Why do people pretend that after formal colonialism in Africa...

Why do people pretend that after formal colonialism in Africa, the European nations simply pulled out and didn't carry on interfering in internal politics?

I mean, it's incredibly historically ignorant to believe that the Euros simply said "you know what? our bad, here you go". I mean have you never heard of transnational trade or anything?


Organisations like the WTO and the WB are ran by Europe and the USA, it's no surprise that the free trade policies they enforce end up benefitting the already developed countries.

You may say that "free trade" is a good thing. Well it would be if you started from a level playing field.

Imagine a small independent grocery/corner shop. Imagine that a Walmart opened up next to it and used it's massive buying power and staff to make their prices cheaper. Customers end up going to the Walmart because it's cheaper and eventually the independent shop closes.

That's what "free" trade is. The West force poorer countries to open their markets up and then come in and help to destroy local industry. They tell poorer countries to focus on one crop to trade globally. The combined effect is that these former colonies are made to become dependent on the west for development. and it's in the west's interest not to allow them to be.

Of course there are corrupt dictators. And they also deserve to be pilloried. But this notion that Africa can't develop because of some intrinsic reason about Africans is nonsense. If a country tries to promote social programs, they will be slapped down by the neoliberals at the WB, IMF and WTO who literally say "no you must stimulate your market, you can't spend money for public services"

These countries were made poor and had their resources exploited and stolen by colonialism, and their resources are still be taken today under an incredibly uneven trade regime.

Other urls found in this thread:

naomiklein.org/articles/2011/02/democracy-born-chains
actionaid.org.uk/news-and-views/poor-countries-have-right-to-bar-trade-invaders
theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2017/jan/14/aid-in-reverse-how-poor-countries-develop-rich-countries
chronicle.co.zw/is-usa-using-agoa-to-manipulate-africa/
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Blackwell
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rao–Blackwell_theorem
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_capital_flight#South_Africa
youtube.com/watch?v=ONoaqRaIcT0
youtube.com/watch?v=LqO7zlGHEJ4
twitter.com/NSFWRedditGif

naomiklein.org/articles/2011/02/democracy-born-chains

>Want to redistribute land? Impossible—at the last minute, the negotiators agreed to add a clause to the new constitution that protects all private property, making land reform virtually impossible. Want to create jobs for millions of unemployed workers? Can’t—hundreds of factories were actually about to close because the ANC had signed on to the GATT, the precursor to the World Trade Organization, which made it illegal to subsidize the auto plants and textile factories. Want to get free AIDS drugs to the townships, where the disease is spreading with terrifying speed? That violates an intellectual property rights commitment under the WTO, which the ANC joined with no public debate. Need money to build more and larger houses for the poor and to bring free electricity to the townships? Sorry—the budget is being eaten up servicing the massive debt, passed on quietly by the apartheid government. Print more money? Tell that to the apartheid-era head of the central bank. Free water for all? Not likely. The World Bank, is making private-sector partnerships the service norm. Want to impose currency controls to guard against wild speculation? That would violate the $850 million IMF deal, signed, conveniently enough, right before the elections. Raise the minimum wage to close the apartheid income gap? Nope. The IMF deal promises "wage restraint."12 And don’t even think about ignoring these commitments— any change will be regarded as evidence of dangerous national untrustworthiness, a lack of commitment to “reform,” an absence of a "rules-based system." All of which will lead to currency crashes, aid cuts and capital flight. The bottom line was that South Africa was free but simultaneously captured; each one of these arcane acronyms represented a different thread in the web that pinned down the limbs of the new government.

>Waaahh stahp blaming whitey for everything Reeeee :(

Sums it up

History is complex and multifaceted.

Unfortunately, most people are simpleminded and easily bored about any subject if you get too detailed about things. People want clear cut and easily digestible narratives. I'm sure you probably like anime but reading extensively detailed books about anime production would bore you to tears.

