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[Valhelm]

Liberia dates back to 1847 and Ethiopia's government continued to exist past the Italian conquest of Ethiopia in exile. In which case modern Abyssinia/Ethiopia can be dated back to 1137.

Liberia wasn't at all a free African country. It's an incredibly interesting example, but it was actually one of the first colonial polities on the continent. A very small African American, English-speaking elite oppressed the Bantu natives for over a century, benefiting from a slave-based plantation economy nearly identical to the one that the Liberian upper class had escaped.

In 1980, a revolution of the masses completely transformed the cultural and economic landscape of the republic, but it's still heavily influenced by the former African American leaders in its language and culture.

 

[Deleted member 231381]

That's false, though.

If Africa was never politically subjugated by Europe it would surely be a lot better off. African states would have been able to Westernize on their own terms, not unlike Thailand or Japan, and develop governments without deference to Europe. Given the disparity of infrastructure, it would have been much more difficult for the Congo to meet Western standards than it would be for Japan, but having control of their own people and resources would probably make it possible.

A good parallel would be Saudi Arabia, I guess. Though it was influenced heavily by Turkey and later Britain, it developed a resource-exporting economy on its own, was allowed to maintain its cultural identity, and formed a nation based on its own customs. Of course, their theocratic nature is hardly ideal, but their independence allowed the people of Hejaz and Najd to become some of the most prosperous in the world.

This is true, but the person he was quoting said "never contacted". If sub-Saharan Africa had never been contacted by other civilizations, it probably would be in a *worse* state now. The best case scenario is a) it gets contacted, but b) that conquest doesn't turn into explicit colonialism, which is difficult considering when sub-Saharan Africa came into contact with Eurasian civilizations other than the very limiting trans-Saharan trade routes and what the relative capabilities were of each of those groups.

 

[Coolluck]

Aren't they on the come up? I remember reading about it. Bill Gates is doing stuff over there as well. This City apparently got to this state in a decade

Looks cool.

Looks better than my city. That's for sure.

 

[Liljagare]

Not to mention, the colonizing countries pretty much tore out every resource they could find along their way. Suprised nobody simply stripmined and deforested the entire continent almost.

 

[bengraven]

I'm with you OP. The entire continent is such a huge potential for expansion and growth that it's a shame.

 

[v1oz]

I would not call South Africa a 3rd world nation, whilst it's not a very rich country, it is not poor either. It's somewhere along in the middle I'd call it a medium income nation. You need to have quite a large economy to host the World Cup or to make big budget movies like District 9 and Elysium. South Africa also has nuclear power plants and are developed enough to build their own nuclear bombs. In fact the South Africans had a nuclear arsenal but chose to dismantle it - this is technology still elusive to countries like North Korea and Iran in the year 2015.

There are two sides to South Africa, there's a wealthy side with people whose lives are as good or even better than those in 1st world countries. There are billionaires and many millionaires in South Africa and also a fast growing black middle class. Then there is the other side which is generally poor. But to be honest even in Europe and America you do find areas with poor people and run down housing estates.

Nigeria has a very long way to go. They only have the largest economy because they have the largest population by far. But if you look at actual economic output per person (per capita), it is very low. Unlike South Africa they don't have a balanced economy, as Nigeria's economic output is heavily biased towards oil. And that oil wealth only benefits a small section of the population because of rampant waste and corruption. Nigeria doesn't even have the most basic infrastructure you would expect in a modern country; stuff like decent roads, a reliable postal system, good healthcare and an effective tax collection system. Nigeria also has a weak army (they had to bring in mercenaries from South Africa to fight Boko Haram) and an ineffective generally corrupt government.

I have to mention that Botswana and Namibia are also good African countries with good living standards. And Zimbabwe will be too as soon there is a change in leadership. Zimbabwe benefits from having a very small but educated population, substantial mineral deposits (including uranium, platinum, diamond) and large methane gas deposits. The only problem in Zimbabwe is leadership, in the 80's when there wasn't a dictatorship - living standards were good and the country was prosperous to the point that it could feed its neighbours.

 

[Opiate]

I don't mean to suggest that European imperialism didn't matter -- obviously it did -- but Africa's problems predate European imperialism. Africa was notably behind even as early as the Greek empire in 300 BC.

I believe the problem originates much farther back; it is a relative paucity of agrarian crops and domesticatable livestock. The first step towards modern civilization was having crops to harvest and animals to domesticate. Once you have farmers, that allows a society to move past the hunter-gatherer stage. By sheer chance, Europe had a number of these (most grains originate either in China or Europe, for instance), while Africa didn't.

