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Locutus
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ACS CTP1/2 Manager & Civ4 Co-Manager
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Hengelo, The Netherlands
Nov 1999
time: 06:23
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quote:
Why do you think countries in Africa are not developing? It seems it was like that in most of history, except Northern (Carthage, Egypt, Ethiopia, current states there aren't also so bad) and Southern (RSA, Zululand) parts of the continent. |
Not true, Africa has a rich history with many great empires. Allow me to quote myself from a somewhat similar discussion in the Civ3 forums from about a year ago:
quote:
I fail to see how virtually everyone (both on these forums and esp. IRL) always seems to come to the conclusion that Africa had no history before the Europeans came along or never had any great empires (except Egypt) just because they don't know about anything about it. Granted, many of it's empires weren't quite as great as the Romans or Chinese but some weren't *that* far behind on these truly great civs and many others are at least worth mentioning.
One big mistake people make when it comes to African history is to assume that this continent is inhospitable and therefore is unsuitable to allow great civilizations to prosper. Today this may largely be true, but this inhospitality is really only a fairly recent situation: Africa used to be much more fertile in the past, it only gradually grew warmer and less hospitable over the centuries (think about this: if Africa is too inhospitable to support any great civilizations, how can it be that the (today) equally inhabitable Middle East had so many?). The regions around the southern Nile, the Niger and the Zambezi all used to be far more fertile than they are today and provided a very rich food base for the people living there (food is by far the most important ingredient for building a great civilization). In many cases, it was erosion and overusing the land - in other words, the very fact that there were civilizations - which eventually caused desertification and with that the collapse of any civilizations present.
Also, thanks to the Live Aid concerts in the eighties, everyone knows Ethiopia is today mostly a barren land and millions of people there are suffering from starvation (among other things). But think about it: how is it possible that millions of people live there if there's no food? The answer is that the coastal regions of Ethiopia were actually quite fertile just 100 years ago and were even amongst the most fertile in the world in the time of the Romans. It are mainly warfare and poor politics which have destroyed all the good farmland over the last century.
South-West Africa, on the other hand, has always been dominated by jungle rather than rich farmland. But while for Western people jungle means a high humidity, dangerous wildlife and exotic and deadly diseases (did the plague stop Europe from dominating the world?), for Africans it means very diverse and fertile land, filled with large quantities of food, minerals, medicine and other resources (among which not in the last place the very wildlife Western people see as dangerous). Still, even though conditions in Africa aren't/weren't nearly as harsh as many people tend to think, many parts of this continent still lack some important commodities. This doesn't mean however that great civilizations can't arise, it just means trade is the magic word... |
There have been plenty of great kindoms and empires in history, all over Africa. Some obvious and less obvious examples: Egypt, Carthage, Arab/Morish empire, Aksum/Ethiopia, Nubia (= Sudan), Ghana, Mali, Songhai, Hausa and Kanem-Bornu (= Chad/Niger/Nigeria), Benin, Yoruba (= Nigeria), Manikongo (= Congo), Swahili (= East Coast), Zimbabwe, etc.
In other words, Africa has a rich history and there was plenty of prosperity in the past (a lot more than today anyway). So terrain, race, size, etc, can't explain the problems that exist today, as they haven't changed over the centuries. But what can explain them, then? As I mentioned in the quote, Africa has been growing increasingly inhospitable over time. Partly due of the changing climate, partly due to exploitation of the land (overusing the land, causing erosion and desertification). That, combined with colonialism (both the system itself and how it was abruptly ended), as others have mentioned, are IMO the primary factors for Africa's problems of today.
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Viking Berserk
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of Hammerfest
Nov 2002
time: 06:23
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well, ive heard of the axums, nubians, ghanese, malis, songhais, zimbabwe people, zulus, etc...
they had empires in history (less advanced in technology than the european ones)
but, this thread is about their situation today, and their situation today is poor(ness???)(whats the english word? )
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Carver
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reprocessing plutonium, Yongbyon, NK
Jan 2002
time: 23:23
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Locutus,  .
The misconceptions people have about Africa are frustratingly pathetic.
Refering to ancient history, Africa didn't keep pace with Europe mostly due to geography and terrain. Most of the exchanges in commerce and ideas occured in Eurasia. All of the isolated areas were left relatively underdeveloped: the Americas, Africa, Australia, Oceania.
The rest of history is just path dependence. Less development allowed colonialism, slavery and the artificial borders of today.
The racial theories are inconsistent and unfounded. If Asians are the smartest, why is Europe more develped? If the people in the Americas came from Asia, why were they relatively underdeveloped?
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Kontiki
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Canada
Aug 2001
time: 00:23
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I'd say you first need to define which era you are talking about:
1) Why did Africa lag behind Europe in the pre-colonial era? Read, for example, Guns, Germs and Steel. It gives a good background on this. Simply put, it's almost totally environmental (encompassing climate, terrain, flora, fauna, etc.).
