OT: Africa

[Guest Pillar]

Since some of the most enthusiastic civillian military-oriented and poltical oriented minds are on this board, it's an appropriate place to post my question.

I'm interested in learning more about the political and military situation in present-day Africa. If there is an untapped country, a "New World" of the 21st Century, it's in Africa.

Africa, being plaugued by corrupt politics and tribal warfare statism has yet to develope a significant economic system. I'm planning on working on that "Nation" * when I get out of University.

Thanks very much.

* Nation means a group of people with a common tie. It does not refer to political boundaries. Ex. Quebec is a Nation. (Commonly misused term).

[Formerly Babra]

The political and military situation varies enormously from country to country*. Too enourmously to answer your question I think.

*country - a discrete political enclave exerting influence over a geographical area.

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It's a mother-beautiful bridge and it's gonna be THERE.

[Holman]

Oh, for what it's worth...

Be aware that the present chaos in Africa owes quite a bit to the exploitation its people and its resources suffered under various sorts of colonialism (including the Cold War). This is not to excuse Idi Amin and similar dictators of their crimes, of course, but the modern history of Africa is replete with good (and indifferent) intentions gone horribly wrong.

That said, you might not want to plan your project in terms of charting a "New World" and its "untapped" resources. Africa is very old, and it is probably quite tired of being tapped by outsiders.

Just my geopolitical $0.02

[Guest Pillar]

Formerly Babra -- Do you have any advice where I could pick up resources for each country? (Not the Public Library

Martyr -- LOL, don't worry, it's not that kind of a project Rather, I'm interested in developing a certain unity under a government designed to protect individual rights. Sound familiar? (That's why I use the term "New World).

[Formerly Babra]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Pillar:

Babra -- Do you have any advice where I could pick up resources for each country?

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Yes. Your local board of trade.

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It's a mother-beautiful bridge and it's gonna be THERE.

[Guest Pillar]

Is this it?

http://www.infoexport.gc.ca/

[Bullethead]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Be aware that the present chaos in Africa owes quite a bit to the exploitation its people and its resources suffered under various sorts of colonialism (including the Cold War)<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Perhaps you could elaborate on this. The above statement brings to mind that scene in "The Life of Brian" where the Judaean terrorists are planning a raid and the leader says, "The Romans have bled us and our fathers white and what have they ever done for us?" Then 1 by 1 the terrorist troops start listing off things like: roads, schools, medicine, law and order, sanitation, an end to intertribal warfare, etc.

So there are 2 sides to colonialism. And when it's all over, the natives are still left with way more infrastructure than they started with. It's up to them to keep it going when they're on their own. And that means their own government has to do its job.

This is the big catch. It affects all nations regardless of economic status or colonial past. Basically, people get the government they deserve. In the US, we have a bunch of mind-numbed couchpotato products of the horrific US public school system, so we get Clinton and all the other current crop of politicals. In many African countries, many people still have strong tribal ties and so envision the ideal national leader as a more powerful version of the traditional chief. A "big man" who does what he wants to because he's chief. And that's usually what they get.

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-Bullethead

It was a common custom at that time, in the more romantic females, to see their soldier husbands and sweethearts as Greek heroes, instead of the whoremongering, drunken clowns most of them were. However, the Greek heroes were probably no better, so it was not so far off the mark--Flashman

[Mark IV]

Pillar: You're probably already aware of the CIA World Fact Book, but FWIW: http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/

This is a great resource- I use it all the time- and please don't be put off by the source.

Africa will have to go through some stages, and the biggest problem Westerners seem to have there is impatience. We explain the deal, and can't understand why everyone doesn't immediately quit being counter- and self-destructive, and start being western.

I know everybody doesn't "want to be Western" but they sure want the toys and all that goes with the dolce vita, and that's part of the problem. Now all the cultures on earth measure progress by wealth and toys, rather than by how many people have the means to create and manage their own wealth.

Even the ones who follow the Marxist ticket are "being western" in the attempt to accumulate material goods by following an essentially western ideology. In one sense, Goebbels had it right: capitalism and communism are two different sides of the same materialist coin.

I have no idea how to peacefully convey valid and successful values to Africa. Some contend that the values "Africans" already have are just as valid as any other (as though they were one person!). The cultural relativists think we should just keep hands off- but send checks every month.

