So what went wrong in post-colonial Africa?

[DrZoidberg]

While colonies the European powers did their best to make sure that no homegrown African rule movement could take root. Ruthlessly crushing any opposition. And just being outrageously racist and horrendous. After WW2 both the super powers were ideologically opposed to colonialism, and both encouraged African nationalist movements to assert themselves. Which they did. So a mostly leaderless continent were handed the keys and then went onto fuck it all up.

In hindsight it's pretty clear that a big reason it all went to fuck was the cold war. Both superpowers preferred having their personal puppet in power. Democracy, or even just being a competent ruler was no valued. Only loyalty. Various big men/kleptocrats played the super powers off against each other to stay in power. After USSR folded USA stopped propping up dictators just for the hell of it. At this point the big men had instead to rely on actually being good leaders. And the development toward democracy, eradication of corruption and good sensible economic policies has been fairly rapid since. Mostly.

But not everywhere. For a place like Burundi, why is it still crap? How come Zimbabwe still sucks? I get that Mugabe is the problem. But how come he manages to cling to power? Few other African dictators manage to. What's his special super power? How come the Central African Republic can't get their act together? It looks like they're stuck in the 70'ies. There's still the odd dictator here and there riding it out.

So many questions.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

What went wrong? The Colonial part of it. You can't fuck up a continent for centuries and expect Democracy to win out in a couple of decades. South Africa was seemingly a fucking miracle, and a testament to Nelson Mandela and what a man with great intentions can achieve if he has the ability, will, and tools.

 

[dismal]

What went wrong? The Colonial part of it. You can't fuck up a continent for centuries and expect Democracy to win out in a couple of decades.

Yeah, this explains why North America and Australia are such shitholes.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Once corruption takes hold of a government, it's very hard to root it out because the people receiving the money from the corruption are the ones who'd need to do something in order to get rid of it. The world powers have been dumping cash into the area to prop up various dictators to use as chess pieces in their conflicts with other powers and don't care what happens with that money beyond their own limited political goals being met, so the elites of those countries just take the cash and don't do fuck all for their people. That makes the people angry and this problem is solved by giving more money to the dictators to put them down so that the world powers' political goals aren't compromised by a bunch of nobodies selfishly demanding to eat and other bullshit like that.

 

[Nice Squirrel]

What went wrong? The Colonial part of it. You can't fuck up a continent for centuries and expect Democracy to win out in a couple of decades.

Yeah, this explains why North America and Australia are such shitholes.

So a hundred years of home-rule of emigrant populations from the metropolis had nothing to do with that?

 

[DrZoidberg]

What went wrong? The Colonial part of it. You can't fuck up a continent for centuries and expect Democracy to win out in a couple of decades.

Yeah, this explains why North America and Australia are such shitholes.

mmmm. USA did vote for Trump. The Robert Mugabe of the western world. Just sayin'

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Yeah, this explains why North America and Australia are such shitholes.

Interesting. What in the heck do North America and Africa have in common (other than being Continents)? One involved governing a generally newly inhabited territory, the other trying to rule over an already inhabited territory. Seriously dismal, WTF?! Are you even trying anymore?

 

[LordKiran]

[YOUTUBE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs[/YOUTUBE]

Not directly relevant but it might provide some insight into how dictatorships have proven endurable.

 

[DrZoidberg]

ISIS is a good example of a regime with almost no local support, but which manages to cling to power through nothing but sheer brutality and terror. Regimes like that can be stable. North Korea for example. But without external support, it is hard. As the democratisation wave washing over Africa shows.

 

[dismal]

Yeah, this explains why North America and Australia are such shitholes.

Interesting. What in the heck do North America and Africa have in common (other than being Continents)?

Colonialism.

 

[LordKiran]

Interesting. What in the heck do North America and Africa have in common (other than being Continents)?

Colonialism.

You know there are different types of colonialism right?

They didn't send people to settle Africa (South Africa being the only notable exception) They sent people to work there the same way we send people to work an oil rig.

- - - Updated - - -

ISIS is a good example of a regime with almost no local support, but which manages to cling to power through nothing but sheer brutality and terror. Regimes like that can be stable. North Korea for example. But without external support, it is hard. As the democratisation wave washing over Africa shows.

But they're not. As we type, ISIS is being driven down into the mud because holding power in the face of foreign occupation is impossible without local support. The Caliphate will likely not even last a decade. By that metric their regime was poorly conceived and a failure from the start.

Edit: Also the Kim dynasty absolutely does bribe it's administrative and military officials. The entire city of Pyongyang is dedicated to this exact pursuit

 

[Crazy Eddie]

What went wrong? The Colonial part of it. You can't fuck up a continent for centuries and expect Democracy to win out in a couple of decades.

Yeah, this explains why North America and Australia are such shitholes.

They WERE shitholes when they went independent. It took them both almost a hundred years to STOP being shitholes, and they both basically did it by enslaving millions of people, fighting dozens of wars, and raping and pillaging indigenous populations and stealing their resources. Same kind of crap that's happening in Africa RIGHT NOW.

To our credit, the United States has ceased to be a shithole and has become, instead, an asshole.