This put most African societies behind, as many civilizations took a lot longer than European ones to get beyond the hunter-gatherer stage (there are still some places in Africa and in other locations in the world where they still haven't). In turn, this meant that during the era of colonization, Africa didn't colonize Europe, Europe colonized Africa. European colonialism certainly slowed things down even further, but the first problem -- the core problem -- was a lack of crops and livestock the local people could easily domesticate.

 

[Ignatz Mouse]

I wish I had the source, I think it was a TED talk on carbon emissions, but the point made is that Africa has progressed a lot faster than Europe did, from 1900 to the present, considering where they were in their development at that time.

Acting as if Africa is an unsolvable problem is somewhat insulting if you look at the actual progress made in relatively short time.

 

[MisterMrMister]

I would say Morocco is on the right track. I go there nearly every year, so I have seen it change a lot.

They're focusing a lot on infrastructure, from building new highways, to building high speed rail and constructing the largest African seaport. They have a long way to go, but its most certainly not a 3rd world country.

 

[kess]

I have to mention that Botswana and Namibia are also good African countries with good living standards. And Zimbabwe will be too as soon there is a change in leadership. Zimbabwe benefits from having a very small but educated population, substantial mineral deposits (including uranium, platinum, diamond) and large methane gas deposits. The only problem in Zimbabwe is leadership, in the 80's when there wasn't a dictatorship - living standards were good and the country was prosperous to the point that it could feed its neighbours.

It's interesting to watch the Westminster system down there bending as far as it has. I always thought it was interesting that there are still constituencies and institutions that Mugabe and his cronies haven't been completely able to control.

 

[tsumineko]

We could replace the words with developing and developed nations, but there would still be strong qualitative differences between these countries.

No, because what are they exactly "developing" into? The almighty blueprint of how countries should be that is America? Developing implies they are less than what they should be. It's ethnocentric.

 

[v1oz]

I don't mean to suggest that European imperialism didn't matter -- obviously it did -- but Africa's problems predate European imperialism. Africa was notably behind even as early as the Greek empire in 300 BC.

Actually the first major civilisation in the world was in Africa. Eqypt was the most advanced society in the world, the Greeks sent all their intellectuals like Plato to study in Egypt.

When you say Africa was always notably behind do not discard the Egyptian, the Kushiite, the Kerma, the Dʿmt and the Nubian civilisations. These are all ancient civilisations which existed as early as 3000 BC.

 

[Kinitari]

Where are all these first world for Ethiopia comments coming from? Have any of you guys been there in the past 5 years? NOBODY has a fucking job.

It's a wonderful nation, but jesus christ compared to Nigeria or Botswana it really is no competition.

Angola is also doing well I hear. Angola is hiring engineers out of the ass from my school(Georgia Tech). I'd sign up, but I have never really felt a connection to Angola the way I have with places like Mauritania or Niger.

Ethiopian unemployment has dropped significantly in the cities, like... I think from 25% to 18% in the last 5 years or so. It's still shitty out in the country, but development in Addis for example is really impressive, and I think I can see urbanization take root soon.

 

[Opiate]

Actually the first major civilisation in the world was in Africa. Eqypt was the most advanced society in the world, the Greeks sent all their intellectuals like Plato to study in Egypt.

When you say Africa was always notably behind do not discard the Egyptian, the Kushiite, the Kerma, the Dʿmt and the Nubian civilisations. These are all ancient civilisations which existed as early as 3000 BC.

Right, Egypt is part of the fertile crescent, and was fertile at that time, much like most of mesopotamia. It's considered middle eastern for a reason; it's the very edge of continental Africa.

 

[simplayer]

Right, Egypt is part of the fertile crescent, and was fertile at that time, much like most of mesopotamia. It's considered middle eastern for a reason; it's the very edge of continental Africa.

It's not just Egypt. North Africa is significantly different than sub-saharan. It was fairly well developed all along the Mediterranean coast.

 

[wsoxfan1214]

Atlanta.

LMAO

 

[Trago]

I would say Morocco is on the right track. I go there nearly every year, so I have seen it change a lot.

They're focusing a lot on infrastructure, from building new highways, to building high speed rail and constructing the largest African seaport. They have a long way to go, but its most certainly not a 3rd world country.

I lived there back in 2003-4 for half a year next to the ocean in Rabat. And even back then, there was a bunch of talk of what you mentioned. Many local markets there rely on fishing/boating/tourism/etc to make a living. And I'm pretty sure things have gotten better over a decade since.

 

[dbztrk]

Right, Egypt is part of the fertile crescent, and was fertile at that time, much like most of mesopotamia. It's considered middle eastern for a reason; it's the very edge of continental Africa.

It is not consider middle eastern for that reason. It is considered middle eastern to due to the social political power of Britain.

