I know they are, but they wouldn't as bad without all the interference.

trivial is really a wrong word here as everyone agrees to this actually except people who don't understand Africa imo.

westerners almost extincted the San people. they were hunted by governments till 1937, do you know this? they are the oldest humans with the most diverse DNA meaning we all came from them. and they almost managed to extinct them. they are the ones with the clicking sounds.

if we had left them alone they would be a happy place. please don't believe all that crap that we are helping them in any way. we are definitely not helpful. we are milking and hindering them from being prosperous. do you think your neighbour thinks it is helpful if you steal all of his belongings? lol that can't be good can it? it can't also be good you go to your neighbour and bribe one family member to give you all of the families assets. that's what's happening. it created greed and war constantly.

the colonisations did really happen, do you think you are able to prosper when someone occupies your country and straps your stuff and leaves you to starve and do slave work?


yeah they were fighting among neighbours just as we fought with our neighbours.

what you have been dished is a lie that they are screwing themself over. it's a lie to excuse our heavy exploitation. they have been messed with so badly that it left so much trauma and abuse.

you should understand that I think.

look, we went in there abusing the people, if you go in somewhere and beat a man, he will go beat the next man, and so on and so on.

This is a paraphrase of Brett's response to that. . Concrete isn't vibranium. It can be broken into. There is nothing to promise in the next 200,000 years we will always have someone who knows what is in the concrete tombs and can warn people not to break into them. And even if they do, you cant guarantee they would be listened to.

And in the present, most of the used fuel rods aren't in concrete. They are in water pools that need constant electrical power to keep them cooled, and if this ever fails potential catastrophe looms.

i do not understand this subject so much to be honest. if you say so I believe it and will look into that.

Will look tomorrow, it's 5 am here now. I need to get some sleep.

the clip I linked was cut off here is the whole thing or more of it.

Yeah so Rwanda genocide for example stems from western abuse right ?
Darfur genocide as well ?

Africa got long long history of craziness …

There are definitely links that are verifiable and played a part. Colonial Germany and Belgium played on existing ethnic differences in Rwanda and invented a few new ones in that weird imperialistic racism where the colonial power views one local ethnicity as superior to others.

But on the other hand, they exploited existing local history between these local ethnicities, and the bad blood continued to flow unaided after they left. Nor is it like 1800s European colonial powers somehow transcended time and forced people's hands in the 1994 genocide.

Using history to learn where conflicts come from is a good idea, but it shouldn't be used to ignore agency and guilt in modern conflicts.

A lot of the problems in Africa is basically down to European powers drawing lines on maps and making countries that never existed before containing tribes that hated each other.

Middle East had similar issues.

Because gazprom et al has turned its taps off, that is why energy costs are high right now.

The Kremlin-controlled business last week cut gas supplies to the continent’s main pipeline to Europe, Nord Stream 1, to just 20% of capacity.

Don't call Africa a country

Calling it "Africa" is bad.

Talking about events in Africa as if it is homogenous is also bad.

Acting in this way and spouting opinions on it demonstrates a lack of knowledge that should be reviewed imo..

South Africa is not like countries in the Sahel.
The Mediterranean African countries are not like the countries of the Great Lakes.


But regardless-
Colonialism & imperialism (historic and modern) has had a hugely negative impact on the continent of Africa as a whole, but, each society and culture within Africa has been affected, and reacted differently.

That said (pretty) much all of the atrocities that have happened in recent history is a direct result of colonialism and imperialism

The worst atrocities and the most atrocious leaders have been in charge as a direct result of colonialism.

It was stoked by local rivalries and hatred, which, colonials and imperialism took advantage of. I'm not stupid enough to suggest its not. But the causal chain of horror is definitely rooted in the hands of the imperials.

Atrocities may have happened without the imperials- we will never know. Name an atrocity or issue and I think any historian will pin point lots of causal factors, of which major one will always be imperialism

(I do reject its just Western though. The Soviets, and modern China have a large hand to play too.)