 

[LordKiran]

Yeah, this explains why North America and Australia are such shitholes.

They WERE shitholes when they went independent. It took them both almost a hundred years to STOP being shitholes, and they both basically did it by enslaving millions of people, fighting dozens of wars, and raping and pillaging indigenous populations and stealing their resources. Same kind of crap that's happening in Africa RIGHT NOW.

To our credit, the United States has ceased to be a shithole and has become, instead, an asshole.

By what metric do you deem late 1700s America to be a shithole? (I assume we're excluding Mexico, Canada, and British Colombia)

 

[dismal]

Colonialism.

You know there are different types of colonialism right?

Surely you intended to address this at Higgins? You know, the guy who said the problem with Africa was colonialism?

 

[Bronzeage]

One of the recurring factors which obstructs African progress is the arbitrary borders imposed on the former colonies. One of the aspects of empire building is lumping together people who have no inherent geographical or cultural unity. A lot of the long lasting political fights in Africa are rooted in tribalism. European mapmakers split tribes and invariably left one tribe as a minority under the domination of another.

 

[Trausti]

One of the recurring factors which obstructs African progress is the arbitrary borders imposed on the former colonies. One of the aspects of empire building is lumping together people who have no inherent geographical or cultural unity. A lot of the long lasting political fights in Africa are rooted in tribalism. European mapmakers split tribes and invariably left one tribe as a minority under the domination of another.

Hang on. Are you saying that diversity is not strength? That's modern day heresy.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Interesting. What in the heck do North America and Africa have in common (other than being Continents)?

Colonialism.

In hindsight USA not turning into a dictatorship (as happened in France) was just down to an incredibly string of lucky coincidences. It could easily have turned to shit at any point up until USA started to become affluent (ca 1870 and onwards). The South American colonies were almost identical in their make-up of USA, and modelled their revolutions on the American model as well as using the American constitution as template. They proved that the US constitution is terrible and wide open to abuse.

Australia (and Canada) didn't turn into dictatorships because they had already a stable parliamentary system in their countries at the time of independence, as well as a well established free press. Also when they became independent the entire administration didn't pack up and leave for Britain. In hindsight, this is how you de-colonise and leave a stable democracy when you leave. You de-colonise step by step. South Africa is a good example.

 

[DrZoidberg]

ISIS is a good example of a regime with almost no local support, but which manages to cling to power through nothing but sheer brutality and terror. Regimes like that can be stable. North Korea for example. But without external support, it is hard. As the democratisation wave washing over Africa shows.

But they're not. As we type, ISIS is being driven down into the mud because holding power in the face of foreign occupation is impossible without local support. The Caliphate will likely not even last a decade. By that metric their regime was poorly conceived and a failure from the start.

Edit: Also the Kim dynasty absolutely does bribe it's administrative and military officials. The entire city of Pyongyang is dedicated to this exact pursuit

ISIS and Kim cling to power in the same way. It's all about bribing the army. ISIS even legalised sexual slavery for use of their most critical troops.

Kim only survived because they were backed by China. ISIS is dying because they're under assault. Without external enemies I'm convinced ISIS could survive quite cheerfully indefinitely. It's an extremely brutal terror regime.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

They WERE shitholes when they went independent. It took them both almost a hundred years to STOP being shitholes, and they both basically did it by enslaving millions of people, fighting dozens of wars, and raping and pillaging indigenous populations and stealing their resources. Same kind of crap that's happening in Africa RIGHT NOW.

To our credit, the United States has ceased to be a shithole and has become, instead, an asshole.

By what metric do you deem late 1700s America to be a shithole? (I assume we're excluding Mexico, Canada, and British Colombia)

lol WHAT? That's like saying "By what metric are you calling The Scorpion King a terrible movie? I assume we're excluding all of the dialog, the plot, and Dwayne Johnson's acting."

 

[dismal]

Colonialism.

In hindsight USA not turning into a dictatorship (as happened in France) was just down to an incredibly string of lucky coincidences. It could easily have turned to shit at any point up until USA started to become affluent (ca 1870 and onwards). The South American colonies were almost identical in their make-up of USA, and modelled their revolutions on the American model as well as using the American constitution as template. They proved that the US constitution is terrible and wide open to abuse.

Australia (and Canada) didn't turn into dictatorships because they had already a stable parliamentary system in their countries at the time of independence, as well as a well established free press. Also when they became independent the entire administration didn't pack up and leave for Britain. In hindsight, this is how you de-colonise and leave a stable democracy when you leave. You de-colonise step by step. South Africa is a good example.

You're onto something, but off on one key aspect. What makes countries prosper is respect for private property, individual rights, and the rule of law. Northern European countries tend to have it, so colonies inhabited by northern Europeans tend to have more of it. They aren't the only ones as places like Japan and Korea have it. Spanish colonies tend to lack it. Marxist experiments tend to destroy it in places that might otherwise have it like North Korea or China. Certain unnameable religions seem to thwart it. Africa has more than its share of both of the latter.

It doesn't matter what's written in your Constitution if there is not a cultural respect for the private property and the rule of law.