We’ve done this before. You know very well what I meant by that statement MrDibble.
A few educated leaders do not change an entire population that has been kept from accessing both the educational system and the physical resources necessary to establish a strong, well functioning government. Further, tribalism or sectarian violence is by no means limited to the African continent nor did I ever assert so. However, Africa has a particularly poor track record of ethnic cleansing, genocide, and tribal feuding in the modern period. It is misleading to blame all of that on the mess that the colonial powers have left. We know very well that in the pre-colonial period and during the occupied years, that tribes, ethnic groups, sects or whatever term pleases you, routinely fought amongst themselves. We see a similar problem in many of the post soviet middle eastern/ central asian countries.
Those poor white farmers :rolleyes:. The fact of the matter is that while any such land redistribution policies are vulnerable to corruption by government officials, they are not inherently unfair. If 70% of the fertile land is owned by the whites (who comprise 1% of the population) due to past racist policies, there is certainly a moral and historical justification. And there is no reason to think that Africans don’t have the necessary knowledge–what do you think they were doing before the Europeans got there?
To answer the OP regarding South Africa, most of its current problems are attributable not to overly rapid redistribution of wealth, but the opposite. During the deliberations that established the new democratic government, Mandela’s officials were tricked into accepting economic rules that effectively kept them from enacting redistribution policies or other policies that would indirectly achieve a more equitable distribution of wealth. That is why, despite South African blacks no longer being *legally *relegated to bantustans, many are still living in outside the cities, coming in only to work for the wealthier whites.
The people they’re actually giving the land to weren’t even born “before the Europeans got there.” They’re mostly “veterans,” which in Zimbabwe means former government thugs.
Whatever the wisdom of land redistribution, the specific case of Zimbabwe is a disaster.
I assume you are using Rhodesia/Zimbabwe statistics here?
Leaving aside the moral and historic justification, there is every reason to think that Africans don’t have the necessary knowledge or capability. They didn’t figure out modern commercial farming before the Europeans showed up and in Zimbabwe have screwed up the takeover so incompetently that production has plummeted to the point of precipitation financial crisis and starvation.
What was going on before the Europeans got there was kind of pitiful by any modern method of measure, and it’s rapidly becoming pitiful again post land-reform efforts aimed at correcting those past racist policies.
*“The results of the post-2000 land reform have been disastrous for the economy of Zimbabwe. Prior to land redistribution, land-owning farmers, mostly white, had large tracts of land and utilized economies of scale to raise capital, borrow money when necessary, and purchase modern mechanised farm equipment to increase productivity on their land. As the primary beneficiaries of the land reform were members of the Government and their families, despite the fact that most had no experience in running a farm, the drop in total farm output has been tremendous and produced widespread claims by aid agencies of starvation and famine.[11] Cash crops have similarly suffered. Zimbabwe was the world’s 6th largest producers of Tobacco in 2001.[12] Today, it prduces less than 1/3 of the amount produced in 2000[13], the lowest amount in 50 years.[14] However, Mugabe’s expulsion of the international media has prevented full analysis of the scale of the famine and the resultant deaths. What is not in dispute is that a country once so rich in agricultural produce that it was dubbed the “bread basket” of Southern Africa, is now struggling to feed its own population. A staggering 45 percent of the population is considered malnourished. Foreign tourism has also plummeted, resulting in tens of millions of dollars a year in lost revenue and rampant inflation.[15]”
*
Is it in Africa? Was it a colony? Then no, there’s nothing special about it in the context of threads like these. If anyone makes a statement that SA is an exception to (and it very rarely is the only exception, just the example I use) then they should just stop fucking generalizing about shit they know nothing about.
Then “most people” are idiots. SA has been free for 15 years.
They’d have to be very, very lucky with their search.
Namibia? Kenya? The aforementioned Patrice Lumumba? Samora Machel? Kofi Annan?
Zimbabwe, (very) arguably, Angola is much better off now. So’s Mozambique. And the CONGO? Are you serious? Nothing happening there today compares to its pre-independence history.
Or, perhaps, you are just an old racist; blind to all logic, reasoning and rational thought regarding Africa, Africans or anything to do with anyone that has at least one drop of blood from said people. Yes. I think that this is much more likely.
That is a just a stupid thing to say; both agriculture and animal domestication occurred throughout southern Africa which fit the largely feudal political systems of the region. “Modern” :rolleyes:
South Africa was truly blessed (this is coming from a stone cold atheist) to have had such forward looking black-African leaders; constructive leaders, working to better the lives of all South Africans and lead the country (and even region) into a freely democratic, economically driven, prosperity. For all the barbarically small minded, sickingly destructive, Apartheid era leaders it had to suffer through, South Africa was due for a few good ones. I can only hope that it will continue to elect people who will steer the country right.
I suppose you’d have to over look the +10 million death count (half of all Congolese at the time) during the Leopold years to think that life is worst now. Leopold was Europe’s version of Mao/Stalin without even the “well intentions.”
No, clearly I don’t, as I was responding to what you wrote, not what I should be remembering from other threads. Ibid. is fine for a bibliography, not Great Debates.
I think a few educated leaders can make a big difference. For instance, it means that despite centuries of oppresion and every personal right, you don’t let the people line every single racist fucknugget of the colonial regime up against a wall and give them their due.