2) Why has Africa failed to develop like parts of Asia since the end of colonialism? Again, a large part rests in the lack of pre-colonial development, but after that you can blame colonialism more than anything else. Almost all of sub-Saharan Africa was "developed" purely for resource extraction and/or strategic reasons (ie: Britain didn't want France to get area X). Little or no attention was paid to putting in real infrastructure or any good form of local governance. All the colonies were carved up by Europeans along arbitrary lines, so that if there were any "natural" states along ethnic lines, those were almost completely ignored. By the end of the colonial period, then, you had a bunch of ad hoc states with no real reason to exist, no infrastructure, very few political institutions of any meaning outside of traditional triabal ones, no real strategic importance vis-a-vis the Cold War (except as client states), etc.
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Kontiki
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Canada
Aug 2001
time: 00:23
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The whole thing is additionally sad when you consider how well off some of the sub-Saharan countries COULD be. The Congo that used to be Zaire (I can't remember if it's the DRC or something else) has the potential to be one of the richest countries in the world. It is stacked with natural resources, including some of the largest deposits of copper, gold and diamonds in the world, has decent oil reserves, massive forests, and enough hydroelectric and farming potential to power and feed the entire conitinent on its own.
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Worthingtons
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Pride Park,Derby
Jan 2002
time: 05:23
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Wernazuma , you are indeed being quite foolish. The Race theory has been given it's +'s and -'s for the people here to consider, and everyone has the right to express thier opinion, so long as, on a sensative issue such as this they give Justification. My guess is that you are one of these hypocritical lefties, who likes to tell people what to think (take Mr Blair for an example of this).
I do not personally think Race is the major factor here, but the theory does have credit. The climite lends for people to concentrate on physical attributes rather than mental ones, hence africans are at home when it comes to doing a hard days work in the field, but feel less so when it comes to the Capitalist activities required to make a country affluent in the 21st centrury.
Basically, If your people are based in an Extreme climate (intense heat being a good example), your spend your life overcoming this, this beds into people over the centuries. In Europe where the Climate was very good, people did not have to work so hard to make basic ends meet, and hence were able to concentrate on other things such as invention.
Cheers
Matt
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Ramo
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Austin, Texas, USA
Oct 1999
time: 23:23
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It's a combination of many issues, but it boils down to these:
1. Colonialism. It of course is responsible for the general economic exploitation of Africa's people and resources, which affects events today. It created extremely inegalitarian distributions of wealth. It has destroyed communal solidarities, and has saddled people with no common bonds together (leading to point two).
2. Basically due to the crazy borders that were created, you've got constant nationalism-based military conflicts and assorted atrocities propagating them in African states, as well as economic conflicts (i.e. trade barriers between each other).
3. Protectionism on the part of developed states, which includes various sorts of trade barriers, silly loans often to dictatorial gov't's that their democratic successors have to deal with, your occasional military/economic intervention to back some brutal dictator, etc.
4. Of course, most of this was due to the fauna and flora (and climate) in Africa, which was relatively inhospitable to farming, ending up with not only Africans unable to defend themselves from Arabs and later Europeans, but an extremely culturally heterogenous place (relative to most other areas of the world), also helping towards point two.
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Wernazuma III
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Decolonize!
Aug 2000
time: 06:23
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quote:
Originally posted by Rothy
Wernazuma , you are indeed being quite foolish. The Race theory has been given it's +'s and -'s for the people here to consider, and everyone has the right to express thier opinion, so long as, on a sensative issue such as this they give Justification. My guess is that you are one of these hypocritical lefties, who likes to tell people what to think (take Mr Blair for an example of this).
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Matt: There were no +s and -s of the theory given here (esp. by mr. rasslin), just blatant open racism without ANY foundation or argument (if you find one, quote it in your reply).
Just like Locutus has written, there was a number of important African civilizations in the past. Timbuktu was a global intellectual center in its heyday. (being situated in those areas of which you say that they make mentally lazy...)
So, does this mean that in the 13th century, black people were genetically wittier than Europeans? 
Don't come here and think you can judge me by reading two posts. Read Rasslin's post first and then tell me again that I am a hypocrit. Racial theories don't have much credit in science for quite a bit of time, so you'll forgive that I don't repeat all the arguments against racial assumptions in response to a guy who did nothing else here than saying: "Blacks are dumb." 
BTW., you didn't notice that Africa has quite a bit more than one climate? It's quite diverse, you know. Earlier european agricultural peoples didn't have to work less than African ones, except for a very few extreme areas maybe. Malnutrition was very common among Germanic tribes e.g., as archaeologists have proven. Civilization didn't develop where people had to "work less hard", but especially where they had to organize themselves in bigger communities in order to survive. (one example? Right, Egypt in Africa...) "Overcoming" problems is rather a driving force for civilazatory development. People living in abundance don't have a necessity to change anything - "abundance" is a characteristic of utopic concepts of the "first society" as European thinkers in the 16th and 17th century imagined it. Scarce resources lead to envy, envy to violence, violence to the need of better weapons (basically). Anyway, I could go on for much longer.
