Post: #26

"I have a tough time listening to you when you use personal ad-hominem attacks. I get that you are dependent on Africa and all, but everyone has a different value system. Stop looking at things at black and white and us vs them, start looking at things through a self-interest perspective."

Accuses someone of an ad-hominen attack, immediately responds with ad-hominen attack.

Post: #27

The guys that sell the drugs in public places here are from Africa.

Post: #28

Word to the wise, here is the top exporter list for Tungsten:

China. Mine production: 71,000 MT.
Vietnam. Mine production: 5,000 MT
Russia. Mine production: 2,500 MT.
Canada. Mine production: 1,700 MT
Bolivia. Mine production: 1,200 MT
Rwanda. Mine production: 1,000 MT
Austria. Mine production: 870 MT

Here is the top exporter list for Tin:
1 China 125,000
2 Indonesia 84,000
3 Peru 23,700
4 Bolivia 18,000
5 Brazil 12,000
6 Myanmar 11,000
7 Australia 6,100
8 Vietnam 5,400
9 Malaysia 3,500
10 Democratic Republic of The Congo 3,000

Post: #29

I love Africa, but not for its supposedly vast wealth in resources and human potential. There is a reason this huge continent contributes little more than 2 percent of world GDP. There are in fact very limited resources, and the land is for the most part quite poorly suited to agriculture or even human habitation. It is too hot to work, rain patterns (tropical deluge style) lead to flooding and then quick evaporation - bad for farming, the rivers are generally difficult to navigate, the ocean is too rough, desert, jungles, parasites, etc. severely constrain transport and husbandry. There is very little in terms of work ethic or property rights, corruption is rampant, and very few people give a shit about niceties like human rights or the environment. Any wealth that is accumulated is quickly spent in conspicuous consumption or in maintaining impressively large harems of wives, concubines, mistresses, and sugarbabes. Instead of reinvesting profits in real business, men funnel money into women's little pet projects (hair salons and clothing shops) in what can only be defined as vaginal capitalism.

There are very good reasons why Africa until 150 years ago was a mostly empty continent, Even in 1900 Africa had only about 133 million people compared to more than 400 million each in Europe and China. The drastic changes in these ratios since then can largely be attributed to the introduction of Western medicine, sanitation, fertilizer, etc., and the population growth of recent decades is clearly not sustainable in any meaningful sense of the word. Worse, even in those countries that have enormous oil resources compared to population size (and I'm not even talking about Angola and Nigeria, but countries like Equatorial Guinea and Gabon) it has done the ordinary man little good.

Finally, I would of course encourage some of the more optimistic posters in this thread to go and invest in Africa if they truly have such rosy notions of its economic potential. When you come back you might be wondering if colonialism was really such a bad idea after all. While most people in the West assume that Africans hate white people for colonialism, the reality is that this is only the case with the elites who have taken over the bureaucratic and academic positions once held by whites - and have done an even shittier job of it, in most cases. In fact, many Africans still wish they had Europeans in charge. I've even heard some express envy of South Africa for staying under white rule longer! (However, South African and Zimbabwean blacks actually do hate white people).

End of rant, now let's all cross over to the black hotness thread and study the REAL reason why Africa is awesome. Let's quickly forget the supposed economic grandeur of a continent with palm oil as one of it's top 5 exports.

Post: #30

OP seems to be lazy to do some reading about the colonial era, the post-colonial era, Africa's economy and foreign aid flows to African nations. With just Google you'd have a decent grasp within even a mere 30 minutes of reading.
For starters, all nations in Africa have not and might never recover from colonialism. Hell, there weren't even nation states before European intervention. The end result has been widespread poverty. chaos and often, anarchy. It's just a continent blessed with Natural resources and has been plundered for centuries, and will continue to be plundered (see China's clever positioning in recent years). The Europeans easily subdued the local populations and as we know the winner takes all. What's left today are numerous failed states, and dependent nations that are deeply in debt and are in effect "owned" by corporations (as Nigeria is by various oil giants). The endemic corruption by political and business elites makes exploitation by western corporations and IMF, World Bank, United Nations, NATO, International Criminal Court etc. easier, as the cycle of dependency and underdevelopment cannot be broken when crucial services cannot be extended to at least two thirds or 80% of a population.

PS - OP has started 29 threads.

