Sorry, second paragraph in my post -
Where exactly does the population need to decrease in order **to see corresponding reductions in poverty? Are there certain countries you have in mind? **
Well, I’m no expert, but that hasn’t stopped me in any other thread, so…
WRT the artificial boundaries idea, it seems to be another way of saying that African culture is to blame. Specifically, if the various groups in a region could be convinced to pull together and cultivate a sense of nationhood in themsleves and their children, they could take the first step to solving their festering problems: gaining political stability. Granted, the languages are different, but the groups in a region must share a common geography, history and above all, common interests just by virtue of the fact that they’re there together. Next to this, language differences have, in many other cultures, proved unimportant.
I don’t think it’s language. I think it’s ethnic bigotry and rivalry that keeps ancient divisions alive and Africa a basket case (speaking broadly of course - some parts of Africa are fine). “That group is not to be suffered, even to our own benefit, because they are, have always been, and will always be, the others. It’s tradition.” This is the pettiest of human pettiness. It is shared by all races on all continents. Europe is only now beginning to overcome it (and has not had a particularly great record in this past century on the matter). But Africa suffers from it especially badly, and the deep roots of it are not in colonialism, though colonialism exploited and exacerbated it, and they’re not in cold war politics, though again that certainly didn’t help, and they’re not in the soil, either. It is a part of the ancient African culture (or more properly, the set of cultures that are relevant to the parts of Africa we’re talking about). This is not a failing peculiar to Africans; every culture on earth has had its share of this foolishness, and it took mankind a long time to climb away from it even as much as we have. Even in the U.S. we still struggle with it. Africa has been largely left behind culturally in THIS development, and now it’s having to compete with large, diverse yet united and stable countries in Europe, the Americas, and Asia, and by comparison it looks backward and helpless. That’s what I see as the main problem of Africa.
So how do we, as outsiders, effect such a change? Every time someone tries they are rejected by the Africans as “not understanding” the situation. (The situation being that my grandaddy told me all Hutus are bastards and not to be trusted, and so did all the granddaddies of everyone else around these parts, so how can we possibly get together and build a road - let alone vote for one of THEM however talented and upright he is?). The fact is, I think, we DO understand the situation. Perfectly. That’s why the situation is so damn sad.
On Totalitarianism, Democracy and Political Culture
Bet any nuts you want, but your straw man argument neglects to address the very point which I made in the prior post: totalitarianism is not non-democracy. Your point is non-sensical, given that if we compared the percentage of democratic countries in Europe in 1930 to today we could end up with some equally dismal numbers.
It is not a question of traditional cultures, in which we may generalize to say that most political traditions including the concept of consultation (with elders, with the men, with certain clans, all kinds of systems) much in the way pre-democratic traditional European political cultures might be characterized. Democracy is a new thing in Europe, and still hasn’t reached all corners, as was the development of absolutism in the prior centuries, as was totalinarianism.
On totalitarianism (untrammeled power), well it is another matter entirely from stating that most African societies did not have western style democratic traditions-- we might see it in various imperial traditions but these would be the exceptions. As mentioned before, if one wanted to make a gross generalization but one rooted in the evidence, it would be that many advanced traditional political cultures were characterized by kingly style power checked to various degrees by consultative traditions (in a way we might see the same in pre-modern Europe before the rise of Royal Absolutism).
In other words, Africa’s pre-modern and pre-colonial political traditions can not be said to deviate greatly from what might be called a human norm for stratified societies. Not very different from much of Europe, nor Asia. What counts, as I argued before, is their MODERN political traditions, essentially formed from the Colonial period and its deformation of both European and local political traditions, in a way that looks disturbingly like post-independance African politics, except with less resources.
On Lamb:
I’m supposed to put credence in what a bunch of anonymous yahoos on Amazon write? That piece of garbage the Bell Curve as gets raves there… Please, spare me. Thank, I’ll depend on peer-reviewed literature, be it in history, archaeology or science. I’m sorry, this does not impress me in the least.
On Mobutu:
What part of my prior statements was unclear to you. I refer you to Jan Vansina’s works on the society and cultures of Central Africa, notably the Congo basin, as well as Phyllis Martin’s edited volumes on Central Africa. What seems clear is that pre-colonial societies in the Congo basis were largely non-chiefly, run by councils or with weak chiefs subject to the elders etc. Not highly elaborated societies in large part (excepting the East as I recall, but this is all from memory so I hope some lapses are forgiven).
