Man is Africa screwed up! Yeah this isn't an original observation.

[Demon-Xanth]

awesome.

Think I'll pick up a crate of those and flash around my bling. Then I'll get all da bitchez!

I have thought about trying to pick up a lot of zimbabwe currency and actually play monopoly with real money.

 

[GregGreen]

Tia

 

[Molondo]

Africa is just a crappy place. I don't know why it is like that. Other countries went through as much crap as African countries did. Yet those other countries came out much better.

Too many tribes forced to be under one banner. It doesn't work like that.

 

[neutralizer]

$2.45 shipped now:
http://cgi.ebay.com/100-TRILLION-ZI...ZViewItemQQptZPaper_Money?hash=item20ae0c8e49

This would an awesome conversation piece.

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

Northern Africa and the Ivory Coast took a serious turn for the worse when the Foreign Legion pulled out during the Gulf War.

 

[clamum]

All this :thumbsup: and as I said the entire continent was dropped like a sack of potatoes at around about the same time. Right around 1960 Most of the countries went from oppressive colonial rule to ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, BOOM overnight.

I'm no super Africa history scholar, but from what I've read, agreed.

 

[Zebo]

Funny thing is they were richest in Africa at one time when called Rhodesia. Bread basket to Africa and all that.

 

[Colt45]

Funny thing is they were richest in Africa at one time when called Rhodesia. Bread basket to Africa and all that.

Funny thing that. Kick the white farmers off the good land, and now there's no food. Good job team.

 

[zinfamous]

Funny thing that. Kick the white farmers off the good land, and now there's no food. Good job team.

it's not so much that they were white farmers, it's that they were experienced. If you put some thought into training and educating the new generation how to take care of the land and maintain production, that would be one thing.

Yes, this was an extremely ill-advised move, that anyone said was idiotic. You don't kick out the established gentry and replace them with the ignorant simply b/c it's "right," you set about establishing a structure to replace those gentry with responsible inhabitants with a legitimate investment in the success of a (hopefully) respected government.

Hell, the Soviets did the same thing over their entire occupied territory: Kick off the successful, and therefore "bourgoise" farmers and truck them out to Siberia, and replace them with 5 Russian peasant families, all ignorant, that were just shipped in from God-know's-where Tirjikistan to redistibute the population and set the foundation for a "natural Russian community" to be defended decades later. tell them to grow corn for some dumbshit reason.

then you have famine.

 

[Locut0s]

it's not so much that they were white farmers, it's that they were experienced. If you put some thought into training and educating the new generation how to take care of the land and maintain production, that would be one thing.

Yes, this was an extremely ill-advised move, that anyone said was idiotic. You don't kick out the established gentry and replace them with the ignorant simply b/c it's "right," you set about establishing a structure to replace those gentry with responsible inhabitants with a legitimate investment in the success of a (hopefully) respected government.

Hell, the Soviets did the same thing over their entire occupied territory: Kick off the successful, and therefore "bourgoise" farmers and truck them out to Siberia, and replace them with 5 Russian peasant families, all ignorant, that were just shipped in from God-know's-where Tirjikistan to redistibute the population and set the foundation for a "natural Russian community" to be defended decades later. tell them to grow corn for some dumbshit reason.

then you have famine.

China did much the same suring the cultural revoluton to it's intelectual class. Only in this case they were "sent down" to the rural country side. Overnight they lost a generation of educated knowledgeable people.

 

[0roo0roo]

Basically a group of rich white fundamentalist Christians from the US could never get something so fucked up and vile passed here so they take their crusade to places that will allow such travesties. They also got the current leader elected into power there.

and basically the left wing anti war crowd loves to bash israel and whine about our wars in afganistan/iraq when 5 million died in congo, 2 million sudan etc...

 

[0roo0roo]

it's not so much that they were white farmers, it's that they were experienced. If you put some thought into training and educating the new generation how to take care of the land and maintain production, that would be one thing.

Yes, this was an extremely ill-advised move, that anyone said was idiotic. You don't kick out the established gentry and replace them with the ignorant simply b/c it's "right," you set about establishing a structure to replace those gentry with responsible inhabitants with a legitimate investment in the success of a (hopefully) respected government.

Hell, the Soviets did the same thing over their entire occupied territory: Kick off the successful, and therefore "bourgoise" farmers and truck them out to Siberia, and replace them with 5 Russian peasant families, all ignorant, that were just shipped in from God-know's-where Tirjikistan to redistibute the population and set the foundation for a "natural Russian community" to be defended decades later. tell them to grow corn for some dumbshit reason.

then you have famine.

well the soviets did more than that, they intentionally starved populations to get rid of them.
not simply incompetence. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSVs1sQaw4Q

 

[Ronstang]

Places like Africa are screwed up for the same reasons as Mexico and the Middle East (part of which is in Africa) are screwed up....the people and their culture. It is not PC to say so but it is the truth.

 

[Colt45]

Mexico is more of a corruption thing, it *could* be fixed with time. Africa is pretty much a write-off though.

 

[IronWing]

I guess when they had to print ever larger notes week by week they ran out of stuff to put on the money so here's a pile rocks.

 

[theflyingpig]

Places like Africa are screwed up for the same reasons as Mexico and the Middle East (part of which is in Africa) are screwed up....the people and their culture. It is not PC to say so but it is the truth.

Yup. No one is willing to admit the truth, so they keep coming up with other unrelated reasons as to why these regions have failed.

