I was just re-reading Paul Johnson’s “MODERN TIMES”, particularly his chapters on Africa. Unfortunately, most of what he has predicted (for Africa) has come true-trade within the continent (and with the outside world)is steadily shrinking, and no roads are being built to connect the countries. As Johnson says, Africa is reverting to the trade patterns of the 1890’s, even regressing (major inter-country railways lines are just being abandoned).
So what went wrong? Economists of the 1950-60’s predicted rapid economic “takeoff” for most of these countries-afetrall, most have abundant natural resources, and much fertile land, with a long growing season. Yet, the 1980’s and 90’s have brought disaster after disaster-intercine warfare, economic collapse, and the Aids pandemic.
My question: is there any hope for Africa? Why can’t they imitate the Asian model (japan, Singapore, etc.)? and build up their economies-or is Africa destined for a long, slow death?
Even at their worst, the colonial powers at least had peace-what will Africa be like in 10-20years from now?
I agree that Africa seems headed for even worse. We are now living in one of the worst epidemics in world history, with more deaths than the Black Plague of the 1300s, and most of the casualties are in Africa. African economies are collapsing…or I should say collapsed. But even when you’ve collapsed to subsistence farming and barter you can still collapse farther…where subsistence farming is impossible because bandits/soldiers steal everything.
Anyway, Africa looks bleak, and there doesn’t seem to be any countervailing trends popping up. I suppose South Africa is a somewhat bright spot, but Mbeki with his AIDS<>HIV ideas worries me. It wouldn’t surprise me if South Africa becomes another typical Africa dictatorship too.
What mean you this “headed for”?
Anyways. I doubt that South Africa will turn into a dictatorship; there’s still enough internal distrust between the races that neither group would accept a dictator the color of the other group. Far too dangerous.
As for the rest of Africa- I doubt it’s going to get any better any sooner. The colonial powers fucked Africa up massively. Boundaries were drawn to match British/German/French/Belgian/etc. desires, not to match Zulu/Hutu/Tutsi/etc. desires, and there’s a good bit of internal/external strife over that because tribe identity outweighs national identity. Whatever ‘good’ the colonial powers did in bringing roads, internal improvements, government structures, etc. was completely wiped out by the fact that the colonial powers mostly didn’t bother to establish strong training and understanding in the natives, and when the colonials left, everything fell apart because there wasn’t a large enough trained professional class to keep it together.
Countries that have modernization forced upon them- rather than building it up gradually and piecemeal- have serious problems later on. Africa is suffering through that, and I have no clue whether they’ll be able to overcome their current difficulties in order to rebuild.
Another often overlooked factor is geographical. Africa as a whole is a high, flat continent. (relatively speaking)
This means that the rivers are shallow, often rocky, and flow OUT of the interior.
This means that commercially viable transport via rivers is almost impossible.
This is also why the rail systems brought in by the colonial powers were so vitally important- they were the first stable, two way link between the areas of raw material production and shipping centres.
One of the biggest problems vis à vis rail in the African subcontinent is that there is no standarised system. You have English, German, Belgian, French, and American gauge rail lines with little or no connectivity. In addition, the rail lines were designed primarily to ship raw material straight out of the colonies so they neglected the outer areas of the colonies and were not very useful for improving infrastructure or developing inter colony trade
(actually this was strongly discouraged and it shows if you look at a map of rail lines) -hence the abandonment.
My personal view after several trips to Sub Saharan Africa is even more dismal. I see the depopulation of vast areas, the complete breakdown of the current governmental systems we see today and reversion to local force based government.
I also see NGO’s and MNC’s playing a large and negative role in Africa’s future.
I think Somalia is a test case for Africa on a larger scale in the next 20-30 years.
In addition to the points that other posters have raised, one of the biggest problems in Africa’s post-colonial development is that the boundaries of countries and a “democratic” form of government are completely artificial.
What is Zaire? Or Angola? Or Mozambique? The colonial powers drew lines on a map based on their own spheres of power and influence and access to natural resources, not based on groupings of any specific nation or people. “I’m Cote d’Ivoire, because France used to exploit me. I’m Mozambique because Portugal used to exploit me. I’m Zaire because Belgium used to own me,” and so forth.
