Why Are Black-Led Countries Doing So Badly?

[bee_bop]

Re: Why Are Black-Led Countries Doing So Badly?

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Archie68</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Littleman, you thesis has been explored relentlessly by many smart people. They agree to a point; not <div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">discipline</div></div>. Common system, legal code, language, and trade.

However, your attempt at a point reveals a deeper point. It is: Africa has never had a unifing civilization. Cultural, bantu is dominant. However, there was never a common series of soldiers, laws, language, etc. that imposed some sort of commonality.

My African history professor claimed it is impossible due to Africa's geography. His point was: you cannot have a unified concept if geography does not let you reach the place.

Africa geography fragments people.

That is the past. The issue remains. Will black people keep on going on.

Or can we, create a common vision? If not, the present and future will look like the past. That simple. </div></div>

<span style="color: #000099"><span style="font-weight: bold">Point taken, that Africa's geography fragments its people, and I assume you refer to the deserts, deep jungles, and mountains that make up the continent of Africa.

<span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua'">
Roman discipline:

I refer to the discipline of the Romans because it is that discipline that separated them from other European tribes. Roman generals discovered that, in a battle the side that ran first (after exhaustion) would be the side that lost. This discipline guaranteed conquest, and power.

In the battles against Spartacus' legions, the Roman generals ordered the decimation of the ranks of their legions, as a means of instilling discipline unto death, and a determination to defeat the seeming juggernaut of Spartacus' forces.

The Roman Empire introduced: a common road network; language; legal code; economic system and taxation; military defense system; governing structure; common architecture; etc. It even made the ideal of the Republic, first conceived of by the Greeks, to be a wide spread reality.

It is this foundation which was modified, and built upon in the period of the renaissance, that lead to the development of the western Europe that would go on to conquer most of the other continents of the world.

Britain, which subsequently led three-quarters of the world, was a <span style="font-style: italic">back-water</span> at the time of the Roman Empire. The influence of Romans, followed by the Saxon invasion, molded Britain to become the Imperial culture we know today.

For many reasons Africa had no similar developing experiences, and was relatively laid-back at the time of Europe's incursion. Except for the Zulu Empire, which was very organized, and had developed a national identity, under Emperor Shaka Zulu. However the Zulu Empire was limited, compared to Europe, and had many enemies on the continent.</span>

Cuban aid for African independence:

Cuba seems to have helped many African countries to break free from their colonial masters, especially the Portuguese, and Belgian colonies. Along with the former Soviet Union, Cuba helped put pressure on many colonial powers to begin the process of decolonization. In the case of Angola, Cuba almost acted unilaterally to shore-up that besieged country.

The defeat of a South African army at Cuita Cuanavale, in southern Angola, helped to destroy the psychology behind apartheid, i.e. <span style="font-style: italic">the white superman</span>. An entire South African army was surrounded by Angolans, and almost defeated. Newspapers carried this piece of shocking news throughout South Africa.

Post-colonial Africa:

However, there has been a lot of: subversion, coups, international invasions, propping-up of corrupt dictatorships that served to rob the countries of Africa of much-needed resources.

Slowly some African countries are becoming stable, such as; Ghana, Nigeria, Zambia, South Africa, Uganda, Sierra Leone (with the help of a British expedition), mainly former-British colonies, except for post civil war Rwanda (which had a peak GDP of about 10% before the global meltdown).

This account, from my perspective, is probably a gross over-simplification, but I think Africa will continue its 'rocky' development, slowly re-developing itself after the standards set by western Europe.
</span></span>

[Blackstar*]

Re: Why Are Black-Led Countries Doing So Badly?

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Marielle</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: amberal37</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><span style="font-style: italic">Unlike India and other non-black countries, blacks were not allowed to be educated under colonial [tyranny] rule.</span></div></div>

<span style="font-style: italic">Not strictly true. France had the stance that if you took the French &quot;values&quot; on board you could become &quot;French&quot;.....