"Middle East, the lands around the southern and eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea, extending from Morocco to the Arabian Peninsula and Iran and, by some definitions, sometimes beyond. The central part of this general area was formerly called the Near East, a name given to it by some of the first modern Western geographers and historians, who tended to divide what they called the Orient into three regions. Near East applied to the region nearest Europe, extending from the Mediterranean Sea to the Persian Gulf; Middle East, from the Persian Gulf to Southeast Asia; and Far East, those regions facing the Pacific Ocean.

The change in usage began to evolve prior to World War II and tended to be confirmed during that war, when the term Middle East was given to the British military command in Egypt. By the mid-20th century a common definition of the Middle East encompassed the states or territories of Turkey, Cyprus, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, Israel, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, Jordan, Egypt, Sudan, Libya, and the various states and territories of Arabia proper (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Yemen, Oman, Bahrain, Qatar, and the Trucial States, or Trucial Oman [now United Arab Emirates]). Subsequent events have tended, in loose usage, to enlarge the number of lands included in the definition. The three North African countries of Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco are closely connected in sentiment and foreign policy with the Arab states. In addition, geographic factors often require statesmen and others to take account of Afghanistan and Pakistan in connection with the affairs of the Middle East.

Occasionally, Greece is included in the compass of the Middle East because the Middle Eastern (then Near Eastern) question in its modern form first became apparent when the Greeks rose in rebellion to assert their independence of the Ottoman Empire in 1821 (see Eastern Question). Turkey and Greece, together with the predominantly Arabic-speaking lands around the eastern end of the Mediterranean, were also formerly known as the Levant.

Use of the term Middle East nonetheless remains unsettled, and some agencies (notably the United States State Department and certain bodies of the United Nations) still employ the term Near East."

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/381192/Middle-East

 

[jakefromstatefarm]

I don't mean to suggest that European imperialism didn't matter -- obviously it did -- but Africa's problems predate European imperialism. Africa was notably behind even as early as the Greek empire in 300 BC.

I believe the problem originates much farther back; it is a relative paucity of agrarian crops and domesticatable livestock. The first step towards modern civilization was having crops to harvest and animals to domesticate. Once you have farmers, that allows a society to move past the hunter-gatherer stage. By sheer chance, Europe had a number of these (most grains originate either in China or Europe, for instance), while Africa didn't.

This put most African societies behind, as many civilizations took a lot longer than European ones to get beyond the hunter-gatherer stage (there are still some places in Africa and in other locations in the world where they still haven't). In turn, this meant that during the era of colonization, Africa didn't colonize Europe, Europe colonized Africa. European colonialism certainly slowed things down even further, but the first problem -- the core problem -- was a lack of crops and livestock the local people could easily domesticate.

human social development isn't a civ tech tree, you're explaining expropriating and in some cases genocidal European colonial states as the result of a monolithic continent not developing sedentary agriculture. Do you see the problem with this argument?

 

[Valhelm]

This is true, but the person he was quoting said "never contacted". If sub-Saharan Africa had never been contacted by other civilizations, it probably would be in a *worse* state now. The best case scenario is a) it gets contacted, but b) that conquest doesn't turn into explicit colonialism, which is difficult considering when sub-Saharan Africa came into contact with Eurasian civilizations other than the very limiting trans-Saharan trade routes and what the relative capabilities were of each of those groups.

That would be impossible, though. Since antiquity, Sub-Saharan Africa was intrinsically tied to the Middle East and North Africa. There's been very extensive contact between the peoples of modern-day Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Yemen, and Somalia for thousands of years.

 

[GTP_Daverytimes]

The oldest free African nation is younger than a bunch of people who are still alive right now.

That's what people don't seem to understand, 95% of African countries got their independence less than 60 years ago. In a world were most first world nations are thousands of years old and others are hundreds of years old the African continent has made incredible incredible strides. This century will see most of the continent become 'second' world nations and quite a few 'first' world , also one or two superpowers will certainly emerge and maybe 4 or 5 major powers. The continent wont command the clout that Asia has, but by the end of this century Africa will solidify its place behind Asia in both population and economy.

 

[jhmtehgamr20xx]

I wish I had the source, I think it was a TED talk on carbon emissions, but the point made is that Africa has progressed a lot faster than Europe did, from 1900 to the present, considering where they were in their development at that time.

Acting as if Africa is an unsolvable problem is somewhat insulting if you look at the actual progress made in relatively short time.

Yeah, it most definitely is. I mean, no one is saying it'll be easy; it's never been easy for any country in the history of this world to become a self-sustained economy and political force. But it's definitely doable.

The continent wont command the clout that Asia has, but by the end of this century Africa will solidify its place behind Asia in both population and economy.

That's a very favorable outlook I can agree with, but where does that leave America? Doesn't Asia already have more economic clout than America thanks mostly to China?

EDIT: Ah it isn't quite fair to compare it that way, given by "America" we're only referring to the U.S. Although collectively I'd say Asia has more economic power than U.S, Canada and Mexico combined.

