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A collection of some classic Lemmy memes for your enjoyment
Most of Africa's nations are younger than 30 years. Several African countries still pay taxes to France. Nearly every African country doesn't have sovereign control over their natural resources. So Ya, not to even mention the millions of people stolen from their countries. Africa is poor purely because of outside influences
The other side of that debate is that .... the outside influence could work with Africa to make the continent self sufficient and capable on its own. Several studies and research has shown that if properly set up and organized, the African continent has more than enough resources to produce its own food supply, clean water supply and energy production.
Unfortunately, instead of the outside world helping Africa to get to this point .... the world instead uses Africa as just another place to exploit and make money out of. In the short sighted vision of the first world ... it's more lucrative to make a bunch of money now by taking advantage of poor dying people than it is to help them become productive members of the global economy.
It's a prime example of how as a civilization we build and maintain our world on exploitation, coercion and death
Unfortunately, instead of the outside world helping Africa to get to this point … the world instead uses Africa as just another place to exploit and make money out of. In the short sighted vision of the first world … it’s more lucrative to make a bunch of money now by taking advantage of poor dying people than it is to help them become productive members of the global economy.
I would argue it's more complex than that. The very conditions created by European colonization have resulted in extreme instability and corruption in the resulting, mostly-arbitrarily drawn states, which heavily discourages investment from rational (though amoral) actors. It's not that the rest of the world market doesn't want Africa to be more "Developing Southeast Asia" than "Place we get raw resources from", it's that the conditions European colonization foisted upon it make getting there from this point very difficult.
Which African states do you think should be redrawn?
Honestly, I'm not sure that there is an optimal solution there. All I'm certain about is that the European powers didn't give a shit about anything other than resolving their own claims in an ideal fashion when releasing their colonial vassals piecemeal.
Africa is poor purely because of outside influences
This is simplistic and naive to the point it feels like propaganda.
Similarly, I love when Europeans complain about the Americas having no distinct culture or ancient structures when they kinda killed and burned the ones that existed here for thousands of years.
WTF are you talking about? The Europeans that "killed and burned" the natives mostly stayed, they call themselves Americans now. Look at a map of America at the time of the revolution, and you'll see there was a lot of killing and displacing natives after the USA's independence. Don't blame this on modern day Europeans, blame this on your ancestors (assuming you're american).
I don’t disagree, but I feel like 600 years ago is too close to call them ancestors. Dunno the word, but ancestors makes me think of ancient humans from 7500+ years ago.
Though I do call them European Americans, because just Americans would be the indigenous peoples.
Native person here. Europe does not just get to absolve itself from the genocide that happened in North America. By upholding the systems that enacted the colonization in genocide of indigenous folk, the world over, you perpetuate and uphold the harm caused. This is your history, so this is your fault.
This place was beautiful when we stole it.
We're the ones that turned it into a cesspool of cheeze whiz and strip malls.
We, the descendants of Europeans that is
Who's gonna leave tho'? Nobody. That's who.
Only out of the devil we know. There are better far better countries to be a citizen in, but you have to have an in. They are the happiest in the world according to the world happiness index. We should worship at their ideological altar ror that, instead we villify them as all the right wing curse words that right wingers don't even understand.
I'd think anyone worried about righting the genocide would prioritize getting tfo, not "how can I better myself"
I'm European so I might be biased, but I haven't really heared anyone "complaining about the Americas having no distinct culture or ancient structures".
It's just white Americans trying to shift the blame to Europeans that stayed
Well, party because of colonization, slavery, and genocide (because cultural genocide counts as genocide), partly because of geo-political meddling, but also massive corruption, coups and an pan-African oligarchy that installed African protectionism 2.0 (or Afro-Reaganomics 1.0, take your pick), ensuring ordinary Africans can't do any international business without the government holding their dick - as well as the foreign businesses dick. This in turn means only the big boys get to play, like multinationals, because lumps of money gets fed to end up in Cayman island bank accounts.