In Gambia I met a Senegalese man in the Roots village of Juffure, where he had a music and dance school who told me his dad
was the first black lawyer in France in the late 50's/early 60's (can't remember which, presumably 60's).....</span> </div></div>
The French used education to further their racist colonial policies.<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">French Direct rule produced a class of “assimilés” who saw Africa’s destiny only in France’s hands. Houphouet Boighny for example, opposed independence for the Ivory Coast on grounds that it still needed more guidance from France.

Through Assimilation, France transformed its African colonies into complete dependencies that relied on France for survival. Many elites in French Africa looked up to Paris as “home.” This was because to become “assimilé,” one had to show signs of being “civilized.” This implied being able to speak French, eating French food, dressing French, being Christian, being literate and abandoning “primitive African cultures.”. More... </div></div>This type of education is equally destructive as no education at all.

[Wahalla]

Re: Why Are Black-Led Countries Doing So Badly?

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Archie68</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Littleman, you thesis has been explored relentlessly by many smart people. They agree to a point; not <div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">discipline</div></div>. Common system, legal code, language, and trade.

However, your attempt at a point reveals a deeper point. It is: Africa has never had a unifing civilization. Cultural, bantu is dominant. However, there was never a common series of soldiers, laws, language, etc. that imposed some sort of commonality.

My African history professor claimed it is impossible due to Africa's geography. His point was: you cannot have a unified concept if geography does not let you reach the place.

Africa geography fragments people.

That is the past. The issue remains. Will black people keep on going on.

Or can we, create a common vision? If not, the present and future will look like the past. That simple. </div></div>

interesting that about geography... I recall we studied the geography of the US and it was never pointed out tje advantages that it had wwhen compared to say Kanada or the USSR... and wgy its economy will always prevail... when compared to the geography of Africa... I just had a emaul from stratfor discussing this idea....

[johnnycakes]

Re: Why Are Black-Led Countries Doing So Badly?

Littleman, others,

Do you all feel that the poor countries of Africa can mount some sort of lifting of all the people if they all keep capitalism as the economic type?

IMO
The need for a unification of states under some sort of continental or partial continental confederation is also something to address. With the nations that are resource rich and the resource poor nations remaining separate, there will always be the haves and have nots and thus the cause of many wars.

IMO
Tribalism is also a factor that separates rather than unifies the peoples of Africa and while the cultural aspects of the numerous tribes language, dress foods, etc should be nurtured and kept as long as wanted by those in those respective cultures,, the political power bases and the resulting wars that derive for the need to establish &quot;our&quot; lands need to vanish as they are barriers to human development.

Imo
The major problem are the poverty generated problems of starvation, hunger, illiteracy, disease, crime which so far have not and IMO cannot be solved by capitalism but indeed are created and perpetuated by capitalist economies.

To repeat myself: Capitalist economies do not, cannot work in poor Third World countries.

To then talk of lifting up black Africa without discussing the disastrous effects of capitalism and neo-colonial economics is ignoring the (African) elephant in the room.

[Amberal37]

Re: Why Are Black-Led Countries Doing So Badly?

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Wahalla</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Archie68</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Littleman, you thesis has been explored relentlessly by many smart people. They agree to a point; not <div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">discipline</div></div>. Common system, legal code, language, and trade.

However, your attempt at a point reveals a deeper point. It is: Africa has never had a unifing civilization. Cultural, bantu is dominant. However, there was never a common series of soldiers, laws, language, etc. that imposed some sort of commonality.

My African history professor claimed it is impossible due to Africa's geography. His point was: you cannot have a unified concept if geography does not let you reach the place.

Africa geography fragments people.

That is the past. The issue remains. Will black people keep on going on.

Or can we, create a common vision? If not, the present and future will look like the past. That simple. </div></div>

interesting that about geography... I recall we studied the geography of the US and it was never pointed out tje advantages that it had wwhen compared to say Kanada or the USSR... and wgy its economy will always prevail... when compared to the geography of Africa... I just had a emaul from stratfor discussing this idea.... </div></div>

and absolute nonsense about the geography point from me...and another point...

