I see no merit in blaming a rape victim for having been raped.
However, whatever the consequences of colonialism might have been, they have long been eclipsed by the actions of the African despots who have been in power more than long enough to have brought much better lives to their people than they have managed so far.
Our socio/economic and political systems were developed over centuries and many wars of freeedom were fought in Europe and other parts of the globe before we reached where we are today. Indeed, it took two world wars to unite Eurpe in the way it is today, and it remains unequal to its task.
The African colonies were mainly reduced to one-commodity countries, with a peasant labour force to produce the goods. Then the Colonials stepped back. There was no longer a demand for the raw materials which could be manufactured synthetically. So, back in the fifties and sixties Britian and others withdrew honorourably (?) and allowed the tribal leaders to get on with it. Colonies became countries populated by peoples which had previously been displaced both ethnically and tribally from their traditional lands - divide and conquer.
Despicable though aspects of the white South African regime were, black rule there has fallen a long way short of making things better for blacks, or whites. And it started off on a lot better footing than most other black African nations when they gained black rule.
Thousands of middle class Englishmen were educated in elite, public schools to run the colonies for generations.
When they left, they created a huge administrative vacuum.
Furthermore, as the managerial jobs were usually occupied by the white colonial authorities, there was no place to which native talent could aspire. Therefore, in order to better their lot in life they dealed and maniplualted to a point thta corruption became an endemic product of the colonial system.
Similarly, we see in our own societies how men of talent are barred by the establishment and as a result turn to crime.
Just because the masses don’t share in the wealth generated by those sales doesn’t mean that the buyers are exploiting the people.
Of course they are. They could put pressure on the leaders. A friend of mine used to be the head of a very well known British multi-national’s African and Asian divisions. He practically ran the countries in which he was inolved. Their government ministers looked to him for funding of projects etc.
The people are being exploited by their own corrupt leaders, of whom Mugabe is a prime example.
Yes they are. We shouldn’t be allowing it.
Dhafur and previously Rwanda and various other exercises in black African bestiality were not caused by anything but local issues.
They were caused by the colonisation of the country and dispalcement of the people - root cause and effect.
I think it’s time for black Africa to take responsibility for its appalling abuses of human rights for decades rather than looking back to European colonialism.
We created the monster.
Of course, to force recognition of that responsibility it might be necessary to intervene militarily, but if Rwanda and Somalia are any guide it’s a waste of time as the UN etc just sit on the sidelines and supervise access to the massacres.
The UN is always impotent in these situations. It requires positive action from an alliance or collective of both European and African nations.
Perhaps the real problem is the notion in international law that sovereign states are sovereign, meaning that nobody else should interfere in their internal affairs.
Concur!
Unless, of course, they have oil or other important resources or strategic value in which case it’s alright, if the intervener is big and powerful enough to get away with it.
:mrgreen:
If we made human rights paramount instead of a state’s sovereignty, and were consistent in protecting those rights effectively rather than sending in neutered UN or other troops, we would at least avoid a lot of human misery.
Now you’re talking. I can see that you’re accustomed to tinking (Irish) on your feet 
But that would not deal with the problem underlying these basket case states, and not just in black Africa, which is endemic corruption at every level which flourishes because there is no regard for human rights outside nepotistic or tribal or political boundaries.
The bascket cases are corrupted by the way our market economies operate. It’s already in place, they just jump on hte bandwagon.
But if that’s the basis for intervention, why can’t fundamentalist Muslim states intervene militarily in European and English speaking countries to enforce their version of human rights, such as ensuring that woman don’t go out unaccompanied by male relatives and are covered from head to foot?
Because they’re not big enough - yet!
It’s easy to judge from a Western viewpoint, but what makes our viewpoint the only one that matters?
It’s better to judge from a humanitarian viewpoint. We are all human.
It isn’t the only one that matters, but it’s the one that can make a difference. Most of our western populations have, at some point in their history, been subjected to similar tyranny. We fought for centuries to be free of it.
After all, rampant exploitation of humans was the stock in trade of much of black Africa long before Europeans arrived. Without the black slave traders, there wouldn’t have been any black slaves exported to Europe and America. Nothing that is happening there now is inconsistent with that history. Why should we intervene in the natural extension of such cultural practices?
We did intervene - several hundred years ago when we turned the slavery based on small tribal scale, into a global industry which enabled our nations to develop into the powers they are today.
What you’re saying (though, I suspect, unintentionally) is that the Africans were born to be slaves.
Some good points, RS. I can see that you are trying to be fair. Unlike others who might frame their arguments in stereo-typical, racist cliches.
Of course, all of this will come back and bite us in the bum as political and economic migrants, who have always had to live in violent societies, migrate either to escape the violence, or on account of the shrinking of sub-Saharan Africa, as the arid/drought prone regions expand due to global warming. Then the violence will be brought to our shores, our neighbourhoods and our streets - if it hasn’t arrived already.