Now that we got that required low-quality post out of the way, the real discussion can begin.

actionaid.org.uk/news-and-views/poor-countries-have-right-to-bar-trade-invaders

>'Trade Invaders: the WTO and Developing Countries' Right to Protect' looks at the downside of free trade policies and economic liberalisation. ActionAid's case studies - from Brazil, the Gambia, India, Nigeria, Pakistan and South Africa - describe how, time after time, farmers have been ruined and factories closed down as cheap goods from abroad flooded in after trade barriers were lifted.
The removal of tariffs on textile imports has forced 20 factories in Nigeria to close with the loss of over 16,000 jobs. A further 18 factories are threatened with closure. Since 1998, almost two-thirds of jobs in the sector have been lost.
In the Gambia, cheap imports of chicken, eggs, milk and rice have flooded the market, depressing prices and putting many local producers out of business.
"Developing countries are facing an invasion. These stories are a warning of what might happen if rich countries get their way at the World Trade Organisation Hong Kong ministerial later this month," said Aftab Alam Khan, head of ActionAid's trade justice campaign.

You make some sound points, OP. I await the inevitable deluge of /pol/ tier rebuttals that completely ignore everything you said because they can only engage in debate at the level of memes and "stupid niggers".

There are so many distorted and warped assertions made in this post that it's honestly pointless to even begin a discussion.
Whole thread will be a shit fest

theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2017/jan/14/aid-in-reverse-how-poor-countries-develop-rich-countries

>We have long been told a compelling story about the relationship between rich countries and poor countries. The story holds that the rich nations of the OECD give generously of their wealth to the poorer nations of the global south, to help them eradicate poverty and push them up the development ladder. Yes, during colonialism western powers may have enriched themselves by extracting resources and slave labour from their colonies – but that’s all in the past. These days, they give more than $125bn (£102bn) in aid each year – solid evidence of their benevolent goodwill.

>This story is so widely propagated by the aid industry and the governments of the rich world that we have come to take it for granted. But it may not be as simple as it appears.


>In 2012, the last year of recorded data, developing countries received a total of $1.3tn, including all aid, investment, and income from abroad. But that same year some $3.3tn flowed out of them. In other words, developing countries sent $2tn more to the rest of the world than they received. If we look at all years since 1980, these net outflows add up to an eye-popping total of $16.3tn – that’s how much money has been drained out of the global south over the past few decades. To get a sense for the scale of this, $16.3tn is roughly the GDP of the United States
What this means is that the usual development narrative has it backwards. Aid is effectively flowing in reverse. Rich countries aren’t developing poor countries; poor countries are developing rich ones.

ITT: China is the European Nation

No one cares when chinks do it because omg xD they're soo cool xDDD Marxist chic xD
Veeky Forums is shit

If you can't refute them just shut the fuck up. Your post is useless.

blame capitalism

This. Also independent minded African leaders like Lumumba and Sankara were murdered with western backing.

That's not to say all "independent" leaders (the shameful rule of Gaddafi or Dos Santos) come to mind are good but outright western interference and neocolonialism have impeded progress

There's also the massive brain drain from Africa to the US.

>it's not even worth disproving it!

I'll take "one of the worst excuses for not having the intellect to debate someone whilst still trying to maintain smug superiority" for 500 alex.

>chronicle.co.zw/is-usa-using-agoa-to-manipulate-africa/

>“CHICKEN imports end AGOA impasse”, screamed a headline from one of South Africa’s newspapers last week in a widely publicised national news story. Cheap United States chicken imports hit South African supermarket shelves on Tuesday last week for the first time in 15 years. The announcement concluded a protracted trade dispute that came to a head in November last year when US President Barack Obama gave South Africa 90 days to open its market to US chicken, beef and pork or lose duty-free access to the US market for its own agricultural products.

>The poultry dispute dates back to 2000 when South Africa imposed prohibitive anti-dumping duties on US chicken parts, a decision not well received by the “dominant” world power.

