Mar Lee
An Army of None
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Posted - 2011.07.26 23:48:00 -
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 Originally by: Estephania
I'm very skeptical on Africa. They seem to be unable to govern themselves in any form that would even resemble a modern government. They are virtually tribes that are still living by their tribal laws and they lived like that for centuries. Since the Europeans moved out (those damn colonialists) the situation quickly reverted to the one that was there for hundreds of years. You can't teach democracy, modern educational system, civil service to ppl who are still living in tribes.
Speaking as someone who has studied post-colonial Africa: you're full of ****. Pre-colonial Africa had a wide variety of governments, from acephalous tribes to feudal kingdoms, which were no better or worse than governments in Europe or Asia. When Europeans came in and took over, though, they imposed colonial governments that were externally, rather than internally, focused; that is to say, the purpose of the colonial government in Kenya, or Nigeria, or the Congo, was to take wealth and resources away from the people and give it to those in control of the government.
Make sense so far? Good. Because this is how post-colonial governments in Africa, by and large, still work. In the United States, if somebody used his government position to make everyone in his family very wealthy and ensure that his home town had the best roads and hospitals and so forth, and if that person also made sure that towns that didn't vote for him didn't get their roads and sewers and so forth repaired, that person would not be in office long. Almost everyone in the United States shares a common vision of government as something (theoretically) fair and just and even-handed and representing all the people.
That vision doesn't exist in most places in Africa. Instead, it is understood, on a very fundamental level, that the purpose of government is to take resources from some people to make other people rich. Almost everyone who takes power enriches his own family and home town and tribe at the expense of everyone else. Their political opponents may make noises about fairness and equality, but, by and large, if they come to power they'll do exactly the same thing. The job of the African politician is, essentially, to eat: to loot and plunder and grow fat off other people's wealth, and never, ever, give up power if he can avoid it, because he knows that his enemies will impoverish his family and tribe and home town, in the same way that he has done to them. And anyone who genuinely believes in modern Western ideals, who limits his use of government power and surrenders office voluntarily when his term ends? Well, he's a fool, because his successor is going to stomp him flat anyway.
This is not a problem with 'government'. This is a problem with African cultures, which - because of colonialism, because they use the loot-and-plunder colonial government as the model for what government should be - does not operate on the same foundational principles that the Western world relies on to keep government in bounds and civil society civil.
tl;dr? Yes, African government is broken. But it's broken because of European influence. African countries did not revert to their prior systems of government. They kept the colonial system, and that is exactly the problem.
(I know this is probably way too long a response to a driveby racist troll. But whatever.)
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