The root of Africa's problem is the colonial legacy we've left. National borders were drawn in the capitals of Europe and based upon who owned what, not who belongs where. Whole tribes were forced to make nations with deadly enemies, pieces of one tribe's territory (sometimes with ancestral lands attached), were given over to another tribe, and not infrequently, peoples were divided from each other. ...
I agree - colonial legacy is primarily (but not exclusively) responsible for provding a framework on which the worst kinds of people could hang their hats. But we
must also afford due credit to those who perpetrated the horrors of the first generation(s) of post independence regime.
I also agree that these same people were, in many cases taught all they knew by said colonial powers, by a variety of means - typically involving spells in prison, something that became a rite of passage. Ghana being an especially relavent, and topical example, eh Jason?
Of course, they were terribly hampered by events of the past - lack of education, lack of administrative experience, exposure to (and thus emulation of) 'big man', often loosely accountable forms of government - but they also had an opportunity to
improve things. Is the fact that most didn't,
entirely the fault of the west - I know
you didn't say that, but many believe it.
Many (most?) early post independence leaders didn't do so, they chose to line their pockets, to fleece their newly minted nations for their own personal/tribal/family ends. That they chose to behave this way can only be
partly* laid at the feet of former colonial powers - although they stood by and let it happen.
* Please note by 'partly' I don't mean 'a little bit', I do mean significantly - but not exclusively.
That some leaders, and some nations managed to avoid the worst excesses of others speaks to the role simple base human nature played in many of the scenarios that unfolded in those early years - and in some cases still continue today.
I believe the means by which independence was acheived is also a signifcant factor, and I believe (in part) the former colonial powers themselves is too - in how they fostered relations with their former 'possessions', or merely subjugated them anew by other means - and of course, the atrocious behaviour of the major players during the cold war era.
Again, I'm not seeking to make excuses for
any party here, merely suggesting that responsibility for contemporary Africa isn't so easily apportioned.
Religion and culture play into this too. We can see this in Nigeria and Sudan where constant clashes between Christians and Muslims have resulted in near civil war ... How do you rule a country with so many different cultures, languages, religions, and each group hating the other for the past thousand years?
This loosely parallels some events in Europe.
A key difference being that there (Europe) was too close to home (read civilisation) to be merely swept under the carpet. After all, what did it matter if a few natives chopped away at each other over some mud huts, the best form of juju and some skinny cows - or over resources that were [then] of little value - this was happening far away, and these folk could be safely left to their own devices.
We could tut, and send a few bucks to asuage our collective conscience. Thus the snake oil (sorry, aid) industry as we know it today was born.
... how do you function? There's no public education system, no infrastructure to support industry or commerce, no money to pay for it even if you did, no tradition of democracy, little sense of (and what sense there is may be distorted) of how the west operates, what western culture is, and half your country's tribal leaders will ally with you for 10 head of cattle a year.
Typically with callous brutality.
Tribal and family affiliation within a clear social hirearchy (not democracy as we know it) is a core foundation stone of much African culture (outside the Muslim realm - there too, with variations).
It's entirely understandable why newly installed leaders
tended to form nepotistic and sycophantic cliques. As you say, a lack of education was a key weapon in the colonial arsenal - for the same basic reasons it became one for post independence leaders too.
One cannot easily effect [positive]
change in the face of vested interest, ignorance and corruption, so it's easy to fall back on good old violent repression as new leaders clearly demonstrated - but awareness of such realities, and their root causes must be kept from the proles at all costs.
In many respects independence was mere window dressing. Across a continent it was, for a while at least, business as usual.
Of course, (I know it's cliche) violence does tend to perpetuate itself, so it's easy to see how the era of 'Big Man' African regimes came about.
40 years on, there is still a long way to go and I am by no means confident that many of today's [marginally] more democratic African regimes won't 'relapse'.
Who would stop them - an ill educated, defenceless populace clamouring for democracy? Hardly. As I said before, today things could easily go either way, and I believe the west has, to a degree been given some form of second chance. Will we take it? I honestly don't know.
Meanwhile you have drug gangs in your crumbling cities left over from the colonial period, perhaps 1/4 or more of your population infected with HIV or some other deadly disease, a corrupt military, corrupt bureaucracy, corrupt police force, and it seems no country with any real power cares.
Indeed, but while the systems of government many leaders inherited did function along the lines of nepotism, corruption and so on - that's only a partial excuse for their perpetuating them.
In many cases existing structures (physical and organisational) were in good order - they were simply too few qualified locals to run or maintain them, and in many cases no wish to train them. Most people had little or nothing, and so were ripe for [continued] exploitation. It should be no surprise to anyone that much of the time, that's exactly what transpired.
In simple terms; give a starving man the keys to the larder, and the treasury - and an AK47, it's easy to see how things turned out as they often did.
You've seen how the west ignores genocides in Rwanda and Darfur and (correctly) conclude that unless there's something to be gained, the west won't lift a finger to help you.
I'd argue the west did far more than merely ignore events, as if that wasn't enough - to varying degrees the 'west' (and here I primarily mean Europe) is complicit - either in the events themselves, or in allowing them to occur. Often this was merely because it was politically expedient.
Simple intransigence would be bad enough, but it was more than that. This is not well understood and often denied - it's a
major collective blind spot. Look a little more deeply into events in Rwanda/Burundi (for example), you may find some nasty surprises.
You want to make life better for your country so you appeal to charities, ask for foreign aid. Yes your coup was bloody but the guy you kicked out was a real bastard who only thought of himself. You are going to reform the country and make it prosperous again as it was long, long, ago.
Yes, this time it
will be different.
As you know, many African leaders turned to charities and aid agencies for far less altrusitic reasons - typically to divert attention for the wholesale robbery they were perperating against the same people they were supposed to be 'helping'. That western nations, and their proxy the burgeoning aid industry were so eager to 'help' out made it all the easier to say '
look, I'm helping'. The sad thing is, both here and there too many believed that was what was actually happening.
That regimes syhponed off
huge amounts of aid, monetary or otherwise was blithely ignored by the west - because most people back home didn't want to hear about it. Acknowedgement of what was happening would require action to curtail it, and that simply wasn't on the agenda.
From a man in the street perspective, when pictures of starving children appeared on TVs all 'we' had to do was phone up, stick $50 on the visa card and 'our' concience was clear. That little or none of that money would actually reach anyone it was meant to, that much would be syphoned off as bribes, or to fund arms or drugs purchases to perpetuate the very situation it was intended to solve - was simply too hard, or too inconvenient to grapple with, so for the most part people didn't try.
One need only look at the countless multi-million dollar boondoggles scattered across sub-saharan Africa to see how
deeply this elective ignorance and naivete was embedded.
Caveat - I know not all aid agencies or aid workers are the puppets of Satan, of course many do excellent work, but IMO these are the exception, and too often the ones nobody has ever heard of and so receive little funding, and even less recognition.
To a significant degree there remains an almost instituionalised sense of moral superiority within the industry (and it
is an industry) - and having seen its effects first hand it's often truly sickening. Yes, I'm cynical about African aid ... not in
priniciple, in
implementation. I will concdede it's better today than back in the Live Aid days, but IMO it remains largely a self serving entity.
I hate to use the term 'Africa' it's so imprecise and generic. But I hope my use is in context.
Jason, I will try to response to the rest of your post later ... stuff to do!