So how come black people call each other ******?

[Theben]

Originally posted by David Floyd

And I hope you didn't live in Kuwait during the Iraqi invasion

Why should I care about that? It was in the past.

Interesting that a communist is measuring "standard of living", etc., in terms of material wealth alone

Just as interesting that a libertarian conveniently ignores the 'lack of choice' of millions of africans.

btw, being communist means everyone gets to enjoy the trappings of a decent life, not we all must be dirt poor.

[David Floyd]

I believe that the Africans were doing this before the Europeans came.

I was speaking financially. There are non-financial concerns. I can't speak to the exact financial state of pre-colonial Africans, although their definition of "need" and my definition of "need" probably differed greatly, with that difference due primarily to greater resources (to say nothing of greater technology, although we can even ignore that) on my part.

I bet, though, that I enjoy a great deal more individual liberty than they did, as one example. I am better able to travel at will, to practice religion freely, to speak against the government without fear of reprisals, to live without fear of being forced into a war - or for that matter, live in fear of invasion or slavery.

[David Floyd]

Why should I care about that? It was in the past.

The point, I think, is that there are non-financial concerns as well - one of them being lack of invasion threats.

Just as interesting that a libertarian conveniently ignores the 'lack of choice' of millions of africans.

I don't ignore that, I freely admit that slavery was wrong, and I don't condone started it up again. I can't do anything about the past, though, now can I?

btw, being communist means everyone gets to enjoy the trappings of a decent life, not we all must be dirt poor.

I think my definition of "decent" would be far in excess of what a citizen of the Soviet Union, for example, would consider "decent" (and yes yes, I understand that the SU wasn't a true communist state, but I think the point stands).

[Pax]

David,
Money does run most peoples lives. People in the U.S. spend more time at work than they do at home, if you subtract the time spent sleeping. The need for more and more money is what caused slavery and the system after slavery that continued to subjugate the ******s, I mean blacks. I see capitalism as having a need to find new markets. I'm curious as to what's going to happen when there are no new markets(if that time ever comes). Communism on the other hand seems to be akin to equal profit-sharing in the theoretical model. Maybe after years of capitalism at the hands of the Colonials maybe the 3rd world needs some profit sharing to get back on track.

[Shi Huangdi]

"Saudi Arabia and Kuwait are not considered 1st world nations. Yet their citizens on average are wealthier than americans."

Saudi Arabia GNP per Capita PPP: $10,498

USA GNP per Capita PPP: 29,240

Anyway, for some in Africa the Slave Trade bettered them. For one, as with any depopulating event such as the black plauge, decreasing the population means fewer people to split the resources among; hence more for those still around. Moreover, some tribes which were not enslaved but instead captured other tribes and sold them off; those tribes gained a valubale export to trade. Other Africans were never enslaved at all. Even still, with a few expections Africa is still extremely poor. What's really at the problem isn't so much the slave trade but instead the failure to develop prior to colonization, European Imperialism and conquest of the continent, and failure to organize and develop in the post-colonial era.

[David Floyd]

I see capitalism as having a need to find new markets. I'm curious as to what's going to happen when there are no new markets(if that time ever comes).

The good news is, new inventions and new technology provide new markets, and capitalism drives innovation. For example, once PCs were invented, a market for PCs was created. Looked at from that perspective, the system is self sustaining

Communism on the other hand seems to be akin to equal profit-sharing in the theoretical model. Maybe after years of capitalism at the hands of the Colonials maybe the 3rd world needs some profit sharing to get back on track.

Well, which system do you think would be better? One that has been proven to create wealth and prosperity (capitalism), or one that has failed at every turn (communism)? And I also hasten to add that one of the only things worse than communism is a CORRUPT communism, and what's worse than that is an AUTHORITARIAN, corrupt, communist state. Sorta like the USSR, for example. Unfortunately, most nations in Africa are both corrupt and authoritarian in nature. I wouldn't suggest adding communism to that mix.

[David Floyd]

What's really at the problem isn't so much the slave trade but instead the failure to develop prior to colonization, European Imperialism and conquest of the continent, and failure to organize and develop in the post-colonial era.

Put another way, do you think colonialism/imperialism would have been so easy, had Africa bothered to develop on its own in the centuries prior to that time?

[Pax]

Originally posted by Shi Huangdi

Anyway, for some in Africa the Slave Trade bettered them. For one, as with any depopulating event such as the black plauge, decreasing the population means fewer people to split the resources among; hence more for those still around. Moreover, some tribes which were not enslaved but instead captured other tribes and sold them off; those tribes gained a valubale export to trade. Other Africans were never enslaved at all. Even still, with a few expections Africa is still extremely poor. What's really at the problem isn't so much the slave trade but instead the failure to develop prior to colonization, European Imperialism and conquest of the continent, and failure to organize and develop in the post-colonial era.

Had the Africans simply lost population and retained control of their resources then it could be compared to the black plague. The Africans did not fail develop after being colonized. The Colonizers were in charge at that point. After WW2, the World powers gave the 3rd world countries there freedom but did not leave them in a state of pristine condition. It would be as if someone borrowed your car and returned it with a cracked head. Would they be surprised to find you've got your car in the backyard sitting on blocks.

[Pax]

Originally posted by David Floyd


Now, now, there aren't swamps in the desert

Come on, MrFun, read the rest of the thread.

i think that no one other than the japanese had a clear grasp of the threat to their societies that the Europeans represented. As stated before.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Pax Africanus
I agree to what Theben wholeheartedly.
I became aware of race at 7 when some white people where constantly calling my house shouting "******, go back ti africa!" and hanging up.

Wow! You've had some horrible experiences. I have empathy for you.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Pax Africanus

I believe that the Africans were doing this before the Europeans came.

