Why didn't Africa develop before the modern era?

[SDSkinner]

Why do people keep saying this? Are we required to direct movies in order to critique films? The burden is on Hibernian and the people who support his paradigm to defend the thing he's presented. There's no obligation for anyone to come up with alternatives.

In English "come up with your own" doesn't mean that I'm requesting you design something; it includes finding an alternative example. I'm not saying you need to direct films in order to critique them- I'm saying you need to be able to give examples of good films in order to declare another film is bad.

 

[yerm]

Why do people keep saying this? Are we required to direct movies in order to critique films? The burden is on Hibernian and the people who support his paradigm to defend the thing he's presented. There's no obligation for anyone to come up with alternatives.

Yes, there IS an obligation to present an alternative. A good movie critique certainly does present these things. It might provide ideas on what could/should be done differently, it might give alternatives, or it might just cite other movie examples for comparison.

This argument, if we're going the way of analogy, sounds more like someone who says they hate X movie and then explains that they hate every movie in that genre and don't enjoy any of them for any reason, which happens, but isn't a good basis for discrediting a movie.


In the case of this map, if you don't like how it's done, sure you could do it yourself... or link someone's version that's better, or give ideas on how to improve it, or discuss alternatives. Simply dismissing the full notion that we can compare Africa and Europe here is a really dead argument. We can, will, and should draw comparisons to Europe. If you just don't like maps, oh well. If you don't like comparisons, I don't believe you, I'm quoting an analogy

 

[OnvreOrrivle]

Africa is a big place, very little of it is tropical.

I disagree, north is like desertic hell; center is jungle hell and south is jungle/savannah hell. The only decent places i can think of is ethiopia/nile/mali basin and thats where they had civilization

 

[alliumnsk]

Most African nations that came into contact with gunpowder and guns, and at the same time had both the resources and capability to manufacture them, did exactly that (or at least made serious attempts to do so). Asante, Dahomey, Benin, etc. are all examples.

Most African states that were in regular contact with Europeans became highly interested in Europeans and European culture, European products, and European technology. If these African states failed to "advance" even after such contact, it was largely because most Europeans were more interested in the slave trade and converting Africans to Christianity than engaging in more productive relations with Africans, like answering the requests of African monarchs to send skilled craftsmen and artisans to their courts. Where is the profit or salvation in that?

As usual, Europeans are blamed.
The question is, did African monarchs ask for buying technology in the first place?
Byzantines sent spies to get silk moths from China. In early modern time, Europeans tried to find secret of making porcelain. Reverse engineering common in 20th century. That's what those who want to develop do.

 

[Yakman]

As usual, Europeans are blamed.
The question is, did African monarchs ask for buying technology in the first place?

well, the Europeans wanted things from them (slaves and ivory mostly) and the Africans asked for things back - guns, molasses, iron goods, etc.

 

[alliumnsk]

well, the Europeans wanted things from them (slaves and ivory mostly) and the Africans asked for things back - guns, molasses, iron goods, etc.

That's because Africans had little else to offer. It didn't even have to be complex stuff: Europeans priced spices very much. Why didn't Africans make molasses themselves? India started producing sugar long before and Arab traders established permanent trade in 1th millenium AD.

 

[Yakman]

That's because Africans had little else to offer. It didn't even have to be complex stuff: Europeans priced spices very much. Why didn't Africans make molasses themselves? India started producing sugar long before and Arab traders established permanent trade in 1th millenium AD.

the Africans had a lot to offer. And it was worth a whole lot of money - the Europeans used the African trade to fuel their expansion across the globe.

 

[Sabotage13]

I disagree, north is like desertic hell; center is jungle hell and south is jungle/savannah hell. The only decent places i can think of is ethiopia/nile/mali basin and thats where they had civilization

You forgot the Western Kongo region, the Great Lakes region, the Swahili coast, and Zimbabwe.