 

[Zebo]

it's not so much that they were white farmers, it's that they were experienced. If you put some thought into training and educating the new generation how to take care of the land and maintain production, that would be one thing.

Yes, this was an extremely ill-advised move, that anyone said was idiotic. You don't kick out the established gentry and replace them with the ignorant simply b/c it's "right," you set about establishing a structure to replace those gentry with responsible inhabitants with a legitimate investment in the success of a (hopefully) respected government.

Hell, the Soviets did the same thing over their entire occupied territory: Kick off the successful, and therefore "bourgoise" farmers and truck them out to Siberia, and replace them with 5 Russian peasant families, all ignorant, that were just shipped in from God-know's-where Tirjikistan to redistibute the population and set the foundation for a "natural Russian community" to be defended decades later. tell them to grow corn for some dumbshit reason.

then you have famine.

I thought it was waking up at 12pm and chewing Khat all day instead of working 3am-6pm like the whites did. Seriously there is some cultural differences you are missing in your calculus.

 

[irishScott]

Yup. No one is willing to admit the truth, so they keep coming up with other unrelated reasons as to why these regions have failed.

European Colonialism screwed the culture royally. Africa actually had legit empires and civilizations before the Europeans came along.

Think of it as stockholm syndrome in a abuse victim. Once the abuser leaves, the victim doesn't know what to do and goes batshit crazy.

 

[Zebo]

European Colonialism screwed the culture royally. Africa actually had legit empires and civilizations before the Europeans came along.

Think of it as stockholm syndrome in a abuse victim. Once the abuser leaves, the victim doesn't know what to do and goes batshit crazy.

Arabs colonized Africa 1000 years before Euros - The Arab slave trade and massacres still goes on in places like Dar-fur. I know it's convenient to blame whitey but it's simply not so. Many Africans were richer than ever under colonialism.

 

[sandorski]

Places like Africa are screwed up for the same reasons as Mexico and the Middle East (part of which is in Africa) are screwed up....the people and their culture. It is not PC to say so but it is the truth.

Nah, it's just Stupid to say so.

 

[Zebo]

Another thing Irish Scott is historians even black historians at US universities look at Euro colonization as a mixed blessing unlike the Arab. They stopped the Arab slave trade. They brought vast improvements in irrigation, farming and governance. They didn't kill off the whole population like they did Native Americans. etc

 

[destrekor]

I guess when they had to print ever larger notes week by week they ran out of stuff to put on the money so here's a pile rocks.

ay, and these rocks here be worth more than this note. Enjoy!



My take on all this?
I blame religion.

There is a lot of truth in that statement, and I'll take a position here that many might not expect:

I blame religion, and more specifically, the lack of a strongly followed religion.

We humans NEED it, to reach certain positions. We don't need it forever, but it is a decidedly useful tool that all peoples might endure. Tribal spitting matches and corruption are decidedly very ugly when they are mildly developed yet on a civilization level, at the bottom.
When you introduce tribal peoples to modern ruling systems, but don't aid them in transforming their culture or translating that ruling system into their current culture, things will not work out.

Becoming a modern country that is developed and has a complicated civilization, does not happen overnight, nor is it a peaceful road. We are humans, we are decidedly retarded and brutal.
Peace is absolutely not possible with our species, and progress is not possible without anguish. And anguish can be maxed with religion. It's a very helpful tool in that regard. But it helps centralize thought processes, congregates power and with enough power helps shape the civilization into one of sheep.

If you want progress, your culture has to be sheep at some point.
A civilization that has progression, requires centralized power and a wickedly powerful religion to head it.
Tribal peoples like to hold on to their ancient beliefs.
The bigger question is: do we demand that all people on this Earth follow the path of progress, or let them be and do their own thing?
We can't have it both ways, but we sure as hell currently think we can. We want to help these tribal civilizations, yet we don't want to do a damn thing about improving their civilization? Oh, sure, we'll donate to their cause and help with clean living, food, water, and health issues, but we won't do anything about making them take it on themselves to improve their status?
We cannot do that forever. They will not change until they are forced to endure anguish of their own accord. We can't hold their hand during the process, and we cannot just continue to keep them on U.N. Welfare forever. Life is a bitch, and we have to get past moral dilemmas and stop and think for a moment. If we keep them on welfare, we have to look at them and think: what the hell are they doing for themselves?
If they want to continue to hold onto their own belief systems and way of life, we have to accept that is what THEY want. Else, they need to figure out that progress comes with great anguish. Every civilization on this planet has either gone through that anguish, or is underway with the anguish.

On a related note:
Cynicism is fun.

 

[Locut0s]

!!!!!PLEASE PLEASE lets not have this turn into a race thread!!!!!

Well that didn't take long now did it

Can a mod lock this for me now?

 

[JohnOfSheffield]

!!!!!PLEASE PLEASE lets not have this turn into a race thread!!!!!

Well that didn't take long now did it

Can a mod lock this for me now?

I don't get what race has to do with anything.

It's imperialism vs naturalism and we can all speculate but the truth is.....

Meet the new boss, worse than your old boss.

 

[JohnOfSheffield]

other places have had hyperinflation, it happens.

But yeah, africa is hopelessly screwed.

Well, Rubels were also so useless that wheelbarrels had to be used to transport the highest currency to buy a loaf of bread at one time.

It has to do with who is running the show and how it's run, race and ethnicity or religion or lack there of has nothing to do with it.