Who fucked up Africa more, the Belgians, the French or the British?
>>1106098
Okay, be preceding that?
>>1106092
>>1106098
All of the above
>>1106106
Africa was utterly undeveloped when Westerners arrived. You cannot "fuck up" what does not exist. Westerners could have conducted colonialism (which was inevitable given the power difference between Africa and the great powers) in a way which would have benefited Africa more, but this does not mean that their net effect was negative. Africa would be much worse off if the West had left it alone.
>>1106122
Yeah, but who fucked it up THE most.
I nominate Belgium.
>>1106092
Belgians, then the French, then the British
The answer is Belgians.
See: Rwanda & Congo.
The British fucked up Africa only though poor foresight. They weren't cruel, or evil.
Belgians, easily.
>>1106092
>Belgians, French, British
>Fucked up Africa
They only brought medicine, technology, and trade to millions, many of whom didn't even have the wheel. Sure the colonial powers didn't always act in good faith (esp the Belgians in the Congo), but the standard of living for Africans increased astronomically as a result.
>>1106300
Go back to /pol/, here we discuss History, the whole of it, good and bad.
>>1106092
It's definitely a close tie between the Belgians and the French.
Are we counting the Congo free state as Belgium?
Because if so than Belgium, hard to top their body count.
>>1106315
Of course.
>>1106304
Apparently you get triggered by the good aspects of colonialism, because no good can come from evil whye boi's exploits.
I'd tell you to go back to Tumblr, but you're probably already browsing it.
The belgians of course.
France did nothing wrong.
The French weren't that bad if you discount Algeria which was a royal fuck up. And Britain only was bad mostly in South Africa with the Zulu wars.
The Belgians were pretty evil cunts t b h.
>>1106300
They might have helped africans, but certainly not Africa. That poor continent would have been much better off with a preindustrial level of niggers and some white colony here and there to exploit resources than how it is now.
>colonialism dindu nuffin wrong
>colonialism dindu nuffin right
>>1106650
It bettered life of colonialists so there is that
>>1106653
at the expence of the natives
>>1106300
But the gap between Africans and the world actually grew heavily during the colonial years because any development the people were undergoing through trade and cultural exchange was halted.
The natives
>>1106768
The gap between africans and the rest of the world has been growing steadily ever since the iron age. It's fucking stupid to say colonialism is the reason the gap kept widening unless you mean it in the sense that it helped other places like north america to leave Africa in the dust too.
>they still believe finding out who's guilty for the crimes of the past will help with today's situation
>>1106821
Nah there was a gap but it wasn't massive during first contact.
>>1106837
it's just for nostalgia and reminding ourselves of better times
>>1106745
If you allow yourself to get colonized you probably deserved it.
Belgians only fucked up during the transition to independence, the French barely governed their territories at all.
>>1106859
That's because first contact happened before the iron age, technically.
But you'd have to be absolutely delusional to deny the massive gap between age of discovery Eurasia and subsaharan Africa.
>>1106881
chopping off hands because the niggers couldn't deliver enough rubber is more than just a fuck up
>>1106887
That was done by a private company headed by a monarch.
>>1106890
I know, I am belgian myself
we still get some of that sweet genocide credit by most people though
>>1106885
The gap was not that big during the 16th century in the more advanced areas. However it did grow past that and various shit that happened exasperated the gap such as the slave trade, destroying local industry through dumping etc.
I'd say once the colonies were inplace did the gap truly largen to much higher levels due to the nature of the colonies developments uplifting the colony to the homelands levels were simply unfeasible because of costs and the issues that would abound.
>>1106943
The slave trade and dumping happened before colonization tho. The only way to avoid that would have been total isolationism shogunate style, and that would have stopped cultural exchange even more.
>>1106957
Either that or strong trade laws but another issue is that even if your kingdom is strong thr others entities may not so even if you are resistant the encroaching power can just conquer the entities surrounding you and build upon base of sorts to later trump you.
How exactly did the french fuck up africa?
>french colonization left a 70billion french franks in debt, roughly, estimated in 1913 before the maghreb became a leech on french finances
>only thing they took were ressources such as uranium and fuel, which the africans couldn't even use
>left behind 2000 stores, 600 nursing houses, 40 hospitals, 18k kilometers of railways, 265k kilometers of road, 63 harbors, 196 airports, over 16k schools
>still gives out financial aid
>several illnesses cured
As in the case of South America and parts of Asia, it's, you guessed it
USSR AND USA
USSR AND USA
USSR AND USA
Yanks forced the Brits into decolonisation too quickly so they could become a superpower, supported by the USSR, one part of the cold war where they actually worked together (see the UN votes after Suez 57).
Then of course proxy warring too over
By keeping Africa shit, the USA and USSR remained strong, until the USSR fell of course
America fucking the world up, yet again
>inb4 butthurt Americans who can't accept their nation's foul nature
>>1106092
The Belgians fucked people up much worse, but the British and French did shit on a wider scale and over a longer period.
Between the two, the British did a lot more heinous shit to the natives and settlers alike than the French did. France seemed to actually sort of buy their own propaganda of colonizing to benefit the colonies, and did more to try and integrate the colonies into their culture and nation.
Brit bong here
>We din do NUFFIN!
The Congo Free State was probably the most fucked up, but it was geographically and temporally limited compared to British and French territories.
>>1107101
The colonies were to expensive to maintain at that point.
>>1107431
>did more to try and integrate the colonies into their culture and nation.
Most cases it failed or could not really be implemented.
>>1107825
At least you still control them indirectly and make a hug profit off said former colonies
>people confusing the Congo free state with Belgian Congo
All the atrocities happened in the Congo Free state which was privately owned by Leopold. Once the Belgian government caught wind of these atrocities they took over in 1908 and since then things started to improve drastically.
