I had a friend/roomate in college whose family was from Rhodesia. He and most of his family moved away in the 70's after the mom and dad divorced. His oldest brother died in the fighting during the "revolution". He and his family hated Carter and the democrats because of the narrative they and the media made the situation out to be. He admitted the apartheid state but said overall life and living conditions from what he could remember weren't that bad for most. That area had been fought over for hundreds if not thousands of years and his ancestors were just the latest to conquer it and subsequently get conquered. The various tribes treated each other much the same way. Human nature is human nature.

My guess is currently the corrupt government and their Chinese government/corporate supporters are treating the local inhabitants much worse than they were being treated 50 years ago. From what I understand, communist Chinese companies are treating sub-Saharan Africa like a giant resource bank and the locals are for all intents and purposes slaves/indentured servants to the leaders being propped up by Chinese money/support. The whites in Rhodesia lived there and had to have a somewhat symbiotic relationship with the other local inhabitants. The Chinese don't live there and can let the governments they support be as brutal as needed to keep the resources flowing.

I have been wanting to chime on this thread for several days, but just didn't have a chance all week. Rhodesia is such a fascinating, intriguing, and disconcerting topic to study and discuss. Ever since meeting some Rhodesian expat's that moved to Mexico in the late 70's and hearing about Africa and what they faced I kept up with things in Rhodesia/Zimbabwe. Rhodesia was also a hot topic as I grew up. One of the things that I still remember to this day was this family being shocked at the poverty and tacit segregation that was prevalent, and still is to a large degree, in Mexico in the 1970's. It galled them that Rhodesia was hammered in public opinion, all while trying to bring a backward population into the 20th century but being honest and transparent about the system they had, as flawed as it may have been.

But since Rhodesia was open about how things were in reality, as opposed to the hidden societal policies that existed in all of the Spanish New World, Rhodesia was a pariah. Rhodesia was a case study of the cure killing the patient. No former African colony handed over to majority rule escaped total upheaval, economic regression, blithe and death. Rhodesia was no different, albeit the dire effects took a few more years go pan out.

The bottom line is that European's had the same effect on Africa that invasive species have on nature, it totally upset the ecosystem and balance of power. To bring Africa, or parts of it or some of the countries in it, into a close semblance of a democratic Western country would have taken decades, if not close to a century at least. The colonial process, and the abuses that came with it, were a natural part of the last two centuries.

Rhodesia was the best country in a harsh and unpleasant for a majority human nature reality development process. Humans have been conquering and transforming lands, continents, and cultures for well over 5,000 years. Many times the sausage comes out pretty good or acceptable, but nobody likes the sausage making, especially at the start. Africa at the turn of the last century was still a backwards ass tribal society a few generations basically removed from the late stone age.

Colonialism is a part of humanity, it takes all kinds of different forms. It is still going on today, but in different forms and due to the modern world with a decreased emphasis on racial boundaries. From my viewpoint the forced majority rule in most of the former African colonies was a major obstacle for those places improving long term living standards for the native residents.

Rhodesia was sacrificed at the alter of "racial injustice" with a strong contribution of the Cold War thrown in. Hindsight or looking at a past period from eyes in the future will always display all the warts, blemishes, and misgivings of the past. But those from the past could only live in their times, in their world, and in the everyday conditions in which they lived.

When looking at Rhodesia or South Africa I often wonder if there is a way to quantify whether the masses are better off today than in the past. Equally, I question whether a group of colonial oligarchs was deposed only to be replaced by native leaders that naturally created a ruling class that has as it's fuel the supposed sins of the past and relies on maintaining the downtrodden status of the bulk of the population.

So apartheid was okay because the whites knew what was best for the blacks?

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all while trying to bring a backward population into the 20th century but being honest and transparent about the system they had, as flawed as it may have been.

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What, from the above quote of my post, leads you to believe that I advocate for apartheid being "OK", desired, or acceptable?

Looking at the issues in Africa, or possibly better said looking at The Issue that is Africa, is a really broad topic that has many contributing factors that span centuries in all different manners, in different regions, all of which have lingering effects today.