Indeed- African mariners could confidently sail away from sight of land in the Indian ocean before Europeans were routinely doing the same in the North Atlantic. They traded with China, with India and Central Asia- a descendant of African slaves went on to forge a kingdom in mediaeval times on the Indian sub-continent, and black slaves revolted in the Middle East, holding their own in what is now southern Iraq and Western Iran against the forces of the Caliphate, in what became known as the revolt of the Zanj.

In the days of Herodotus, the Greeks believed that Egypt was the gateway to spiritual wisdom, because the names of the gods came to Greece from Egypt; and yet, the source for this knowledge was rooted deeper in Africa. The interior of the continent was said to be populated by:

‘the long-lived black peoples, who are said to be the tallest and best looking people of the world.’

In Homer’s Iliad, the Greek pantheon is said to visit the Aethiops every year, for a banquet of all the gods:

“For Zeus had yesterday to Ocean’s bounds
Set forth to feast with Aethiop’s faultless men,
And he was followed there by all the gods.”

The Greeks considered that wisdom came out of black Africa, and examples in the applied arts such as the two headed Greek vase known as the kantheros (several depicting one half as a black African, the other as a white European) reflect a belief in the basic equality of black and white- they are seen as different but equal.

Later in 50 B.C., Diodorus the Greek historian from Sicily could say:

“[the black peoples] ...were the first of all men and the proofs of this statement, historians agree, are clear to see.’

It took the intellectual and philosophical equivalents of a sleep and a forgetting, for later Europeans to assign examples of African culture and ingenuity as far apart and diverse as Ife terracottas and Zimbabwean buildings, to lost Greek colonies, Phoenicians, the Queen of Sheba, or lost Atlanteans.

How the ancient Greeks would have laughed.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by David Floyd

And for the record -- not all of Africa is desert, and there ARE crocodiles in parts of Africa.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Pax Africanus
Rudyard Kipling says that it is. He says that the white man is needed to rule the world.

Or, can illegal aliens fight without European officers?

[Sikander]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara

That question depends primarily one where you're standing. Africa still has not recovered from the slave trade or the colonial period. The neo-colonial period isn't looking so great either. Almost anyway you measure it, European imperialism was an unmitigated attrocity. Using your logic one might make the argument that the Holocaust was good for the Jews because the survivors got Israel because of it.

The decendents of the native Americans are certainly much worse off as a result of European imperialism. The ones that remain are disposessed in their own lands, stripped of their culture, even in countries where they form the majority of the populations, such as Guatemala, Peru, and Bolivia.

India and parts of East Asia are recovering only now.

The global positive effects of European imperialism have yet to materialize.

So the increases in population, lifespan, wealth, knowledge, opportunity and the increases in freedom from clan and private warfare, disease, access to international markets, vast improvements in transportation and communication etc. all would have occurred in such a widespread fashion as rapidly without colonialism? Like it or not, warfare and its cultural equivalents and products are the main means and / or the impetus to change throughout history.

I'm certainly not arguing that colonialism didn't kill and destroy, or was carried out solely or pervasively for the benefit of the indigenous peoples who were its subjects. But I don't doubt that there are many more people living much better and longer lives in many more places on this planet in large part because of colonialism.

Those who suffered most from colonialism were those who were least capable of adapting to the crash course in modernity being forced upon them by competition with both the colonizers themselves and their more adaptable or otherwise better situated neighbors. In large part these peoples were those who were the most primitive, such as the North American Indians who lived in what became the United States and Canada, only some of whom were practicing rudimentary agriculture.

People such as the Bushmen in Africa have been losing ground steadily for millenia, first solely to fellow subsaharan Africans who had learned how to grow crops and work metals, and then in successive waves as Arabs and then Europeans increased both the relative power differential between their neighbors and themselves through trade and eventually in some cases through waves of displacement.

This is the way of the world, and my forebearers took part in both sides of the struggle as native Americans, Celts, Anglo-Saxons, Franks and god knows how many unknown and unknowable peoples before them. I take no particular pride in any of this, or shame either. I can only point to my own mediocre contributions to humanity through my own actions in this life, and humbly hope that somehow they add up to some sort of net benefit for the species. The material and intellectual legacy I have inherited is a daunting challenge in this respect.

[BeBMan]

Originally posted by Sikander
So the increases in population, lifespan, wealth, knowledge, opportunity and the increases in freedom from clan and private warfare, disease, access to international markets, vast improvements in transportation and communication etc. all would have occurred in such a widespread fashion as rapidly without colonialism? Like it or not, warfare and its cultural equivalents and products are the main means and / or the impetus to change throughout history.

I think it is difficult to say colonialism as a whole was good for the development in the colonized territories. On the one hand you have India, China, and a lot smaller Asian states which seem to do very well now, however - but were is the big increase of lifespan, wealth, knowledge, opportunity and freedom in Africa?

Even when we conclude that the colonial powers built up effective bureaucratic structures in their African colonies too, that they improved infrastructure, maybe also education, that they established (or tried to do so) - at least in certain aspects - a rule of law, even sometimes granted modern rights to the colonized people we can on the other hand not ignore that all this was done for the main purpose to ensure the primary function of the colonies - which was to serve their motherlands economically. I don't dispute that perhaps many in the west thought they'd do a good and right job in "civilizing" the "uncivilized", but that does not change the real economic role colonies had to play, and in praxis this turned often out as blatant racism.

And of course, all this was also done by (willingly or not) destroying older African societal structures. So when you destroy established structures and enforce "western" ideas in every field a relation between these facts, and the fact that all those nice western achievements quickly faded away and were replaced by corruption, dictatorship, and endless wars between differents fractions, or clans in many ex-colonies after the decolonialization seems quite probable. For Africa I don't see big positive consequences of colonialism.