R_P wrote:
 

You kids...

Sad sock puppet wrote:
 
Who knew?

 Ridiculous_Pinhead wrote:
 

Step right up, you sneering hall monitor.  Show us how its done.  I understand this website called Google could be helpful?

 Jiggz wrote:

Sounds like it could use a fact check (or a citation)...

 Jiggz wrote: 
I was with you until the last line...  

 sirdroseph wrote:
 
That's a nice find, that video....and it does indeed explain a lot.

I have often asked myself this question on my travels through this amazing continent (I've only been in some 26 of the however-many-there-are countries so I don't know much).....  why is it the way it is?

I think fundamentally there are 3 main reasons that will take many, many more generations to fully resolve.

One is that the predominance of sub-Saharan Africa has only had written language since the arrival of the colonists and missionaries, and as a result the oral tradition, though important and meaningful in it's own way, was nonetheless a brake on the growth and development of vocabulary and something of a damper on the development of complex and abstract thinking over hundreds and thousands of years among the general population, as compared to Northerners.

Two the winters are generally benign in comparison to more Northern countries and so the vital necessity of developing attitudes, approaches and technology for literally making hay while the sun shines lest myself, my family and my community die during winter, didn't develop here as  it had to with Notherners.

Thirdly, and this may perhaps be as a result of the previously mentioned two, but tribalism and the chieftain/serf phenomenon has not died out at all.
The King of the Zulus died last week, after a long reign, and the Zulu people are in mourning, and his successor is as yet unknown.....all this in a modern 'Constitutional Democracy'.  His witchdoctors and praise singers are no doubt busy.
There are tribal chiefs and their lands and their people all over Africa and they are reluctant to let go of their power and lands, and reluctant for anything to change in any meaningful way.
Ideally someone from your tribe becomes President, if not then you long for the day it happens, or happens again, because then the treasury and the resources and security forces etc become the property of your people.

When my ancestors arrived here from Europe in the mid-1700's they came from a place with canals, windmills, windpumps, buildings of more than a single storey and they travelled here by ships that were navigated and controlled. They remained in the Cape for almost 70 years and then moved Northwards into the interior. The first Black African people they encountered, after many months of slow travel after departing the Cape, had never seen a wheel.
Right there is illustrative of how the typical problems of Africa began, and not a lot has changed.

I am African and I love this continent more now than I did when I blindly but hopefully punted this thread upfield 16-odd years ago.
But I don't see any resolution to the problems and issues of Africa in another three generations, if ever.

What illustrates the mammoth depth and breadth and seemingly insurmountable nature of the problems in Africa best, to me, is emigration from Africa by educated and skilled Africans.

When I say I am emigrating shortly I am sure that there are many on these forums that have, as a passing thought, considered how white folks leaving South Africa do so just because they can't handle it when they have to share their toys in the sandbox with the other kids, and so they want to take their toys and go find another place to play in.
As much has been intimated in PM's etc. in the past while.
It's ok, understandable, especially when you realise that there are still many educated non-Africans who have no idea that there are myriad independent African countries and no such thing as the Government of Africa, who should put a stop to elephant poaching etc.....it's quite sweet, really.

The reality today is that Black South African professionals emigrating from South Africa outnumber white South African professionals emigrating from South Africa by a factor of 8 to 1.

The emigration of educated, enterprising and skilled Africans from Africa really tells the tale, AFAIC.
And that is the saddest thing about this amazing mixed-up crazy beautiful and magnificent continent I will always call home.


A good video for sure, thanks for the link.

I always think you are Samiyam under another name....