Post: #31

(01-25-2017 03:25 PM)numanist Wrote:  Word to the wise, here is the top exporter list for Tungsten:

China. Mine production: 71,000 MT.
Vietnam. Mine production: 5,000 MT
Russia. Mine production: 2,500 MT.
Canada. Mine production: 1,700 MT
Bolivia. Mine production: 1,200 MT
Rwanda. Mine production: 1,000 MT
Austria. Mine production: 870 MT

Here is the top exporter list for Tin:
1 China 125,000
2 Indonesia 84,000
3 Peru 23,700
4 Bolivia 18,000
5 Brazil 12,000
6 Myanmar 11,000
7 Australia 6,100
8 Vietnam 5,400
9 Malaysia 3,500
10 Democratic Republic of The Congo 3,000

Besides not making any significant point, you forgot Tantalum, don´t worry I´ll help you out since you have proven that using the internet is mentally challenging for you:

1. Rwanda
2. Congo
3. Brazil
4. Mozambique
5. China
6. Nigeria
7. Ethiopia
8. Burundi

"I have a tough time listening to you when you use personal ad-hominem attacks. I get that you are dependent on Africa and all for your job, but everyone has a different value system. Stop looking at things at black and white and us vs them, start looking at things through a self-interest perspective."

I´m not dependent on Africa for my job, I live in South America. And indeed everyone has a different value system, some base theirs on education and facts and others, well... not so much.

@Akwesi: I agree with almost everything in your analysis, but one remark though:

"There are in fact very limited resources": There are limited resources that are discovered. We need not forget that a big part of Africa is still undiscovered. It is not impossible that large reserves of oil, gas, etc are still to be found in Africa. Recently they found massive reserves of gas in Mozambique for instance. In Kenya they have had new discoveries as well. Sometimes we think that we know everything about the world, but the truth is far from it. The potential for Africa in mineral resources is there, the problems like you mentioned indeed lies in the harvesting and the other relevant conditions.

Post: #32

This thread just goes to prove something I've been noticing developing in the manosphere. There's a really a seething resentment and disgust towards Africa and black folks by some. While there are many on RVF and other boards who would stand side by side to defend our interests as men regardless of whether my skin was darker than theirs or not, you can tell, there are also many who pick a clear side and shade in their arguments. As the movement becomes more mainstream I think there's going to be more and more shit like this popping up in this corner of the web.

Post: #33

Natural resources, rare earth elements in particular. Lots of those materials are found in our technology.

Post: #34

Can't believe no one mentioned Wakanda, with it's largest and most valuable export being Vibranium.

Post: #35

(01-25-2017 01:42 PM)numanist Wrote:  while the rest of Africa lives pretty modestly,

Post: #36

(01-25-2017 04:27 PM)Mayweather Wrote:  This thread just goes to prove something I've been noticing developing in the manosphere. There's a really a seething resentment and disgust towards Africa and black folks by some. While there are many on RVF and other boards who would stand side by side to defend our interests as men regardless of whether my skin was darker than theirs or not, you can tell, there are also many who pick a clear side and shade in their arguments. As the movement becomes more mainstream I think there's going to be more and more shit like this popping up in this corner of the web.

Honestly, it's more of a reaction to the shit that's been visited upon us by uber radical POC and "minority" activists that do nothing but hate on anything "white".

While we may hope to be above their kind of vicious rhetoric, we also understand that retaliating with rhetoric of our own let's them know we won't be trifled with. On the other hand, they can use it as examples to point to as to why everything in reality is racist and against them.

Hopefully, we establish a new culture that transcends that particular identity. No idea on how and if that will ever happen in today's political climate.

Post: #37

As a European, there's only one (true and honest) answer I can give to OP:

Q:
What do we get from Africa?

A:
These years, millions of illegal invaders, 95% of whom live and happily remain on State dime, in our European countries. And these illegals never say thank you, and usually bully (or worse) the natives.

And in one decade, we'll get: Tens of millions of the same. All young, jobless, desperate, with nothing to lose. And coming without women!..

Note that recently, center-Right MP and candidate for the French presidency, N. Dupont Aignan, said that if he's elected president of France, he'll have a sole main focus and even obsession: African demographics, and border protection.
http://www.citoyens-et-francais.fr/2017/...-etat.html

To sum it up: There's no other threat in the World, like Africa's uncontrolled demographics, coupled with massive unemployment and open borders to the West... Either we Europeans build a Wall, or we are History!

