Why is Africa a shithole?

[LordShaithis]

Give me your own explanation as to why Africa is the biggest shithole on the planet.

(The "counterfactual speculation" thread got me thinking about the conditions that dictate why civilization takes the course it does.)

[Darth Wong]

Just as an initial thought, widespread poverty does tend to produce a lot of other social problems.

[Sea Skimmer]

The warm climate made growing vast amounts of food easy for thousands of year, in some places you can harvest four times a year. As a result a bunch of fucked up cultures never needed to develop further. Then the white man set out to civilize the savages but didn't finish the job. The resulting mixes of old cultures and spiraling birthrates with a rise in standards of living has created the current doomed continent of AIDS driven death.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Give me your own explanation as to why Africa is the biggest shithole on the planet.

(The "counterfactual speculation" thread got me thinking about the conditions that dictate why civilization takes the course it does.)

Africa may have the most natural resources of any continent on the planet and there's absolutely no reason why it couldn't be just as developed as the Americas and certainly no reason why it couldn't be as developed as Asia.

Contextually, it is, in the sense that Egypt or South Africa are better off than Moldova or Albania. Likewise, civilization is very old in Africa, being highly developed in the Nile valley and in the Ethiopian highlands, and secondarily developing independently of this region in the Niger Valley. Curiously, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Egypt, and Nigeria are all very well-off countries comparatively. Algeria, Morocco, etc, have had outside influences like Egypt and can perhaps be dealt with seperately if you really insist.

One of the reasons for the lack of development, then, in the Sub-Saharan is that the region was simply not conductive is civilization in its early form. Early civilization starts around river valleys. We know that, at least--and the river valleys which are really habitable (river valleys next to jungles simply aren't) by people with stone/bronze age technology are the Nile and secondarily the Niger. Well, civilization developed just fine around both of these--but the Niger was pretty disconnected from the rest of the world due to geography (see the Sahara Desert and the Congo), and by the time the civilization got anywhere, it ran into Arabs on Camels coming down from the north.

Next we go to the Congo, which is of course pure hell and was made worse by the happy happy fun fun regime of the Belgians slaughtering millions of people. It's no surprise the Congo is the way it is today and it probably won't get better for a long time. It's a giant jungle basin just like the Amazon, not suited for civilization at all. The east coast is, OTOH, rather well built-up by now, having been influenced by Arab traders and suitable for secondary civilization development, and of course trade spurred the development of Zimbabwe inland. The Empire of Zimbabwe actually turned into Africa's breadbasket, but development was slow--they were an inland trading nation trading with, well, the Arabs, who were mired in medieval technology for cultural reasons. And their own nations were inherently tribal; if quite sophisticatedly so. But there was no reason to develop beyond that.

It suited the needs of the situation encountered, and the ones it didn't suit the needs of there was simply no way for them to overcome. The Zulus, further south, developed latest, and actually had an incredible organization, but it was again purely military. Perhaps they could have done something like Japan, which with no resources at all militarized so rapidly and fended off the west. But they did not have the isolation of islands and position--the Cape of Good Hope was a major trading route, there were white colonies in the south, and their land was desired. They also had succession problems which caused infighting, civil wars, etc, and prevented their real potential from being developed.

Africa was, progressively, moving in the right direction--and in fact started to point the way to that direction early on. But circumstance dictated that it wasn't getting there very fast. We did, we overran their tribes, and we didn't stay long enough to bring those tribes up into countries. So when we left, there were tribes running around with spears instead of AKs, and none of the relatively stable Empires that had been forged out of some of them remained, either. The result has been lots of bloodshed.

The Imperialist "civilizing" argument could effectively be made in the 19th century for Africa, I think--the problem is that the Imperial powers, having taken up that mission, proceeded to leave before it was finished. If it had not been a sin before, that surely made it one.

[LordShaithis]

Ah, Duchess, you never disappoint. You really ought to write a book. I mean, I post an idle one-sentence question about Africa, and thirty minutes later you've cranked out a six-paragraph essay on the history of the continent.

[Perinquus]

Another reason Africa was slow to develop modern civilization is not only a lack of river valleys, but a lack of navigable rivers in general. Europe has lots of them, and before the railroads this was a priceless aid to conducting trade and commerce, as well as allowing a civilization to transport and distribute its own resources. Many African rivers are trickling streams part of the year, and raging torrents the rest of the time. Many others, while navigable for much of their length, are interrupted by impassable rapids.

Also, Africa, while a much larger landmass than Europe, has a much shorter coastline. Europe has a convoluted and indented coastline, which does more than just increase the amount of land bordering the sea, it creates a lot of excellent natural harbors, many of which exist at the mouths of navigable rivers, thus providing great access to the hinterlands. Africa has far fewer natural harbors than Europe, and this was yet another hindrance to trade.

[Darth Fanboy]

Multiple generations of people being shipped overseas probably didn't help either.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Multiple generations of people being shipped overseas probably didn't help either.

*shrug* Compensated for in the incoming economic wealth, bluntly, and the people taken were just skim from each generation--usually from areas nearing overpopulation, anyway. The trade in people usually, in a rather ugly fashion, tends to work far too nicely for comfort.

[Warspite]

It's hot and tribes still rule.

[Perinquus]

Multiple generations of people being shipped overseas probably didn't help either.