 

[GTP_Daverytimes]

Aren't they on the come up? I remember reading about it. Bill Gates is doing stuff over there as well. This City apparently got to this state in a decade

Looks cool.

A video of the city for those who want to see.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbsdLI8kaWc
Not a fan of Lagos, but its rise exemplifies the growth of the continent.

 

[Opiate]

human social development isn't a civ tech tree, you're explaining expropriating and in some cases genocidal European colonial states as the result of a monolithic continent not developing sedentary agriculture. Do you see the problem with this argument?

No, I don't. It isn't as if I'm the first to propose it, either (Jared Diamond is an excellent example here). What you call a "civ tech tree" I would call "a complex causal chain."

Here's a question for you: why were Europeans able to so thoroughly dominate Africa, instead of the other way around? Why did Europeans reach and then destroy American Indian tribes, instead of the other way around?

 

[Frozenprince]

To start the political hell that has become sub-saharan Africa needs to sort itself out. It's authoritarian state after authoritarian state, there needs to be progressive democratic reforms before there can be industrial, social, logistical and economic revival and progression.

Basically the entire region needs to abandon the constant cycle of military coups and tribal war, but as we've seen well... everywhere on earth, that's easier said than done.

I'd like to note that I am not saying there are not places where there is growth and evolution, Nigeria has been pointed out quite a bit (though politically they're still "growing"), Ethiopia is beginning to get back on it's feet, Somaliland has quite a lot of potential and several southern sub-saharan states are finding out first hand that the Chinese govt is willing to front a lot of logistical overhauls (roads, civic services, etc etc) for oil rights. It's just that many countries, such as Chad, Cameroon, the Congo, Eritrea, Uganda, etc etc all face heavy need for major political and socio-societal reform.

 

[jhmtehgamr20xx]

Here's a question for you: why were Europeans able to so thoroughly dominate Africa, instead of the other way around? Why did Europeans reach and then destroy American Indian tribes, instead of the other way around?

You should be careful about framing the question this way because if you ask the wrong person they're going to give a very....ahem....disgusting little answer. Though the chance of that happening here is a lot lower versus, say, Youtube or Reddit

 

[Valhelm]

A video of the city for those who want to see.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbsdLI8kaWc
Not a fan of Lagos, but its rise exemplifies the growth of the continent.

What's wrong with Lagos?

I think it's super cool how it's nearly on par with many South American cities.

 

[Basileus777]

It is not consider middle eastern for that reason. It is considered middle eastern to due to the social political power of Britain.

"Middle East, the lands around the southern and eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea, extending from Morocco to the Arabian Peninsula and Iran and, by some definitions, sometimes beyond. The central part of this general area was formerly called the Near East, a name given to it by some of the first modern Western geographers and historians, who tended to divide what they called the Orient into three regions. Near East applied to the region nearest Europe, extending from the Mediterranean Sea to the Persian Gulf; Middle East, from the Persian Gulf to Southeast Asia; and Far East, those regions facing the Pacific Ocean.

The change in usage began to evolve prior to World War II and tended to be confirmed during that war, when the term Middle East was given to the British military command in Egypt. By the mid-20th century a common definition of the Middle East encompassed the states or territories of Turkey, Cyprus, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, Israel, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, Jordan, Egypt, Sudan, Libya, and the various states and territories of Arabia proper (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Yemen, Oman, Bahrain, Qatar, and the Trucial States, or Trucial Oman [now United Arab Emirates]). Subsequent events have tended, in loose usage, to enlarge the number of lands included in the definition. The three North African countries of Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco are closely connected in sentiment and foreign policy with the Arab states. In addition, geographic factors often require statesmen and others to take account of Afghanistan and Pakistan in connection with the affairs of the Middle East.

Occasionally, Greece is included in the compass of the Middle East because the Middle Eastern (then Near Eastern) question in its modern form first became apparent when the Greeks rose in rebellion to assert their independence of the Ottoman Empire in 1821 (see Eastern Question). Turkey and Greece, together with the predominantly Arabic-speaking lands around the eastern end of the Mediterranean, were also formerly known as the Levant.

Use of the term Middle East nonetheless remains unsettled, and some agencies (notably the United States State Department and certain bodies of the United Nations) still employ the term Near East."

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/381192/Middle-East

Egypt has been closely tied to Western Asia and the Mediterranean for its entire history, it's not something the British thought up. Egypt even self identifies as an Arab country.

 

[Frozenprince]

Let me post again, with more information.

Mauritius

Democracy Index http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index
17 Mauritius 8.17 Full democracy [Above the United States]

Economic Freedom http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_economic_freedom
8 Mauritius 76.5 [Above the United States]

Freedom in the World http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_in_the_World
YES Mauritius

The government of Mauritius provides free education to its citizens from pre-primary to tertiary level.