The myopic Western view is to lay the root cause of African ills at the feet of the Western European colonial powers. In my view, as altering or as ill as the European colonial period was in Africa, it is only a component of the history of Africa, not "the" defining component. And arguably, when compared to the prior history of development of Africa, it is easy to see that it was the best of the worst, basically the tallest midget.

From a frame of reference at least the European colonization of Africa brought, albeit in a heavy handed and economic exploitive manner, an effort of development and modernization to Africa. Systems of government were imposed in order to shift away from the dominating tribal structure. Education, enlightenment, technological advances that would allow Africans to have a fighting chance to survive in a rapidly evolving world were implemented. Was it perfect? Absolutely not. Could it have been done better? Most assuredly.

In many sad cases human advancement and development are the byproducts of human avarice and supremacist ideology, be it racial or religious, ideals. That is just the way of the world, or has been for thousands of years.

The fact remains that superficially short term western moral indignation of the colonial efforts in Africa have led to a continent that remains basically in turmoil with small amounts of societal, governmental, and national advancement/improvement.

Let me ask you, do you think it was remotely possible for Africa to have been left alone, like a an untouched nature reserve, by the rest of the world at a time of mercurial technological advancement that had as a lynch pin the controlling and exploitation of natural resources?

The point of the colonies was not to advance Africans. Not in the least. The colonies were designed to fracture the African nations and tribes as much as humanly possible. To render them unable to unite or develop except as the European powers allowed them to. The modern borders of African nations were not designed to make sense geographically, sociologically, or historically. They were designed to facilitate resource extraction by European powers with minimal investment into the land. It's why you have roads and railroad tracks that lead only to mines and plantations, certainly not to population centers, and when independence comes, it's couched in terms that still benefit European companies at the expense of wealth in Africa for the native population.

And the death toll in Africa is absolutely staggering. Starting from the Transatlantic slave trade and European forts through direct colonization, we're talking tens of millions of people who suffered and died. Do we need to rehash what happened in the Belgian Congo, or German South West Africa? It's easy to say, "well it would have happened anyway," but that's an unprovable assumption. We know what did happen and the consequences of it. Africa today is not some natural continent with a blip of colonialism. It's a continent shaped and absolutely fractured by colonialism.

I enjoy your contributions to all these topics as you are more well versed in many things, especially American stuff, than I could ever be. I wrote a long response that was somewhat sensible, but too long and rambling. This one is still long, forgive me.

The Trans-Atlantic slave trade was something I expected you to touch on quickly in this discussion, and you did. I do not state the previously in a combative or argumentative way. As I have stated prior, in my opinion there are so many historical developments that affect the history of Africa that it is hard to deal with it all.

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The point of the colonies was not to advance Africans. Not in the least. The colonies were designed to fracture the African nations and tribes as much as humanly possible. To render them unable to unite or develop except as the European powers allowed them to. The modern borders of Africa nations were not designed to make sense geographically, sociologically, or historically.

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What you write above is apt, and I agree with it, save for the above in bold. The purpose, or the design, of the African colonies was to make as much profit as possible and for there to be promising economic opportunities for both the European countries as well as their citizens/representatives. There was no plan to fracture tribes and potential nations, it was economic subjugation which was morally justified via the prevalent racial beliefs of the time. Any thing positive, or negative, that resulted from colonization was a by product of savage capitalism veiled under a dose of nationalism.


I interpret your stance as being that colonization of Africa is the largest component of the continents ills, with the Trans-Atlantic slaving a close second. If I am wrong, please forgive me.

How African colonization took place was harsh and had direly bad consequences for most Africans. It was the same for American Indians, Meso-American cultures, and all new world natives. The true colonization of Africa was fleeting when compared to that of the New World and other instances of "invasion" and the hostile imposition of varying degrees of servitude.

My question to you still stands, based on the realities/mores/customs/economics of the times of European colonialism what should have been done to safeguard and protect Africa and Africans? And when contemplating/answering that, please do so in a manner that is reality based given the world at the time.

When I was living and working in Haiti I ended up developing a lot of different opinions in regard to the effects, both bad and good, regarding colonialism/slavery/third world'ism. A key part of that was a co-worker, a Haitian who had gone to school both in the U.S. and Europe, relaying to me her view that the ills of colonialism and slavery, in terms of Africa, were difficult to understand as how the Western European countries (and the US and former new world colonies) self flagellated themselves with guilt and in noneffective political manners and in doing so washed their hands their portion of what had been an ongoing mess.