To blame Europe today is stupid, because it not only serves to deter whatever support common Europeans (I.e not the elite) could give to Africans in diaspora, but it also enables corrupt African officials, who hold speeches about how they criticise the west, only for them to go to some backroom deal with eastern AND western multi-nationals, who really want to exploit Africans, and ofc they'll be allowed - because of the affirmationed Cayman island bank accounts.
Also, the "employment agencies" in Africa have 50/50 chance of being slave operations - because slavery never disappeared, it just got more "official", and it's also been common in Africa for thousands of years.
But yeah, history is cherry picked for the sake of "owning" people in debates and discourse. Again; it only helps to take away the spotlight from African officials, but also: we can't ever ignore what effect colonization, slavery and genocide has on not only nations, but geographical areas.
This has been nuance. You may hate and downvote me now.
My take is that our ancestors definitely fucked up bigtime by leaving several parts of the world with arbitrary borders that have no regard for existing ethnic groups. Just take a look at any ethnic map of africa, eurasia or the middle-east and you'll see.
Turns out that colonizers have little interest in local culture. Who would have guessed?
Adding insult to injury: When colonizing land where people mostly lived in tribal social constructs, you actually force them to adapt to your own developments. Essentially skipping the feudalism and micro-states step that has taken Europe literal centuries to get out of.
So you have all these ethnic groups that should have found their way to modern societies without outside interference, and you subject them to slavery, the introduction of guns, mining operations and you crush any form of revolt by committing various atrocities.
Development of nations is never going to be fair, with the strongest group eventually elbowing out the weaker ones. The current status quo definitely doesn't help in finding stability. Foreign interests are still meddling, financial and food aid is causing ridiculous population numbers that can in no way shape or form be supported by the local economies, and as you said, slavery is not truly gone.
Africa can only be an unstable mess as long as we're still fucking around. Ideal (though not particularly empathetic) solution is to GTFO, use magic to disappear all firearms and modern weaponry from existence, redistribute all wealth truly equally and go from there. The actual way this will play out is that we'll see war, instability, destruction of natural resources and a lot of pain and suffering until everything stabilizes or until the land is no longer habitable, whichever comes first.
Alt caption: "Why do we have so many refugees and economic migrants?"
Beginning to think that if we helped Africa prosper, we wouldn't have whole fleets of boats and dinghies crossing the Mediterranean.
After we killed Gadaffi in 2011 suddenly everyone from Lybia started hopping on boats to Europe. Don't they like their new ~~war-torn country~~ freedom?
Same shit with the American "border crisis"
Oh, why are they fleeing countries we couped and refusing to stay in Mexico, where the cartels dress like the military but with better gear?
"We did nothing but exploit them and let them be exploited by our companies. Why can't they help themselves???"
Lots of people on here who seem to be under the bizarre impression that colonialism ever ended.
Wounded Africa gets up: .... hey Europe, give me a hand
Europe: .... takes a baseball bat to Africa's knees .... why can't Africa stand up for itself?
Subsaharan Africa: "Oh no! These Turkish and Arab invaders are terrible! Surely Europe, which also fights with the Turks and Arabs, will help us?"
Europe: "Actually, we've decided to make it worse."
Africa: "Oh no"
Europe: "MUCH worse."
Some rare exceptions, particularly in the earlier period, aside
Same goes for South America and the US.
Those motherfuckers are plotting to make economies that serve their societies?! We can't have that, have to keep those markets open for our owner's exploitation!
Take em out!
Yeah Czech Republic did immense damage to poor Africans. Finland too.
If your blood isn’t boiling yet from what the west is sponsoring in Gaza, you can have some fun learning of what Belgium (and the US) did in the Congo after they “left”.
Looking anti-meme to me lol
See * The Looting Machine: Warlords, Oligarchs, Corporations, Smugglers, and the Theft of Africa's Wealth*