Yes I am critical of your statements, including calling me a racist when you ignore the issues I pose. How do you suggest I help my case when you ignore or misrepresent it?
My case couldn't be simpler. I have stated it in several ways, but it is you, my dear, who respond with cliched and prissy insults, IMHO.
OK, so let's look at these comments and go back to a few of your previous comments and the replies by me and others to those comments that you aren't quite getting the point of. It'll be my last attempt to make a discussion of this rather than a wasteful string of erroneous conclusions on your part about my position and maybe an erroneous conclusion on our part about your position, though your comments are consistent.
...The case can be represented by the example of ancient Greece and their wars with Persia. In those days they took a beating regularly because while they were similar people (the Greeks) they were what was called city states (tribes if you will). The wars with the Persians eventually led them to resist collectively and through that to form a true national identity and hence a nations, without which we would not be what we are today. Something no doubt, but not the same.
Europe went through a similar messy and bloody process to create the nations today, although those have been somewhat redefined even within recent generations.
This topic was about Congo in particular, although it could apply to a number of troubled "nations".
All I said was that I believe they have not formed an equivalent national identity, and I said that your consensus that they didn't do so is all the fault of someone else is cods wallop, particularly coming from you with an unabashed political agenda today.
Either they could have been left alone to kill and fight long enough for someone to conquer and subdue enough to form nations, like the rest of the world has gone through, or that the colonizers could have had a better long terms plan to foster a true national identity, down to the local cultural levels before granting independence.
Here you are ignoring the differences of corporate influence on corruption and oppression of certain populations within the countries in question as well as the massive arms and other tools available to those who wish to oppress the majority of people within the countries. Yes, the populace was oppressed in European history, but you can't simply ignore the vast differences in the times and say it is the people within these countries who haven't progressed to what you believe represents a 'better' system.
But that is wishful thinking. They did have advantages that they gained. Not all aspect of colonization were as you allude; but what we see is what we have, and it is largely due to historical cultural forces, and of course religions of different books in many cases.
Your attitude of simplistic external blame is trivial and smacks of petty partisan politics, as you express in other areas of your posts...
You of course are ignoring all my comments such as, "Yes, poor countries do need partnerships in order to gain capital investments or they might never be able to utilize their natural resources. If only big corporations would have recognized there was more to be gained by raising the standard of living of the poor themselves, thus creating more customers, than there was to be gained from simple exploitation, the world would look quite different today. But big corporations didn't and the world doesn't."
Rather than looking at what you might have wrong, you are creating the straw man argument that I and everyone who disagrees with you on this are "blaming" the troubles of the Congo 100% on "simplistic external" factors". Read what I said. Because it isn't what you claim I said. Nor do I think others here are saying what you claim.
Here are a few more examples of your statements which come across as, colonizers brought the modern world to the backward people and the backward people remain backward despite being offered such modernity.
....
The fundamental question IS; why they are still violent, ignorant, poor and so on, long after colonial days?...
...Most of the undeveloped world was composed of thousands of minor tribal kingdoms of one sort or another. You presumably would have argued that they be should have been left to their own devices (no exploration, no colonization etc.) so we could now have a UN of thousands of nations. ...
Some colonies benefited considerably from their colonizers. India is an example and most African nations gained structured governments that would have been impossible to achieve without countless civil and regional wars of conquest before their nations could become large enough to be called self sufficient in any way.
The problem is that the tribal cultures have persisted regardless (and some have of course continued to wage war). One can never have a nation when the primary allegiance is towards one's local tribe, rather than the country.
I venture that they would be much better off if the colonizers had stayed longer.
...They are in a rut, as defined by tribal conditions and traditions. I understand the difficulty in breaking out of that mold; it means challenging everything one has ever known, and everything in one's history. ...
...I have already said that the colonization process, which is one that humanity has performed for all of known history, did not design borders with a view to nation building in the future. So? In some cases it worked better than others; in central and southern Africa there were in that time period no real "civilizations" in the modern sense. There were a multitude of relatively small tribal groups with loosely defined territories within the areas now called nations, and those same loyalties still supersede national identities to a large extent. Hence corruption, nepotism and favoritism by whoever is in power.
Why do insist on calling that a racist statement (which is a far worse insult than the apologist I call you) and why do you insist on blaming all their ills on others?
.....It is therefore also surprising that one of the previously most successful nations in Africa, now called Zimbabwe, is also now one of the poorest dysfunctional on the planet and perhaps not because of the "tribalism" I quoted, but because of the most blatant racism. ...
....That is a classic apology for their failures. The Americas are colonies, but they are not in a comparable boat. Not always ideal in case you are tempted to state irrelevancies, but the difference is that the colonists, who had more stable structures of societies stayed. (Yes they were not nice either, but the result is better regardless).
The most advance nation in Africa proper is South Africa, because of the skills that the colonists who are still there brought with them. Zimbabwe had that too, until the racists there decided to do away with them....
...Governments "left" by colonizers? Governments are legal structures that are an absolute requirement for civil nations. The colonizers left the structure. The locals did with it what they pleased.
...The only thing I have said is that Africa is still hobbled by traditional tribal, and religious, divides which force decisions to be made on that basis first, and what is best for the nation second, or third. Kind of like how the Iraqis behave, to move the scenario a bit.
If you call that being racist, we do have a problem with logical disconnects.
These are racist comments, whether you like it or not. And just because you believe them to be true doesn't make the comments any less racist.
While you repeatedly accuse others of blaming external causes 100% despite my saying very clearly I did not see things that way, you yourself are indeed ignoring any blame on external forces and you are putting 100% of the blame except for a few bad border designations according to these comments on the nature (and you added the religion) of the populations in the countries we are talking about. Your comments about historical interference suggests it was all beneficial. Colonial borders of course, have a huge influence in current wars in the Middle East today. And the benefits you describe completely leave out leaving impoverished millions with no means of elevating their lot in life while a few corrupt officials and a lot of foreign corporations reaped billions in resource exploitation without reinvesting a dime in infrastructure in the countries except for the infrastructure it took to export the resources.
In America, individuals exploited the resources of the country after the Revolutionary War, not simply foreign corporations. Individuals had equal opportunities to advance their conditions in life. And once they established a country and new immigrants came in with less than an equal opportunity, the immigrants were never the majority of the population. By the time the second and third generation of immigrants were born, they were able to merge into the already successful population.
How is that the same for a dirt poor Nigerian living in the oil pollution left by Shell Oil who pays off a few corrupt officials at the top to keep it that way? That peasant knows the people who stood up to Shell Oil were murdered by the army of the corrupt official paid off by Shell Oil.
And after generations of corrupt officials benefiting from such a set up, is it any wonder that such a country as Zimbabwe might adopt a model of corruption after the Colonial government fell? Is it a surprise that the army which kept the corrupt officials in power, and which was paid for by the corporations who were exploiting the resources might still be intact, and that corrupt officials might just be able to manipulate and continue the system left in place by the Colonial government which fell?
I see a different world than you do. And I believe you still see that naive version you think you left behind in high school.