The Belgians, needing to have local instruments for rule often created “chiefdoms” and appointed “chiefs” according to their needs and desires. Such chiefs of course were not traditional at all, but rather direct conduits for the Belgians totalitarian rule. Belgian rule in fact was so shockingly violent (even by the standards of the day) that the original state, the personal fiefdom of the Belgian king, was mandated to the government of Belgium. In short, the political culture was hardly traditional, but rather something of a composite created to serve Belgian interests (with a fine tradition of bribing the local dignitaries to go along, sound familiar? Robber barronism.)
In other words, Mobutu was not relying on “traditional African tribalism” rather his own updated, anti-European directed version of Belgian created “Neo-Traditionalism” And like Hitler, in some ways a very apt comparision, he was quite adept at finding and distorting bits of past myths, symbols and the like in the service of his quite innovative (in a sick kind of way) despotism.
On Other Matters:
Artificiality of the Boundaries:
First I will say that I entirely 100% agree with those who have noted that European borders are also artificial but I will submit that there is a key difference here (or two)
(1) Because of the explicetly foreign and ‘alien’ origin of the borders, there is a abiding consciousness that the State is not a locally created entity but rather some foreign thing grafted onto the area. I submit that however subjective this is (what is foreign --well I’ll note the European colonizers never made much genuine effort to integrate the colonial state into the culture, so one could say that it remained largely undigested.)
(2) The recent nature of the efforts at state building, we as I believe Magdalene noted, see the violence of state building, while the violent nature of European state building is now in the past, completely naturalized. Note at least one example of a European nation cited, Belgium, has not been around for 100s of years, but rather just over a century, itself an artificial creation of power politics between the emerging German State (created from the 1860s through the 1870s) and France (itself consolidating its populations who through the 19th century did not always speak French! Langue D’oc e.g.) The nation state which emerged from the dissolution of the A-H Empire also were acts of political will.
On "Ancient Differences in African Culture:
APB I’m sorry but this is simply not the case. Your Hutu example being a perfect case insofar as we have ample evidence that the Belgians worked to create Hutu-Tutsi ethnic seperation, where previously there was rather case of continuity (with high class being Tutsi identified regardless of actual "descent)…
Many if not most of these ancient entities, say the Yorubu (as a national identity) are new creations in terms of national identity, much in the way that linguistic identity (I speak language X) was transformed in 19th century Europe into national identity. Unfortunately these hatreds are aspects of new, modern methods of mobilizing people who are coalescing from smaller more localized groups who may or may not identify with folks speaking similar languages/dialects to theirs into the mega-groups known as Zulu, Yorubu, Ibo, etc. And as we have seen throughout the world, such mobilization seems to work best when one has an enemy to contrast oneself against – if only to overcome the other differences which intervene and seperate oneself from the new other.
That’s how a German Nation was created out of a bunch of folks speaking often barely intelligible German dialects and previously seperated by religious identity rather than ethno-linguistic identity Nothing ancient about these thigns. It is modernity in all its ugliness.
On Population and Develoment:
Magdalene, population is key to development. Hall9000 perfectly described the problem. Rapid population increases move at rates well ahead of what one can reasonably achieve in terms of economic progress. Quite simply new mouths, dependants, eat up all the gains from economic expansion, so even as one advances one loses ground. European/North American increases in wealth came hand in hand with lowered rates of population increases Note we are talking rates, not stocks – its not that African is over-populated in absolute terms, its a question of the rate of population growth exceeding rate of economic growth needed to ‘lift all the boats’.
(BTW: it is not always the case that better educated, wealthier families have fewer children. In fact this has historically not been true. Rather in an industrialized economy which allows for better % of children born to survive and which demands higher skill levels, when people perceive payoffs to having less kids and investing more in those few, then you get this relationship. Definately not chicken and egg. The problem is overcoming ingrained culture norms responsive to a higher mortality past.)
