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true-colonial powers created artificial borders (like Gambia which was based on how far the British navy could extend its might into the French colony of senegal) or divided tribal nations.
Chinua Achebe's books like No longer at ease and THings Fall Apart are edifying as to the influence-and problems caused-by British influence in Nigeria. Both excellent books, I recommend them highly
No, Africa has been a jacked upnation of tribal fighting for thousands of years. Even the Egyptians considered those from "upstream" of the Nile to be savages.
And you can't blame the borders or anything else either. Long before the modern borders were ceated, you had tribal fighting and tribal savagery. It has gone on for thousands of years, and will likely continue for thousands more. Even the Slave Trade started because tribes would raid neighboring tribal enemies and sell them off for money. Now they just slaughter them as in Darfur. Lyberia was a nation created for freed slaves, but once back in Africa they simply made slaves of the tribes that lived in that area.
Until the people stop putting all their allegiance into tribes and start putting it to themselves as a nation, it will continue.
And before anybody thinks this is some racist rant, it is not. This is a rant against "Tribalism", be it the Tribe of Afrikaners, Iraq, Afghanistan, or Somalia and Uganda. When some group decides another group is not fit to live, or slaughters them for some imagined or real insult 300 years prior.
Tribal fighting existed in Medieval Europe. I fully acknowledge the horrors of tribalism, but European borders did not regard tribal distinctions and forced Hutus and Tutsis to live together with the Tutsis in charge, which led to the Rwandan Genocide. There were also glorious African empires that were destroyed by the Europeans.
This is what I would like an answer too...Where the HELL is the rest of the industrialized world in feeding hungry nations...Where the hell are all the super oil rich arab nations, and where the hell is the UN who we give billions too...Where did this freakin attitude come from that everything that costs money or everyone who needs it...it has to be the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA WHO PROVIDES IT...bs, ive had enough of that...Let china feed africa with OUR money
Other than the size of the group, what's the difference?
Personally, I think it's ridiculous when people say that people in Africa starve because of us.
People say that the only way we can afford to live as well as we do is because of poor children in Africa. This is utter garbage. Barely anything, other than a bit of oil, is exported out of Africa. There are starving children in Africa mainly because the continent is a jumbled mess of civil wars and religious terrorism.
Sure there are children in India/China/etc. working to make our shoes, but that's not our fault.
Well, the US is the worlds leader in donated food, becaue it is the worlds leader in food production.
And sorry, do not expect food from the Middle East. They have lots of oil, but they are net importers of food themselves. Their only major exports are generally Oil and Pearls. And you can't eat either of those.
Wasnt talking food...was talking good ole CASH..and the middleeast has more than we do....how about china coughing up some of the excess american dollars they have....this isnt pre WW1 ..today there are alot more countries doing very well if not better than us and they kick in SQUAT...how about South Korea coming up with a few bucks...im tired of everyone looking at us for everything and some of our own people constantly clammering we have to help this one and that one...HELP OUR OWN for a change....
Are we to blame for Africa's current state?
We should carpet nuclear bomb, then redraw the borders according to where tribes and ethnicities used to live.Depends on who you mean by "we."
Africa largely could have succeeded but for political instability and violence. But the instability partially comes from drawing arbitrary lines on a map and imposing the political construct of a modern "state" in a place where it never existed.
Africans will never improve unless they have to pay the full price for their refusal to change their self-destructive habits. They starve because they'd rather join warlord gangs than do the hard, unexciting work of farming. We are intefering with evolution if we bail out people whose disasters are their own fault.Unfortunately, feeding people doesn't fix their problems, and probably makes their problems worse, in reality.
But the petrocrats can buy our food with their oil loot and donate it to the Africans.Well, the US is the worlds leader in donated food, becaue it is the worlds leader in food production.
And sorry, do not expect food from the Middle East. They have lots of oil, but they are net importers of food themselves. Their only major exports are generally Oil and Pearls. And you can't eat either of those.
Personally, I think it's ridiculous when people say that people in Africa starve because of us.
People say that the only way we can afford to live as well as we do is because of poor children in Africa. This is utter garbage. Barely anything, other than a bit of oil, is exported out of Africa. There are starving children in Africa mainly because the continent is a jumbled mess of civil wars and religious terrorism.
Sure there are children in India/China/etc. working to make our shoes, but that's not our fault.
But the petrocrats can buy our food with their oil loot and donate it to the Africans.
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