A fence is not enough, they jump over it: see what happens in Ceuta:





... and three days later they are asking for State money and free housing in Paris, Brussels or London.

Post: #38

Pretty soon the answer may be "cheap labor", as China becomes a less appealing option, and the globalists chase the money around the world.

I have a bin of old "DIP" (dual inline package) integrated circuits in a box somewhere. That was the packaging option of choice up until the early 1990s - the date codes span from the early 1970s to the late 1980s.

The "Made in" labels tell the story. Early to mid 1970s you see Puerto Rico and Italy. Then Brazil. Chile. Sri Lanka. Thailand. But they're still branded as Texas Instruments or National Semiconductor or something. Did San Juan or Santiago ever have a semiconductor fab? Of course not. The actual silicon was fabbed in the US, and then someone discovered you could really make a decent savings if you shipped them all around the world, had the labor-intensive packaging happen somewhere else, and sell them back.

Eventually even fabbing the silicon here wasn't worth it, for the most part.

Decades of presidents and congressmen and senators of every party and belief, but it was always "business as usual." It's all there in black and white.

Post: #39

(01-25-2017 05:49 PM)XPQ22 Wrote:  Pretty soon the answer may be "cheap labor",

Do you think Africans are stupid? Why would they "play nice", like, stay and become "cheap labor" in some dusty factory in Africa, when all they have to do is jump a fence - or take a boat, and they get 500 dollars per month (doing nothing) plus free housing in Germany, France, Belgium, and 700 usd in Sweden (plus free SJW blondes)...

No way the new, young Sub-Saharan African generation will stay stuck in their hopeless continent. They are coming, en-masse, and only a... Yuuge Wall can stop them. Or a couple of new Al-Khaddafis in the Maghreb...

Post: #40

Wonderful documentaries about post-white bliss in South Africa:





Also, the coolest British accent in the world.

Post: #41

(01-25-2017 05:56 PM)Going strong Wrote:  Do you think Africans are stupid? Why would they "play nice", like, stay and become "cheap labor" in some dusty factory in Africa, when all they have to do is jump a fence - or take a boat, and they get 500 dollars per month (doing nothing) plus free housing in Germany, France, Belgium, and 700 usd in Sweden (plus free SJW blondes)...

I definitely couldn't answer that question. Just observing that some folks do seem to be gambling a lot on the premise that maybe they are stupid. Or maybe that at the end of the day, most people would really rather stay at home.

Even $500/mo doesn't get you very far in northern Europe.

Quote:No way the new, young Sub-Saharan African generation will stay stuck in their hopeless continent. They are coming, en-masse, and only a... Yuuge Wall can stop them. Or a couple of new Al-Khaddafis in the Maghreb...

At least Europe will probably have the good fortune to see how Wall 1.0 pans out before they invest in Wall 2.0, cuz it's gonna have to be a lot bigger...

Post: #42

(01-25-2017 05:35 PM)armenia4ever Wrote:  

(01-25-2017 04:27 PM)Mayweather Wrote:  This thread just goes to prove something I've been noticing developing in the manosphere. There's a really a seething resentment and disgust towards Africa and black folks by some. While there are many on RVF and other boards who would stand side by side to defend our interests as men regardless of whether my skin was darker than theirs or not, you can tell, there are also many who pick a clear side and shade in their arguments. As the movement becomes more mainstream I think there's going to be more and more shit like this popping up in this corner of the web.

Honestly, it's more of a reaction to the shit that's been visited upon us by uber radical POC and "minority" activists that do nothing but hate on anything "white".

While we may hope to be above their kind of vicious rhetoric, we also understand that retaliating with rhetoric of our own let's them know we won't be trifled with. On the other hand, they can use it as examples to point to as to why everything in reality is racist and against them.

Hopefully, we establish a new culture that transcends that particular identity. No idea on how and if that will ever happen in today's political climate.

What were some of the causes for the seething resentment towards black people and Africa prior to this era of political correctness?

How about before the migrant crisis?

Do you feel that today's resentment is much more righteous because of the radical minority activists?

Aloha!