 

[SDSkinner]

As usual, Europeans are blamed.
The question is, did African monarchs ask for buying technology in the first place?
Byzantines sent spies to get silk moths from China. In early modern time, Europeans tried to find secret of making porcelain. Reverse engineering common in 20th century. That's what those who want to develop do.

African monarchs did ask for technology; I believe someone posted an excerpt of a king asking for craftsmen in this thread. However Africa is beset by endemic disease so getting people from Europe to voluntarily settled down in the interior is not going to happen.

As for reverse engineering, Africa mostly imported firearms and luxury goods. While there were places in sub-Saharan Africa that developed gun production, luxury goods tend to be valuable since they can't produced locally.

That's because Africans had little else to offer. It didn't even have to be complex stuff: Europeans priced spices very much. Why didn't Africans make molasses themselves? India started producing sugar long before and Arab traders established permanent trade in 1th millenium AD.

Sub-Saharan Africa didn't grow sugar (so no molasses).

As for alternative goods, look at China's premodern trade. The UK had to get them hooked on opium because the only other thing they were really interested in was silver. There weren't a lot of things that people could make that would be affordable in other countries.

 

[LinusLinothorax]

You forgot the Western Kongo region, the Great Lakes region, the Swahili coast, and Zimbabwe.

Not even to mention that there were tons of sultanates and kingdoms in the savannah and the atlantic forest belly, so his statement is crap anyway.

 

[stevieji]

What we have here is someone resurrecting a thread which died 6 months ago. Not only that, but (for whatever reason) making it the very first subject on which they wish to comment.
It does seem to raise an interesting question, though - the reasons behind Africa's inability to make the transition from an economy which supplies its natural resources to the rest of the world (first to the west, now the east as well) - and has not been able to develop the more profitable industries which process these raw materials - the next stage of development of an industrial society.
The obvious answer is exploitation - but why have the Africans been unable to resist it - and to mount an effective defence of their own interests?
I realise I'm generalising - Africa is a huge continent with many different states - but it does seem to be a general problem.

 

[AjayAlcos]

What we have here is someone resurrecting a thread which died 6 months ago. Not only that, but (for whatever reason) making it the very first subject on which they wish to comment.
It does seem to raise an interesting question, though - the reasons behind Africa's inability to make the transition from an economy which supplies its natural resources to the rest of the world (first to the west, now the east as well) - and has not been able to develop the more profitable industries which process these raw materials - the next stage of development of an industrial society.
The obvious answer is exploitation - but why have the Africans been unable to resist it - and to mount an effective defence of their own interests?
I realise I'm generalising - Africa is a huge continent with many different states - but it does seem to be a general problem.

The factor most to blame is geography. As necessity is the mother of invention; human beings, civilizations and societies are ultimately shaped by their surroundings and how they interact with them. The African continent compared with Eurasia or the America's is undeniably one of the most harshest landmasses (ecologically speaking) in the world. In Africa, human beings have to face of against the aridity of the Sahel, dryness of the Sahara and the humidity and malaria of the tropical interior (around the equator). Only Antarctica, Northern Eurasia and Australia are considered more inhospitable for human habitation compared to it. As a result, establishing stratified communities on the African continent proved more difficult, but not impossible (Mali Empire, Ethiopia, Somalia etcetera). Another factor why human beings in Africa weren't able to develop to the degree of their Eurasian counterparts is also the difficulty in communication. In Europe, travel was relatively easy compared with other parts of the globe due to relative size and also because of rivers such as the Danube, Rhine, Volga, Dnieper, Tiber and the Seine (to name a few) which acted as thoroughfares.