I would like to think there is a better solution, but it all seems to come down to native leadership. You can only help them help themselves, through their own leaders.

The other solution is probably unacceptable in this day and age, but being an imperialist, I still think it would have been better to just colonize the place, keep order and educate, and turn it back over to them when they have a functioning market. Then we can sell them stuff.

The British really wrote the book on (fairly) benign imperialism, and we USians have subconsciously been avid students of our cultural forefathers. Yes, it's insensitive, but it is a fast-track to success.

Oh, well, didn't think that one would get a lot of support. I just wanted to make sure all the options are on the table.

[Guest Pillar]

This is an article I came across written by a Doctor Gary Hull. I thought it might be of interest to the topic.

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The Pied Pipers of Tribalism

The "Million Woman March" Should Have Promoted Individualism Not Tribalism

Gary Hull, Ph.D.

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In nineteenth century Africa, blacks were sold into slavery by their community leaders. The leaders of the Million Woman March are trying to repeat history.

The 500,000 attendees at the October 25 march in Philadelphia listened to speakers extolling the theme "Sisters Healing Sisters." The mission statement says: "Great-grandmother taught grandmother. Grandmother taught mother. Mother taught me. I will teach you." What ideas did the organizers teach? They pushed unity among "racial sisters," and a return to the primitive tribalism of "African values."

Because the individual's identity is determined by the ethnic group, they said, one should devote oneself to supporting the needs of the tribe. Organizer Barbara Smith explained what this means: "In Africa, we shared everything. If I [had] milk, you had milk. If I had a house built, you had a house built. And when we started to learn that we were actually kings, queens, physicians, musicians, builders of pyramids, the stimulation of that [was] incredibly powerful. We can't find that in American history. We have to find that in African history."

Barbara Smith got the facts right — but not the evaluation. The sacrifice of the individual to the ethnic collective is indeed to be found in African, not American, history. America's unique heritage is individualism. America has historically treasured self-reliance and independent thinking. But those values have created the freest and wealthiest country ever.

What, by contrast, has Africa's philosophical heritage of collectivism produced? Its worship of ethnic groups has caused centuries of misery and tribal slaughter. For example, an estimated 80-115 million young girls have been forced to submit to the ancient horror of genital mutilation. Life expectancy on the continent is some 25 years lower than in the U.S. The infant mortality rate is about fifteen times higher. There is unspeakable disease and mass starvation caused by a variety of collectivist dictatorships.

This is the tribalism that the march's organizers accepted — and flaunted.

Do the march's leaders want increased economic opportunities? Then let them endorse, not more government programs, but individual rights and capitalism. Do they want racial harmony? Let them grant moral supremacy, not to the collective tribe, but to the independent individual. Do they want better education? Let them fight, not for black-only schools, but for schools that teach the value of the individual, rational mind.

Lurking behind the rally's love of all things African was the insidious message to every listener: Ditch your brain; subordinate your will; accept the notion that your life has no reality except as an appendage of the tribal organism.

These ideas are not originated by the leaders of the march. They come from the humanities departments at our colleges and universities. The organizers merely spread in the culture what college professors now teach in class. For instance, one avant-garde concept in academia is "critical race theory" — which argues that there is no reality independent of a person's ethnicity, no objective facts and no universal rules of logic. Every person thus interprets events according to the emotions of his racial group. Said Professor Anthony Cook, a law professor at Georgetown University and a defender of the theory: "Critical race theory wants to bring race to the very center of the analysis of most situations. Its assumption is that race has affected our perception of reality and our understanding of the world — in almost every way."

Assaults on human reason create a herd mentality — a mentality that mindlessly follows those who declare themselves the leaders. Travelers on the Million Woman March will find that this tribalist road leads only to poverty, dictatorship and slavery. Ideologically there is no difference between "Aryan only" and "black only" schools. And there is no difference between a Nazi intellectual who said: "The voice of the blood speaks a louder language than that of the intellect," and a Million Woman March attendee who said: "I wanted to meet other strong black women who had the same agenda and be united."

