long thought that some states are not viable. Not that one has to have nation-states. Belgium works fairly well. But some national identities seem to be made in direct opposition to others within the same state: either one has to find a way to merge them or they have to separate (or they just do on fighting within a weak state.)
(2) Economic Problems I think the posters who have pointed out that Africa is not homogenous and some states are doing fairly well, or at least not too badly, are right on the money. The most serious immediate issues are government structures which are predatory (not in the abusive libertarian sense, but in a moderate analysis.) The vampire state. Corruption, pseudo-socialism as an excuse for rather medieval forms of surplus extraction make many nations positively anti-economic growth. This has to change.
I think we can assign the West partial blame here:
(1) the states themselves are alien creations --all states are of course but here they are consciously understood that way by their own populaces. Not good for state legitimacy. Thanks colonialism
(2) When one looks closely, the rapacious, extractive rule of many governments, whether “left” or “right” looks a whole lot like the way the colonial powers ruled until the mid-1950s when everyone started shaping up under pressure from the anti-colonial movements.
(3) Post-independence support of rapacious parasite-dictators by both East and West helped lock in bad habits. Both East and West extended sweet-heart soft loans to these characters, and now the poor folks who barely dared consider changing their leaders on their own are saddled with immense non-working debt.
On the other hand, one can not excuse African complicity (at least African elites’ complicity) in the game, a series of bad, bad choices and an over-reliance on the colonial issue (* very valid but overused to excuse rapacious behavior * )
There’s also the population explosion issue. Population growth is just too fast for any reasonable amount of economic growth to keep up with it. Everyone needs to get on board in lowering the population growth rates to prevent a real malthusian disaster.
Health: Africa’s a mean place. We evolved there and there are lots of bad boys who know us well. Bad, very bad. I’ve visited a number places on business and personal trips, always manage to suffer. But do recall that the continent is diverse, and recall not every country is suffering the same as the worst of them. E.g. Uganda and Senegal both have aggressive AIDS policies, Uganda having lowered its infection rate, Senegal having preserved a 1% or so infection rate.
Last item:
Pelton’s book is not at all well-researched in re “historical detial”. I would recommend something like Cambridge history of Africa or some of Basil Davidson’s popular books --although he’s somewhat biases as he overcompensates for pessimism and ignorance re the continent.