<span style="font-weight: bold">Why do people ALWAYS confuse Africa with a country...it is a CONTINENT...its former geographic lines were borders for nationa lines.</span>
Rome: largely modern day Italy (a country) southern Europe - civilisation succeeding Greek civilisation - a COUNTRY located largely in today's Greece/Albania
These two were NEVER unified under ONE civilisation.

Where does Nubia, Songhay, Timbuktu, et. al feature in these discussions?

[bee_bop]

Re: Why Are Black-Led Countries Doing So Badly?

JohnnyCakes said:
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Imo
The major problem are the poverty generated problems of starvation, hunger, illiteracy, disease, crime which so far have not and IMO cannot be solved by capitalism but indeed are created and perpetuated by capitalist economies.

To repeat myself: Capitalist economies do not, cannot work in poor Third World countries.</div></div>

<span style="color: #000099"><span style="font-weight: bold">A lot of Africa's present problems are perpetuated by internal strife, international invasion, and subversion, corrupt leadership, mis-guided militaries, poor economic planning, and an over-dependence on loans from wealthier countries.

Some of the internal strife, international invasion, and subversion were instigated by former colonial powers to maintain influence over these former colonies. Control over the wealth of Africa is another important factor.

Corrupt leadership, mis-guided militaries, and poor economic planning are largely problems with African leaders who are sometimes short-sighted, and ill-prepared for the difficulties of leading countries where they were once only underdogs, denied enfranchisement within their own countries by colonial powers.

Loans with lengthy repayment periods also guarantee that these African countries will remain indebted for a very long time, even after the principal has long ago been covered.

I suppose the loans part goes back to what JC was saying about capitalism being a weight around the necks of poor countries.</span>

<span style="font-size: 8pt">The above are simplifications, as stated in a previous post, and cannot cover all the possible circumstances of Africa's problems. Others will have differing opinions which everyone has a right to express, but which I do not necessarily share.</span></span>

[johnnycakes]

Re: Why Are Black-Led Countries Doing So Badly?

nternal strife, international invasion, and subversion, corrupt leadership, mis-guided militaries, poor economic planning, and an over-dependence on loans from wealthier countries.

........&quot;Some of the internal strife, international invasion, and subversion were instigated by former colonial powers to maintain influence over these former colonies. Control over the wealth of Africa is another important factor.


To which should be added that neo-colonialism, the systematic looting of the Third World African nations stems from capitalism coupled with imperialism.



.......&quot;Corrupt leadership&quot;

Corrupt in that they seek to amass vast sums of money useful only in capitalist societies.

.....&quot;, mis-guided militaries,&quot;


Misguided in that they support the corrupt governments and are often badly corrupted themselves?

.......&quot; poor economic planning&quot;....


Well given that they are resource poor, heavily indebted and often incredibly corrupt how can any sort of economic planning (kleptocracy) take place which has any chance of success under capitalism which is so corrupting?

.....&quot; problems with African leaders who are sometimes short-sighted, and ill-prepared for the difficulties of leading countries where they were once only underdogs, denied enfranchisement within their own countries by colonial powers.


&quot;Short sighted and ill prepared to lead their people&quot; ? of course, but well prepared to stash millions of dollars in Swiss Banks before they are run out of power.


Follow the money.
In societies where money is the end all be all and corruption and poverty are rife, history has shown that so far, there is no REFORMING that sort of thing.


IMO

[bee_bop]

Re: Why Are Black-Led Countries Doing So Badly?

JC said:
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">&quot;Short sighted and ill prepared to lead their people&quot; ? of course, but well prepared to stash millions of dollars in Swiss Banks before they are run out of power.</div></div>

<span style="color: #000099"><span style="font-weight: bold">I suppose most people catch-on very quickly to the idea of a Swiss bank account, and its use for putting aside ill-gotten gains. Doesn't require much training, or consideration...