Leaders of the minority communities will not find economic progress or racial harmony by turning to Africa. They will find positive values only by discovering the ideas that created the freest, wealthiest country in history — the one that fought a war to eradicate slavery: America. Minorities, as do all Americans, need a crusade against tribalism and for the supremacy of reason and individualism.

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[nijis]

On "benevolent" British imperialism -- I live in a country, Egypt, where the British did indeed build the railroads. On the other hand, they on several occasions they screwed with the workings of what originally looked to be a very promising parliament--making the popular elected PM stand down or they'd bombard Alexandria, that kind of thing. As a result, it lost all its nationalist credibility, and the way was cleared for an army takeover which has led to half a century of military dictatorship which, among other things, does a piss-poor job of maintaining the railroads. This is a gross oversimplification--there's lots of reasons why Egypt has the government it does, most of which is the Egyptian elite's own fault--but the British didn't help things. If you've got a choice between infrastructure that gets old and has to be replaced, and your own indigenous political system which hopefully evolves and gets better, I think most nations would choose the latter. In places like India where they were in for the long haul you might find that the British left behind workable political institutions, but in Africa and the Middle East that's generally not so.

Or Sudan -- the Brits decided to make a single political entity out of an Arab-Islamic north and a Christian-animist south whose main historical link was the slave trade. Go figure why this might not work out. Sudan's had 30 years of civil war since independence, with over 1.5 million dead.

One of the best books on African politics that I've read is Wole Soyinka's autobiographical novel "The Pekelemes Years," on being a young subversive in Nigeria in the 1960s.

[Bullethead]

Pillar said:

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>This is an article I came across written by a Doctor Gary Hull.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

OK, so you're going into this with your eyes open. That's good. From your initial post, I was afraid you were all idealism.

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-Bullethead

It was a common custom at that time, in the more romantic females, to see their soldier husbands and sweethearts as Greek heroes, instead of the whoremongering, drunken clowns most of them were. However, the Greek heroes were probably no better, so it was not so far off the mark--Flashman

[Guest Pillar]

Bullethead,

My ideal is Reason.

It would be quite to the contrary of myself to go into anything with my eyes shut.

So yes, I'm an idealist.

(Good previous post by the way)

[This message has been edited by Pillar (edited 07-14-2000).]

[Mark IV]

Originally posted by nijis:

On "benevolent" British imperialism

Well, I'm waiting for some turns back, so: I said "fairly benign".

I live in a country, Egypt, where the British did indeed build the railroads... (snip)... on several occasions they screwed with the workings of what originally looked to be a very promising parliament... (snip)... the way was cleared for an army takeover which has led to half a century of military dictatorship which, among other things, does a piss-poor job of maintaining the railroads.

See? They built the railroads- good. They also appeared on the Egyptian scene because the country was bankrupt under its former system. Mohammed Ali Pasha was hardly an indigenous ruler (Albanian servant of the Ottomans, wasn't he? The Brits replaced the Turks, after all, and more benignly so).

A parliament? Sounds British to me, and another damn good idea. Pity it didn't work out, but there wouldn't be one in the first place without Brits to emulate.

So the British finally left, and are replaced (eventually) by Mubarak. Coulda been a lot worse, I'd say, especially compared to some of Egypt's previous rulers.

This is a gross oversimplification--there's lots of reasons why Egypt has the government it does, most of which is the Egyptian elite's own fault--but the British didn't help things.

Well, I think they really did, if you back away from it a little. The institution of the rule of law is the thing England has always done best. I think Egypt should send them a great big thank you card for that alone.

If you've got a choice between infrastructure that gets old and has to be replaced, and your own indigenous political system which hopefully evolves and gets better, I think most nations would choose the latter.

That's not a choice Egypt had, nor does most of Africa.

In places like India where they were in for the long haul you might find that the British left behind workable political institutions, but in Africa and the Middle East that's generally not so.

They were in India longer. As I say, they WERE imperialists.

Or Sudan -- the Brits decided to make a single political entity out of an Arab-Islamic north and a Christian-animist south whose main historical link was the slave trade. Go figure why this might not work out.

Egypt was the one who claimed all of the present Sudan as "territory" after their forcible conquest of the north in 1821. A British-Egyptian army was required to deliver the "nation" from the Mahdi, as you are probably aware. Egypt took the Sudan, and the British took it from them, after they took Egypt from the Turks.