AIDS presents a problem: on one hand there have yet to huge population losses and the truly horrofic infection rates are as of yet confined to the Southern cone of Africa. On one hand if lowered rates of population increase come from this, it could have a positive effect for the survivors --in purely economic terms-- but then one has to consider the burden of lost investment (educated folks dying, education being an expensive investment) and the burden of caring for the ill. AIDs, in other words, undermines the benefits of lowering population increase by imposing new, debilitating costs.
In summary: there is nothing ancient about Africa’s problems, and within the specific circumstances of the Continent --which got the short end of the stick in a number of domains, but got lots of mineral resources-- Africa ressembles the history of the rest of the world. The issue becomes how to get out of the negatively reinforcing loop which seems to effect much of the continent – bad environmental conditions, bad political traditions and lack of investments from the same – into a positive feedback loop.
Not easy. I frankly don’t know any easy answers other than supporting the bright spots and hoping good examples shine through.
“The various helvetic tribes coalesced into the Swiss confederation (despite their language differences) a long time ago”
Parts of Switzerland could have just as easily ended up in France, Italy, and/or Germany, and vice-versa. Geneva Canton joined Switzerland in the early 19th century; Campione D’Italia is completely surrounded by Italian Switzerland.
“The Netherlands comprises regions that are actually fairly close ethnically, and they, too, came together for mutual support of their own choices.”
The Netherlands has large Catholic and Protestant populations. Parts of the Netherlands could have just as easily ended up in Germany. Plenty of areas in Africa contain peoples who are “actually fairly close ethnically.”
“If you think that the Flemings and the Walloons have been getting along famously despite their artificial association, you really need to read Belgian history more closely.”
I’m sure you’re right on that point. There is no question that Europe has seen (and still sees) an incredible amount of ethnic, racial, and religous conflict. But the question is about wealth and poverty. There is a relationship between conflict and poverty, but the two things are different.
I would propose comparing the amount of wealth and poverty in Flanders after the fall of Napoleon with that of a comparable part of Africa at the same time.
Quite right, but do note that the Swiss federation came into being from LOCAL efforts. I believe we can more or less say the same for Netherlands. However, Belgium presents a closer case to African affairs, that is largely imposed from the outside for reasons having nothing to do with local realities, even basic political realities. Not inherently insurmountable, but given other influences, a real pain at best.
Much more important in my mind is the degree to which the peoples involved share underlying political traditions which may (stress on may) help ease political integration. One notes that states such as Mali and Senegal, both with strong internal political traditions and to an extent some relation to pre-colonial entities, have been stable since independance. Other states show every sign of having incipent or actual nations within them, e.g. Nigeria really shows signs of being three nations: Yoruban, Ibo and Haus/Muslim. (Note, despite the huge number of languages listed, when one looks closely one finds frequently that there are only a few national languages, sometimes but one. E.g. in Senegal, where I have done business, Wolof is the national langauge while in Mali Bambara is. Unofficial as French retains snob/elite status but there.)
True, however not so different. It is hard to build a stable state and civil society in the context of the effects which I and others have noted above. In that context, it is hard to build wealth, as folks can send their capital elsewhere as quickly as possible. Rather than investing at home, the money flees. And for good reason.
You mean roughly the 1830s? Why? And where on earth would we get the data? It doesn’t strike me as a particularly helpful comparitive method.
On boredom and soporific soliloquies:
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Democracy actually has it’s roots in Europe: the Ancient Greeks?
Look. Get to your point. Wer’e impressed with your lexicon already.
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Your wrong. Europe has a long history of an evolving democracy. Africa does not.
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Well, your a yahoo on the Straight Dope Message Board, and you seem think anyone cares about what YOU have to say.
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I guess that fact that David Lamb won 8 Pulitzer Prizes doens’t impress you either. Why don’t you do more research before trashing someone elses sources instead of trying to bury it with your endless rhetoric?
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Just about all of them. Are you familiar with the concept of editing?
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I was going to help you out and look up customer rreviews of these two authorsm but there were none. Sounds like more people read Lamb’s book.
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You have your sources, I have mine.
So Ugly continues to dig holes
Athenian democracy died before the Romans came, granting for the sake of argument the tenuous claim to a connection between modern Europe and ancient Greece, no real democracies existed in Europe until – well let’s be generous in our definition of democracy and allow that Great Britian was something of democracy in our modern sense by the 19th cnetury. France slid in and out of democratic institutions after the first Revolution. The dominant form of government in Europe until the 1930s was essentially various forms of absolutist states.