Post: #43

Let Africa Sink

Kim du Toit May 26, 2002

When it comes to any analysis of the problems facing Africa, Western society, and particularly people from the United States, encounter a logical disconnect that makes clear analysis impossible. That disconnect is the way life is regarded in the West (it's precious, must be protected at all costs etc.), compared to the way life, and death, are regarded in Africa. Let me try to quantify this statement.

In Africa, life is cheap. There are so many ways to die in Africa that death is far more commonplace than in the West. You can die from so many things--snakebite, insect bite, wild animal attack, disease, starvation, food poisoning... the list goes on and on. At one time, crocodiles accounted for more deaths in sub-Saharan Africa than gunfire, for example. Now add the usual human tragedy (murder, assault, warfare and the rest), and you can begin to understand why the life expectancy for an African is low--in fact, horrifyingly low, if you remove White Africans from the statistics (they tend to be more urbanized, and more Western in behavior and outlook). Finally, if you add the horrifying spread of AIDS into the equation, anyone born in sub-Saharan Africa this century will be lucky to reach age forty.

I lived in Africa for over thirty years. Growing up there, I was infused with several African traits--traits which are not common in Western civilization. The almost-casual attitude towards death was one. (Another is a morbid fear of snakes.)

So because of my African background, I am seldom moved at the sight of death, unless it's accidental, or it affects someone close to me. (Death which strikes at strangers, of course, is mostly ignored.) Of my circle of about eighteen or so friends with whom I grew up, and whom I would consider "close", only about ten survive today--and not one of the survivors is over the age of fifty.

Two friends died from stepping on landmines while on Army duty in Namibia. Three died in horrific car accidents (and lest one thinks that this is not confined to Africa, one was caused by a kudu flying through a windshield and impaling the guy through the chest with its hoof--not your everyday traffic accident in, say, Florida). One was bitten by a snake, and died from heart failure. Another also died of heart failure, but he was a hopeless drunkard. Two were shot by muggers. The last went out on his surfboard one day and was never seen again (did I mention that sharks are plentiful off the African coasts and in the major rivers?). My situation is not uncommon in South Africa--and north of the Limpopo River (the border with Zimbabwe), I suspect that others would show worse statistics.

The death toll wasn't just confined to my friends. When I was still living in Johannesburg, the newspaper carried daily stories of people mauled by lions, or attacked by rival tribesmen, or dying from some unspeakable disease (and this was pre-AIDS Africa too) and in general, succumbing to some of Africa's many answers to the population explosion. Add to that the normal death toll from rampant crime, illness, poverty, flood, famine, traffic, and the police, and you'll begin to get the idea.

My favorite African story actually happened after I left the country. An American executive took a job over there, and on his very first day, the newspaper headlines read: "Three Headless Bodies Found".

The next day: "Three Heads Found".

The third day: "Heads Don't Match Bodies".

You can't make this stuff up.

As a result, death is treated more casually by Africans than by Westerners. I, and I suspect most Africans, am completely inured to reports of African suffering, for whatever cause. Drought causes crops to fail, thousands face starvation? Yup, that happened many times while I was growing up. Inter-tribal rivalry and warfare causes wholesale slaughter? Yep, been happening there for millennia, long before Whitey got there. Governments becoming rich and corrupt while their populations starved? Not more than nine or ten of those. In my lifetime, the following tragedies have occurred, causing untold millions of deaths: famine in Biafra, genocide in Rwanda, civil war in Angola, floods in South Africa, famine in Somalia, civil war in Sudan, famine in Ethiopia, floods in Mozambique, wholesale slaughter in Uganda, and tribal warfare in every single country. There are others, but you get the point.

Yes, all this was also true in Europe--maybe a thousand years ago. But not any more. And Europe doesn't teem with crocodiles, ultra-venomous snakes and so on.

The Dutch controlled the floods. All of Europe controls famine--it's non-existent now. Apart from a couple of examples of massive, state-sponsored slaughter (Nazi Germany, Communist Russia), Europe since 1700 doesn't even begin to compare to Africa today. Casual slaughter is another thing altogether--rare in Europe, common in Africa.

More to the point, the West has evolved into a society with a stable system of government, which follows the rule of law, and has respect for the rights and life of the individual--none of which is true in Africa.