(I also accept that its relied on despicable people and atrocious decisions of local people- e.g. Mobutu Sese Seko was obviously a terrible person.)

you see Montreal? I knew it was common sense and commonly known. your sixth sense would tell you if you inject force and violence into a country, by colonialising it, extract their natural resources to your own benefit, that It creates an imbalance. it's a vicious circle of violence. and we injected a loooot of violence and unfairness into it. we as the westerners did it the same with many countries. that's how we grew so fast and big. it's called imperialism and colonialism. you whack a whole country over the head over and over. what do you think results from this? more violence and inequality of course. and you left them with nothing. the only way to prosper now for them is doing the same thing you did, taking resources and money by force and corruption. its a never ending cycle and we started it. or the BURS etc.


yes and oak is right. we made the lines, the countries didn't exist. we drew lines and called it rwuanda etc. that's created more imbalance.

they are an immensely rich in resources and huge and beautiful country actually.

I would argue that their history is cleaner than ours are ethically, they def have less blood in their history. they didn't sit on a always rainy island like the people in the UK and concucted plans how to rob their neighbours. like the UK did. and then they came to your Canada and did the same to the native people. your ancestors were all thieves and murderers. but of course we all know this. you seem to forget get that though.

I blame the colonial Romans, then Vikings/Normans for the turmoil caused by the UK.

I actually blame Africa for the entire world since if I am not mistaken , the Center of humanity did came from Africa fo begin with right ?
And immigrate to other continents ?

Why not say ancient Africa have only themselves to blame , if they wouldn’t of expand to other continents and destroying all the environment, later on they wouldn’t have to deal with « foreigners » thousands years later ……

They should of just stay put in Africa huh .

The decolonisation of Africa took place between the 50's and around 1976.

There are many people still alive who live under colonial rule

But yh keep blaming them guys!

Recognizing history and justified grievances is important, but the tendency to ignore local agency in many conflicts on the African continent strikes me as weird form of "reverse imperialism", the implied logic being that the involved parties can't think or act for themselves.

The power structures in place were placed there by imperial and colonial powers (and are reinforced, in large part by those same powers.)

Local agency exists to the degree these structures allow it.

Many truly local movements, with mass popularity, have been crushed by imperial funds (e.g. Thomas Sankara in Burkina Faso.)



Whats your position on impoverished places in rich countries? Do you think its the same sort of "reverse imperialism" when people highlight that those places and the people in there stay poor due to the power structures in place?

Saudi Arabia is a clear example of having clear problems of wealth and poverty and yet having incredibly wealth ,even tho their ressources not controlled by the « western bad wolf imperialism »…..

Like I said , western civilisation have issue but let’s not kid ourselves thinking once they went away ,
greed , dictatorship, fraud , etc wouldn’t exist by itself in Africa …
Humans are going to be humans and act accordingly .


The bashing of western civilisation being solely Africa problem is laughable to me .
Hell religion was the precursor of many crazy ***** over there too for thousands of years .

OK but thats not what happened.

Bashing imperialism and colonialsm isn't the same as bashing western civilisation. Its bashing imperialism and colonialism. Western civilisation practiced colonialism and imperialism, but, like, the Canadians didn't as far as I know.


Regardless, I have said throughout that issues across Africa have lots of factors- and- imperialism and colonialism can be found at the root cause of the majority of the issues

Yes- there could have been atrocities as bad without colonialism and imperialism; but we'll never know! Because colonialism and imperialism is whats created the current situation.



But getting back to the issue.

Washoe said the west was coming to exploit oil and natural resources in Africa.
You said blaming the west is trivialising the issue (paraphrasing.)

But when the power structures in place were created by colonialists, and are reinforced by ongoing imperialism, how is it trivialising the issue to say again that going in and exploiting the oil from Africa is a form of colonialism?

The money and wealth will be exported out. The rich and powerful will get richer and more powerful. The poor will suffer. See what happened with diamond mining and other problems with natural resource exploitation across different post colonial countries.

Whats trivialised?

And at the root.