If you divided the continent up according to ethnic/language groups, instead of about 30 countries you’d have 1,000s of small pockets of people. People who historically have had little reason to join or interact with anyone but their most immediate neighbors. Loyalty is to your immediate ethnic & language group and your locality, not to any central idea of nationhood or statehood. And in many African states (I’d even say “most”), the group in power at the level of the state is largely made up of one ethnic or language group. Internationally, we deal with South Africa. Rwanda. Burundi. Sierra Leone. But these countries are dealing with conflicts between Hutus and Tutsis and Zulus and Kikuyus and Masai - groups of people who are not thinking “what is best for my country” but “what is best for me and my group.”
This problem isn’t unique to Africa - it’s a challenge that has faced other places in the world. A friend and I are IM-ing as I write this and comparing Latin America to Africa - he’s saying Africa is much more messed up than Latin America, and I’m arguing that independent Latin American countries have had almost 200 more years of experience, were colonized largely by the same group of people, and STILL have huge problems with poverty, infrastructure, and economic development - especially with the groups of people who do not speak any “national” language and who aren’t logically part of any nation-state in a modern sense. You have to keep in mind that the map of Africa as we know it hasn’t existed for very long at all – Zimbabwe only gained its independence in 1980. . Constitutional democracy is a very recent concept in Africa, and post-colonial governments were set up by the colonial powers in the way that would provide the country with the most stability at the time they were created, ie. With heavy favoritism toward the elites who were closely aligned with colonial governments, providing fodder for the Marxist movements that came later during the Cold War. The Marxist revolutionary movements provoked response from the West, who generally backed the elites who had been placed in power by the colonists on their way out the door – It didn’t matter if you were democratic or autocratic, as long as you weren’t a communist. These struggles are still going on in Mozambique & Angola, with other countries reverting back to the ethnic conflicts that have always existed. And so on.
That’s a gross oversimplification, but we’re talking about a continent where you have Cape Town, South Africa (looks pretty much like San Francisco) and Timbuktu, Mali and Cairo, Egypt - you can’t really generalize about Africa. Some countries are doing much better than others in terms of democracy, economic development, education, international cooperation. In the OP you talk about roads, transportation, infrastructure – these are exactly the problems in terms of economic development, access to basic services, basic food security. Strengthening rule of law and a sense of national identity is the something that could make economic & infrastructure development, continental AIDS prevention strategies, etc. more possible. Political stability is absolutely essential. How do you achieve that? I don’t know. Term limits for people like Mugabe & Mobutu, for starters. Elections that result in a peaceful and real transfer of power, where the first action of the winner is not to fire, bankrupt, or slaughter everyone who supported the opposing party.
I’m not sure that I’ve answered the OP – Is Africa heading for disaster? Yes, probably. The destructiveness of the AIDS epidemic alone – in terms of political stability, economic development, and human suffering - is amost unimaginable. Are there things that can be done to mitigate the disaster? Yes – my former company is working on a number of USAID programs that build roads in rural farming areas, help farmers improve their practices for subsistence and export, trains government leaders in good practices, institutes famine early warning systems, helps stimulate ecotourism and preservation of natural resources. It’s true that these programs use millions of dollars for often negligible results, but there are success stories and progress - innovative AIDS prevention programs, small business development & microlending programs, indigenous African NGOs promoting sustainable forest management….
I continue to see the worst and hope anyway.
All issues of race aside.
What do you expect from a tribal / looting sort of mentality? Most of the colonial powers that came to Africa were only concerned with what they could harvest from each area. South America is a prime example. Spain, because of its ultra orthodox Catholic hierarchy forbid money lending. This prevented industrialization and investment. Consequently, without an industrial base, Spanish explorers went out and looted every which way but loose. A single glimpse at Mexico or South America confirms the legacy of such a mentality. The same applies to Africa.
Sadly, such a mentality coupled with the AIDS epidemic is a death knell. An African wife who is faithful but nonetheless becomes infected by her philandering husband is still cast out onto the street, with full approval of the community. Another grisly example is the mutilation and amputation of children in the Hutu / Tutsi wars. Such hideous manifestations of tribal mentality will forever doom Africa to a continuing Hell on earth.
One can only hope that education will help to overcome these crippling limitations. Easing of famine and disease will help, but the looting mentality must be eradicated before there is going to be much hope.