Capitalism does have significant weaknesses, it is driven by greed (or assumes human greed), and requires the exploitation of those less well-off. Which is why slavery took-off the way it did centuries ago.

Communism is dying a slow death, with even China gradually changing to capitalism, mastering the economics it once despised. </span></span>

[johnnycakes]

Re: Why Are Black-Led Countries Doing So Badly?

.....&quot;Communism is dying a slow death, with even China gradually changing to capitalism, mastering the economics it once despised.&quot;


Yes indeed, that old totalitarian form has deservedly bitten the dust in the old Stalinist states with the DRK the last holdout. I would suspect its days are numbered and the sooner it goes down the better.

On the other hand the newer democratic socialist forms like Cuba's and the partial socialist states like Venezuela are the wave of the future.

In the political world, the demise of totalitarianism rule by those who hold the power signals the rise of democracy.

The rise in democratic rule in the world, that is, the rule of the peoples should also point towards the demise of economic totalitarianism (capitalism) if one believes that democracy is and should be the normal state of humanity.

It is impossible to believe in democracy AND in capitalism at the same time since capitalism is the very definition of non-democratic practices; rule from the top with little or no input from those governed .

[Blackstar*]

Re: Why Are Black-Led Countries Doing So Badly?

For every step forward, two steps backward.

June 10, 2009
<span style="font-family: 'Arial Black'"><span style="font-size: 17pt">Battle to Halt Graft Scourge in Africa Ebbs</span></span>
By CELIA W. DUGGER



<span style="font-size: 8pt">Above, a hand-painted anticorruption sign in Lusaka, Zambia. Agencies investigating wrongdoing by powerful politicians have been undermined or disbanded and their leaders have been dismissed, threatened with death and driven into exile. </span>

LUSAKA, Zambia — The fight against corruption in Africa’s most pivotal nations is faltering as public agencies investigating wrongdoing by powerful politicians have been undermined or disbanded and officials leading the charge have been dismissed, subjected to death threats and driven into exile.

“We are witnessing an era of major backtracking on the anticorruption drive,” said Daniel Kaufmann, an authority on corruption who works at the Brookings Institution. “And one of the most poignant illustrations is the fate of the few anticorruption commissions that have had courageous leadership. They’re either embattled or dead.”

Experts, prosecutors and watchdog groups say they fear that major setbacks to anticorruption efforts in South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya are weakening the resolve to root out graft, a stubborn scourge that saps money needed to combat poverty and disease in the world’s poorest region. And in Zambia, a change of leadership has stoked fears that the country’s zealous prosecution of corruption is ebbing.

The perils of challenging deeply rooted patterns of corruption have been brought home recently with the suspicious deaths of two anticorruption campaigners. Ernest Manirumva, who worked with a nonprofit group, Olucome, investigating high-level corruption in Burundi, was stabbed to death in the early morning hours of April 9. A bloodstained folder lay empty on his bed. Documents and a computer flash drive were missing, said the president of Olucome, Gabriel Rufyiri.

And in the Congo Republic, Bruno Jacquet Ossebi, a journalist who had announced he was joining a lawsuit brought by Transparency International to reclaim the ill-gotten wealth of his country’s president, died of injuries from a fire that raced through his home in the early hours of Jan. 21.

The broader anxieties about Africa’s resolve to combat corruption have emerged from troubled efforts in several countries.

In oil-rich Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, where watchdog groups say efforts to combat corruption are backsliding, Nuhu Ribadu, who built a well-trained staff of investigators at the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, said he fled his homeland into self-imposed exile in England in December. Officials had sent Mr. Ribadu away to a training course a year earlier, soon after his agency charged a wealthy, politically connected former governor with trying to bribe officials on his staff with huge sacks stuffed with $15 million in $100 bills. Mr. Ribadu, who was dismissed from the police force last year, said he had received death threats and was fired upon in September by assailants.

“If you fight corruption, it fights you back,” he said.