>>1107884
>Most cases it failed or could not really be implemented.
True, but it's more than most other countries did and made being ruled by France slightly less better.
>>1106092
>that tiny strip of land sticking out from German Kamerun
>>1106092
>Europeans fucked up Africa
below the Sahara these people were pretty much bronze age warring tribes when colonials arrived
just a literal bunch of spear chuckers relying on magic, around 2,000 years behind Mediterranean Europe.
>>1108008
>Bronze Age
No.
>2000 years behind
No.
>>1106092
the french unlike the others planned the integration of the indigenous in their administration from the 30's onward. Just sayin. The brits did way worse things and never really considered africans as potential equals.
( source : google it yourself )
Now that whitey is gone corruption is rampant, the British had moral duty to be fair and just while they were there, you had 'district officers' who would look after their section of land sorting out trouble with local police officers, they were good people and 'uncorruptable'.
Now poachers bribe officials to hunt African elephants
See below about district officers 40;00 onwards, theres an interview with one of the officers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5tM_X3Grhk
Remember the British banned slavery
>>1108017
>No inventions not even a screw or a wheel
They did have an iron spears so bronze age maybe a bit harsh
Iron age tribesmen nethertheless
inb4
>Iron age
>No
>>1108060
Haya invented carbonated steel before Euros did.
>>1108078
Fair enough but still tribesmen with spears doing fuck all
>>1108046
>Remember the British banned slavery
Then implanted indentured labour and arbitrary taxation+forced labour alongside many practices such as slaughtering cattles without compensation, land grabs and evictions and an enacting measures to kneecap African wealth accumulation.
Also the ffciers may have been out to do their job but many other members of the bureaucracy weren't as well intentioned.
>>1108029
In theory but in practice you could see the big holes.
>>1108096
true that. In practice not really.
>>1108087
But they were doing shit.
Many made art with iron, clay and cloth, and had complicated political structures, own religions, oral histories, relations with other peoples, trade, farming, doing shit like hunting animals for fur or ivory or mining.
There is no such thing as doing nothing.
>>1108106
That's still Iron Age, the Greco-Persian wars were Iron Age in Europe.
>>1108119
Steel isn't Iron age though.
>>1108142
and the " Iron Age" isn't uniform on Earth at all let alone the development to reaching that (Many parts went from stone to Iron directly instead fo Stone>Bronze>Iron).
>>1106092
the Soviets and Chinese during the cold war.
minor post colonies tribal conflicts and struggles for national power got blown up in major wars because commies flooded the continent with arms and cash.
Imperial Germany was one of the better colonial powers. Even Nazi Germany was cool with the locals when they were in North Africa.
>>1108046
This is a fucking great documentary and everyone should watch it
Belgians, no contest.
>>1106633
You forgot there was a similar and less-know war in Cameroon too.
>>1106092
The Africans
How high/low would you rate Portugal, Italy and Germany?
Fresh content
>>1110688
Equatorial Guinea was Spanish
Islam
>>1110737
Nah.
North africa managed to have some kinda decent phases under Islam besides horrible ones.
Subsaharan afrika became shittier by Islam, but not all of it got islamised (gladly!).
>>1110688
For the record the US didn't intend to colonize Liberia, they just wanted a place to send freed slaves. Those freed slaves promptly enslaved the uncivilized pagan Africans and put them to work in Antebellum style plantations.
>>1108157
Dude the west flooded the area with arms and cash to browse and propped up fucked up leaders.
The cold war had no good sides in Africa it was fucking pointless and setup the foundations of future problems.
>>1110760
Fucked you of places got improved by Islam not shittier.
Have you seen the huge disparities between the islamicized areas pre and during colonialism?
>>1110811
Correlation=/=causation
I've seen how little arable land is in most islamicized places but I'm not even prepared to make a definitive statement on that. And neither should you.
>>1110814
So you make a broad statement that Islam made Ssa worse despite those areas being better off back then?
>>1106128
>You cannot "fuck up" what does not exist.
It's a bit of a stupid premise that anything undeveloped / unindustrialised "doesn't exist".
>>1106609
You're skirting the question.
If you're obsessed with believing they were all amazing, which was the worst of the best?
>>1106837
wrap it up boys he's right history is pointless to discuss, let's focus on the here and now.
It was a good board while it lasted, let's all hop over to /pol/.
>>1110852
Not him, but the question we all seem to be discussing is how colonial policies have contributed to modern Africa's woes. There's no defensible argument that they didn't.
Sure - you also can't argue against the fact, for example, that a lot of African groups had systems built around clientalism which contributes heavily to corruption in modern African states. African countries aren't the way they are for any one simple reason, it's a complexly interwoven series of reasons. We just happen to be discussing one of the big factors - colonialism. We're not discussing what they'd be like if colonialism hadn't occurred (which is truly useless).
You're right to a certain extent - finger pointing won't help solve their problems. But understanding the root causes of those problems might.
>>1110872
And I would rather the first guy fish out these smaller aspects of islamic culture such as you have with clientalism as an aspect of sub-saharan culture.
Just saying mudslimes make something better or worse irks me for those exact reasons. Making a statement like that without any support but the correlation of
>when it exists in a region
>the wealth of the region according to the same timescale
is baseless.
>>1110852
>You're a ridiculous drama queen.
Anybody who's bitching about historical discussion on a history board deserves a bit of sarcasm.
>>1110688
More fresh content
The difference isn't that obvious though.
Maybe the life expectancy data shouldn't be taken into consideration, since the UK has nothing to do with the HIV epidemic in Southern Africa
>>1111050
> UK has nothing to do with the HIV epidemic
> implying
>>1111050
Raw data btw
>>1111062
Just a guess, I don't know shit about Southern Africa