Rivers provide not only a source for agricultural nourishment but also act as natural "roads" for people to travel along and as landmarks to aid in getting ones bearings. Also the Mediterranean, which has been considered the cradle of many civilizations such as the Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans and so-on; basically gaves "civilization-rich" areas such as Europe and the Middle-East a cross-cultural melting pot in which everyone could travel and transmit information, innovations and ideas back and forth. If you add the temperate climate, lush vegetation and fertile soil of the European Continent; theres pretty much little other reason as to why Europe came to dominate the globe. In Africa however, the only the parts of the continent in which civilization could benefit from any geographic arrangement during the Classical era were lands straddling the Mediterranean (Egypt, Carthage and the Berber Kingdoms), as well as those connected by the Nile river (Kush, Aksum, Meroë) and along its most major estuaries (Abyssinia). The societies along the western part of Africa such as the Ghana, Mali and Songhai empires only flourished due to the domestication of the camel; which allowed the to traverse the Sahara with greater ease and thus establish links with coastal Mediterranean centers such as Carthage & Cyrene.

When establishing the reasons behind the relative primitiveness of African societies further south of the equator, those conditions can be attributed mostly to the lack of a direct communication-link between the northern and southern parts of the continent. In antiquity, peoples along extreme south-western part of the continent (such as Khoikhoi and the San aka. "Bushmen") developed very differently in cultural and linguistic terms compared to their neighbours (the Bantu) not only due to their isolated environs (Kalahari Desert), but also the ability in which they could interact with their northern part of the continent (e.g. trade winds). To summarize; geographical isolation has a tendency to extremely stunt development of human societies due to constraints on cross-social communication; and in some cases can lead to decimation/eradication (e.g. Amerindians). To state one last interesting example, the Australian Aboriginals had lived the same cyclical hunter-gatherer lifestyle for over 40,000 years. They were so isolated from the rest of the world that they didn't even receive the know-how to develop the bow and arrow. It was only when the European settlers arrived that their long established archaic lifestyle was irreparably disrupted, and hence they were sadly brought very close to extinction.

EDIT: Holy hell, I should've just started a new thread.

 

[stevieji]

The factor most to blame is geography. As necessity is the mother of invention; human beings, civilizations and societies are ultimately shaped by their surroundings and how they interact with them. The African continent compared with Eurasia or the America's is undeniably one of the most harshest landmasses (ecologically speaking) in the world. In Africa, human beings have to face of against the aridity of the Sahel, dryness of the Sahara and the humidity and malaria of the tropical interior (around the equator). Only Antarctica, Northern Eurasia and Australia are considered more inhospitable for human habitation compared to it. As a result, establishing stratified communities on the African continent proved more difficult, but not impossible (Mali Empire, Ethiopia, Somalia etcetera). Another factor why human beings in Africa weren't able to develop to the degree of their Eurasian counterparts is also the difficulty in communication. In Europe, travel was relatively easy compared with other parts of the globe due to relative size and also because of rivers such as the Danube, Rhine, Volga, Dnieper, Tiber and the Seine (to name a few) which acted as thoroughfares.

Rivers provide not only a source for agricultural nourishment but also act as natural "roads" for people to travel along and as landmarks to aid in getting ones bearings. Also the Mediterranean, has been considered the cradle of many civilizations such as the Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans and so-on, and because of this you basically have a cross-cultural melting pot; a collective lake from which everyone can travel and transmit information, innovations and ideas back and forth. If you add the temperate climate, lush vegetation and fertile soil of the European Continent; theirs pretty much little other reason as to why Europe came to dominate the globe. In Africa however, the only the parts of the continent to benefit from geographic arrangement the Classical era were those lands straddling the Mediterranean, as well as lands connected by the Nile river (Kush, Aksum, Meroë) and along its most major estuaries (Abyssinia). The societies along the western part of Africa such as the Ghana, Mali and Songhai empires only flourished due to the domestication of the camel; which allowed the to traverse the Sahara with greater ease and thus establish links with coastal Mediterranean centers such as Carthage & Cyrene.