And they all pole-vaulted a couple of centuries forward thanks to British imperialism, and now they have it all back, and may do as they please. And we can sell them stuff.

[Holman]

Bullethead, I hope you don't see my response to Pillar as some kind of knee-jerk politicial correctness: the history of colonialism *is* complex, as you point out, and it involves benefits as well as detriments. My reading on these issues has ranged from Chinua Achebe to Robert Kaplan, and I can't imagine fitting the range between their opinions into one or two pat slogans.

My response was mainly motivated by the language of an "untapped New World" at the start of the thread. Some will say that an excessive focus on language is precisely the definition of "PC," but, well, I've been teaching English for the past six years. What else can I do?

[gaffertape]

Possibly the best course I took at university was on post-colonial literature. There are some good points on this thread but probably a million different interpretations of each.

No simple answers here, I'm afraid. Requires some heavy reading (way more than I did - wink, wink) from the perspective of both the former imperial powers, and the citizens of Africa themselves.

GAFF

[nijis]

All right, Mr. IV. I'm dragging this thread way off topic but I feel compelled to clarify a few points on Egypt's colonial history. Benign, benevolent.. Bah!

The British appeared on the scene early, but didn't actually take over the place until 1882, when indigenous army officers revolted against the khedive, who I don't even think spoke Arabic, precisely because he was letting the Brits and French take over the economy to settle debts that the monarchy had run up on prestige products, including lots of European-style palaces plus the commissioning of the opera Aida, which are all very nice but of limited value to your average toiling fellah. One of the rebels' demands was a constitution. Unfortunately they were smashed by the British army at the battle of Tel Al Kebir.

The Egyptians actually got a constitution after a massive popular uprising in 1919--except that the Brits forced them to retain the khedive (now dubbed a King) who would have power to dissolve parliament whenever it got too uppity. Sure, the parliament was copied from the British model, but it's not like the British copyrighted it. So I guess they could thank the Magna Carta crowd and Oliver Cromwell and Thomas Jefferson and the Chartists, but owe Disraeli and Victoria and Lord Cromer and Allenby a big pie in the face. Anyway, when's the last time anyone sent a thank-you card to the Arabs for preserving Greek philosophy through the Dark Ages?

I think infrastructure vs. parliament was exactly the choice facing the early Egyptian nationalists--except they didn't have a choice, and were Maxim-gunned into accepting the former. And anyway, the khedives had shown that they were perfectly capable of paying foreign engineers to build stuff, and later rulers showed they were perfectly capable of conning the Soviets into building big dams, so it's not like the railroads would never have gotten built.

And as for "Egypt" taking the Sudan, that was that Albanian adventurer Mohammed Ali again, with the Egyptians trudging along in the part of the hapless, dying-in-droves conscript foot soldiers. One could argue that the Brits took the Sudan over with the best of intentions--stopping the slave trade, for example--then managed to undo whatever good they did by forcing people who historically did not get along, at all, to live together in the same political entity.

And as for "getting it all back under Mubarak," well, they still ain't got a real parliament here yet. And believe me, Mubarak could be worse, but he could be a whole lot better. Lots of folks here think that the only decent ruler they ever had was Saad Zaghlul, Egypt's first PM, forced to step down by High Commissioner Sir George "the natives' minds are unsettled by the hot winds of spring, so when I see the jacaranda trees in bloom I know it's time to call out the gunboats" Lloyd. But we can sell them stuff.

[Major Tom]

Sure, the Colonialists did build railroads, but, they are virtually useless today. When they built railroads they were solely used to transfer workers and resources from the interior to port cities for export and import. Today the infrastructure of most African nations is not geared toward an independent African economy, but, one invariably tied to Europe. Some nations in Africa don't even have direct air flights! I cannot remember which nations, but, two neighbouring nations require a flight stopover in PARIS in order to fly to one nation from another, even though they are neighbours! This is due to the remants of colonial infrastructure which still exist today, and will probably exist well into the future.