My point is:
- The rich going in and extracting the natural resources, and, exporting it away from local communities is always bad, especially if the benefit is kept in corrupt elites in charge (or sold off at bargain prices)
- Keep the oil and gas in the ground unless your also going to invest in renewal energy sources
- This doesn't happen in corrupt countries
- Corruption in post colonial countries is high
- The natural resources highlighted across Africa exist in the post colonial countries

Keep the gas in the ground. Or try and fix things properly if your going to do it anyway

Your take does remove pretty much any local agency and does the mistake of grossly underestimating the local populaces in African countries.

We have this myth in the west about large swaths of the world being populated by uneducated ignoramuses who only act because of us, especially in regions where you find a lot of conflict. It's a very harmful myth, both for understanding these regions and for seeing solutions to said conflicts.

No it doesn't.

What local agency do local people have over oil extraction contacts?

I agree, lots of people in the developed world are educated. And smart. And there are rich cities and groups. And they act based on their actual local grievances and issues.

But when those local grievance and issues have been created and exacerbated due to imperial decisions, and, when when the rich want to go exploit their natural resources again, then its definitely issues created by the rich.

Those two things aren't mutually exclusive.


Its the same as any poor city in the UK (where I am.) There is huge amounts of agency amongst the local population. But decisions by those in power affect the lives of these people to real and relevant degrees.

In the UK, when mines closed down and the local population didn't undergo retraining, and so those local towns became impoverished shells of their previous cells, that issue is rooted in the decisions of the rich and powerful. There is only so far local agency takes you.

Its an imperfect analogy, but, its the point i'm making

Lol im stewing and thinking more about this.

Why I keep coming back im meant to be working

I think when you said:

Who do you think the involved parties are?

Its not the 100million African's living in poverty.
Its the people benefiting from and participating in >$50bn of bribery per year.

When there's a new oil or gas or natural resource identified and it starts getting exploited, and its in a corrupt nation, do you think we should just let it happen because of "local agency" when the people in charge are there because of bad colonial legacies?

Nearly half the countries in Africa are under dictatorships!


What local agency exists in these countries? For those impoverished people?

You can certainly make a point about lack of freedoms disenfranchising a lot of people. While we should take care not to make blanket statements about all countries in Africa, iit can't be denied that on average it scores poorly on measures of political freedom. But that isn't really much of any argument against pointing out that ignoring local factors is a bad move, rather the opposite.

"Should we just let it happen" is more of the type of language that ignores local agency.

What I think one must do if we want to assist in reducing local problems pretty much anywhere is to identify the local movements, groups and people that a) want to solve them b) are capable solving them, and work with them. That requires recognizing local agency however, it requires that we drop the "savior"-mindset and it requires that we need to accept that not everything will be exactly like we want it.

I don't think it counts as a saviour mindset to be against letting companies from rich companies go extract a bunch of resources for bargain prices via corrupt officials

I don't really get your point- I'm totally up for everything you say in the bottom.

I don't see how recognising that how power and wealth is distributed in many African countries as being (a) bad, and (b) the result of colonial and imperial policy, is a bad thing or counts as a saviour mindset.

Do you think stating that the existing power structures prop up the lack of political freedom, prop up corruption, and, prop up continued exploitation of these countries populations and their natural resources is a saviour mindset?

At its nub- are you pro European countries going in and extracting the gas and oil from African countries? Do you think being against it is a saviour mindset?

Because thats what I'm getting in a round about way from what you are saying

So my prediction is this is a One/Two punch by Manchin and Sinema.

Manchin has proposed a Bill that can look like a win for Biden and the Dem's that is being celebrated by Fossil Fuel companies as a win but also has some tax win benefits, seeing some of the Trump tax breaks for the richest clawed back.

I propose they will let this idea of a 'win' marinate a while before Sinema threatens to tank it all. It will get a bit desperate as Sinema seems not to budge. But then suddenly in a great compromise that keeps part of the 'Win' and the bill, substantially all of the tax increase stuff will be removed. That will be labeled a great compromise win for Biden and the Dems going into the Midterms.









We can watch this space and see if my hunch plays out or not.