When establishing the reasons behind the relative primitiveness of African societies further south of the equator, the conditions behind them can be attributed mostly to the lack of a direct communication-link between the northern and southern parts of the continent. In antiquity, peoples along extreme south-western part of the continent (such as Khoikhoi and the San aka. "Bushmen") developed very differently in cultural and linguistic terms compared to their neighbours (the Bantu) due not only to their isolated environs, but also the ability in which they could interact with their northern part of the continent (e.g. trade winds). To summarize; geographical constraints and isolation have a tendency to extremely stunt development of human societies and in some cases lead to their eradication (e.g. Amerindians). To state one last interesting example, the Australian Aboriginals had lived the same cyclical hunter-gatherer lifestyle for over 40,000 years. They were so isolated from the rest of the world that they didn't even receive the know-how to develop the bow and arrow. It was only when the European settlers arrived that their long established archaic lifestyle was irreparably disrupted, and hence they were sadly brought very close to extinction.

That's a very full and comprehensive assessment of why perhaps Africa didn't develop in parallel with classical and medieval Europe. I wouldn't dispute anything you say, but what I'm more interested in is why Africa has failed to catch up. It's generally accepted that the failure to develop industries which process raw materials, as opposed to exporting them for process in western industrial centres is the fundamental problem - but why?

 

[AjayAlcos]

That's a very full and comprehensive assessment of why perhaps Africa didn't develop in parallel with classical and medieval Europe. I wouldn't dispute anything you say, but what I'm more interested in is why Africa has failed to catch up. It's generally accepted that the failure to develop industries which process raw materials, as opposed to exporting them for process in western industrial centres is the fundamental problem - but why?

Instability. Colonialism left a veritable mess of things since it basically sown the seeds for future cross-ethnic/religious conflict in the nations-states which subsequently formed. Hence if you combine the arbitrary boundaries set by the Scramble for Africa (which displaced entire ethnic groups) plus the background of the Cold War, the multitudes of conflicts in the continent such such the Rwandan Genocide, Rhodesian Bush War, South African Border War and Nigerian Civil War can be seen as an "organic" realignment in which entire countries, societies and ethnicities have basically attempted to adapt to the new status-quo, in ALL aspects of life. When compared to the relatively homogeneous or more close-culturally linked societies in South East Asia, or the linguistically unified peoples of Latin America (Those randy Iberians!); African countries are still coming to terms with the artificial boundaries set by the Colonial powers in the wake of their departure; and as a result governments of respective African countries are forced to devote more resources to their militaries and law enforcement to maintain order and quell unrest; giving them little other resources or funds to put into developing key infrastructure (healthcare, education) and least of all subsidizing domestic industry. Basically in some ways, Africa and the Middle-East are similar considering both regions are riddled with nation-states created in the wake of colonialism, hence countries in those regions tend to be more reliant economically on the sale of commodities (gold, diamonds, coal, iron, agricultural products & oil etc.). So one shouldn't be surprised of by events such as the South Sudan's independence, the separation of Ethiopia and Eritrea, the internal conflicts happening in Iraq & Israel or the civil war in Syria.

 

[stevieji]

Instability. Colonialism left a veritable mess of things since it basically sown the seeds for future cross-ethnic/religious conflict in the nations-states which subsequently formed. Hence if you combine the arbitrary boundaries set by the Scramble for Africa (which displaced entire separate ethnic groups) plus the background of the Cold War, the multitudes of conflicts in the continent such such the Rwandan Genocide, Rhodesian Bush War, South African Border War and Nigerian Civil War can be seen as an "organic" realignment in which entire countries, societies and ethnic groups have basically attempted to adapt to the new status-quo, in ALL aspects of life. When compared to the relatively homogeneous or more close-culturally linked societies in South East Asia, or the linguistically unified peoples of Latin America (Those randy Iberians!); African countries are still coming to terms with the artificial boundaries set by the Colonial powers in the wake of their departure; and as a result governments of respective African countries are forced to devote more resources to their militaries and law enforcement to maintain order and quell unrest; giving them little other resources or funds to put into developing key infrastructure (healthcare, education) and least of all subsidizing domestic industry. Basically in some ways, Africa and the Middle-East are similar considering both regions are riddled with nation-states created in the wake of colonialism, hence countries in those regions tend to be more reliant economically on the sale of commodities (gold, diamonds, coal, iron, agricultural products & oil etc.). So one shouldn't be surprised of say by past or current events such as the South Sudan's independence, the separation of Ethiopia and Eritrea or the internal conflicts happening in Iraq & Israel or the civil war in Syria.