>US trade representative in South Africa, Michael Froman, quoted in a celebratory remark in one of the dailies acknowledged Pretoria has finally “satisfied conditions” for retaining US trade privileges under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA).

>He says the lifting of the barriers to US poultry, beef and pork exports to South Africa would probably increase the sales of those products by about $160 million a year with close to $100 million of that being chicken exports.

>No one cares when chinks do it because omg xD they're soo cool xDDD Marxist chic xD

Whites started Imperialism while the Chinese are contributing from it. Not the same asshat.

> brain drain from Africa to the US.
> brain drain
> from Africa

Blacks can be smart too.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Blackwell
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rao–Blackwell_theorem

>Whites started Imperialism
did you type this out with a straight face?

If free trade is so bad what stops say Zimbabwe from just not participating in it?

>Whites started Imperialism
what did anonymous poster #2760444 mean by this?

The president of zimbabwe is a communist. I don't think zimbabwe participates in Free trade. I think free trade is good. I don't agree with the OP
Rwanda on the other hand is trying to follow the singapore model and they're growing 8% per year.

A lot of educated people from the third world emigrate to the US.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_capital_flight#South_Africa

>free trade policies they enforce end up benefitting the already developed countries.
You are a moron. Free trade with cheap labor countries benefit cheap labor countries the most

see

The thing is even people who support capitalism would see that the current neo liberal system is profoundly unfair.

You have the western countries who developed their own public services and social safety nets. And now they are telling the poorer countries that they shouldn't focus on doing that for their own, but just focus on making money, which of course gets embezzled.

I have no doubt that in Africa there are plenty of wealthy locals who have gotten rich thanks to free trade but they are just the tiny minority at the top of the pyramid.

> they are just the tiny minority at the top of the pyramid
The same is true for every corrupt country.

Countries want to trade with each other, but the WTO basically says you can only trade with each other if you do it in this way.

A poor country might want to trade with a rich one, but at the same time they might say, well we have a lot of chicken farmers here, so we don't want to import your chickens thankyou.

What the US and WTO do is say "if you want to trade ANYTHING with us, you must open your markets up to EVERYTHING we want to give you. And you're not allowed to subsidise your farmers to help them, even though we do it ourselves"

I think the recent age of the countries and their complexity due to different tribes living together are to blame:
youtube.com/watch?v=ONoaqRaIcT0

>whites started imperialism

True, that's why even in the developed world you are seeing those social safety nets and public services being eroded now, because of "austerity". Meanwhile the super rich are getting contracts to suck up that public money in private-public partnerships, using tax havens to avoid paying tax, etc.

And the right wing have managed to convince people that the problem is race, when it's the top 0.1% who are laughing all the way to the bank.

My prediction is in 200 years Africa will be just like latin america is today. Even if racists are right the things that were put in motion will shape a capable people in at least 200 years. Prove me wrong.
Just leave them alone and things will sort themselves out

>Showing me a place that's nowhere near Sahara Africa

Well, we're done here

>These countries were made poor and had their resources exploited and stolen by colonialism, and their resources are still be taken today under an incredibly uneven trade regime.

When decolonization happened the cold war was in full effect. Many African nations chose to join the Soviet led trade bloc. They offered a much more even, equalized playing field. When the Soviet Union fell these countries were generally not worse or better off than the other African countries.

Postcolonial theory has some good points, but it has this weird idea that a successful country should be criticized for defending its interests.

>the two states of being in the world are "white" and "Sahara Africa" (whatever the fuck that means)
retard

Something I find disgusting about INGOs is the salaries of the "expat workers". These people get paid 100x an average salary int he country they live in temporarily, send their children to private schools have armies of staff for their house.

They justify it by saying 'but the market has to be competitive", but if you want money then go work in business. As exploitatitve as business is, at least those people are honest about what they're doing. The INGO seem to think that "doing good" justifies them siphoning off aid money for their own pockets.

