Sounds like Americans bitching an out the migrants.
this post was submitted on 12 Mar 2024
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Well, party because of colonization, slavery, and genocide (because cultural genocide counts as genocide), partly because of geo-political meddling, but also massive corruption, coups and an pan-African oligarchy that installed African protectionism 2.0 (or Afro-Reaganomics 1.0, take your pick), ensuring ordinary Africans can't do any international business without the government holding their dick - as well as the foreign businesses dick. This in turn means only the big boys get to play, like multinationals, because lumps of money gets fed to end up in Cayman island bank accounts.
To blame Europe today is stupid, because it not only serves to deter whatever support common Europeans (I.e not the elite) could give to Africans in diaspora, but it also enables corrupt African officials, who hold speeches about how they criticise the west, only for them to go to some backroom deal with eastern AND western multi-nationals, who really want to exploit Africans, and ofc they'll be allowed - because of the affirmationed Cayman island bank accounts.
Also, the "employment agencies" in Africa have 50/50 chance of being slave operations - because slavery never disappeared, it just got more "official", and it's also been common in Africa for thousands of years.
But yeah, history is cherry picked for the sake of "owning" people in debates and discourse. Again; it only helps to take away the spotlight from African officials, but also: we can't ever ignore what effect colonization, slavery and genocide has on not only nations, but geographical areas.
This has been nuance. You may hate and downvote me now.
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Same goes for South America and the US.
Those motherfuckers are plotting to make economies that serve their societies?! We can't have that, have to keep those markets open for our owner's exploitation!
Take em out!
Most of Africa's nations are younger than 30 years. Several African countries still pay taxes to France. Nearly every African country doesn't have sovereign control over their natural resources. So Ya, not to even mention the millions of people stolen from their countries. Africa is poor purely because of outside influences
Africa is poor purely because of outside influences
This is simplistic and naive to the point it feels like propaganda.
Your view is going to be unpopular with people here. Most on Lemmy would rather blame the outsiders for problems in Africa. However, I don't see anyone mentioning China investing hundreds of millions into infrastructure of African countries and attempting to lift many African countries our of poverty only for these countries to remain where they were. At some point it becomes hard to continue blaming hundreds or dozens of years old events for the current situation when the current people contribute to the presently poor state of things.
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The other side of that debate is that .... the outside influence could work with Africa to make the continent self sufficient and capable on its own. Several studies and research has shown that if properly set up and organized, the African continent has more than enough resources to produce its own food supply, clean water supply and energy production.
Unfortunately, instead of the outside world helping Africa to get to this point .... the world instead uses Africa as just another place to exploit and make money out of. In the short sighted vision of the first world ... it's more lucrative to make a bunch of money now by taking advantage of poor dying people than it is to help them become productive members of the global economy.
It's a prime example of how as a civilization we build and maintain our world on exploitation, coercion and death
Unfortunately, instead of the outside world helping Africa to get to this point … the world instead uses Africa as just another place to exploit and make money out of. In the short sighted vision of the first world … it’s more lucrative to make a bunch of money now by taking advantage of poor dying people than it is to help them become productive members of the global economy.
I would argue it's more complex than that. The very conditions created by European colonization have resulted in extreme instability and corruption in the resulting, mostly-arbitrarily drawn states, which heavily discourages investment from rational (though amoral) actors. It's not that the rest of the world market doesn't want Africa to be more "Developing Southeast Asia" than "Place we get raw resources from", it's that the conditions European colonization foisted upon it make getting there from this point very difficult.
Which African states do you think should be redrawn?
Honestly, I'm not sure that there is an optimal solution there. All I'm certain about is that the European powers didn't give a shit about anything other than resolving their own claims in an ideal fashion when releasing their colonial vassals piecemeal.
Honestly, I’m not sure that there is an optimal solution there
Well that's why I'm asking the question. If you look at Goma and Rwanda, for example, tribes were putting a genocide on eachother before the Europeans arrived. They were doing a genocide after the Europeans left. They are doing a genocide on eachother right now when everybody pulled their hands off. At which point can you blame the genocide on the tribes themselves?
This guy, "why can't you articulate how to undo 600 years of exploration and genicide that was done against one continent?!"
Just so you know, yes there was war bs ethnic cleansing before Europeans arrived but the scale was taken to 100 because of the Europeans. And the genicides that happened after were because of the previous occupation. If you want answers to when it's the Africans fault, maybe read many studies, books, and reports on it instead of asking some guy on the internet. Once again, it's very likely you are older than the governments currently in Africa. Governments that had to pick up the pieces after many axis powers collapsed, or when allied powers pulled out during the 2008 economic crisis, or even some today that still are shadow controlled by western nations / China.
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Rwandan genocide was very much fueled by Belgian racial policies.
My point isn't that Africa would be a utopia if the European powers hadn't carved it up like a toddler with a birthday cake, my point is only that the borders as formed in most of Subsaharan Africa are completely arbitrary divisions which rely more on conflicting colonial interests than realities of the people on the ground.