If you’re feeling inadequate that’s not my problem.
Right. About a century longer than Africa, unless perhaps we want to start counting traditional councils and the like, but wait, that’s more or less the same historical pattern! In other words, without completely ahistorical telescoping of thousands of years of non-democratic history, there’s not that much difference.
Leaving aside your whinging about my writing which you’re free not to read, I feel very comfortable with my research, since it depends on peer-reviewed literature. Lamb’s book is a popular journalistic account. Not very impressive, although it is a fine account of the 1980s when he was there. So, just to be clear: Peter Lamb is a JOURNALIST, not a historian nor Africanist.
I was once a journalist also, a good ten years ago. That does not make him particularly well qualified to write about, and draw conclusions about African culture and history. Nor would I be particularly well-qualified to write about let’s say the Middle East, where I’m at now, although I’ve travelled through it pretty extensively. I might write something on the contemporary business culture of the Middle East, and for that I might be a real source. But anyone reading my book would be well-advised to take any generalizations about Middle Eastern culture and history.
Lesson: For history and social issues depend on specialists, for news, depend on journalists.
Mobutu:
I fail to see the relevance of ‘customer reviews’ on Amazon, but of course Lamb has them, he’s an easy popular write/journalist. Vansina is an academic doing serious research, including actually looking into the history of the folks he’s writing about. More people read People Magazine than the NYTs but I prefer the less-read source.
I take that to mean you read one relatively uninformed account by a journalist and you find yourself able to dismiss the works of specialists based on this? Very convincing this method of argument.
“You mean roughly the 1830s? Why? And where on earth would we get the data? It doesn’t strike me as a particularly helpful comparitive method.”
Well, the “artificial borders” argument, as I understand it, is as follows: Many African borders were drawn in an artificial way and as a result group together ethnic/racial/religous/linguistic/cultural (etc.) groups that don’t get along. This causes ethnic strife which causes poverty.
I am skeptical about this theory, and my proposed comparison examines the last link in this chain.
According to an earlier poster, who seems quite knowledgable about European history, there was serious ethnic strife in Flanders in the early Nineteenth Century as a result of an “artificial border.” Thus, the “artificial border” theory should predict serious poverty in Flanders at that time. This poverty should rival that in comparable areas of Africa at that time. Thus, the comparison is a test of the theory.
Honestly, I don’t know what the answer is, and I agree that it would be hard to measure the wealth of any place in the 1830s. One can imagine that indeed, Flemish people weren’t rolling in sheckels at the time. At the same time, I would guess that areas in Africa that were experiencing ethnic strife in the 1830s were even worse off. (This is total speculation on my part)
Maybe a better test would be more modern examples. Consider Yugoslavia (or whatever it’s called these days)
You have different groups thrown together, and serious ethnic strife, possibly the worst in Europe in recent years. Certainly former Yugoslavia is not as rich as New Jersey. But how does it compare to the worst areas in Africa?
Another criticism I have of the “artificial borders” theory is that it minimizes or ignores the significance of cross-border strife. I believe this has been a serious problem in both Europe and Africa.
Well the artificial boarders not only group opposing groups together, but it also creates many states which are now land-locked, too small, too big, too few resources, etc.
This seems to be a very simple question to answer … per Sam Kinnison (taking some liberties, since I don’t remember his exact lines) … In Africa alot of people live in deserts, a very easy place to die and stay poor. Deserts are just alot of sand! In America, people don’t live in deserts, and if they did they would move out asap. Well, maybe Sam wasn’t the most learned authority on this subject, but all of these enlightening arguments about borders / racial/ religous/ etc./ seem to be coming up short …
“Well the artificial boarders not only group opposing groups together, but it also creates many states which are now land-locked, too small, too big, too few resources, etc.”
I would argue that there are several Western counter-examples to this aspect of the “artificial border” argument too – Lichteinstein; Luxembourg; 'Jersey, to name a few.
I think you’re extracting one element of the explanation to the detriment of the big picture. I for one have not argued that artificial borders taken by themselves fully explain ethnic strife, etc. However, taken with other factors cited (colonial era distortions of political traditions, poor colonial era examples for modern government practice, truly terrible post-independance economic policies etc.) they help explain a great deal.