Yes, you cannot state that nations in Africa were somehow better than those in the rest of the world. If ANY other region had the same chance to dominate the world like Europe and North America they would not have hesitated to be as destructive. There are COUNTLESS examples in history in Africa before Colonialism began of African nations imposing their power on their culturally different neighbours. They just didn't have the govermental structure or weapons to do it to the same extent as the West.

[Johan Brittz]

The problems of Africa comes down to various factors and I think the 3 most important ones listed in importance is 1)Stupidity 2) Laziness 3) Lack of morals.

Harsh words maybe, but the truth I'm afraid and the sooner we Africans accept this the sooner we'll stop blaming everybody else and get our own act together...

[DanW]

Pillar and Gang,

Great topic, I'm probably more interested in philosophy and theology then I am in CM (not that I'm very well versed in any of them).

I'll toss out a few points:

1) Individual rights vs community rights. I don't think this is a case of either/or, but a need to accomodate both/and. Perhaps the most clear example of this is the family. In a family each member has certain rights as an individual, but these rights are not superior to the obligations each individual has towards the family unit. Similair exchanges exist as you magnify the scale to community, state, nation, humanity, and God.

2) What is the goal? Western civilization has indeed been the wellspring of individualism. So what is it that we're trying to achieve with this individualism. I suppose this is somewhat an extension of point #1.

3) As far as benevolent colonialism, I won't say it can't be done, but I think we probably over estimate the extent to which it has been done. I'd be reluctant to call England a benevolent empire. Perhaps on a small scale, and in isolated times, but if we look at Ireland for instance, there is probably no way to describe that as benevolent. India also was crushed. The issue here probably again comes back to the individual. Is a railroad worth the 1,000s of lives which were crushed to make it? I'm speaking somewhat metaphorically, but in truth these infrastructure developments came at the price of downplaying the value of the natives.

Well I'll fire this off and see if you all care to respond, look forward to hearing back.

Dan W.

[Mark IV]

I would like to say thank you to the Arab culture which, in the golden days of Islam, preserved philosophy AND mathematics AND many classic works while developing their own unique, vibrant, and beautiful culture.

You can see some of its finest examples in Spain, where Islamic imperialists brought order and beauty for centuries, ruling in enlightened splendor over ignorant and curiously-colored barbarians (called "Europeans").

The debt that western culture owes to the Arabic world is usually acknowledged in history texts, at least at the college level. If they had stayed a little better organized, all Europe might be Islamic now. They stopped themselves, more than the mythic (but still cool) Chuck the Hammer.

That whole bit about when the British got involved in the middle east makes me smile, because the bad guy is determined by when we decide to start our history... how do those rascally Turks fit into this hagiography?

The modern Arab world might provide a good test: which Arab nations are better-off and worse-off?

Are the more westernized ones better off, or not (culturally relative trick question, I guess)? Are the best-off nations those which adapted the most from colonial rule? Not if you're an Imam!

[nijis]

That's a big old "you're welcome" on behalf of Islamic civilization. Western textbooks certainly do acknowledge its role in preserving the classical corpus--but then most educated folks in Egypt do acknowledge that the West pioneered liberal democracy, and are glad that it did, even if the regime's school textbooks don't.

I wasn't suggesting that everything started going downhill when the British showed up. Those Turks were indeed rascally. The British were the latest in a 2300-year sequence of conquerors, no worse (but not much better) than most. Like the British, Mohammed Ali built hospitals and irrigation systems. He also subjected the peasantry to forced labor and the lash. The Brits also built hospitals and irrigation systems, and they also used forced labor in nasty conditions, particularly during WWI.

As for which Arab countries are best off today--well, that's a toughie, as the governments are all a pretty dismal lot. The least-colonized states are Oman, the Gulf states, Saudi, and Yemen. Saudi definitely adopted the least from Europe, but only exists because the British decided to cast in their lot the Al Sauds, a particularly brutal and backward family from the mid-desert, beat their rivals the Hashemites, who got Iraq and Jordan as a consolation prize. Of the folks without oil, Yemenis are generally dirt-poor and illiterate, but they are free of the day-to-day police state harassment you get in Syria, Iraq, Libya, Algeria, Tunisia and Egypt. Actually there's not much of a state in Yemen at all, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Of the others, Jordan, which as a state is entirely a creation of the Brits, is a decent place to live if you're not too hung up on political rights. Iraq, which is also a creation of the Brits, is a disaster. Lebanon, a creation of France, is probably the most "Westernized" and economically advanced, but wasn't that much fun a place to be in ten years ago. Trying to make any sort of link between the well-being of a country and its history vis-a-vis the West is a tricky one. I'm just saying that direct colonial rule didn't do any favors for in Egypt.

