Africa: the White man's burden????

Forgive me if i'm wrong; i have the most appaling knowledge of Islamic Middle Ages history, but wasn't Saladin from the Ayuubid Caliphate?

Egyptian Empire

Edited by Joe Boxer - 01-Jul-2007 at 12:29

Go back far enough - and we're all Africans. :)

Originally posted by Tobodai Make no mistake Kids, I have no problem with empires and think that conquest is the best way to exchange ideas before the internet.  Nontheless I think your logic is flawed in that it is reversed.  It is not that nobody is intrested in Africa because nothing happened there, it is that nobody knows what happened there and thus is not intrested.   European empires messed with the borders, but they brought many things with them as well.  The empires arent to blame for lack of development, but the slave trade is.  A contient with low population density, robbed of 20 million people, and a trade that became the entire economy, and then stopped suddenly.  Thats a big deal, and its not just Africa, the more slave dependent a place was the worse off its economy is around the world.  In the United States the former slave states are observably poorer and more backward, so too in Europe where the east with the "slavs" who were subject to slavers tend to be worse off than the west.

Your comparing Africans to Russians an you really think thats a reasonable comparison ?

The problem with Africa is African culture. I see no reason why people should make excuses for other peoples troubles. Turkey never industrialised because of their culture an mindset, people accept that but when discussing Africa excuses or blaming the White man is acceptable.

I don't know what you want with Africa, but it is interesting to notice that civilizations stand by theirs own merit. Everybody knows Mayans and Incas, not because they were Amerindians, but because they were extraordinary

Exactly.






Edited by think - 02-Jul-2007 at 00:12

Calling Africa as the white man�s burden is fair or unfair depending upon the way the subject is viewed. Sometimes these questions can never be answered in a logical way.

The country suffers for its geography by passing through the middle of the tropical zone. Life in Africa was always short until turned around by medical advances from other places. At first the promise of a near empty continent to for the �huddles masses� of Europe move into was denied by rampant jungle diseases, let alone the wild animals. The place was called �the white man�s graveyard�. Life expectancy for Europeans was no more than three to five years. Finding of a cure for the most common cause of death, malaria was just a band aid for one of the nasty and deadly diseases out of a vast array of the bugs that breed and endlessly mutate in the generally hot and humid conditions.

Preventing outbreaks of the worst diseases helped open up the African frontiers for further European settlement, until the time of African nationalism. One of the big players, the one-time British Empire had over-expanded. After WWII the cash strapped British government began dumping the unprofitable parts of their former Empire by granting independence to small nations, even when not ready to go it alone. There are even worse stories to tell of other European powers that did not sense the �winds of change� that swept over Africa as early as the more aware British did.

 

One example I know of (not African) is of New Guinea, where the British suddenly quit despite Australia pleas to stay. The country has limped along ever since. The Australian Government still helps to prop up their fragile democracy. Parts of Africa have not been so lucky as to have an understanding neighbour, and have descended into modern anarchy. Even the UN does not want to get involved in the senseless tribal wars. 

I just noticed Earl Aster, you have passed your 500th post, congratulations!
Even some world leaders privately call the development of Africa as a basket case and leave it, but we wouldn't want to do that would we?

You bring up an interesting point, Earl Astor. How well countries rule themselves is not a racist question, there are many other questions involved. To say all countries of the world are the same and are all born equal is starry-eyed rubbish. Of course not! So far as I know my family haven't sacrificed a goat or danced around a totem pole, not that they told me about anyway. It would be interesting if they did. I have been brought up in certain way because they were brought up in much the same way.  

The same goes for Africa. Somehow it breaks my heart to see the Africans becoming cloned Europeans, or their dictators becoming barbarians. Yet there has been no variation from the old formula, once an old way of way breaks up  there always have been wars, slaughters and mass murders until the country becomes reestablished into  the ways of new era and that can take generations.

I think the most important question to ask is if treating the Black man in a paternalistic manner is doing more harm than good. The problem is, when any white man tries to do some real progress in Africa he gets shouted down by such evil men like Mugabe in Zimbabwe.

Bit rich.

We should ask ourselves what is more important "political correctness" or truth. If we go for truth, it is quite obvious that most of Subsaharan Africa was, measured by any standards, one of the less developed regions of the old world. And it was in that state up to the arrival of the Arabs during the Middle Ages.