I am always amazed by the creativity in survival skills that you find throughout Africa - especially, subSaharan Africa.
You can find all sorts of barriers to economic development in the formal sector [civil disorder and political instability ie war; the remnants of colonialism; the heavy predominance of extraction industries; not everyone is equal under the law; the lack of infrastructure, working education and health systems, the bureaucratic and political kleptocracies that are tolerated because they fit the economic needs of the Industrialized nations; inappropriate development policies from donor agencies and their unwillingness to invest in sewer systems, transport systems, information/communication systems etcetcetc] - in other words, the list is practically endless.
Yet and inspite of these barriers you see products from all over the world in the local markets. Nigeria, according to some economists, has a real economy that is larger than South Africa’s. But what you need to do is look and think out of the traditional economist’s box because much of this activity is the so-called “black market”. IRL, it is the creative entrepreneur who is trying to avoid the corrupt customs and taxation systems that feed the pockets of non productive civil servants. Mali’s economy has been jumping leaps and bounds in the last couple of years, and this is largely in part to the democratic movement, the opening up of the economy, increased flow of information etcetcetc.
I for one do not want to think of Africa as a basketcase because there’s incredible potential. More countries are realizing that girl’s education is a major key to economic growth albeit not on the global scale as IBM and ATT. The internet could possibly be a major savings grace for African entrepreneurs. Check out http://www.yourdotcomforafrica.com for economic news about the continent.
True, not all is good news, but there’s alot more out there than you realize.
maybe they shouldn’t adopt the western value system. importing under-engineered trash that is designed to become obsolete would be a stupid idea.
Dal Timgar
Sounds like a fairly interesting idea, but I’m not sure I completely understand what you mean. By ‘western value system’ are you referring to free market/capitalist economic models? Or do you mean something more philosophical?
I also don’t quite get the ‘under-engineered trash’ comment. I mean, I realize that the Green Revolution was sort of a double edged sword but I doubt that at this point more traditional methods of food production would be able to function in sub saharan africa. Could you elaborate?
Notes on this topic:
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Loss of railways. Part (a large part) of the problem was the uprooting of steel railway lines & spikes by villagers; in order to steal the metal. The rails , spikes & plates were melted down & re-forged as crude agricultural tools. The government of Zaire actually went so far as to make this a death penalty offense. This is more justified than it sounds; people were killed in train wrecks. It didn’t ( & still doesn’t) work. Neither does educational efforts. Either the villagers don’t understand, don’t care, or think they’re being lied to. The rails continue to be ripped up. Africa’s future is being ripped up with them.
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If a “killer” influenza or pneumonia strain crops up, the weakened immune systems of the unfortunate AIDS victims will leave a trail of bodies across the continent. ANY severe strain of respiratory disease will cause this.
Conclusion—I am sadly compelled to predict that Africa’s population will decline over the next 50 years.
Granted there is a point in declining populations, however the most dramatic demographic changes that have occurred can be found in the former Soviet Union and present day Russian, Ukraine etc. This decline has resulted in negative population growth in the recent past - more people died than were born. Why? Basically because the health care system imploded and the gov’t made a series of decisions which increased health risks geometrically. Compound these two factors with alcoholism, Chernobyl, stress, poor quality food and drink services [killer alcohol] and you have an explosive situation. Interestingly enough, these factors go way back to the Soviet timeframe when it was decided that the environment was plastic, pollution didn’t kill people and economic “growth/productivity” was god.
Then to compound the negative impact, central govt planners decided to redefine their health “indicators” to hide the statistical truth that the health status of the average Soviet citizen was tumbling downwards. Example: the infant mortality rate was adjusted to eliminate premature births, children born with physical defects and stillborns. Basically you ended up with “healthy” children representing the bulk of all healthy children. Even this playing with statistics showed that the Soviet Union had a higher infant mortality rate than North America and Europe.
