Maybe post colonial African countries should not have handed over power so quickly.

[sleeping]

@athelas

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.

I never said they have no moral rights. I said that the expropriation of ill-gotten property is justified. Please don’t accuse me of racism, particularly in such a disingenuous fashion.

Note also the ongoing attackson Boers with the government looking the other way:

Uh-huh. Without going too deeply into this, Wikipedia says the following:

A Committee of Inquiry into Farm Attacks was appointed in 2001 by the National Commissioner of Police. The purpose of the committee was to “inquire into the ongoing spate of attacks on farms, which include violent criminal acts such as murder, robbery, rape, etc, to determine the motives and factors behind these attacks and to make recommendations on their findings.”[1] The Committee used the definition for farm attacks as that supplied by the SAPS. The findings were published on 31 July 2003, and the main conclusions of the report were that:

* Perpetrators tended to be young, unemployed black men overwhelmingly from dysfunctional family backgrounds
* Only a small proportion of attacks involve murder
* Theft was committed in almost all cases - in cases where no theft appeared to take place, it was usually because the attackers were disturbed
* White people were not targeted exclusively - in 2001 61% of farm attack victims were white

The Transvaal Agricultural Union (TAU) questioned a number of the report’s findings, claiming that theft and desire for land did not adequately explain some of the attacks.[6]

And what is the TAU?

The Transvaal Agricultural Union of South Africa is a conservative Agricultural Organization with the main goal of protecting private property rights and the safety of South African farmers. It seeks to protect the agricultural sector in South Africa against what it perceives to be the attacks by communism. The vast majority of the TAU-members are Boer/Afrikaner descent.

It bears mentioning that Human Rights Watch has concluded that:

Murders on farms (of owners, or of workers by owners) are given an individual attention that many other killings are not.
…
Continuing racism, racial discrimination, and racial tension combine with gender discrimination to establish complex patterns of dominance and oppression of black women. While violence against women of all races was historically tolerated in South Africa, as in many other societies, by law and custom, violence against black women (whether committed by white or black men) was especially ignored. Under apartheid laws and practices, “Violence against women was perceived as violence against white women, implicit in that the violence was undertaken by black men. As a result, instances of black men raping white women received greater attention and were treated with severity and racist intolerance by the state. One of the consequences was that, for example, far more black men have been hanged for raping white women in South Africa, than have white men been hanged for raping black women.”
…
Because white farm owners have historically had a close relationship to state institutions, including the police and justice system, and continue in many areas to do so, and because they are economically much more powerful than their black neighbors, they continue to have a privileged relationship to the system. White farm owners and white members of the security forces in the rural areas (sometimes the same people), socialize together and often have family links. It is unlikely, as demonstrated by this report, that those same security force members will act swiftly against one of their own, and probable that they will believe the word of another white person over that of a black farm resident. Even where black police officers have been promoted to become station commissioners, the economic reality of rural life remains much as it has always been, and acting against locally powerful figures a potentially dangerous activity. Moreover, a police officer is likely to need the cooperation of white farmers in so many aspects of his or her work–including in some cases the loan of vehicles–that it is easier to turn a blind eye to abuse than to act against it. For the same reasons, complaints by farm owners of criminal activity affecting them usually receive priority attention.

As usual, racism against blacks is overshadowed by false or exaggerrated stories of black crime, to the extent that reality is inverted. Just like blacks hurricane victims in New Orleans were called looters while bands of white supremacists roamed the suburbs, threatening, shooting, and murdering any blacks they came across.

[BrainGlutton]

@orcenio

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.

It might not make any difference anyway. From what I’ve read on this board and elsewhere, Mugabe is now a figurehead for a military kleptocracy. You know how hard those can be to dislodge – look at Burma.

[Dissonance]

@Markxxx

The problem actually came back from WWII. Britian, France, Belgium and Italy were shown to be declining nations.

Subjegated people suddenly woke up and said “Hey these are losers and they’re ruling US???”