In South Africa, home to the region’s biggest economy, a new crime unit with less statutory protection from political interference was stripped of the authority to both investigate and prosecute crimes. It will take over from the Scorpions, the prosecuting authority’s elite investigating unit that had achieved high conviction rates and built potent corruption cases against Jacob Zuma, who became president of South Africa in April, and Jackie Selebi, the national police commissioner and an ally of former President Thabo Mbeki. The Scorpions were abolished last year and the country’s chief prosecutor, Vusi Pikoli, who had pushed forward with both cases, was fired.

“Even people of good will would be slow to take on people in high places again because history will have told them it comes at a high cost,” said Wim Trengrove, a private lawyer who assisted the state with the prosecution of Mr. Zuma.

And in Kenya, the economic anchor of east Africa, scandals have continued to flourish and anticorruption prosecutions have languished since John Githongo, who was the country’s anticorruption chief, sought safety in self-imposed exile in England in 2005. Aaron Ringera, who apparently advised Mr. Githongo in taped conversations in 2005 not to push for prosecutions of President Mwai Kibaki’s ministers, is the current anticorruption chief. Mr. Ringera said in an e-mail message that Mr. Githongo had twisted advice he offered him “in his own best interests.” In an interview, he said he had recommended prosecuting eight ministers, but had been blocked by either the courts or the attorney general.

The search is on for more effective ways to tackle corruption, including intensified legal efforts to prosecute multinational corporations that pay the bribes and reclaim loot that African political elites have stashed abroad.

Transparency International’s suit seeks to force the French justice system to investigate how the leaders of Gabon, the Congo Republic and Equatorial Guinea and their families acquired tens of millions of dollars in assets there. Still others say rich countries and international organizations that provide billions of dollars in aid to African countries each year must more vigorously use their leverage to make sure aid does not fuel corruption.

Based on his finding that more than $1 trillion a year is paid in bribery globally, Mr. Kaufmann, formerly director of global programs at the World Bank Institute, estimates there are tens of billions of dollars of corrupt transactions each year in sub-Saharan Africa.

Mr. Githongo, who failed in trying to fight corruption from the inside, has returned to Nairobi to start a nonprofit group to mobilize rural people to press politicians to clean up a rotten system.

“Going after big fish hasn’t worked,” he said. “The fish will not fry themselves.”

Zambia recently won rare convictions against former military commanders and Regina Chiluba, the wife of its former president, on corruption charges. Frederick Chiluba, president from 1991 to 2001, will himself face a verdict in July on corruption charges.



His sumptuous wardrobe — Lanvin suits, silk pajamas and handmade Italian shoes of snakeskin, satin and ostrich — became an emblem of greed in one of the world’s poorest countries.

But anticorruption leaders say they sense less commitment to tackle corruption since the election of President Rupiah Banda. “I’m inside,” said Maxwell Nkole, who leads a task force set up to investigate the Chiluba-era abuses. “The tempo, the intensity to tackle corruption is dropping.”

The Banda administration vigorously denies that charge, and says it will prosecute officials who stole $2 million from the Ministry of Health. At stake are hundreds of millions of dollars in grants from the United States’ Millennium Challenge Corporation that Zambia is eligible for. On a recent afternoon, ambassadors from rich nations, the United States and Britain among them, mingled at a party on the lawn of Mark Chona, the first chief of the Zambian anticorruption task force. In welcoming them, he issued a sharp warning.

“Your money is being stolen,” he said. “Don’t sit silent. You don’t know how much influence you have.”

Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company

Source

[Archie68]

Re: Why Are Black-Led Countries Doing So Badly?

Compared to Africa, Greece is a very small place. Thus, the analogy fails. Your examples are cultural and very limited. It fails based on size alone.

My time in Africa left me confused. I found no AFRICA. I found thousands of AFRICA. I cannot define the place and will not attempt to try.

Indeed, that is the problem. There is no coherent concept of nationality or culture in Africa. The place is just too big for that. No one, no people, no culture, ever crushed all that into one cultural concept.