High human development ranking. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Development_Index

Social Progress Index http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Social_Progress_Index
#36 Mauritius [Highest in Africa]

Oops.

Mauritius is a wonderful country, been there on holiday several times.

That said I believe the thread is meant to focus on continental, and even then primarily sub-Saharan, Africa.

 

[yongeandcollege]

Has anyone on GAF actually been to Africa? Not asking this with snark, I'm genuinely curious, and I don't mean on a service trip to the poorest areas. Most of the Nigerians and South Africans I know aren't exactly blown away by our "first world" society.

As has been said, it's a pretty big place, and it's almost three or four different topics wren you talk about Northern Africa, South Africa, West Africa, and sub-Saharan Africa in general.

been to Morocco. Does that count?

 

[jakefromstatefarm]

No, I don't....What you call a "civ tech tree" I would call "a complex causal chain."

This is what you said:

Africa was notably behind even as early as the Greek empire in 300 BC.

Once you have farmers, that allows a society to move past the hunter-gatherer stage.

This put most African societies behind, as many civilizations took a lot longer than European ones to get beyond the hunter-gatherer stage (there are still some places in Africa and in other locations in the world where they still haven't).

"The hunter-gatherer stage" is a stepping stone to be jumped from into modernity. Certain polities are objectively more advanced than certain others. Exploitation by the more advanced polities is inevitable. It might very well be complex, but your "causal chain" is still whig history.

It isn't as if I'm the first to propose it, either (Jared Diamond is an excellent example here).

I'm acquainted. Diamond's brand of geographic determinism pivots around a) superior material culture and b) resistances to certain pathogens that render certain groups less adapted to a given environment than others. GGS is an attempt to rewrite what generations of anthro studies had attributed to racial superiority but using essentially the same terms as they did. It's an attempt to eschew Eurocentrism when answering why Europe won. Despite it's ostensibly egalitarian premise, Diamond doesn't even hide Guns' Eurocentrism in the epilogue:

The disappearance of that head start [of the Fertile Crescent] can be traced in detail, as the westward shift in powerful empires. After the rise of Fertile Crescent states in the fourth millennium B.c., the center of power initially remained in the Fertile Crescent, rotating between empires such as those of Babylon, the Hittites, Assyria, and Persia. With the Greek conquest of all advanced societies from Greece east to India under Alexander the Great in the late fourth century B.C., power finally made its first shift irrevocably westward. It shifted farther west with Rome's conquest of Greece in the second century B.c., and after the fall of the Roman Empire it eventually moved again, to western and northern Europe.

This paragraph isn't so much analysis ("power" isn't defined) as it is a victory lap of Diamond's determinism. What's so seductive about the book is that it provides a euphemistic interpretation of imperialism, an avenue to explain how non-Western societies are set to die while absolving guilt of those doing the killing. It doesn't explain the policies of settler societies to intentionally aggravate famine and disease among native populations through the use of war and enslavement. It doesn't explain the process of negotiation and compromise virtually all native groups engaged in when they came into contact with colonial settlements. It doesn't explain the disenfranchisement and dislocation experienced by many native populations once they were incorporated, oftentimes coercively, into nation-states.

Here's a question for you: why were Europeans able to so thoroughly dominate Africa, instead of the other way around? Why did Europeans reach and then destroy American Indian tribes, instead of the other way around?

False dichotomies and hindsight bias aside, I'd answer that we're working from flawed premises. Guarani has at least 2.5 million native speakers, Nahuatl 1.5 million. Indigenous peoples in Meso and South America, the most densely populated regions on the American continents at the time of contact, largely assimilated and intermarried with settler societes; mestizo culture is ubiquitous throughout Latin America. Are these people "destroyed"? Transatlantic colonial empires often engendered the circumstances that would lead to their collapse. Is teching up, extracting as many resources from a subject population as possible and then pumping that capital into your state's GDP the hallmark of "winning"? In 2015, no sovereign European state holds territory in Africa, they were driven out sometimes by means of armed insurrection, almost always at the back of a push for national self-determination. Is that what it means to "thoroughly dominate"?

The pitfall of geographic determinism is that it eliminates agency in favor of a narrative that sees humans and human interaction as a series of atoms bouncing off of each other. There is no room for choice in Diamond's thesis, these poor, unfortunate souls were destined to die and be exploited at the hands of a superior material culture. Not only is this problematically reductive, it's dangerous. You literally said that a monolithic Sub-Saharan Africa falling behind in tech to Greece in 300 B.C. is more relevant to the current state of the continent's economic development than a century of European imperialism that ended within living memory. There are plenty of people in Rwanda, Somalia, North and South Sudan, Uganda, South Africa, Nigeria, Niger, Cameroon, Liberia, and The Democratic Republic of the Congo who would beg to differ.