I’d even go a war further back than that. Desperate for manpower to keep feeding into the meat grinder that was WW1, Britain and France raised hundreds of thousands of troops from their colonies in Africa, India and Asia and for the first time used them not in some far flung part of the empire, but in Europe. Something was clearly going amiss when the colonizers were asking the colonized to help save them by fighting in France, and it didn’t go unnoticed. If you were to tell someone from Victorian era England that India would have 140,000 soldiers fighting in France and another 700,000 in the Mediterranean, or tell a Frenchman from the same era that 200,000 Senegalais would be fighting for them on France soil they’d look at you like you’d gone mad.

[MrDibble]

@coffeecat

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?

A combination of several factors: colonial past, communism in the 70s/80s, capitalism now (esp. the US, French and Chinese going after primary resources at the expense of locals), the twin evils of Christianity and Islam, AIDS, and generally denuded soils and shitty climates. Most of Africa straddles the equator and tropics and is* not* the ideal place for people to live. BUT Africa isn’t, in my opinion, doing worse than a lot of other places in Asia and South America. I’d definitely rather live in South Africa than China, or Burma, or Russia, or Colombia, or India. The global recession has hit South Africa very lightly, for instance.

[MrDibble]

@Acid_Lamp

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.

Oh, *sure *- after 1500 years or so of never-ending warfare, you think 10 goddamn years of peace is the statistically significant bit. Oh, wait, there’s Chechnya, and Georgia. Bias much? The only “time between conflicts” were between World Wars and after the fall of Communism (although N. Ireland was still a warzone then), AFAICT. Hardly a good sample size compared to the death camps, the rape camps, the nuclear stand-off, the world wars, the civil wars, the terrorist attacks…the list goes on. Africa is just a slow starter - we’re new at this “Nation State” game, can’t expect us to leapfrog all the Western World’s “successes” in 20-30 years, now can you?

A far greater proportion of the African countries have not managed to do so.

…because they’ve not had the time “between conflicts” - for instance, where’s the international military force in Darfur, comparable to the one in Kosovo? Where’s the Marshal Plan for Mozambique, after their civil war? Talk to me when there’s been 2 centuries of post-independence conflict, like France enjoyed post-monarchy.
[/quote]
Further, “they did it too!” is not even an accepted argument in the playground, much less here I should think.
[/QUOTE]
*You *were the one claiming there was something different about Africa, when you use loaded terms like “particularly poor track record”. Don’t be surprised if I call you on it.

[Chief_Pedant]

@MrDibble

• (to the question of why Africa is doing worse than the rest of the world)* A combination of several factors: colonial past, communism in the 70s/80s, capitalism now (esp. the US, French and Chinese going after primary resources at the expense of locals), the twin evils of Christianity and Islam, AIDS, and generally denuded soils and shitty climates. Most of Africa straddles the equator and tropics and is* not* the ideal place for people to live. BUT Africa isn’t, in my opinion, doing worse than a lot of other places in Asia and South America. I’d definitely rather live in South Africa than China, or Burma, or Russia, or Colombia, or India. The global recession has hit South Africa very lightly, for instance.

Any chance their various issues are a result of not being able to manage themselves successfully? Is it total victimhood of the otherwise innocent and capable? SA got a huge financial head start under the previous regime, racist though it was. The rest of sub-saharan Africa seems to have been at the mercy of the rest of world and the climate gods, in your scenario. I do note that what infrastructure there is for the modern world–transportation, educational systems, production, resource utilization…–seems to have been initiated and built by the same colonial past, comunists and capitalist outsiders (many of them Christians, Muslims and various other outside evil religions).

Do you have an estimate that Africa would be an equal player on the world stage by now had it not been for those infernal outsiders gumming up the continent? By way of comparison, China owns $800 billion dollars of the US debt and has a viable space program…India outsources their IT and Healthcare to “developed” countries to the tune of millions of dollars/year… stay tuned.

[MrDibble]

@Acid_Lamp

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.