She shared details with me of the history of the Arab-Muslim slave trade, much longer and arguably harsher than the Transatlantic slave trade. She pointed out that Black Africans had been preyed upon, enslaved, mistreated and, like you mention, killed off in big numbers, but where it started and carried on the longest was in the Trans-Sahara slave trade. That slaving route/system lasted almost 1500 years and actually still goes on today in a clandestine manner It's effects were just as vile and left a harsh signature on Africa as well. And this thousand plus year harming of Africa did more "fracture" and destabilize/hamper progress on the continent than any colonial effort, as the seeds were sown for a fractured future.

She shared a book, I think it is only in French as I could never find an English version, by Tidiane N'Diaye and I muddled through it as best I could as well as some of his essays and writings that I found in English. A gist of it is that European/America's slavery was fleeting and those participants at least have tried to incorporate the descendants of slaves into their countries. The slaves into the intermediate area and Asia were mostly killed off or sterilized.

She notably pointed out that only the Europeans actually came to Africa proper, in substantial numbers and in a manner to colonize and remain, not just plunder human beings. That colonization was harsh and rough, but that many Europeans intended to stay and remain in Africa and if African colonization would have continued on it was likely that Africa would have developed in a way that would have seen it more prosperous and stable than it has turned out to be. The 19th and early 20th century colonization of Africa was not sustainable, my opinion is that it would have evolved in manner that benefited African's much more than what they are seeing now.

Her, and many Haitian's, position on Haiti was that as abhorrent as slavery was (and Haiti was the worst of the terrible in America's) the mistakes made after the revolt, and the corruption and oligarchical development of the republic, rendered the future of Haiti very dim. The repulsive French reparations aside. In the long run Haiti would have been better off progressing through the phasing out of slavery like other parts of the America's.

Don't get me wrong, I would have revolted my ass off if I had been a Haitian slave, the horrors of Saint Domingue are sickening. But now, after 220 something years of "freedom', Haiti is the failedest of failed states of the America's.

Nature, both human and ecological, is a harsh, vile, sobering, and unfair component of our world. Africa and most African's were very much behind the technological, educational, cultural, and societal developments of the rest of the world and thus they, and Africa, were "prey". The same could be said about the America's and Native American's. Fortunately, and again maybe it is the best of the worst type deal, the Americas were colonized and the native inhabitants have been included, in a slow and unjust process IMO, in the development of the now semi-mature nation states. Africa missed this boat and to go back on topic I believe Rhodesia, and to a lesser degree S. Africa were possibly the best bets for African countries to avoid what most are now seeing.

Sapper Redux said:

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The point of the colonies was not to advance Africans. Not in the least. The colonies were designed to fracture the African nations and tribes as much as humanly possible. To render them unable to unite or develop except as the European powers allowed them to. The modern borders of African nations were not designed to make sense geographically, sociologically, or historically. They were designed to facilitate resource extraction by European powers with minimal investment into the land. It's why you have roads and railroad tracks that lead only to mines and plantations, certainly not to population centers, and when independence comes, it's couched in terms that still benefit European companies at the expense of wealth in Africa for the native population.

And the death toll in Africa is absolutely staggering. Starting from the Transatlantic slave trade and European forts through direct colonization, we're talking tens of millions of people who suffered and died. Do we need to rehash what happened in the Belgian Congo, or German South West Africa? It's easy to say, "well it would have happened anyway," but that's an unprovable assumption. We know what did happen and the consequences of it. Africa today is not some natural continent with a blip of colonialism. It's a continent shaped and absolutely fractured by colonialism.

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It didn't start with the transatlantic trade and it certainly didn't end with it. If anything, the Transatlantic Slave trade was a brief blip in the history of depradations/enslavement of Africa coming from the Middle East/Mediterranean.

The Arabian conquest of North Africa and slave trade there really hasn't ended yet, even, and was vastly larger. It was also much more genocidal even, intending to castrate males etc.

And no, this isn't a defense of slavery, or Leopold.