This. I was in Nigeria this past summer and i was alarmed at the chinese presence. There were way more chinese flag flying outside of hotels and office buildings than british flags (big surprise since nigeria was a british colony). No one there seems to like the chinese but they do have money to throw around. The difference with the chinese and western aid organizations is that the chinese have zero concern with human rights or democratization.

Yeah

^ Definitely this. I never thought I would say this, but the more i think about it, the more it make logical sense..white colonization is probably the most to blame. It is not uncommon for foreign governments, after an invasion or colonization, to draw the map in such a manner where enemies are purposely set against each other because of geography. It was a tactic. The only hope is to remove the corrupt dictators. Unfortunately, only Africa can fix this. Otherwise, only the best interests of those "fixing" Africa will be enacted.

Most of Africa wasn't really colonised, compare it to places that were colonised in the Americas or Australasia and there are really not all that many people of European ancestry there. The Europeans in Africa was about Empire building rather more than colonisation and if you compare Africa to countries and regions that had the same experience - India, China, South America - Africa is in a far worse mess than any of those. It consequently has to be overly simplistic to blame imperialism for all of Africa's problems.

The population argument has to have some weight. Population has increased very rapidly in Africa which is always going to put huge pressure on any region and particularly one without a temperate climate which is capable of supporting a far lower population density that regions such as Europe.

The other population-related problem that Africa has is that a lot of those with valuable skills or just general get-up-and-go emigrate to Europe or America where they can make more money and have a far better standard of living, thus depriving Africa nations of the very people they need to develop. For 50 years a large proportion of African states have lost the very people who can solve their problems.

I don't think anyone is saying that imperialism is to blame for all of Africa's problems..but many of them is fair to say.



Africa isn't devoid of natural resources, but it is full of corruption.



Brain drain? now, that is an interesting argument.

We should probably stop creating proxies as well.

It is never PC to say, and probably wont be until we have some true African success stories, but the main culprit in African backwardness, poverty, and failure is Africa and it's leaders. They ideologies they subscribed to, the policies they pushed, and the incredible sometimes unbelievable levels of corruption and patrimonialism that they tolerated (and tolerate) wrecked many countries to the point where some were richer the year of independence then decades later. Tanzania is a perfect example of this, and Tanzania didn't even have an "evil" leader, though he was no saint, Nyerere simply obliterated his countries economy and social fabric with his Ujamma movement.

The West had no hand in most of these failures, and in fact it is Africa's consistent rejection of IMF and WTO economic and political overhauls, and then their inability to comply in even minimal faith and spirit with the reforms they claim to have taken.

This.

It's already happening anyway. I recall a recent case where a Western nation was negotiating w/ an African country on stirngs to be attached to a particular loan. China swooped in and dropped substantially mroe money with substantially less strings attached. Western envoys were given the boot the next day.

China's subtle, but they're buying influence wherever they can.

It puts alot of African Countries in a tough position to though. Because of its colonial heritage alot of important busines and infrastructure in africa is controled or run by european or american goverments and firms. They have come to see Africa as their backyard, similar to the way the US views much of latin america.

When china comes in and undercuts a western conglomerate on lets say a railroad contracy, it puts the leadership there in a tough position. The chinese obviously have the better contract, but at the same time you dont want to piss off the western powers that control a healthy part of your economy.

I think this is where things like colonialization play such a huge and devastating part in africas development. It fosters a self perpetuating dependency. African leaders take the worst offer from european firms because they worry if they dont they will pull out of the country, crushing the market. This leads to innefficiencies and corruption where african nations end up paying way more than they should. In the long run its disasterous and very very few leaders have had the integrity and the courage to stand up to western firms and ogverments when they give them a bad deal.

But it really just speaks to africas dearth of leadership. I find it incredible that an entire continent could have such poor leadership for such a logn time. The bar has become so low that leqders like Zuma in South Africa and Obassanjo in Nigeria are seen as DECENT leaders! In any other part of the world they would have been run out fo power in a week for mismanagement, authoritrianism and corruption. But in africa they are seen as decent becquse they didnt start a war or cause a genocide or singlehanddly destroy a national economy. Its really incredible. The few decent leaders africa has had have been lost to western meddeling and regional destabilization.

I really cant see africa going anywhere anytime soon, aid or no aid, unless they find a few honest and capible individuals who can find a way to retain power for a decent amount of time.