It also is compounded by the fact that the productive parts of SA sit mostly in the temperate zone, so are somewhat more immune to drought compared to wholly-tropical Zimbabwe. Despite all the finger-pointing at land reclamation (which *is *a big contributor) the biggest culprit in Zimbabwe right now is the drought, and has been for a few years.

[MrDibble]

@Chief_Pedant

Any chance their various issues are a result of not being able to manage themselves successfully?

Partly - but again, how are you going to seperate that out from colonial education systems, communist ideology and current capitalist incentives not to rock the boat?

Is it total victimhood of the otherwise innocent and capable? SA got a huge financial head start under the previous regime, racist though it was.

Umm, no, the Whites handed over a huge deficit, actually. It’s been under the ANC that the revenue service has actually gone from deficit to surplus.

The rest of sub-saharan Africa seems to have been at the mercy of the rest of world and the climate gods, in your scenario.

Not just climate - geology & geography have combined to make S-S Africa not a good place for e.g. commercial farming of grains.

Do you have an estimate that Africa would be an equal player on the world stage by now had it not been for those infernal outsiders gumming up the continent?

No - if you got the sense of that from what I wrote, you’re reading it wrong. I think Africa as a whole is handicaped by its geography, and was always going to be at a disadvantage compared to Europe and the US. I subscribe in broad terms to the “Guns, Germs and Steel” reasoning for this. Colonialism and continued interference exacerbate this, but they aren’t the root cause.

[Qin_Shi_Huangdi]

If the colonial governments of Europe had been more humane and concerned about locals and built up more infustructure and educated the locals than the colonials would be less likely to break away and the world would be closer to unification. But even than decolonization has happened too fast and even South Africa has due to AIDS has it’s life-span decline to the mid 40s. And now the President of South Africa is a polygamist, anti-white, communist Robert Mugabe-wannabe who acts like a tribal chieftain rather than the President of a Westernized, civilized state. Not being racist here (for instance I think Nelson Mandela is a great man)

[Acid_Lamp]

@MrDibble

Oh, *sure *- after 1500 years or so of never-ending warfare, you think 10 goddamn years of peace is the statistically significant bit. Oh, wait, there’s Chechnya, and Georgia. Bias much? The only “time between conflicts” were between World Wars and after the fall of Communism (although N. Ireland was still a warzone then), AFAICT. Hardly a good sample size compared to the death camps, the rape camps, the nuclear stand-off, the world wars, the civil wars, the terrorist attacks…the list goes on.

snip

So what? Despite all those horrors and atrocities, they still managed to keep a semblance of order and economic stability. What is the major difference then?

@MrDibble

Africa is just a slow starter - we’re new at this “Nation State” game, can’t expect us to leapfrog all the Western World’s “successes” in 20-30 years, now can you?..because they’ve not had the time “between conflicts” - for instance, where’s the international military force in Darfur, comparable to the one in Kosovo? Where’s the Marshal Plan for Mozambique, after their civil war? Talk to me when there’s been 2 centuries of post-independence conflict, like France enjoyed post-monarchy.

Further, “they did it too!” is not even an accepted argument in the playground, much less here I should think.*You *were the one claiming there was something different about Africa, when you use loaded terms like “particularly poor track record”. Don’t be surprised if I call you on it.
[/QUOTE]

No I said that Africa as a whole has had a poor record in the modern period, and even by your own admission above, it has. Most of those countries have also been unable to recover or stabilize any sector of their government or economies for any meaningful length of time. Climatic changes certainly play a large role, but a competent government can work around those problems. It takes more than a few people to effect the sort of cultural shift that will need to occur for many of these countries to pull themselves out of the hole they are in. It will take one, if not several of the human factors to be resolved to enact change. If you note that in my first post in this thread, I pointed out that it was unreasonable for us to expect nation-state politics from the mess that was left by the colonial period.