Of course the issue is in part that Africa, with the exception of a few tiny bits of land, was not colonized in the 1830s. We’re talking about the 1880s-1890s for most of the continent. Borders were mostly drawn after the conference of Berlin see http://campus.northpark.edu/history//WebChron/Africa/BerlinConf.html for example for a brief resume. Effective occupation of lands claimed often had to wait until the early years of the 20th century.
No, I believe you misunderstood: Belgium currently experiences a degree of Wallon-Flamand tension. The identities of the Wallons and the Flamands had certainly not solidified in the 1830s --that is the concept ethnic-nationalism really is something that is only emerging at that time and had not had time to become a popular phenomena (i.e. the folks on the street have to be mobilized and to an extent propagandized to see themselves as X and dislike Y).
Unfortunately we can not abstract away countervailing influences in Belgium, such as large scale investment in the area during the 19th century, a strong state supported by the French etc. For all that, Belgium was not a terribly rich country, but this has more to do with other factors than ethnic strife which is a more modern phenomena which I believe arose only after a strong state was in place and to an extent democratic traditions were in place. So, in the case of Belgium, we see ethnic tensions channeled into pre-existing and robust democratic political traditions.
Comparable areas of Africa where not existant since no outsiders were drawing lines on maps quite as yet. We have to wait until the late 19th century for that and as mentioned often as late as the first years of the 20th century for effective occuptions of some areas.
Frankly we don’t have the data to do so. But, as I argue above, your premise is flawed.
As noted, you’re comparing apples to non-existant oranges in this framework. A genuine question would be to ask to what extent ethnic strife undermines economic development and compare this between relatively similar areas/time periods. E.g. compare Basque region Spain to other areas, and controlling for variables which might throw things off, ask if roughly, what thirty years?, of seperatist violence has hindered development.
Your methadology here is seriously flawed. Why compare this with the worst areas of Africa?
First, you have to begin with a historical context for Yugoslavia: it emerges out of the Austro-Hungarian Empire post-WWI --quite backward region economically speaking but still gifted with a decent and stable agricultural base, steady rains etc. Occupied by the Germans, Tito’s communist and communist allied partisans were largely responsible for freeing it.
Although there was Croat vs Serb fighting during the war, Tito’s iron grip and commitment to the idea of Yugoslavia suppressed this kind of conflict until he died (1980) and the Federation broke up in the early 1990s. The break up in some ways ressembled what has all too often happened in Africa – leaders of one group, feeling their political base is weakening begin what some specialists have called, with irony, “ethnic entrepreneurism” – meaning they start whipping up (and often creating) ethnic hatred to split their enemies off and solidify their political base. That is more or less what Slobodan did.
As for economics of Yugoslavia, much as the Soviet Union undertook crash industrialization, so to did Yugoslavia. But Yugoslavia also attracted some Western investment in the later years as its “third way” So, by the time ethnic strife breaks out into the open Yugoslavia already has achieved at least a moderate degree of industrialization. It’s benchmark is already higher.
So, historically speaking the area that was Yugoslavia has suppressed ethnic tensions --usually with an iron fist-- and undertaken crash development. The state itself was strong enough for this, and to an extent outside support was used effectively. The real point of comparision is how Yugoslavia (the current one) or the region develops now. Will the region lag becuase of the simmering ethinic conflict? Will growth rates drop?
You have to compare Yugoslavia pre-breakup with Yugoslavia post breakup in order to be sure you’re comparing apples to apples. To test whether borders drawn by outsiders (and this is not fully the case in Yugoslavia) inhibit development, you must compare the region to pre-ethnic strife economic performance or at least to countries at similar levels of development.
Why the quotes? It’s not as if anyone can contend the borders are not highly artificial.
Unfortunately you are on the wrong path here. For a variety of reasons there has been --until the 1990s-- relatively little inter-state strife in Africa. With the exception of the spillovers from civil wars (a case of internal strife -bad borders- spilling over, i.e. supporting the artificial borders rationale) or spill overs from South African apartheid era warfare.
In short, inter-state conflict has not been a serious problem, largely apparently because few states have resources or legitimacy to undertake such.
climate
“Unfortunately we can not abstract away countervailing influences in Belgium, such as large scale investment in the area during the 19th century, a strong state supported by the French etc.”