 

[The Last Emperor]

You the homie Jake

 

[Tinfoilhatsron]

Often forget about Nigeria, good look







Offer nothing of value to the convo yourself but drop in to chastise other posters brehs

Did you seriously complete the circlejerk? Posts complaing about thread --> posts complaining about those posts --> posts complaing about those posts. Pretty funny to see...

Well OP there are a wide variety of reasons, but I heard things are improving, if ever so slowly... The next decade or two, people will definitely be looking into the rising economies. We'll see what happens on the horizon, but I'm optimistic. Stability is a key factor in my opinion and that includes taking care of corruption, which is the biggest factor. Imo of course.

 

[djtiesto]

Botswana will be good

I remember reading something about how Botswana's got one of the most advanced economies in sub-saharan Africa outside South Africa. Gaborone looks pretty awesome:

 

[Opiate]

This is what you said:


"The hunter-gatherer stage" is a stepping stone to be jumped from into modernity. Certain polities are objectively more advanced than certain others. Exploitation by the more advanced polities is inevitable. It might very well be complex, but your "causal chain" is still whig history.

I do not understand what you're implying. Yes, the hunterer gather stage is objectively less efficient and clearly less advanced than other methods of organizing society. We're beyond postmodernism here.

I'm acquainted. Diamond's brand of geographic determinism pivots around a) superior material culture and b) resistances to certain pathogens that render certain groups less adapted to a given environment than others. GGS is an attempt to rewrite what generations of anthro studies had attributed to racial superiority but using essentially the same terms as they did. It's an attempt to eschew Eurocentrism when answering why Europe won. Despite it's ostensibly egalitarian premise, Diamond doesn't even hide Guns' Eurocentrism in the epilogue:

Because there is no way to hide the fact that Europe won. Europe was more advanced and better as a society. The question isn't whether that's true; the question is why that was the case.

False dichotomies and hindsight bias aside, I'd answer that we're working from flawed premises. Guarani has at least 2.5 million native speakers, Nahuatl 1.5 million. Indigenous peoples in Meso and South America, the most densely populated regions on the American continents at the time of contact, largely assimilated and intermarried with settler societes; mestizo culture is ubiquitous throughout Latin America. Are these people "destroyed"?

Yes.

Transatlantic colonial empires often engendered the circumstances that would lead to their collapse. Is teching up, extracting as many resources from a subject population as possible and then pumping that capital into your state's GDP the hallmark of "winning"? In 2015, no sovereign European state holds territory in Africa, they were driven out sometimes by means of armed insurrection, almost always at the back of a push for national self-determination. Is that what it means to "thoroughly dominate"?

Yes. I think you missed a major driver for the retreat of imperialism; gradually improving ethical standards. If the British empire had behaved as Nazi Germany did (or even something moderately less odious than that), India would have never gained its independence. Killing Ghandi would not have been particularly difficult, especially in his early days of insurrection; it wasn't impossible to do, simply morally repugnant to the advancing society of the time.

The pitfall of geographic determinism is that it eliminates agency in favor of a narrative that sees humans and human interaction as a series of atoms bouncing off of each other. There is no room for choice in Diamond's thesis, these poor, unfortunate souls were destined to die and be exploited at the hands of a superior material culture. Not only is this problematically reductive, it's dangerous. You literally said that a monolithic Sub-Saharan Africa falling behind in tech to Greece in 300 B.C. is more relevant to the current state of the continent's economic development than a century of European imperialism that ended within living memory. There are plenty of people in Rwanda, Somalia, North and South Sudan, Uganda, South Africa, Nigeria, Niger, Cameroon, Liberia, and The Democratic Republic of the Congo who would beg to differ.

Correct. This is what searching for cause and effect is; you look for possible causes for a problem or situation. I have no idea why you find determinism (or, in this case, simple cause and effect) so problematic. I would describe your position as the dangerous one; believing strongly in agency is not something that aligns with current understanding of neurology or psychology.

 

[jerry1594]

I remember reading something about how Botswana's got one of the most advanced economies in sub-saharan Africa outside South Africa. Gaborone looks pretty awesome:

Looks normal to me. Which is a good thing.

 

[Basileus777]

Yes. I think you missed a major driver for the retreat of imperialism; better ethics. If the British empire had behaved as Nazi Germany did (or even something moderately less odious than that), India would have never gained its independence.

There's also the issues of the rising costs of empire. Even were Britain willing to act that brutal, India had become more expensive to administer and keep than it was worth. Africa was decolonized as it was because in most cases those colonies weren't worth keeping under direct rule and in fact many of those colonies had never been particularly profitable. The modern world shows that you don't need to directly rule a place to maintain influence over its resources and markets.