That doesn’t excuse the current regimes from their responsibility to their peoples. That doesn’t excuse rampant cronyism and corruption. It doesn’t excuse abuse of military resources to fight old ethnic conflicts. It doesn’t excuse vast misuse of natural resources. That is not the actions of a “slow starter” It is the actions of non starter. Instead of whining, why don’t we try to figure out HOW to get some stability, education, security, and competency into the mix?

[Chief_Pedant]

@MrDibble

(by CP : “SA got a huge financial head start under the previous regime, racist though it was.”)

It’s been under the ANC that the revenue service has actually gone from deficit to surplus. Not just climate - geology & geography have combined to make S-S Africa not a good place for e.g. commercial farming of grains.

As far as SA, I was talking about the net wealth of nations, including infrastructure-related things such as modern cities, communications and industrial development; not necessarily annual budget. By measure of total annual deficit and national debt owed, the US is the poorest nation in the world.

On the (Jared) Diamond front: I remain unconvinced. Zimbabwe is an example of arable land undeveloped at a commercial farming level before colonialization; SA itself is an example of colonialization (or, at least, settlement by outsiders) creating what the indigenous crowd did not. There are countless examples of raw material development, tourism and financial centers that have been developed in countries without whatever it is that sub-saharan Africa is also lacking.

There is always someone or something to blame if you are in any position other than first. It’s my observation that the least productive thing is to fix that blame elsewhere and the most productive thing is to take personal responsibility. A topic for IMHO, perhaps.

[Hari_Seldon]

The question is obviously complicated. The failures in Africa have many causes including insane boundaries and so on, but I think failure to involve the people in the government for a generation or more before handing over power is the main cause.

Let me recount some of the history of Barbados, a land that I love and that has a very stable govenment. This island has many advantages of which one is a high literacy rate since the 19th century. They had limited self-fule since the 1940s with a parliament modeled on the British and a British Governor who had the right to disallow acts of parliament (I have no idea if it was ever exercised). They developed political parties and a political system until around 1960. There was a short-lived Caribbean Federation, but by 1965 they were fully self-ruled. But the transition to self-rule was guided by the British governor. They respected him so much that after independence, when they could have chosen a native Bajan as Governor-General (that is, the queen’s representative to Barbados) they freely chose the old governor.

Of course, in Africa, the colonial powers resisted turning over power to the natives till they could no longer resist. The Bajans came to self-rule gradually and, although there was an Independence Day, the actual transion to self-rule was smooth and gradual.

Of course, if you read English–not mention British–history, all the civil wars, beheading of a king, wars of succession, etc., you realize that the transition to self-rule there was anything but smooth and took, literally, centuries.

[Belowjob2.0]

Of course, if you read English–not mention British–history, all the civil wars, beheading of a king, wars of succession, etc., you realize that the transition to self-rule there was anything but smooth and took, literally, centuries.

As did the rest of Europe.

[Chen019]

I think Africa as a whole is handicaped by its geography, and was always going to be at a disadvantage compared to Europe and the US.

As Gerhard Meisenberg points out here, one of the interesting things is that in the mid 20th century it was predicted that resource rich Africa would flourish with independence. Meanwhile it was expected that Asian countries and India would struggle with overpopulation. There was also an interesting comparison recently between Singapore & Jamaica, which were in a similar position 40 years ago:

Both are relatively tiny states, with under 5 million residents apiece. Upon Singapore’s independence in 1965—three years after Jamaica’s own establishment as a nation—the two nations were about equal in wealth. Both nations had a centrally located port, a tradition of British colonial rule, and governments with a strong capitalist orientation. (Jamaica, in addition, had plentiful natural resources and a robust tourist industry.) But four decades later, their standing was dramatically different: Singapore had climbed to a per capita GDP of $31,400, while Jamaica’s figure was only $4,800.

Rindermann has found that the macro-social level cognitive competence is more important than economic liberty for the economic growth of nations (Rindermann, 2008a) and it is more important than wealth for the democratic development of countries (Rindermann, 2008b). And intelligence seems to be a sensible measure of development up to indicating failing societies.