Okay, the OP made a mistake in not including China. Which is a huge problem with them basically buying out large portions of Africa. But the point still remains trhat it's not a problem with Africa specifically. It's that everyone else, even after colonialism, has been fucking them over with free trade and maximizing their benefits to us people in the developed world.
Do you at least agree with OP's reasoning in that and if not could you explain to us why?

>when you're so african you turn the picture black & white
if that brownie didn't stand next to him I'd think this image was taken in the 30s

Provided this is true, what's wrong with this? Zimbabwe tried to play alone and subsequently crashed its economy.

they should have been left alone in the first place, many African ethnic groups were actually starting to develop organically, and progress technologically. Many people manage to completely forget that quite a lot of agrarian societies were popping up all over Africa, and actually managing to last. If, at the Berlin Conference, they had actually decided to leave the continent alone and see how things could turn out, we'd have a much different Africa today.

Well you can either say

1) it's wrong because the west shouldn't be exploiting the world's poorest countries and people in poverty that is incomparable to the west.

2) it's right, that's the law of the jungle.

but what you can't say is HURR Africans are dumb why can't they do anything lol they are inferior nigger nigger nigger.

this
if you're going to say that it is right, don't go lying to yourself and say that you're actually helping them because HURR DURR THEY'RE INFERIOR SUBHUMANS AND THEY COULDN'T INTO DECENT ECONOMICS EVEN IF THEY TRIED NIGGER NIGGER NIGGER XD LOL

Well the West has interfered too much in Africa, I completely agree with that.

But you can't deny that Africa is extremely corrupt.

I mean, Africa is several times the size of Europa and America, and even including the the desert areas, there are vast amounts of natural resources just waiting to be used to build powerful and rich countries.

But the corruption runs too deep.

Holy shit that guy is black as fuck

This is partly true, and assuming you are the original poster, you're coming to term with your delusion. It's common knowledge that French, British or German companies are still exploiting resources, and didn't simply “leave the place”, and many people remember clearly the diamonds affair, the Elf scandal, the underground diplomacy, Mobutu, Denis Sassou-Nguesso, Teodoro Mbasogo, Jean-Bédel Bokassa, Omar Bongo, the corruption cases surrounding French NGO in Congo, Socapalm, Areva. Belgium controlled 70% of the Congolese economy decades after the independence, and it is notorious leaders like George W. Bush had informal agreements with dictator. Omar Bongo is still estimated to have left 130,000,000 USD in misappropriated oil profits in Citibank accounts in New York. You're kind of… Naive. This isn't a secret.

The continent is still responsible for its present condition. Do you think they would have outperformed, wouldn't we have had any contact with these countries? This implies no colonial infrastructure as well, and no transfer of technologies and knowledge. What is your position?

>that European nations simply pulled out and didn't carry on interfering in internal politics?
Because those nations failed on their own, they didn't need help for that. No more whiteman's burden, no more common law, aid, investment, or new technology.

>the Euros simply said "you know what? our bad, here you go".
You're right. They said, "I'm tired of trying to help you, fuck off".

>I mean have you never heard of [international] trade or anything?
Yes, but the natives hadn't.

>it's no surprise that the free trade policies they enforce end up benefitting the already developed countries.
non-EU free trade agreements don't impose restrictions on those that do not have a formally recognized trade deal. The lack of a trade deal simply means that the governments are free to fuck everything up with leftist policies, it doesn't mean a lack of free trade. (free trade is the default)

>You may say that "free trade" is a good thing. Well it would be if you started from a level playing field.
They had an even playing field, they just decided to burn it to the ground after the whites left.

>Customers end up going to the Walmart because it's cheaper and eventually the independent shop closes.
Or because of the nature of economics and global trade, you sell your goods at the most profitable price generating the most money instead of trying to flood the market in order to make the least amount of money over a short period of time. The only nation stupid/statist enough to have done that is china.

>That's what "free" trade is.
Free trade is literally governments not fucking things up

>The West force poorer countries to open their markets up and then come in and help to destroy local industry.
But the west built the local industry and it was only destroyed because the shitskins are too stupid to not fuck it up.

