Africa is still far too vast and varied for a blanket statement about pre-colonial conditions. That's the thing, though; in pre-colonial Africa, conditions were much more varied. Afterward, more uniform conditions--namely corruption and dictators propped up by various Western nations--can be found throughout the area. What does that tell you about what the variable might be? Something happened during colonization to make them more similar.
European imperialism in Eastern Asia was much more respectful of existing political entities. China was carved up into areas of influence, and Japan was forcibly opened, but people in those two areas were still acknowledged as being part of their respective homelands. In Africa, and in places like Southeast Asia that have had more problems, local states were usually completely annihilated, and the Europeans substituted in new nations and institutions that were designed purely for the sake of imperialism. That's also why you see tribalism more than nationalism in many of these countries; the nations they have aren't even their own, but rather ones forced upon them by the very people who destroyed what would have been their countries. In short, if you want to pick the most important reason for Africa's present condition, it's that imperialism there was far more brutal even than in Asia. (Although not as much the Americas, what with the mass extermination and pandemics and such. However, you can't mess up the natives if you leave virtually no natives alive.)
This is getting infuriating, my arguments are all dodged, and people keep saying all cultures are equal? Once you use an objective criteria as in : the ability to achieve economic growth and development, it becomes very obvious which cultures are good, which ones bad.
When nations attempted to moderenise, they also had massive shifts in culture, simply due to the shock of western philosophy
Do you think the Samurai feudal culture in the 1700s was the same as the 1900 militaristic imperialism in Japan, the same as the 2000s pacified Japan?
China, in 1900 was swept up in a nationalisitic and republican zeal ,by 1950s they were driven by a utopian communist dream, after massive famines and horrors, did they finally learn pragmatism and capitalism.
Try telling some modern chinese they are a group of zealous communists, that will be an insult, because you are trivialising their bloody lessons and sacrifices to CHANGE their past inferior culture. But according to some people, the changes didn't matter! The rabid commie egilitarianism in the 1950s is very 'equal' to the capitalist pragmatic modern culture of china.
Even children's reactions change over time in response to stimulus and education, you think cultures can't do the same? You think some semi-agrainian African culture can adapt to industrialisation just as fast as the education respecting confucian East Asians can? And if even East Asians were led astray in their path to development, without colonisation, why do you think Africans would have fared any better?
You miss the entire point of bringing up east asians, it is obviously agreed upon that they were the set of nations outside Europe that was best suited for modernisation, and they weren't even colonised. STILL, it took them centuries to adapt themselves and changed their culture drastically, in order to finally start modernising. Now you are suggesting SS-africa could do everything much faster than East Asia? If only colonsiation didn't touch it.
Of course, colonisation did have a negative effect for vast majority of countries, but even without colonisation, Africa today will only be marginally better. Without colonisation there is still liberalism and communism lurking on the horizon, ready to destroy social structures. What even makes you so sure that no African Japan will pop up and start another huge destructive great african war? Blame colonialism for everything, when its actually the least of developing nation's troubles.
