Over at Foreign Policy Jeffery Gettlemen looks at Africa's slide into utter barbarism where warfare is giving way to unending banditry. The picture Mr Gettleman paints is harrowing, but it gets a bit odd when he waxes nostalgic about the "liberation" leaders of the last century who, in Mr Gettleman's words, had "class" and puzzles at how their sterling example gave way to the current Grand Guignol.The answer isn't all that puzzling. The reason for this barbarism is obvious in hindsight. This is what happens when you have idealistic nitwits like Mr Harold McMillian bleating on about "winds of change," walking away from their responsibilities in a fug of pointless post-colonial guilt, and imaging that all you have to do to turn a colony into a state is to build a parliament building. It also doesn't help when you leave in place all the paternalistic mechanisms meant to protect a backward people that in the wrong hands become the instruments of oppression. Small wonder that instead of leaping into the 21st century Africa can barely hold on to the 18th. "Liberators" like Mugabe weren't the spiritual descendants of George Washington, but rather a collection of thugs, tyrants, murderers, thieves, and fanatics whose only interest was their own prosperity and lust for power. The insanity of cheerfully turning over an entire continent of long-suffering people to these psychopaths staggers the imagination.
Pace Mr Gettleman, what we see here is not a failing to live up to the "liberators'" shining example, but the inevitable fruit of their bloody labours.
5 comments:
A backward people? Really?
But then you finish by saying "...long-suffering people..."
Are you talking about the same people David?
-R Ramos
Both are statements of fact. If you think about it, the two are not mutually exclusive.
Uh, what do you mean by "paternalistic mechanisms meant to protect a backward people"? I've never heard of these "mechanisms" before. Care to explain?
Without the note of challenge, Gauss, I would be curious about the same thing. It is not politically correct these days to talk about colonialism without a ritual Sniff of Disapproval and quick change of topic (so, good thing I'm not PC), but it would help to understand what is going on now, to know what happened under the colonial governments. I imagine that some administrators would think of their jobs as running things for "child-like natives" (the natives might disagree with this, of course). Structures that permit such attitudes are ripe for abuse, and if that's what we're seeing with the post-colonial thugs now in power, then this is an interesting connection.
As for much of Africa these days... from what I've heard, I wouldn't exactly think it good to live in. Or advanced, by any measure I can come up with. Of course, I'm not saying that the colonial governments were the best thing to live under, only that their rapid withdrawal left something far worse to fill the void. It wasn't exactly a picnic to live in one of Rome's less valued provinces either, but when Roman power went away suddenly, Europe needed around 500 years, and how much blood spilled? to become civilized again.
Next chapter in Africa, depending on several things, may be new colonialism under China. Mugabe et al. are only small-time crooks, and if China decides to push in that direction, I don't see anyone stopping it.
The mechanisms were things like trade protection agencies intended to defend local farmers against fluctuations in the marketplace. The idea was for the agency to act as an intermediary that would smooth out the ups and downs of demand. After independence, these agencies remained in place, but became a perfect way to rob the farmers until they were driven out. That's just one example of many.
You don't have to have a "child-like natives" attitude to be an Imperialist. Simply recognising that an uneducated, often warlike people without any concept of private property, contracts, secularism, or rule of law might need more than one man, one vote, one time–especially when there are a load of rapacious Marxists waiting in the wings.
Regrettably, we are not dealing with a hypothetical here, but something that happened time after time that I witnessed first hand and up close. Once prosperous colonies that might have one day become prosperous nations have turned into impoverished hellholes for no reason other than some self-indulgent moral posturing, cowardice, and a collapse of an entire civilisations sense of confidence and responsibility.
Post a Comment