 

[Opiate]

There's also the issues of the rising costs of empire. Even were Britain willing to act that brutal, India had become more expensive to administer and keep than it was worth. Africa was decolonized as it was because in most cases those colonies weren't worth keeping under direct rule and in fact many of those colonies had never been particularly profitable. The modern world shows that you don't need to directly rule a place to maintain influence over its resources and markets.

Absolutely -- in significant part these colonies were maintained to prevent other colonial powers from taking them instead. Economics were always a major driver of imperialism, both in its rise and fall.

 

[Syph Medwes]

Lots of corruption. The biggest help overall however would in my opinion be debt forgiveness.
China has increased foreign investment in Africa recently but time will tell what kind of effect that will have. I think the sort of self-fulfilling detriment of some of these poorer nations is their perception (I say perception because the literature is more divided than publicly accepted/taught) as pollution havens.

 

[Succinct Verbosity]

I'm as left wing as they come, and I'm certainly no lover of the free-market, but EU farming subsidies cripple African farmers and labourers, so I'd start at looking at how exloitative practises by the richer countries keep the poorer ones down.

Oh, and forgiving some debt ould go a long way too.

 

[Chiggs]

Get rid of the missionaries that encourage dangerous sexual practices, taboos, and homophobia.

Empower women so that 50% of the population is now empowered.

Aid in overthrowing warlords who take advantage of the impoverished masses.

Turnover industries which are currently internationally owned back to the people so that they may have control over their exports. (Tea, Coffee, Rice, etc.)

Institute a "Marshall Plan" to essentially overcome disease and civil engineer proper sanitation in a number of large cities.

Africa is so late in the game, I feel they could buck off a lot of the bad cruft of modernity and start off on a much better foot than the west did via trial and error. At this point though global capitalism just keeps them down to never modernize in a proper fashion.

Well, I am speechless.

 

[titiklabingapat]

I do not understand what you're implying. Yes, the hunterer gather stage is objectively less efficient and clearly less advanced than other methods of organizing society. We're beyond postmodernism here.



Because there is no way to hide the fact that Europe won. Europe was more advanced and better as a society. The question isn't whether that's true; the question is why that was the case.




Yes.



Yes. I think you missed a major driver for the retreat of imperialism; gradually improving ethical standards. If the British empire had behaved as Nazi Germany did (or even something moderately less odious than that), India would have never gained its independence. Killing Ghandi would not have been particularly difficult, especially in his early days of insurrection; it wasn't impossible to do, simply morally repugnant to the advancing society of the time.



Correct. This is what searching for cause and effect is; you look for possible causes for a problem or situation. I have no idea why you find determinism (or, in this case, simple cause and effect) so problematic. I would describe your position as the dangerous one; believing strongly in agency is not something that aligns with current understanding of neurology or psychology.

I pretty much agree with this, especially with the bolded. I don't understand why so many historians and sociologists are so threatened by GGS. Oh yeah I do: those are soft science disciplines.

 

[nephilimdj]

How...

Actually are example of countries that did okay like Lesotho and Swaziland, village chefs became rich, would visit London and such.
British protection meant they were not assimilated by the zulus

 

[The Incarnation]

The continent has so much potential and it's really disheartening to see it basically be in limbo of war, poverty, diseases, and resources tampering.

So much rich history, yet it seems like not one of the nations of Africa can come together and form a single country that can stand toe-to-toe with Western Powers in terms of GDP, Standards of Living, upward mobility, etc.

I'm seriously baffled.

Really,it's quite simple.

You can't have a bunch of rich folks, without a lot of poor ones to exploit.

 

[zero shift]

The reason why there isn't a first world country in African boil down to a few reasons:

Lack of Cultural Export: Unlike say Latin America, Africa is more or less entirely made up of natives. One thing that jump started a lot of economies in Latin America is that people from the Western world immigrated to them bringing their experience and their economy with them. There is a reason why so many countries in Latin America are majority mixed or even white people.

Turmoil: The region is pretty unstable now. However 40 or even 20 years ago it was far far worse. It seemed like every few years there was a coup d'etat. It is hard to get your country on the right track when the track keeps changing leading to constant derailment.

Time: These things take time. Most of these nations are less than fifty years old. Despite that some countries have made some strides. Most notably South Africa, Botswana, and Ghana.

Oh yeah, Burkina Faso is having an election later on this year that might be interesting to watch. Blaise Compaoré was ousted last year after being in power for, well, ever since he knocked off Thomas Sankara.

Probably one of the worst things that could have happened in the region. I could only imagine what Sankara could have done if he lived on.