Are there any parts of the world outside of Africa that can be fairly compared, side by side, to Africa with respect to the “artificial borders” theory?
Well, I should think that perhaps Indonesia? Perhaps South America, but one would have to be careful in making the comparision to control for the many differences (such as large scale settlement, etc) – perhaps most comparable are those areas if any where borders split indigenous polities. I’m afraid I don’t know enough about South East Asia or Latin America to make a truly informed comparision. The issue with Africa is the sheer arbitrariness of many of the borders. All borders are artificial as you note, but some are more rooted in local realities and perceptions, that is they have a local reality.
I don’t think there is another continent where the colonial powers paid so little attention to local realities in drawing lines. A major reason for this was the utter lack of respect which Africa commanded at the time. Everyone “knew”, even specialists, that Africa had no history, that the populations were but savages with no real culture. There was often little understanding or attention paid to the pre-existing polities. This certainly exacerbated the issue.
And once more I think you are making a grave error attempting to abstract away the other issues involved. As I said, the artificiality and lack of local reality for the borders in and of itself is not a sufficient explanation. Only when coupled with other issues as mentioned above in the thread do we begin to understand.
“I don’t think there is another continent where the colonial powers paid so little attention to local realities in drawing lines.”
That may be so, but it seems to me that the “artificial borders” theory, as developed in this thread, is basically unfalsifiable.
“I think you are making a grave error attempting to abstract away the other issues involved.”
I suspect that the “other issues” involve unfalsifiable theories too. Certainly once everything is thrown together, you get a big, fat unfalsibiable theory.
lucwarm, since you are so adamantly against theories that attempt to explain why Africa is poor, perhaps you can give us the reason you believe is the ultimate cause of most of Africa’s poor economic state.
Lucwarm, you’re operating under a paradigm which not applicable to these kinds of issues. While the scientific method is great, we need data which is of a sort not found in historical analysis or even most economic records. So, I’m afraid you’ll have make do with the much fuzzier historical method.
(If you think otherwise, kindly explain how you might propose doing so – that is gathering non-subjective data upon which one could build a falsifiable theory.)
I’m unclear why “other issues” as you put it deserves quotations but again, your standard is not one which can be met with historical or even contemporary social data of this kind. It would be great if it could, but it can’t. So, given that would do not have the data which is necessary here, we have to use, as I said above, other methods, however disappointing they might be.
“your standard is not one which can be met with historical or even contemporary social data of this kind”
“I’m afraid you’ll have make do with the much fuzzier historical method.”
maybe so, but this is why I am skeptical of the “artificial borders” theory - it’s very fuzzy, in the sense that it requires a lot of explaining away of various pieces of evidence. The truth is not always simple, but I am skeptical of any theory that requires these sorts of explanations.
P.S. I am not “adamantly against theories that attempt to explain why Africa is poor,” merely skeptical. But let’s debate over Africa and not lucwarm’s beliefs, ok?
Explaining away? I don’t see any explaining away of evidence at all. If you refer to my replies on whether country x or y is really comparable to African conditions, I must differ. Specification of conditions is not explaining away, rather we are defining the phenomena.
I should add, I don’t believe the issue of artificiality of borders, imposed from the outside with little to no reference to on-the-ground realities, combined with a high degree of consciousness of their foreign derivation among the subject populations is at all fuzzy. Rather we see an issue which has been focused to the specific set of circumstances.
You’re dealing with a highly complex set of phenomena, plus we’re trying to deal with the abstraction of a continent, a highly diverse continent. In fact, I’ll be honest, I don’t think that theories covering the whole continent can be fully satisfying.
If you want a more grounded, satisfying set of explanations you will at least have to look at specific regions, much as we might in dealing with Europe (a smaller area even!). Would one seek a single explanation for all of Europe? I wouldn’t, I might go for say Western Europe, and of course for a more fully satisfying explanation, I would go to the national level.
So, in a sense, I agree that the POV I’ve advanced is not fully satisfying but that’s a feature of the level of analysis which we’re using here.
Well to the extent that you have offered critiques --upon which one can hone one’s explanation certainly-- there comes a point where you have a positive duty to offer at least method of approach. Your critiques have been useful but I too would like to know how you would propose to approach the issue if what you want is something ‘non-fuzzy’.