Take a look at Nigeria if you want an example of how conflicting ethnic groups artificially forced together by an attempt of colonial powers to maintain some measure of control turns out. There's a reason most countries in Europe were either ethnically dominated empires, or ethnically homogenous nation-states - and likewise, there is a reason why European imperialists put great effort into dividing subject peoples abroad.
The ability to construct and sustain a state, or any community, is based on shared values and cultural memes.
But that's why I'm asking the question. Can you provide a map for how Africa should be divided?
Or do you just want to point out the bad and throw in the towel on the question of how it can be fixed?
Or do you just want to point out the bad and throw in the towel on the question of how it can be fixed?
Man, that's for wiser fucking people than me. I'm not going to pretend to know the best outline to split up and combine African ethnicities within contiguous borders. I studied pre-modern European history, not post-independence African geopolitics. I don't have the expertise necessary even for a rough sketch.
And honestly, I don't think it can be fixed at this point, at least not across all so-afflicted countries. The damage is largely done. In the past 60 years, institutions have been established, internal migration has intensified, nationalism cultivated, etc. Most of Africa is probably pretty stuck with the problem, and has the unenviable task of making disparate peoples cooperate within a single polity. It is possible - but it is also difficult (see: India).
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Nation States are just another tool of the powerful to subjugate, a means to keep us divided as if we weren't the same species.
Instead we see being a united species as some evil conspiracy, which is why I'm not really a fan of our species anymore. We'd rather have a chance of beating our fellow man than equitably sharing the fruits of this world. We don't love the person on the other side of the table, we want to screw them and get more. That disgusts me, personally.
Similarly, I love when Europeans complain about the Americas having no distinct culture or ancient structures when they kinda killed and burned the ones that existed here for thousands of years.
I'm European so I might be biased, but I haven't really heared anyone "complaining about the Americas having no distinct culture or ancient structures".
It's just white Americans trying to shift the blame to Europeans that stayed
WTF are you talking about? The Europeans that "killed and burned" the natives mostly stayed, they call themselves Americans now. Look at a map of America at the time of the revolution, and you'll see there was a lot of killing and displacing natives after the USA's independence. Don't blame this on modern day Europeans, blame this on your ancestors (assuming you're american).
I don’t disagree, but I feel like 600 years ago is too close to call them ancestors. Dunno the word, but ancestors makes me think of ancient humans from 7500+ years ago.
Though I do call them European Americans, because just Americans would be the indigenous peoples.
600 years ago is definitely enough to call a people the same people. The sociological, economic and political effects of exploration age barely came to an end even though the empires have been disbanded more than a hundred years ago. Even less of a duration if you consider how late the British Empire quit being an empire in name and somehow still keeps it in some places in practice. Or how French still how heavy sway on a lot of African, South Asian and some island nations.
The first of the new empires, American empire, became a world-dominion just a 2-3 decades ago.
Until the rest of the world get strong enough to worry about having only regional conflicts of interest again, and not at the risk of some global superpower of stolen wealth coming from the other side of the world, peoples will keep being the same people as current ones in the lives of each other.
White people coming in to steal your crates are still the same, only they do through impoverishment and dirt-cheap prices of corporate agency at first, and military later if the former isn't tolerated.
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This place was beautiful when we stole it.
We're the ones that turned it into a cesspool of cheeze whiz and strip malls.
Who's gonna leave tho'? Nobody. That's who.
Only out of the devil we know. There are better far better countries to be a citizen in, but you have to have an in. They are the happiest in the world according to the world happiness index. We should worship at their ideological altar ror that, instead we villify them as all the right wing curse words that right wingers don't even understand.
I'd think anyone worried about righting the genocide would prioritize getting tfo, not "how can I better myself"
We, the descendants of Europeans that is
If your blood isn’t boiling yet from what the west is sponsoring in Gaza, you can have some fun learning of what Belgium (and the US) did in the Congo after they “left”.
Wounded Africa gets up: .... hey Europe, give me a hand
Europe: .... takes a baseball bat to Africa's knees .... why can't Africa stand up for itself?
Subsaharan Africa: "Oh no! These Turkish and Arab invaders are terrible! Surely Europe, which also fights with the Turks and Arabs, will help us?"
Europe: "Actually, we've decided to make it worse."
Africa: "Oh no"
Europe: "MUCH worse."
Some rare exceptions, particularly in the earlier period, aside
"We did nothing but exploit them and let them be exploited by our companies. Why can't they help themselves???"
Yeah Czech Republic did immense damage to poor Africans. Finland too.
Romania, Bulgaria, Poland, Ukraine, Serbia, Switzerland, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Slovenia, Slovakia, Sweden, Norway, Iceland would like to chime in.
You both must be fun at parties. Of fucking course it is not every european nations but it is way shorter than to write Britain, France, Germany, Portugal, Spain, Belgium, Italy...
I don't go to parties where complete strangers ask me to pay them reparations for what other complete strangers that lived 500 years ago did to some other complete strangers that have no relationship to the strangers at the party.
That's an awfully smug way to say "I don't know about generational poverty".
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