[DanW]

Mark IV,

I wonder who historians will record as preserving "philosohpy and classical works" in our day and age? It's interesting that we laud such praise on the Arabs for their contributions, while at the same time our society tosses these articles into the trash heap as either unprofitable, outdated, or intolerant.

Ever find anybody teaching Aristotle or the other Greek masters? Augustine has certainly been tossed aside.

I'd agree heartily on the fact that history is a function of perspective as much as the actual events being recounted. He who laughs last writes the history books. Sure wouldn't want to waste time teaching about the rise of the university system in Europe. A system that probably as much as any other could be credited with Western dominance of the world for the last 500 years or so. Not that dominance in itself is the goal, but you'd have to wonder what led to that train of events.

Good discussion gents, keep it coming.

Dan W.

[Mark IV]

Augustine is very much alive in any discussion of war crime theory and legislation (see? this IS on topic). His thoughts on "just war", the theories of proportionality, jus ad bellum and jus in bello, are still cited (the one about just wars being fought by "competent authority" has sadly fallen victim to the times).

I don't think he required preservation by the Arabs, though. He remained "nihil obstat" during the Middle Ages.

Aristotle certainly isn't in any danger of being banned, but he just isn't as important anymore. Since the Renaissance and the Industrial Revolution we haven't really needed to go back to the source, because information grew exponentially from his foundation. I have a fair bit of Greek (in English) and Roman literature hanging around.

I suppose a society that is close to outlawing insensitive histories, tobacco products, and repeating rifles might theoretically pose a threat to the classics someday. I guess your real concern is that they will perish through ignorance- but I'll bet the same percentage of the populace (professors and students) reads them today, as read them 2000 years ago. The average Greek probably just wanted to know when the chariot race was on, and what's for supper....

nijis: We will continue to disagree about the benefits of British colonialism. They WERE better than the Turks (lower body counts, more benefits). But if we widen the scope of Pillar's question even more, where in the last 200 years is the civilization that has progressed to the level of western civilization, without western influence? Are we wanting our cake and eating it too? We want the bennies of the west with no strings attached?

Or is there another way? Yemen doesn't sound much like paradise to me...

The whole spiritual-agrarian-anarchy-less consumptive "answer" to western values (so beloved of tenured professors and undergrads) is really tedious. It always makes me want to set up a large Quick Battle with lots of armor.

[nijis]

Nope, Yemen's no paradise, unless you really, really enjoy chewing qat and recreational use of firearms. Not to knock either one, but I enjoy my industrial nation-style 70-plus life expectancy, I enjoy not having to worry about contracting polio, and I enjoy my citizenship in a country with a Bill of Rights.

I tend to think that non-Western peoples could have taken what the West had to offer technologically and intellectually without having had their sovereignty compromised by a Western power, and would have been better off had they had that choice. Given that the Europe and its offshoots reshaped the political structure of just about every corner of the world at one point or another in the past 500 years, that's kind of a hard theory to test. Might have to agree to disagree on this one, too.

As for bennies and strings, I am certainly glad to assimilate the intellectual and technical achievements of Steve and Charles, which have definitely improved the quality of my life, and I'm very happy to pay a fair market price for the privilege, but I'm not sure I want them knocking down the door and setting themselves up in my living room. I'll admit in advance that there's probably a couple of holes in the analogy. Cheers.

[Aggamemnon]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Johan Brittz:

The problems of Africa comes down to various factors and I think the 3 most important ones listed in importance is 1)Stupidity 2) Laziness 3) Lack of morals.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I live in the US and haven't met too many people from South Africa but I've met a lot of people from Eritrea (East Africa). Maybe it's just the ones I've met but I certainly wouldn't call any of them stupid, lazy, or lacking in morals. On the contrary, I've found them to be extremely hard working, and of very good moral character.

I just had to put my two cents in.