Among old Africa hands, we have a saying, usually accompanied by a shrug: "Africa wins again." This is usually said after an incident such as:

a beloved missionary is butchered by his congregation, for no apparent reason

a tribal chief prefers to let his tribe starve to death rather than accepting food from the Red Cross (would mean he wasn't all-powerful, you see)

an entire nation starves to death, while its ruler accumulates wealth in foreign banks

a new government comes into power, promising democracy, free elections etc., provided that the freedom doesn't extend to the other tribe

the other tribe comes to power in a bloody coup, then promptly sets about slaughtering the first tribe

etc, etc, etc, ad nauseam, ad infinitum.

The prognosis is bleak, because none of this mayhem shows any sign of ending. The conclusions are equally bleak, because, quite frankly, there is no answer to Africa's problems, no solution that hasn't been tried before, and failed.

Just go to the CIA World Fact Book, pick any of the African countries (Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, Malawi etc.), and compare the statistics to any Western country (eg. Portugal, Italy, Spain, Ireland). The disparities are appalling--and it's going to get worse, not better. It has certainly got worse since 1960, when most African countries achieved independence. We, and by this I mean the West, have tried many ways to help Africa. All such attempts have failed.

1. Charity is no answer. Money simply gets appropriated by the first, or second, or third person to touch it (17 countries saw a decline in real per capita GNP between 1970 and 1999, despite receiving well over $100 billion in World Bank assistance).

2. Food isn't distributed. This happens either because there is no transportation infrastructure (bad), or the local leader deliberately withholds the supplies to starve people into submission (worse).

3. Materiel is broken, stolen or sold off for a fraction of its worth. The result of decades of "foreign aid" has resulted in a continental infrastructure which, if one excludes South Africa, couldn't support Pittsburgh.

Add to this, as I mentioned above, the endless cycle of Nature's little bag of tricks--persistent drought followed by violent flooding, a plethora of animals, reptiles and insects so dangerous that life is already cheap before Man starts playing his little reindeer games with his fellow Man--and what you are left with is: catastrophe.

The inescapable conclusion is simply one of resignation. This goes against the grain of our humanity--we are accustomed to ridding the world of this or that problem (smallpox, polio, whatever), and accepting failure is anathema to us. But, to give a classic African scenario, a polio vaccine won't work if the kids are prevented from getting the vaccine by a venal overlord, or a frightened chieftain, or a lack of roads, or by criminals who steal the vaccine and sell it to someone else. If a cure for AIDS was found tomorrow, and offered to every African nation free of charge, the growth of the disease would scarcely be checked, let alone reversed. Basically, you'd have to try to inoculate as many two-year old children as possible, and write off the two older generations.

So that is the only one response, and it's a brutal one: accept that we are powerless to change Africa, and leave them to sink or swim, by themselves.

It sounds dreadful to say it, but if the entire African continent dissolves into a seething maelstrom of disease, famine and brutality, that's just too damn bad. We have better things to do--sometimes, you just have to say, "Can't do anything about it."

The viciousness, the cruelty, the corruption, the duplicity, the savagery, and the incompetence is endemic to the entire continent, and is so much of an anathema to any right-thinking person that the civilized imagination simply stalls when faced with its ubiquity, and with the enormity of trying to fix it. The Western media shouldn't even bother reporting on it. All that does is arouse our feelings of horror, and the instinctive need to do something, anything--but everything has been tried before, and failed. Everything, of course, except self-reliance.

All we should do is make sure that none of Africa gets transplanted over to the U.S., because the danger to our society is dire if it does. I note that several U.S. churches are attempting to bring groups of African refugees over to the United States, European churches the same for Europe. Mistake. Mark my words, this misplaced charity will turn around and bite us, big time.

Even worse would be to think that the simplicity of Africa holds some kind of answers for Western society: remember "It Takes A Village"? Trust me on this: there is not one thing that Africa can give the West which hasn't been tried before and failed, not one thing that isn't a step backwards, and not one thing which is worse than, or that contradicts, what we have already.

So here's my solution for the African fiasco: a high wall around the whole continent, all the guns and bombs in the world for everyone inside, and at the end, the last one alive should do us all a favor and kill himself.

Inevitably, some Kissingerian realpolitiker is going to argue in favor of intervention, because in the vacuum of Western aid, perhaps the Communist Chinese would step in and increase their influence in the area. There are two reasons why this isn't going to happen.