The fragmentation shows.

[Amberal37]

Re: Why Are Black-Led Countries Doing So Badly?

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Archie68</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><span style="font-weight: bold">Compared to Africa, Greece is a very small place. Thus, the analogy fails. Your examples are cultural and very limited. It fails based on size alone. </span></div></div>

This is EXACTLY the point that i am trying to make - you cannot compare civilisation in a region (a SMALL part of EUROPE the continent) and use that as a basis to say EUROPEANS had a codified/unified system unlike Africa.
AFRICA is a CONTINENT - please DO try to understand it as simple enough!
(By the way - Greece today has a different geographic boundary than Greece of ancient times, although it's core was where modern day Greece is today - but that is another point)

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Archie68</div><div class="ubbcode-body">My time in Africa left me confused. I found no AFRICA. I found thousands of AFRICA. I cannot define the place and will not attempt to try.
[Indeed, that is the problem. There is no coherent concept of nationality or culture in Africa. The place is just too big for that. No one, no people, no culture, ever crushed all that into one cultural concept.

The fragmentation shows. </div></div>

Again, once you understand that Africa is a CONTINENT, a vast land located in the centre of the earth, with various nation states, then you will understand that there ARE different NATIONALITIES, and different cultures.
Indeed even where I am now in northern Europe, in one country there are three languages. As well as dialects that are so varied, you can almost consider them as different languages, additionally, if these people had lived another 500 years in the separate locations with no common means of communication, then for sure - other languages would been developed altogether.
Language is bourne out of necessity and used to communicate information to those that share the same interests - in this case - same culture.
Simple case in point - look at the internet culture, text messaging, using abbreviations like LOL, BOAL, SWL, etc...

The &quot;dialects&quot; would almost have become another language system. Believe me there ARE links between certain cultures, but you WILL need to study something like anthropology or even linguistics to identify what those the linkeages are.

Just because you meet Africans that don't all speak the same language, have different cultures (shared behaviour and practices), different religions, and different gods (or none), does not mean that they do not share a commonality. This is the history that has been shaped in the last 500 years, but stems from the fact that they have dark/black skin, woolly/frizzy hair, been classed as members of the &quot;Black&quot; race and as such has been subjected to inhuman hardships by the &quot;white race&quot; based on inferiority complexes and a loss of identity with their origins.

I will stop there...

[Blackstar*]

Re: Why Are Black-Led Countries Doing So Badly?

I got a lot out of re-reading this thread. Bumping in case anyone has something new to add.

[Wahalla]

Re: Why Are Black-Led Countries Doing So Badly?

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Archie68</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Compared to Africa, Greece is a very small place. Thus, the analogy fails. Your examples are cultural and very limited. It fails based on size alone.



The fragmentation shows. </div></div>


I concur with this most of this based on my own experience of Africa which there are no piffy videos to demonstrat this ... and there are no single &quot;African&quot; solutions.. no single magic bullet no pun intended to solve the problem... The idea of a single poltical unit falls at the first hurdle... I beleive the concept of a multipolar.

I disagree that there is no sense of nationalism..Nigerians per say know they are Nigerians for instance but there is a less solid sense of identity....they may identify themselves equaly and more often by language, village, of religion, even at times black.. but the primary identification may be alternatives..

one of the few times I know Africans saw themselves as Africans beyond t the remit of location, was during the last world cup... They took pride in the Black Stars....few saw the momentous significance of that.. and in the fact that Africans organised the world cup.. other occassions was when Mandela walked free...

[Archie68]

Re: Why Are Black-Led Countries Doing So Badly?

Football support is easy in Africa. I admit there is a sense of &quot;continentilism.&quot; That is very shallow support when there are issues of mass murder and mass rapes going on.

You need to get to real issues to support your point. Can you do that? I hope so. Please (no joke). Seriously. Black solidarity in an hopeful way? Please, give me something. I found nothing myself. Provide some evidence.