Okay, question here that I had last night but no real good place to discuss it. People seem to say Africa is so messed up today because of white people and “Muh Colonization” and those damn Europeans going into the interior of Africa and literally abducting Africans to be slaves yadda yadda yadda. It’s all white people’s fault.
Now as a red blooded American I look at Asia and I think wow there’s a lot of messed up stuff with how those people live.
BUT!
Why the fuck do they seem to be doing just a bit better off than Africa? Like was all of SE Asia not ALSO colonized. Was the Dutch East India company not also a pretty brutal tool (according to the narrative)?
I’m just saying it seems like both places got it pretty hard but why is Asia not Africa? You know what I mean?
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[–] elsebob ago (edited ago)
The only real big negative "legacy of colonialism" in Africa that I can see is the population problem.
Colonialism is responsible for providing Africa with enough basic medical care and know-how that half of all babies actually survive beyond the first few years.
In all underdeveloped/pre-modern places on earth (including Europe) many children didn't survive that long. Many would die as babies or young children. That was everywhere. It was nothing for a family to have had ten kids... but then over half of them would die off, and in the end the population wouldn't go that fast.
In Africa the white man gave them the basics of modern life in the sense that the population would explode, but then there's no infrastructure or capabilities to get them to the next level. So you just have an ever-increasing hungry population.
It's basically hopeless. They're just going to keep breeding a bunch of hungry kids.
[–] Trasheconomy [S] ago
Right, and you see that too in like Bangladesh and some places but then there’s the population super centers like India and China and they’re miles ahead of most of Africa. And I’m wondering why is that? What makes India and China better at adapting to this post colonial world than Africa?