Firstly, the PRC doesn't have that kind of money to throw around; and secondly, the result of any communist assistance will be precisely the same as if it were Western assistance. For the record, Mozambique and Angola are both communist countries--and both are economic disaster areas. The prognosis for both countries is disastrous--and would be the same for any other African country.

Africa has to heal itself. The West can't help it. Nor should we. The record speaks for itself.

Post: #44

At this point, only beneficial export is rare minerals. Most of Africa is useless for farming except the Nile, the Highlands, and the Natal.

For negatives? Disease, rapefugees, and mediocre EDM.

Post: #45

(01-25-2017 06:34 PM)Kona Wrote:  

(01-25-2017 05:35 PM)armenia4ever Wrote:  

(01-25-2017 04:27 PM)Mayweather Wrote:  This thread just goes to prove something I've been noticing developing in the manosphere. There's a really a seething resentment and disgust towards Africa and black folks by some. While there are many on RVF and other boards who would stand side by side to defend our interests as men regardless of whether my skin was darker than theirs or not, you can tell, there are also many who pick a clear side and shade in their arguments. As the movement becomes more mainstream I think there's going to be more and more shit like this popping up in this corner of the web.

Honestly, it's more of a reaction to the shit that's been visited upon us by uber radical POC and "minority" activists that do nothing but hate on anything "white".

While we may hope to be above their kind of vicious rhetoric, we also understand that retaliating with rhetoric of our own let's them know we won't be trifled with. On the other hand, they can use it as examples to point to as to why everything in reality is racist and against them.

Hopefully, we establish a new culture that transcends that particular identity. No idea on how and if that will ever happen in today's political climate.

What were some of the causes for the seething resentment towards black people and Africa prior to this era of political correctness?

How about before the migrant crisis?

Do you feel that today's resentment is much more righteous because of the radical minority activists?

Aloha!

Also here to give my perspective from Europe (Belgium).

The migrant invasion definitely has something to do with it. But countries like France and Belgium have had African immigrants long before the recent invasion. And the success rate of those immigrants is very low. Ofcourse the politicians ignore the issue, invite more of them and blame everything that goes wrong on the locals, which only furthers the resentment.

I used to work a part time job and there were some immigrants from Ghana also working there. During the fall and winter they didn't even show up for work most of the time. Why? Because it was raining, they said.

It's that attitude Akwesi alluded to, also coupled with Africans being overrepresented in crime stats like rape and thievery, and their inability or unwillingness to adapt to local society and get a job, that the locals have begun resenting Africans. Are there successful immigrants from Africa? Yes, but they are very few and far between.

Minority activists surely play a role. Showing up in another nation and then demanding special priveleges, shows an absolute disrespect to the host nation. If i would do in China or Thailand, what some of these activists are doing in the West, they would lock me up in jail and throw away the key. If a couple thousand Germans showed up in Hawaii demanding welfare and special rights, you would get angry at them too.

I'm sure most people in Africa are wonderful people, but the people that Europe is getting, not good.

I've also met enough people from all sorts of backgrounds to know that things are a lot more nuanced than white = good, black = bad, and ultimately it's really the politicians fault, but i can understand why people are getting pissed. Because i'm pissed of too.

Post: #46

(01-25-2017 07:05 PM)Hell_Is_Like_Newark Wrote:  I lived in Africa for over thirty years. Growing up there, I was infused with several African traits--traits which are not common in Western civilization. The almost-casual attitude towards death was one. (Another is a morbid fear of snakes.)

"Kim Du Toit" paints a pretty grim picture.

I saw a comment on this same article reposted on another site, and regarding SA someone said something like "They should never have let those savages steal the African home of white people."

Post: #47

Africa would need generations of stable families and education to catch up to Western Civilization.

This would take 60 years if everything started to turn around 5 minutes ago, which it didn't.

It will improve when robot soldiers & drones are cheap enough to enact a benevolent martial law while resources are given to everyone - this will happen way before Africa even has a chance to improve itself.

Post: #48

Something else we get out of Africa is a place for virtue signaling idiots to go take selfies with starving kids, without actually doing anything to really help long term.

Contrary to the earlier accusation, I feel no animosity toward Africans. I don't care about Africa at all. I simply don't want a ton of Africans to come live here, or to invade Europe.