>The combined effect is that these former colonies are made to become dependent on the west for development.
youtube.com/watch?v=LqO7zlGHEJ4

>But this notion that Africa can't develop because of some intrinsic reason about Africans is nonsense.
Have you heard about our lord and savior Mugabe?

>the neoliberals at the WB, IMF and WTO who literally say "no you must stimulate your market, you can't spend money for public services"
... But neoliberals don't talk like that. Are you sure you don't mean classical liberals? Because they've been dead for over 100 years. They're conservatives and libertarians nowadays.
It's good advice either way.

>These countries were made poor and had their resources exploited and stolen by colonialism,
These countries were made richer and had their resources refined and used to everyone's benefit. A field of dirt does no one good.

>their resources are still be taken today under an incredibly uneven trade regime.
They deserve it.

>You may say that "free trade" is a good thing. Well it would be if you started from a level playing field.
Inequity is what makes free trade free. If you're going to enforce a "level playing field", it's not free trade, dumbass.

Nothing wrong with interfering since we are a globalized world.
One love.

Fun Fact:
The whiteman's burden was called such because it was a burden on the white man.
The reward he got for helping to raise those people up was getting spit in the face and seeing his efforts burned to the ground.

They deserve the conditions they live under.

I don't think genocides account for “help”.

You mean tribal lads? Because I would argue otherwise.
If you are referring to some other group of people, I am not familiar with it and would appreciate you being more specific.

Belgian massacres in Congo—estimated 3,000,000 to 5,000,000 killed—German extermination in Namibia against Herero and Namaqua—estimated deathtoll up to 85,000 people, 80% of the population—the Thiaroye execution carried on by the French army—between 35 and 70 killed—French suppresion on rioters in Chad, blood diamonds in Sierra Leone and Liberia—between 100,000 and 200,000 killed—and countless crimes we probably lost accounts of. That's a curious way to “help”.

had they not had contact, they would not have "objectively" outperformed. what I mean by this is that in the year 2017, they wouldn't be at Europe's or Asia's level in terms of societal and technological progress. They were lagging behind considerably already, and leaving them alone wouldn't've changed that.
What would change, though, is that they would be able to develop nations and cultures organically, just as European, Asian, and Mesoamerican ones did. They were already developing their own agrarian societies across the continent, and had been for centuries. The next step for them, if you look at the way the Europe, Asia, and Mesoamerica developed, would be for tribes to band together with those peoples that they were friendly with and form Nations. Either that, or one tribe goes completely apeshit on its neighbors and becomes an empire.
I know that it seems retarded to have to wait for the Africans to get their shit together, bi=ut you have to consider what it is that they're working with. Some parts of the continent have shitty rivers that don't flood regularly, which doesn't really help with the formation of large farms capable of providing food to a large amount of people, much less cities. There's also the fact that the biological communities of the continent are often very harsh and don't exactly make great places to live. They needed time to overcome these obstacles, and European colonialism did little to help improve things. I shouldn't have to say this, but the European nations' artificial cobbling together of nations ended up causing a lot of preventable conflict.
And if we're going to talk about native peoples needing more time to develop, the native tribes (who weren't really natives, they were just the first people to live there) of North America also needed more time to develop. They were already at the point where they began forming nations when European colonists (including the Vikings) showed up on their doorstep.
(1/2)

This is highly speculative, and “considerable” isn't excessive to express how much these tribes straggled after foreign cultures. In 1880, most countries had an advanced administration, an organisation of labour, census, modern sciences, a performant health system, urbanism refined literature, a legal system. Such a comparison with our own culture is misguided, nevertheless relevant. The Netherlands already had modern surgery. The process you describe might have taken centuries. I wouldn't call our geography indulgent, and it certainly isn't the case for Asia. I don't think we would have met a similar momentum. Our civilisation is unique.

Europeans left their colonies not because they told them to fuck of but because they were no longer economically sustainable.