Yes, Africa will be faced with an incredible demographic shift primarily due to HIV/AIDS, but they are not the only ones. Check out Asian infections rates. The big difference is that many more Asians can cover the cost of treatment than can Africans.
there is an essay on the internet called “Economic Wargames” you should not have any trouble finding it with a search engine. i’m having my own private war with economists about it.
on a website called THE DISMAL SCIENTIST someone asked why economics is called the dismal science. i explained this is because economists can’t do grammar school algebra since they ignore depreciation of durable consumer goods. they define depreciation as applying to CAPITAL GOODS ONLY. so the economic losses due to all the cars wearing out in the last 50 years disappears into space. since one meaning of dismal is inept this makes economists inept scientists. an inept scientist is an oxymoron. oxy(gen) moron makes economist hypervintilated idiots since they are on TV constantly talking about economics. i posted this on the DismalScientist and noone responded for 2 weeks. then they locked me out of the site. i swear, economists have no sense of humor.
Dal Timgar
What does this have to do with Africa? Are you saying they’re in the dumps because their huts aren’t worth as much as they were 10 years ago?
Marc
magazine talks about the GDP of countries, using it as the measure of economic growth. i’m saying their equation is wrong. instead of using NDP = GDP - Dcap they should be using NDP = GDP - (Dcap + Dcon). this applies to every country in the world. for countries that import manufactured consumer goods but export natural resources planned obsolescence is especially bad. this applies to every country including those in Africa.
Dal TimgarPlanned obsolesence? The majority of manufactured consumer goods I purchase last for many years. And in fact I don’t usually purchase a new one until the old one wears out or breaks. But how this really hurts Africa is beyond me.
Marc
I’m not an economist but I still disagree with dal_timgar. I don’t think that you can reliably compare econ dev of wildly divergent countries.
I am not quite sure what worn-out washing machines and out of date cars have to do with most Africans - other than the standard timeframe for planned obsolence of cars should be doubled/tripled for Africa, India and Cuba [specific examples that I know of]. Car owners in these three places have been geniuses in maintaining old, diplapidated cars where no spare parts are or have been available for twenty years. We are talking about real spit, bubble gum and wire acts here.
Anyway, the point is that what our standard economists say about economic development should not be applied to Africa without recognition to the fact that much of the economic activity takes place outside of our standard ways of measurement. In other words, I might count all the marbles in my marble bag because I see them; I don’t count all the marbles in someone else’s bag if I don’t go looking for them.
I have a big gripe with the Economist and their MacDonald Index; using the cost of producing a Big Mac in various countries as a reliable indicator of economic comparison. It’s bullshit - catchy, but bullshit.
I’m not an economist or a political historian, but I am a medical student who was born in South Africa. I was back there in May, and boy, things look bleak. I see a number of problems :
The AIDS epidemic. 33% of the population in some parts of Sub Saharan Africa are HIV positive. This will have a number of effects :
- It will destroy an already struggling and in some cases nonexistant health care system.
- With widescale adoption of AZT to prevent perinatal transmission of HIV, the next generation will be a generation of orphans.
With an already struggling infrastructure, economy, and education system, this will lead to staggering unemployement and continued violence and crime from these largely unguided and uneducated unemployed youths. Also, continued growth of HIV infection rate (with no education) and lack of education will prevent any sustainable societal foundation from forming.
No nation in Africa right now can adequately bring itself up by its bootstraps while being surrounded by unstable countries. In South Africa, the economy is battered by unmaintainable borders and a huge amount of refugees. The refugees live in squalid camps with larger populations than the cities they feed – the Cape Flats outside of Cape Town, the endless Johannesburg camps… South Africa gets tons of refugees from Mozambique (floods), Zimbabwe (autocrat and land disputes) and Botswana (highest AIDS rate in the world). This of course exacerbates the problems with AIDS.
More crime and more violence and less education.
The only possible answer that I can conceive of is a grand unifier, of the level of the unifiers and liberators of Europe in the 15-19th century and of South America in the 19th and 20th century. Nelson Mandela, who I consider to be pretty much the greatest leader and hero the world has seen in the 20th century, could have done this if he had not given 27 years of his life to apartheid on Robben Island. Mbeki, although he had the potential to carry out Mandela’s goals, has unfortunately been crippled and tarnished now that South Africa is awakening from its post-apartheid honeymoon. I envision something like the mobilization of population in war, all united in a common front. I’m not advocating facism, but I don’t think Western-style measures can ever get Africa out of its mess within 100 years.
had a history teacher who believed in the need for grand unifiers…won’t unchecked Aids leave the surviving populace in an evolutionary catbird seat?..Why is it Not a matter of race? The same evil European bastards that screwed Africa were in Europe…for longer…and in greater numbers.