The problems with decolonization in Africa

Most of Africa has been exploited almost solely for raw resources by the Europeans during the last 500 years, and this exploitation is still going on now. Initially, the xploitation was limited to a somewhat mutually beneficial trade, mostly in gold, slaves and ivory. Of course, the slave trade also had the side effect of devastating many regions, though it must be admitted that it was the African slave trading kingdom who did most of that; still without the huge demand for slaves, this would not have happened.

After the Scramble for Africa (1885-1914), (and in some cases such as South Africa) the Europeans started to exploit the resources more directly. They typically used African workers to work in mines and plantions growing cash crops. They developed the infrastructure of the colonies in a peculiar fashion: typically there was only one railroad going from the main resource-exploitation centre to a port on the ocean. All railroads, banks, shipping companies, etc. were owned by Europeans. The main reason why the Europeans acquiesced to granting independence to the Africans was that the defense of these colonies against other European countries was somewhat too expensive compared to the revenues generated. Thus, they allowed African countries to gain their independence, in order for them to pay for their own army, but they still kept control over the economy.

Once the African countries were independent, they had a dillema: they needed money to modernize and build an infrastructure. They could not trade with themselves, because the Europeans had not built the required infrastructure. For example, Togo and Ghana are neighbors, yet there were very few roads and no railroads crossing the border. They also produced only raw materials, in many cases the same ones, so there was little demand for African products in Africa itself. Any products had therefore to be sold to Europe or America, using the same railroads and ports that the Europeans built, transported on European-controlled shipping lines, and sold to European companies. Thus most of the profits still ended up in the European's hands. Still, it was the only alternative and cash crops pay more than food. So African farmers increasingly started to grow more and more cash crops for export, to the detriment of food in the 1960's. Which worked fine until there were problems with the dwindling supply of food, due to drought or insects. So you have famines in the 1970s.

Then we have another problem: African governments still needed money to build roads, schools, dams and factories. The only real alternative was loans from Western governments. But the loans came with strings attached: no tarrifs, quotas or other traditional government protective measures were allowed. As a result, African industry was doomed from the start and these loans could not be paid, instead accumulating interest until they were many times the GDP of the African countries.

Governments hence went bankrupt, and were less able to maintain order. Corruption became rampant, in countries where governments could not pay their bureaucrats adequately. The only alternative was military dictatorship: you have lots of coups in the 1970s and 1980s. This initially went quite well, limiting corruption and reforming the countries. But the economic root causes were not eliminated, so then the military became corrupt.

Enter the next phase: most African borders were arbitrary remains from colonial days, with no regards to ethinc groups. What's more, Europeans tended to favor one or another ethnic group in ruling their colonies. So you had a lot of ethinc tension. With a corrupt government and corrupt military, many of these ethnic groups decided they wanted a fresh start and so started up guerilla independence wars. These wars were initally fueled by one or the other side in the Cold war, supporting them with weapons, for ideological reasons. After the Cold War, it was Western corporations who moved in, selling weapons and buying raw resources from the territories that either the government or the rebels controlled. Ethnic conflicts thus drag on and on.

So, it's not that the African governments are doing such a bad job governing. In truth, given the conditions of the equation, no one could have done much better.

In answer to your points:

1. Borders are often arbitrary, but in Africa even more so. Switzerland is not a very good example, because the Swiss have a common identity which is independent of language and has a lot to do with geography and a common history. By contrast, in Africa, almost every country has several dozen languages spoken, and most of them do not share a common history, nor are they bound together by geography. Also, it should be noted that European countries are often quite stable due to their homogeneity. But this homogeneity has been attained after almost a century of wars, ethnic cleansing and forced migrations, and after centuries of assimilation. Just look at an ethnic map of Europe from 1914 and compare it with a recent map and you'll see what I mean. Africa is still undergoing this type of period.

3. I said that the main reason for decolonization was the realization by Europeans that they could still control most of their old colonies economically without incurring the expense of protecting them. I don't know where you got "resource argument" out of that. Certainly there are other factors, both cultural, economic and political but I didn't want to go into too much depth to start with.

4. The Indians knew that independence was coming since before the war. Also, the British colonial system in India was more inclusive of Indians than in Africa, especially when we look at non-British colonies. This would be a good time to talk about another major problem: education. India had a much larger educated class than virtually all African colonies, and thus had a lot more people ready to handle government duties.

"And since when has that prevented nations from building institutions before anyways?" - Who was in that position before, I might ask?
 

Very interesting.Direct exploitation of resources without any exhange can be seen even in 2007 ,with the most characteristic  example Niger .Niger is being exploited by international oil companies, but the country has not even a decent road system ,not to mention general infrastucture, relying on the Niger river for their transpotation, while politicians in the country can have houses with almost 300 rooms!

Half of Chilean cooper mines belong to foreign companies. However, the chilean state rent the ground, so the tax comes. Chile had so much money comming in from that concept alone that has to invest lot of that abroad to not collapse the internal economy and affect other exporters.

Of course there are tons of problems. Euorpeans came in, took millions of population for slave trade, ruined Africa' source of education and took away the places that could generate profits (Like in South Africa and Suez Canal. But most importantly, they came in as rulers. They set the laws, and were enforced by the European military. And then, they just... left. Who now enforce the law and order? That's what happened to India' independence. British enforced the laws that allowed Hindu and Muslim could live in fragile peace. They just left, without knowing that India' not ready for independece. And see what happened! Muslims practically had to run all the way to Pakistan with their lives while the Hindu extremists simply and literally slaughtered the ones that tried to flee.