No, you didn’t “assert”, you implied. And you then go on to do it again:
Aah, it’s Africa’s record that is “particularly” poor.So, not like, say, Europe (Shoah, Ireland, Kosovo) or Asia(Nanking, Kampuchea,Tibet) then… I’m sorry, but the rest of the world makes Rwanda and Congo look like pikers. Just because the violence in the one is done by machetes, and with tanks and AKs in the other, doesn’t make African genocide & tribal warfare particularly special.
Equally misleading to plead some sort of primitivist exceptionalism.
Without a doubt. The blame falls entirely on the shoulders of Mugabe and his Zanu-PF party. He refuses to hold fair elections, engages in political thuggery, unleashed economic sanctions onto his country, and tons of more stuff. He’s got to go…
…But not in anyway that would destabilize the country even more. He’s got to step down or otherwise voluntarily give up power. I know. That’s close to impossible.
True. It seems that Zimbabwe has suffered from a chronic case of resource mismanagement. South Africa seems to have done quite a bit better. If you look at the maps though, S.A. has managed to ensure a reasonable level of security, while Zimbabwe has not. It probably boils down to poor choice of administration coupled with a lack of communication.
Despite all that, MrDibble, Most of the European countries have managed to revert back to a functioning, reasonably stable society during the times between conflicts. A far greater proportion of the African countries have not managed to do so. Further, “they did it too!” is not even an accepted argument in the playground, much less here I should think.
Even the exception, South Africa, has many features in which it reverts to the rule. Breyten Breytenbach, an Afrikaner writer with impeccable anti-apartheid credentials, (including prison time and marriage to a Vietnamese woman) writes:
sleeping’s glib “Those poor white farmers” has essentially the same racist claim - that members of a group that you dislike have no moral right to object to whatever treatment they receive.
Note also the ongoing attackson Boers with the government looking the other way:
Is the reason “brain drain”? I mean, Afrikans who obtained university degrees had no incentive to stay-so the emigrated to Europe and the USA. Think about it-you have a Ph.D. in chemistry-what do you do? Work as a clerk?
I think Africa’s problems are long term-and the drain of educated people is a big part of their problems.
Leaving aside the inflammatory characterizations about me being racist and stupid, is it your position, then, that Zimbabwe’s farm productivity has not been negatively affected by the land reform efforts? Or is it that while Zimbabwe has failed, hey, a bunch of other places have had famines too, so Zimbabwe’s cannot be from incompetence? Aside from the fact that many of the famines you cite are from natural disturbances particularly in the days when those were harder to control, even if we assume that all of those were also due to incompetence, how does that mean Zimbabwe’s failure is not also due to incompetence?
I have not seen any independent evaluations of the collapse of Zimbabwe farming which do not attribute it all or in part to land reforms and take-over by less-capable non-white farmers. The problem does not seem to be improving.
I ask, therefore: Why is it unreasonable to say there is no evidence that Africans are capable of running the Zimbabwe farms? It’s just total coincidence that they took over and large-scale commercial farming collapsed? This is not an observation about intellectual capacity–it’s an observation about farming capability and governing competence.
With respect to this comment of mine:
(by CP) :
“They (Africans” didn’t figure out modern commercial farming before the Europeans showed up" did you have an example other than
(by orcenio) :
“That is a just a stupid thing to say; both agriculture and animal domestication occurred throughout southern Africa which fit the largely feudal political systems of the region. “Modern” :rolleyes: A stupid comment as proof for another stupid comment.” ?
If that was “modern agriculture” then perhaps that’s why we disagree on how successfully Zimbabwe has implemented their land reform efforts. The whole point of the collapse of Zimbabwe farming is that it has been attributed to an incompetent takeover of modern commercial farms. Weather and climate have always been a part of farming and often a part of famine, but this is not advanced by most as the primary cause of Zimbabwe’s collapse and I have seen no evidence that the land-reform farms are otherwise competently managed. If you have some, by all means post it.
The articles I read run more along these lines suggest that, at best, large-scale commercial farming is being replaced by smallholder farming (A1) with a relatively smaller capacity to produce beyond subsistence levels, and that A2 level commercial farming has had isolated “successes” at best. Here’s the friendliest way to put it I could find:
“On the A2 schemes – aimed at small-scale commercial agriculture – the
economic meltdown of the past few years has prevented substantial capital
investment, and new enterprises have been slow to take off. There are some
notable exceptions, however, where new commercial farming enterprises have
emerged against all the odds, although these have struggled given hyperinflation
and lack of credit. On the redistributed areas of the sugar estates in the lowveld
there is a similarly mixed story, with some new farmers making a go of sugar
production on 30ha plots, often converting some of their land to vegetables and
other crops to spread the risk. However, again, constraints imposed by economic
conditions have put pressure on these new operations; and the estate system,
geared to large scale production, has been slow to respond to the new situation.”
It’s not too hard to read between the lines, look at the overall production success and use the term “failure” instead of “struggling” and “slow to respond.” Deferred success right around the corner is a nice way of saying “failure at present.”
MrDibble (and anyone else who actually lives on the freaking continent we’re talking about): Any thoughts on why Africa is doing worse than the rest of the world?
Most of the European colonial powers had decades to prepare their colonies for independance if that was their desire. So it appears lack of desire rather than lack of time was the issue. And if they hadn’t done any preparation for independance in the previous seventy years, why should they be expected to do anything if they had been given ten more years? So if the Europeans were never going to work on independance the only alternative was for them to get out of the way and allow the Africans to work it out for themselves.