Post: #49

(01-25-2017 07:05 PM)Hell_Is_Like_Newark Wrote:  Let Africa Sink

Kim du Toit May 26, 2002

[-- SNIP --]

^^^ This is a garbage article as the author keeps making mental gymnastics in conflating his experiences in Namibia and South Africa as projections for the whole continent. He likes to stretch things out to cast his backwards life in the armpits of the land mass to represent all of Africa.

I have no problems with crituques of Africa and I can be one of them to talk shit on the place as lots of things there are fucked up. But I can tell when people don't "get it" or have an axto grind when they miss vary *obvious* reasons why Africa is the way it is. One is a very real quirk that is present in that part of the world and is largely a cultural quirk to Black folks from warm weather places and when people who write for living can't spot it or acknolwedge it then I know they lived a privlidged life in Africa behind gates and not really expoed to anything of reality aside from the garrish shock value shit.

As I mentioned in my first post Africa is a big place. And only a fool truly tries to compare countries in Africa apples to apples among other nations. Countries is just a lazy way to organize things because that is what we are stuck with but the lines drawn in Africa make little to no sense to the realities in the ground and it is largely one of the reasons of the dysfunctions that perpetuate today.

Kim Du Toit tries but he is getting throwing bricks. The first thing he did not touch is the bogus poltical lines present in Africa that make no sense. Those lines on the map you all see when you type in "Africa Map" in Google.. yeah they make very little sense and is a root problem of the inability to organized and plan for infrastruture.

Let me show you all...

This is the modern map of Africa today:


This is map of the actual various ethnic groups in Africa:


A more recent and more tempered version with a mixture of language and ethnographic customs is here:


The reality is that Africa is the most diverse land mass on earth with hundreds if not thousands of different ethnic tribal groups who all have various languages and cultures.

The political lines that defines "countries" there today all mean very little on the ground. There are sections where roads and rail can't be finished and linked because of ethnic squables and bullshit. Add to that curruption or the fact that historic infrasture was laid in sucha way it did not make much sense as it was only to benfit colonal trade routes. There is a number of issues, but it isn't as simple as simply saying Africa is broken or just some dust filled hole.

The current political hustle of the globe does not want to actually fix the African political Question. Imagine the useless United Nations actual reforms with African countries organized by ethnic region created. You would now have a African block that would overwhelm every other continental block on evrey vote each time. Currently you just need to bride the rump nations which makes controlling affairs on the continent much easier to do.

I ask anyone here to tell me how and what would be an easy method to govern affairs in Africa? You think places like Spain has it bad with uppity ethnic groups fighting for autonomy? How about how the folly of the EU failed when very culturally different Souther Europeans dragged down the system which was molded after Nothern European cultural traits.

Next, how about that one size won't fit all over there. Full and open democracy can work in some parts and for some groups, while others need more strong arm rule to force unity no different then what we see in China or Russia.

It is a complex situation that will take time to get going. Many of these nations are barley 50 years old. People forget also that many great strides were made. Nobody remembers how Ghana and South Korea both at indepdence and post thier Civil Wars, Ghana was out performing South Korea in development, literacy, and GDP. Nobody remmebers also how Biafra if it were not for the British and Muslim meddeling would be a nation currently with a GDP high than Poland. Nobody remembers how Libya pulled people out of poverty faster than China has. These are all things that have happend in Africa's modern history but rarley ever get told.

My time spent in Africa all I met was multi-lingual people who all could speak english, all the kids can read, everybody was educated. I saw some fucked up things but it was not the dystopian nightmare that people like to paint.

Post: #50

How long did you spend there, and where did you live?

Because if you're telling me you know more about the continent than a guy who lived there for decades and who also fought there--and whose opinions also jive with other African immigrants with similar levels of experience in the continent--you're going to have to present a lot more than a shallow analysis that doesn't even really disagree with anything he said.

Kim du Toit's essay there was not meant to be a comprehensive analysis of the Africa situation. He wrote plenty of shorter posts on it back in the day when his site was still around. Almost all of that content is long gone, unfortunately.

Du Toit's position, fundamentally, is that we need to let Africa sort itself out. Stop giving aid, leave them alone.

What is it you're proposing that contradicts his position?