It is interesting that some self-hating westerners still blame colonialism and the British for many of the worse issues in this world. I've heard that in the context of Pakistan-India conflict, I've heard that regarding SA and of course in the context of the Middle Eastern conflict. Somehow, the native population in these places is not expected to assume responsibility over itself.
Other than that, I think some groups are just not ready for democracy. They need a tough dictators, it's just so happens that the white dictators were less corrupt and more progress inclined than the totally corrupt blacks that assumed power in these regions (like Robert Mugabe from Zimbabwe).
As one of the "self-hating" westerners who thinks that colonialism, and western influence in general has harmed africa, let me clear a few things up for you.
1. A belief that the west harmed africa does not mean I believe the west is the only cause
2. Just because we are not the only cause, and we are also probably not the biggest cause, does not mean that everything we do is good
3. Democracy is not a form of government you can shove into place and expect it to just work, this is not unique to people who happen to have black skin, you couldn't turn China into a democracy tomorrow and expect them to be an immediate shining light of democracy in action.
4. Good intentions do guarantee good results, and the necessary corallary, just because I think the west hurt nations in Africa, I do not necessarily believe their actions were malicious when they interfered.
5. Including western influence as one of the causes does not mean that the african people themselves are not without blame, so proving that the people of africa have been a part of the cause does not invalidate my claims that the west harmed them.
Edit:
Tragic ignorance and barbarism.
Whilh will help it more:
A. Point, laugh, hate, nothing else
B. Development aid, education
Hm, which did I see in your post? Oh ya. I guess you're the 'albino killer' of our society.
Begging the question! You assume that when we step in and give development aid and education that we will actually help them.
For example, from 1970 until the year 1996 foreign aid has been increasing as a % of the average GDP of African Countries from around 6% to around 17.5% in 1996. The rate of growth of foreign aid as a % of GDP nearly doubled in 1977. After this sharp increase in the rate of aid growth, the rate of GDP growth in the countries began to plummet from a stable 2% before 1978 to a period of negative or no growth between 1984-1997. The period between 1978 and 1984 is a very steep drop from 2% to 0%. After 1997 growth returned to positive values, but they are still very low. Take a careful note of the dates, within two years after a drastic increase in development aid, growth began to plummet, after the growth of foreign aid ended in 1996 the very next year 1997 saw the first positive growth in the average African countries GDP in over a decade.
For those of you who are not clear on the whole correlation does not equal causation thing, this does not prove that foreign aid hurt those countries. However, foreign aid is often described as a means of helping poor countries grow. It is just harder to argue that more foreign aid will help these countries grow, when the amount of aid we send them has a negative correlation with the nations growth. (Local mins and maximums of growth follow changes in the pattern of investment, so unless the countries giving Aid knew at least 2 years a head of time what the growth of these african countries would be, it is unlikely that the aid changed in response to a change in growth that had not yet occurred.)
And just for more fun, Craig, I found a fun fact. George W. Bush increased the total amount of Aid that America sends to countries in extreme poverty by 50% in 2002. That may be the biggest increase of any President in both % and actual value in aid to the poor of the world. You might need to soften your rhetoric that only progressives can help the poor if you believe that aid helps the poor.
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