Europeans used to be captured and sold as slaves in the slave markets of the Ottoman Empire, and before that the Caliphate, and before that the Roman Empire, and even other parts of medieval Europe for many centuries.

While this certainly didn't help things, it just wasn't much of a factor, because it wasn't any different from what went on everywhere else in the world for most of human history.

[zombie84]

isnt it a shithole because of the exploitation and pilaging that went on during the colonial days?

[Colonel Olrik]

isnt it a shithole because of the exploitation and pilaging that went on during the colonial days?

No, many countries were actually better off as colonies than they are now, decades after. Look at Angola.

[Darth Gojira]

Dense terrain and Muslim and Christian raids played a big part. The Europeans decided to get imperialistic. That screwed up politica and sociall structure like hell. However, in a century or two, Africans will probably figure out a land settlement to the agreement of most. I have nothing more to say that hasn't been said already by the Duchess more eloquently.

[Stravo]

With AIDS reaching epidemic proportions in Africa, there may not be enough of a new generation to effectively move the continent forward for a long time. There are some nations that have over a 25% infection rate! Imagine the US with over 20 million AIDS victims and you begin to have an idea of what is happening over there.

I am shocked and amazed that we don't hear more about it. It's not getting better over there either.

[Xenophobe3691]

With AIDS reaching epidemic proportions in Africa, there may not be enough of a new generation to effectively move the continent forward for a long time. There are some nations that have over a 25% infection rate! Imagine the US with over 20 million AIDS victims and you begin to have an idea of what is happening over there.

I am shocked and amazed that we don't hear more about it. It's not getting better over there either.

The U.S. with a 25% infection rate would be around 75 million people...

[Stravo]

With AIDS reaching epidemic proportions in Africa, there may not be enough of a new generation to effectively move the continent forward for a long time. There are some nations that have over a 25% infection rate! Imagine the US with over 20 million AIDS victims and you begin to have an idea of what is happening over there.

I am shocked and amazed that we don't hear more about it. It's not getting better over there either.

The U.S. with a 25% infection rate would be around 75 million people...

I'm very sleepy right now, don't ask me to do math, I covered myself with the over 20million remark.

[Sea Skimmer]

I am shocked and amazed that we don't hear more about it. It's not getting better over there either.

And its not going to, there's no way the rest of the world will invest the necessary resources to stop the spread of AIDS in Africa and I highly doubt it could be done anyway. Infection rates where dropped in Uganda, but only through a massively disproportionate investment of what resources where available. And it's a small densely populated nation anyway, which makes the logistics of such an operation far simpler.

Only a radical breakthrough in AIDS drugs is likely to save the central part of the continent.

[Frank Hipper]

Months and months ago, someone posted an essay on the cultural contributing factors in the AIDS epidemic.

I recall a preferance for "dry sex" and a local healer nailing condoms over a door to ward off AIDS. I think those examples were both from the same thread....

Africa? Shithole? Bad governments would be my biggest culprit. Really bad governments.

[Xenophobe3691]

Months and months ago, someone posted an essay on the cultural contributing factors in the AIDS epidemic.

I recall a preferance for "dry sex" and a local healer nailing condoms over a door to ward off AIDS. I think those examples were both from the same thread....

Africa? Shithole? Bad governments would be my biggest culprit. Really bad governments.

Or a culture that frowns on unadulterated sex...

[Enigma]

Africa could've made some money from their farming if it wasn't for Canada and other nations' practices of subsidizing their farmers.

[Sea Skimmer]

Africa could've made some money from their farming if it wasn't for Canada and other nations' practices of subsidizing their farmers.

For some reason the idea of exporting food from a starving continent seems stupid to me. Hell companies continuing to export food out of the country to make money was a major cause of a huge famine in Ethiopia back in the 70's. Afterwards the government nationalized the farms. Though mismanagement then ground them into the desert sand.

[Enigma]

Africa could've made some money from their farming if it wasn't for Canada and other nations' practices of subsidizing their farmers.

For some reason the idea of exporting food from a starving continent seems stupid to me. Hell companies continuing to export food out of the country to make money was a major cause of a huge famine in Ethiopia back in the 70's. Afterwards the government nationalized the farms. Though mismanagement then ground them into the desert sand.

Selling a product that your country needs means jackshit when it comes to making money. Many countries sell products their people need and then buy them back again at a higher price and then jack it up again and sell it to their consumers (i.e. gasoline).

[Xenophobe3691]

Africa could've made some money from their farming if it wasn't for Canada and other nations' practices of subsidizing their farmers.

If it wasn't for subsidizing farms, that loaf of bread would be a whole lot more expensive, due to food costs and dying farms.

[Raxmei]

Exporting food from a starving country actually makes a lot of sense. Starving people don't have any money, you see. That means they can't pay for food. So if you give the food to them you lose money and eventually go out of business because you have no revenue to repay your expenses. And now nobody has food.
But if you sell the food overseas, the people who get the food do have money and will pay you for your food. Now you can stay in business and if you so desire invest your profits in the local economy.

[ArmorPierce]

Europeans used to be captured and sold as slaves in the slave markets of the Ottoman Empire

Europeans weren't captured and held as slaves. The European subjects would give their kids to them as tribute. Actually it wasn't a bad life for most of them went on to hold high positions in government and ultra patriotic to the Sultan.