That could be a factor here, as Meisenberg commented below:

We already have a profusion of theories that postulate Darwinian evolution as one (but never the only) element in human history. Richard Lynn (2007) uses genetics in an attempt to explain the large-scale patterns of human history: why civilizations developed when and where they did. Others postulate the Darwinian evolution of “capitalist” traits (presumably including intelligence) in pre-industrial England (Clark, 2007, pp. 112-132; Clark & Hamilton, 2006) and elsewhere (Galor & Michalopoulos, 2006), or to explain more broadly the ups and downs of civilization over the last millennia (Meisenberg, 2007). Some theories propose that differences between present-day populations are of ancient origin and rather stable (Lynn, 2006) while others consider them changeable and of recent origin (Clark, 2007; Galor & Michalopoulos, 2006; Meisenberg, 2007). Some expect them to be large because of directional selection (Lynn, 2006), and others expect them to be small because of stabilizing selection (Meisenberg, 2007, pp. 269-279).

Why do these theories exist? Because the traditional social science model, which rejected genetic explanations during the first two decades of the 20th century, has failed. Gene-free theories cannot fully explain why civilizations arose when and where they did, why some advanced and others regressed. They cannot explain why the Industrial Revolution occurred in England rather than Japan, New Guinea or Madagascar, or why Asia and Africa fell behind in the “Great Divergence” that began in the mid-19th century. During the 1950s, experts predicted a great economic boom for the resource-rich, newly independent countries of tropical Africa, and gloom and doom for China, India and other overpopulated Asian countries.
When a scientific paradigm consistently fails to explain and predict even the most fundamental phenomena, we must question its fundamental assumptions. The genetic theories make reasonably specific predictions about differences in allele frequencies between human populations and can therefore be tested by the study of allele frequencies in living and fossil populations. Science is based on the falsification of theories. If you don’t like the genetic theories, why don’t you try extra hard to falsify them by creating and analysing ever more detailed genomic data sets? It is disingenuous if people who claim to disbelieve any or all of these theories indignantly refuse to test them.

http://network.nature.com/groups/naturenewsandopinion/forum/topics/3871?page=6
Rindermann, H. (2008a). Relevance of education and intelligence at the national level for the economic welfare of people. Intelligence, 36, 127-142.

Rindermann, H. (2008b). Relevance of education and intelligence for the political development of nations: Democracy, rule of law and political liberty. Intelligence, 36, 306-322.

‘The impact of smart fractions, cognitive ability of politicians and average competence of peoples on social development’ Rindermann et al

http://www.iratde.org/issues/1-2009/tde_issue_1-2009_03_rindermann_et_al.pdf

[Belowjob2.0]

Rindermann has found that the macro-social level cognitive competence is more important than economic liberty for the economic growth of nations (Rindermann, 2008a) and it is more important than wealth for the democratic development of countries (Rindermann, 2008b). And intelligence seems to be a sensible measure of development up to indicating failing societies.

So Russians are markedly less intelligent than their neighbors in Europe and China?

[even_sven]

If Colonialism has nothing to do with anything, why is it that around the world former British colonies almost always are more prosperous and stable than, say, former French colonies? Can you really argue that Nigerians are just naturally smarter than the Benin to the left and Cameroon to the right?

It’s absolutely one reason. The British colonized to create markets for British goods. For that to work, they needed to create a middle class who could buy these things. So the British invested in education, transportation and other things that make markets possible. As a result, these nations were left with an educated bureaucratic class and thriving markets.

The French colonized primarily to gain access to natural resources. They basically mined the countries they were in, and did not invest much in infrastructure, relied on local warlords to keep order over areas they didn’t want to bother with, and created export-only markets. To this day French colonies are not surprisingly ruled over by warlords with export-only markets and little infrastructure.

Colonialism’s legacy is still with us today. Even in Cameroon, the two British colonized provinces are leaps and bounds more functional than the Francophone provinces. This stuff wasn’t long ago, and it still matters today.

