Democracy In Africa.

Highnoon

Saw an interview in one of those free newspapers that get handed out around the city. It was with the author Wilbur Smith, who was born in Zambia and lives in South Africa. He describes himself as African though of a lighter hue.

The interesting part was his answer to whether he was optimistic about Africa? I'll type his answer word for word. He said "A qualified optimist. What the West sees as a perfect Africa is not what the Africans see as a perfect Africa. They will work out their own destiny there and return it to what it was before the European nations intruded: a more tribalised system, a dictatorial rather than democratic system. It's what Africans are comfortable with".

When I spoke with a guy in work he's answer which I don't remember word for word went like this. Yes so we'll have tribes killing each other like the Tutsi's and Hutu's (apologies if I got the names wrong). I agreed that that's not something that anybody wants but while I was thinking about this I was wondering 'What if the people of Africa had the choice to rule themselves as they saw fit , were comfortable with and did indeed end up becoming tribalised so that situations like Ruanda happened again would we be wrong to 'interfere' with that choice and send in peacekeepers for example? Is it wrong to force people to become democratic?

Nodin

Well "tribalised" might more refer to the break up of countries along tribal lines. Most african states are an imposed concept, rather than a representation of demographics.

turgon

One has to remember that the scale of the Rwandan genocide was only because the "West" facilitated weapons etc.

I don't see Western interference there as a good thing. The problem is maybe that the West expects all Africans to have equal welfare to Europeans even though they are not as "modern*" in civilization as we are. Not to be condescending btw. Im just saying that starvation etc was in Europe centuries ago, and now that we have advanced so far we can prevent it. Africa was not given time to rise to its feet maybe??

Also would the population boom there be of significance? As in, if the "West" never came, the population would be lower and thus more manageable in terms of resources such as water and food. A totally "what if" scenario to be sure.

Its a real hard one to think through. Obviously the countries nowadays are complete fiction, and were drawn to suit European geographers rather than Africans. So a return to tribal borders might be right.

But think also: in Europe we had a feudal system too and we grew into democracy over a long time. Im sure some of the European kings of the past would have found democracy as laughable as some Africans do. Maybe it all comes down to the fact that Europe intervened in Africa's civilization growth and imposed its own idea of civilization.

*Loaded word, I know. Just take it as modern in Western terms.

meathstevie

turgon wrote: »

One has to remember that the scale of the Rwandan genocide was only because the "West" facilitated weapons etc.

I don't see Western interference there as a good thing. The problem is maybe that the West expects all Africans to have equal welfare to Europeans even though they are not as "modern*" in civilization as we are. Not to be condescending btw. Im just saying that starvation etc was in Europe centuries ago, and now that we have advanced so far we can prevent it. Africa was not given time to rise to its feet maybe??

Also would the population boom there be of significance? As in, if the "West" never came, the population would be lower and thus more manageable in terms of resources such as water and food. A totally "what if" scenario to be sure.

Its a real hard one to think through. Obviously the countries nowadays are complete fiction, and were drawn to suit European geographers rather than Africans. So a return to tribal borders might be right.

But think also: in Europe we had a feudal system too and we grew into democracy over a long time. Im sure some of the European kings of the past would have found democracy as laughable as some Africans do. Maybe it all comes down to the fact that Europe intervened in Africa's civilization growth and imposed its own idea of civilization.

*Loaded word, I know. Just take it as modern in Western terms.

Maybe a little correction needed on the Ruanda point. Most of the actual killing of civilians was done with clubs, machetes and arson. This happened while the war between the fanatic core of the goverment and the RPF was raging. The UN went in on dodgy intel and as a consequence an inadequate mandate.

jank

To the OP, Africa will never be democratisied untill the Africans themselves show leadership and guidence to their people. Asia was very much in the same boat as Africa but the difference between them is light years. Now Asia is nowhere near perfect but at least they are trying and in many ways succeding. It may take Africa another 50 to 100 years to get themselves in gear. However blaming the west for all the ills that happened in Africa is nonesense.