(01-12-2016 01:52 PM)QuestionSocratic Wrote: HoD: I hope you are right and agree that Africa offers a great opportunity for economic development. Whatever country can gain the trust in the continent, will benefit. I hope this isn't just wishful thinking.
Yet I do wonder about your statement
Quote:Tribalism as it exists in Africa is less about religious differences and more about political ones. They are solved on an ongoing basis and the continent is a safer more peaceful place from tribal conflict than it was 50 years ago.
This seems to be totally off base when you consider that only 20 years ago, the Hutus and Tutsis literally hacked to death one million people. This wasn't some tribal spat but tribalism at is basest form of brutality. I submit that it is has been an indigenous aspect of African tribal society for 75,000 years and will continue to rile the continent for decades to come. (But you did say 100 years, so maybe, you're right.)
The Rwandan genocide was a release of pressure. That pressure was centered around a political issue more than anything else.
One of the ugly remnants of colonialism is increased tribal division, but it is subsiding in large part because the divisions which lead to outright violence are not that deep. They certainly don't rise to the level of Sunnis v. Shi'ites.
There are of course ancient conflicts but they aren't in the European mold. They are weaker and less strongly supported.
In Rwanda the Tutsis were the favoured group of the Belgian colonial masters. It was an artificial division which was compounded through modern, and Western, ideas and tools. To most Westerners it took on the appearance of a Hitler/Pol Pot genocide with racial hatred, mass killings, and vitriolic radio addresses.
But, much like Africa's economy, it was primarily imported. Their developmental level in every way simply can't support genocide without outside help. They don't have anything to hate each other over strongly enough. They don't have the means to agitate one another without outside help. They don't have the means to kill each other without outside help. Everything from the racial superiority ideal to the radios and machetes were imported and exacerbated an underlying tribal conflict. The tribes themselves across Africa do not have the natural organic hatreds that we envision.
Yes, they hate each other, but it is outside influence which has made them what they are, or were rather.
I've often heard it said that it was the Rwandan genocide which concreted the idea of "Modernization not Westernization" in central Africa.
The genocide really did lead to a dramatic change in the Pan-African psyche. Today's conflicts are religious for the most part. And, if you look throughout history that is sort of the natural stage between tribal conflict and economic conflict. If anything it's a testament to rapid development in every way. They are moving through thousands of years of trial and error in a matter of decades.