@orcenio

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.”

Yeah. Dude. The Beligian Congo invented the whole cutting off hands for no reason thing. It’s widely understood as among the darkest periods of human history.

[QUOTE=Acid Lamp]
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.
[/QUOTE]

Yeah, thanks to massive amounts of money and most importantly, the careful cultivation of markets and democracy. That never happened in Africa! Instead, we killed off their democratically elected leaders and armed dictators, and we worked around the free market to get exclusive access to natural resources without having to deal with pesky comptetition.

[Chen019]

So Russians are markedly less intelligent than their neighbors in Europe and China?

If you look at the data from the ‘smart fraction’ paper, there top 5% average 118 (based on TIMSS & PISA data). That compares reasonably well with other European and Asian countries. See page 12 for the data across countries. From the discussion:

As other studies before have shown, there are large cognitive ability differences between
societies. They are reflected in the upper and lower levels, but East Asian and Commonwealth
countries seem to have comparatively stronger smart fractions than Scandinavian or other
First-World-countries. Maybe these countries not only benefit from their educational policies
and, especially in East-Asia, from harsh educational efforts with very extensive studying times
per day, week, year and youth, but also from a more successful migration policy. Beneath
cultural background factors relevant for education in family and school genetic factors could
be important, but genes for cognitive ability are not known up to now.
The ability value (intelligence, knowledge and the intelligent use of knowledge) of the smart
fraction (95th percentile, comparable to an IQ 125 or higher in within-country norms) is more
important for country differences in wealth, nations’ intellectual excellence (in STEM fields:
patents, Nobel Prices in science, scientists, high technology exports) and political attributes
of societies (government effectiveness, democracy, rule of law and political liberty) than the
average ability or the ability level of a non-smart fraction (5th percentile, comparable to an IQ
75 or lower in within-country norms). But the cognitive ability level of the non-smart fraction is
more important for country differences in HIV, AIDS and homicide. Wealth differences
between countries could be completely explained through differences in high intellectual
achievement in STEM fields, which itself largely depends on differences in smart fractions
ability. The smart fraction is essentially relevant for beneficial societal development…

http://www.iratde.org/issues/1-2009/tde_issue_1-2009_03_rindermann_et_al.pdf

[Belowjob2.0]

@Chen019

If you look at the data from the ‘smart fraction’ paper, there top 5% average 118 (based on TIMSS & PISA data). That compares reasonably well with other European and Asian countries. See page 12 for the data across countries. From the discussion:

http://www.iratde.org/issues/1-2009/tde_issue_1-2009_03_rindermann_et_al.pdf

So you completely missed the point?

[MrDibble]

@Curtis LeMay

And now the President of South Africa is a polygamist, anti-white, communist Robert Mugabe-wannabe who acts like a tribal chieftain rather than the President of a Westernized, civilized state.

Actually, Zuma’s proving to be quite a capable, concilliatory president who has made some excellent ministerial choices, thankfully reversed the previous gov’s ridiculous AIDS policy and seems to be juggling the communists vs the radicals with some aplomb. This is surprising all of us, I can tell you!

[MrDibble]

@Chief_Pedant

As far as SA, I was talking about the net wealth of nations, including infrastructure-related things such as modern cities, communications and industrial development; not necessarily annual budget. By measure of total annual deficit and national debt owed, the US is the poorest nation in the world.

No, even infrastructure-wise the White regime gutted parts of it just before '94, and even before then, the infrastructure was entirely built to suit the needs of a minority. The post-94 gov has done great strides in electrification and housing where the previous gov. couldn’t be arsed.

On the (Jared) Diamond front: I remain unconvinced. Zimbabwe is an example of arable land undeveloped at a commercial farming level before colonialization;

…and wholy unsuited for the commercial farming it then got. Droughts are endemic to the region.

Also, let’s not forget that the “commercial farming” being touted as such a model of success for White Zimbabwe was fucking tobacco. Great, maybe they should have switched to poppies…