You don't know much about history, do you? Otherwise you might have notived that "invention" is not a European monopoly, nor that European history was a constant linear "evolution". If a hot climate is so adversary to "mental activity", why then wereKairo and other North African universities the creme de la creme in the Middle Ages.
History is much more complex than any racist or other singular theory (climate) could explain.
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Ramo
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Austin, Texas, USA
Oct 1999
time: 23:23
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I really don't want to get into yet another "race" debate, but some assertions in this thread just have to be refuted.
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but the theory does have credit. The climite lends for people to concentrate on physical attributes rather than mental ones |
Total and utter bullshit. Living in a rainforest would require a great deal of mental prowess, where your life depends on your ability to keep track of your surroundings, the nature of the various plants, etc. Given your absurd assertion, I have to wonder whether such an environment would select out your genes.
quote:
In Europe where the Climate was very good, people did not have to work so hard to make basic ends meet, |
Riiiiiight. Europe was pretty damn cold until 15,000 or so years ago. You know, there was an ice age and all that.  It's not "very good" weather by any means. Europeans were just as busy as Africans.
quote:
and hence were able to concentrate on other things such as invention. |
And a great capacity for invention has never been a selective pressure by an means (and even if it were, it couldn't possibly be to the extent of being able to make any appreciable change in mental capacities in the given time frame) in late human civilization (when Europeans have had "free time" relative to beforehand).
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Asian countries like China developed fast and and powerful because Asians are naturally very intellegent people. Indians have absolutely sick math skills! |
1. The sample is biased. Most Asians (particularly recent immigrants) in the US are unusally intelligent or affluent.
2. There are cultural differences that help to promote education.
quote:
If Asians aren't the strongest race, then explain how 2/3 people are Asian. |
Natural resources and geography, in terms of domesticatable plants and animals, major rivers, large areas of similar climate, etc. have enabled Asians to develop civilization early and in many areas, and this combined with the fact that their societies still have high birth-rates (excluding China now) means that they now comprise most of the world. Give the Latin Americans a century or so, and their population would be far greater than Europeans. Do you think that means anything?
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NY Hoya
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NY, NY
Mar 2002
time: 00:23
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colonialism and race. Guns, Germs and Steel is a pile of rubbish.
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Worthingtons
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Pride Park,Derby
Jan 2002
time: 05:23
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Right, Wernazuma , Looking at Raslin's post you are probably right to be a little unhappy. 'Blacks are stupid' is no way to go about. I do not seek to judge you, but i dont people telling others what they must and must not think.
One thing that you do admit though, is that Indians can have better math skills, which is cleary a brain function related to race , so it surely possibly black people's brains work *differently* to white people's??? no?
Ramo, you make good points about Europe and living in a Rainforest, however, it is no mistake, that the Romans, who were one of the most sucessful Empires of all time (but not as good as the English of course) making legendary achievements, prospered in a very good climate. Their math/engineering skills thier people would have learnt to construct thier good buildings, will have no dought embedded themselves in the brains of future generations.
Cheers
Matt
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ranskaldan
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Beijing ~ Singapore ~ Toronto ~ All hail to the new Rome
Sep 2001
time: 00:23
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quote:
Originally posted by Rothy
One thing that you do admit though, is that Indians can have better math skills, which is cleary a brain function related to race , so it surely possibly black people's brains work *differently* to white people's??? no? |
It is clearly a function related to culture. I can't give you facts about India, but China was a civilization whose entire ruling gentry was selected based on scholarly prowess. That had an impact on culture, not genetics.
quote:
Ramo, you make good points about Europe and living in a Rainforest, however, it is no mistake, that the Romans, who were one of the most sucessful Empires of all time (but not as good as the English of course) making legendary achievements, prospered in a very good climate. Their math/engineering skills thier people would have learnt to construct thier good buildings, will have no dought embedded themselves in the brains of future generations.
Cheers
Matt |
uh... no. Scientific advancements do not get embedded into DNA.
Also, the Romans were not impressive in Math anyway.
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Worthingtons
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Pride Park,Derby
Jan 2002
time: 05:23
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quote:
Also, the Romans were not impressive in Math anyway |
Hmm.... They cant have been poor, to have built colloseums in that time!!
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ranskaldan
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Beijing ~ Singapore ~ Toronto ~ All hail to the new Rome
Sep 2001
time: 00:23
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quote:
Originally posted by Rothy
Hmm.... They cant have been poor, to have built colloseums in that time!! |
Those were architectural achievements, and yes, they were pretty amazing.
but math... they pretty much ripped it off the Greeks.
Anyway, back to the topic: race, if it ever can be a factor, is not proven, and can hardly be proven given current science and technology. Since the scepter of power shifts periodically from race to race (Egyptians to Romans, Turks to Europeans, etc), that would also suggest that race is not an important determinant.
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24-11-2002 23:43
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