 

[Deleted member 231381]

snip

The term "Middle East" is recent; the terms like the Levant and more importantly al-Mashriq are not. Egypt is culturally, politically, and geographically much closer to countries like Syria, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia than it is to Nigeria. Thinking of it as an 'African' country is a very European thing to do.

 

[dbztrk]

Egypt has been closely tied to Western Asia and the Mediterranean for its entire history, it's not something the British thought up. Egypt even self identifies as an Arab country.

Modern Egypt self identifies as an Arab country due to the Arab/Islamic invasion of Egypt. This truth also extends to much of North Africa.

I'm shocked that you don't know this history. My suggestion is that you read all of the information in the Encyclopedia Britannica link regarding Egypt and North Africa.

The period of Egyptian history between the advent of Islam and Egypt’s entrance into the modern period opens and closes with foreign conquests: the Arab invasion led by ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ in ad 639–642 and the Napoleonic expedition of 1798 mark the beginning and end of the era. Within the context of Egyptian internal history alone, this era was one in which Egypt cast off the heritage of the past to embrace a new language and a new religion—in other words, a new culture. While it is true that the past was by no means immediately and completely abandoned and that many aspects of Egyptian life, especially rural life, continued virtually unchanged, it is nevertheless clear that the civilization of Islamic Egypt diverged sharply from that of the previous Greco-Roman period and was transformed under the impact of Western occupation. The subsequent history of Egypt is therefore largely a study of the processes by which Egyptian Islamic civilization evolved, particularly the processes of Arabization and Islamization. But to confine Egyptian history to internal developments is to distort it, for during that entire period Egypt was a part of a great world empire; and within this broader context, Egypt’s history is a record of its long struggle to dominate an empire—a struggle that is not without its parallels, of course, in both ancient and modern times.

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/180382/Egypt/22356/From-the-Islamic-conquest-to-1250

"After the Arabs completed the conquest of Egypt in 642, they started to raid the Berber (Amazigh) territory to its west, which they called Bilād al-Maghrib (“Lands of the West”) or simply the Maghrib. In 705 this region became a province of the Muslim empire then ruled from Damascus by the Umayyad caliphs (661–750). The Arab Muslim conquerors had a much more durable impact on the culture of the Maghrib than did the region’s conquerors before and after them. By the 11th century the Berbers had become Islamized and in part also Arabized. The region’s indigenous Christian communities, which before the Arab conquest had constituted an important part of the Christian world, ceased to exist. The Islamization of the Berbers was a consequence of the Arab conquest, although they were neither forcibly converted to Islam nor systematically missionized by their conquerors. Largely because its teachings became an ideology through which the Berbers justified both their rebellion against the caliphs and their support of rulers who rejected caliphal authority (see below), Islam gained wide appeal and spread rapidly among these fiercely independent peoples."

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/418538/North-Africa/46482/From-the-Arab-conquest-to-1830

 

[Deleted member 231381]

That would be impossible, though. Since antiquity, Sub-Saharan Africa was intrinsically tied to the Middle East and North Africa. There's been very extensive contact between the peoples of modern-day Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Yemen, and Somalia for thousands of years.

I was more referring to Western African states in that comment. You're quite right Ethiopia, Sudan, Yemen, and Somalia were much more intrinsically linked to the world system than most African countries. Arguably, in the case of Ethiopia, that did indeed help them remain one of the consistently more developed sub-Saharan nations.

 

[dbztrk]

Egypt has been closely tied to Western Asia and the Mediterranean for its entire history, it's not something the British thought up. Egypt even self identifies as an Arab country.

That wasn't the point. The point was his reason for why it was deemed to be apart of the middle east and it is very much due to the British.

Also, Egypt wasn't always called Egypt by the people inhabiting the territory. Their identity was shaped by their conquerors. Hence why the Egyptians self identifies as an Arab country because they were conquered by Arabs in the 7th century. This identity did not always exist. That's the point.

 

[Basileus777]

Modern Egypt self identifies as an Arab country due to the Arab/Islamic invasion of Egypt. This truth also extends to much of North Africa.

I'm shocked that you don't know this history. My suggestion is that you read all of the information in the Encyclopedia Britannica link regarding Egypt and North Africa.

Hah. I know all of this. Not that it's particularly relevant. If you really wanted to you could go back to the Persians (or before even), but the end result of looking at most of Egyptian history still paints a clear picture of how closely it has been tied to Western Asia and the Mediterranean world. Anyone arguing that Egypt is associated with them because of modern British terminology isn't standing on particularly firm ground.

Edit: Your Edit:

Also, Egypt wasn't always called Egypt by the people inhabiting the territory. Their identity was shaped by their conquerors. Hence why the Egyptians self identifies as an Arab country because they were conquered by Arabs in the 7th century. This identity did not always exist. That's the point.

So? This is true of most peoples. There are not many identities that have held static through the millennia.