I completely accept the idea that African societies are very often existing in parallel with, or opposition to, artificially created borders. This has always been a problematic way of organising populations and the land upon which they live. I have a particular sympathy for nomadic peoples, wherever they are in the world. As a general principal, borders need to be as open as possible.

 

[AjayAlcos]

I completely accept the idea that African societies are very often existing in parallel with, or opposition to, artificially created borders. This has always been a problematic way of organising populations and the land upon which they live. I have a particular sympathy for nomadic peoples, wherever they are in the world. As a general principal, borders need to be as open as possible.

Agreed, though some monetary aspects of the EU system for example are flawed; regional confederations are in many ways the most effective modern means to maintaining peace and stability.

 

[Abdul Goatherd]

What we have here is someone resurrecting a thread which died 6 months ago. Not only that, but (for whatever reason) making it the very first subject on which they wish to comment.
It does seem to raise an interesting question, though - the reasons behind Africa's inability to make the transition from an economy which supplies its natural resources to the rest of the world (first to the west, now the east as well) - and has not been able to develop the more profitable industries which process these raw materials - the next stage of development of an industrial society.
The obvious answer is exploitation - but why have the Africans been unable to resist it - and to mount an effective defence of their own interests?
I realise I'm generalising - Africa is a huge continent with many different states - but it does seem to be a general problem.

For the same reason the United States was unable to resist it in the first century after its independence. Or Brazil. Or Argentina. Or whatever. When your economy was geared to primary production, and plugged into world trade networks, it is hard to switch specializations into more productive manufacturing.

In the US, it took a massive civil war that killed hundreds of thousands, and massive tariffs against the rest of the world for another half-century in order to switch.. And they were already hugely lucky in terms of geography & resources. The industrialization of Russia went through even worse wrenching pain.

The idea that countries "developing" as if this was something natural, that happens easily and painlessly, is ludicrous. It often takes defiance, ruthlessness and buckets of human blood - and that is assuming you know what you're doing.

 

[Druplesnubb]

@stevieji: I'm glad I'm not the only one suspicious as hell about the guy who joined for the sole reason of resurrecting a 7 months old thread so he could talk about how backwards Africans are and how the Europeans did nothing wrong.

 

[stevieji]

For the same reason the United States was unable to resist it in the first century after its independence. Or Brazil. Or Argentina. Or whatever. When your economy was geared to primary production, and plugged into world trade networks, it is hard to switch specializations into more productive manufacturing.

In the US, it took a massive civil war that killed hundreds of thousands, and massive tariffs against the rest of the world for another half-century in order to switch.. And they were already hugely lucky in terms of geography & resources. The industrialization of Russia went through even worse wrenching pain.

The idea that countries "developing" as if this was something natural, that happens easily and painlessly, is ludicrous. It often takes defiance, ruthlessness and buckets of human blood - and that is assuming you know what you're doing.

You make a good point - it does require a determined effort - and that's why I phrased it that way - "The obvious answer is exploitation - but why have the Africans been unable to resist it - and to mount an effective defence of their own interests?".
Not sure how the American civil war relates to this, but tariffs would certainly be an effective weapon.
My feeling is that African leaders are making deals which enrich themselves, but not their people. If the money was used for development of infrastructure and industry Africa's position might change over time.
Russia is an interesting example - it required great determination and a command economy - which won't be popular here, but would certainly help in Africa.

 

[olm]

Russia is an interesting example - it required great determination and a command economy - which won't be popular here, but would certainly help in Africa.

Russia could have done same even without command economy, although probably at slower pace.
Also backwards and agrarian Russia Empire was still super industrialized compared to average 3rd world African country. It was country that produced warships, cars and airplanes. Soviet era industrialization simply meant that it started producing a lot more of those things.