/siberia/ - Off-topic

>>715930
Realistic answer: functionally the same but the Rwandan genocide just isn’t something that occurs keeping central Africa generally way more politically stable. The reason is shockingly simply; compared to most of the planet, Africa was the least colonized continent and I mean that with sincerity. The actual timeframe for colonization for the continent was around 2 decades by around the point ww1 was about to break out. Most countries we know today were colonized for centuries by that point which included most of the new world, much of central and south east Asia. Contact between colonists and Africans was limited, but actual clashes were rare mainly over logistical headaches that would come from trying to cross the Sahara or even just surviving on the continent, but also because most of the people on the continent weren’t necessarily unarmed—they’d have access to firearms for centuries over slave trade or ordinary arms making by the time the actual colonization started. And even then, how you’d define colonization for Africa’s case is weirder than for other continents given that it was similar to India in the sense that most colonists relied more on usurpation and proxy wars rather than direct confrontation with indigenous Africans.

Personally I think this makes sense when accounting for the fact that Europe is literally adjacent to Africa. Of course it would take longer and more effort to even say that a part of the continent was ever conquered even if briefly.

>>715930
Much worse than today, definitely.
What people do not understand is that the passage of time by itself does nothing. There is no magic reason why given enough centuries, writing, industry, medecine etc should appear. Look at the North Sentinelese Islands for example.

If all the tribes who cross you always have spears and arrows, there is no reason to come up with a gun. Even worse, if no tribe is trading gun powder, metal etc, the concept of a good will never pop up.

There is a reason why Ethiopia was much more advanced than the rest: it’s location on the trade routes. It was in contact with, Anatolia, Arabia and India. And thus, could trade things which were not available in Ethiopia. China, India, Europe etc would never develop if they were isolated. More important than themselves were the links between them. Once paper appeared in one of them, it would be spread among them in no time,

Africa was isolated for too long. Colonisation, brutal as it was, connected them to the rest of the world. Afrocentrists are idealistic morons.(USER WAS WARNED FOR THIS POST)

>>715937
Anon, Africa wasn’t disconnected from the planet at all and most people could access (though brutally) to it for centuries. That’s why the transatlantic slave trade was even possible from the get go. Please read a history book on the continent and its history with other continents before making replies like this

>>715938
You read books? Good, but it is time to understand them now.

There is a difference between minimal trade with only coastal kingdoms and the whole of Africa.
Many of these coastal tribes had no idea what’s in the interior lands. Africa does not have a gentle geography like europe with loads of navigable rivers. Colonialism (I) connected fragments of Africa into one African whole , and (II) connected that African whole with the rest of the world.

>>715939
You *really* need to read a whole lot better if you think anyone in Europe actually gives enough of a shit about colonization to consider building roads for the continent (the same one with notoriously shitty geography and terrain that’s bad for rail and road anyways) for reasons past extraction—especially if those roads connect to territory being fought by rivals. Even to this day, there isn’t a coherent rail system on the continent despite plans and efforts to build one not because of the cost, but because of the strain and effort it would take to ever build one.

>>715940
>>715939
Like fuck, there’s even records of countries like France destroying their own outposts and infrastructure they built on the continent to prevent other rivals or indigenous Africans from using it—I wish I could be making shit up, but pettiness is a reoccurring theme when it comes to French history; just look at Vietnam.

>>715940
again you are an emotional moron.
I know Europeans only cared about exploitation. But the material consequences took lives on their own, regardless of initial intent. And I do not know why you are hung up on railways, my point had to do with conscioussness of Africans much more than roads and railways. Once the Europeans conquered and subjugated , let's say Congo, they had also brought the Congolese tribes together in the anti-colonial fight, thus forging a national spirit.
Once they had beaten the COngolese with guns, the COngolese understood that guns are a necessity, thus modernising the army of that nation. Once they need guns, they need to forge trade links with coutnries willing to export them guns (CHina, Russia etc), and as such, the newly formed Congo nation starts to carve its place in international trade and geopolitics.

>>715943
>And I do not know why you are hung up on railways
Because that’s the most direct way to connect the continent to the rest of the planet? Besides that, youre running out of arguments. Your example with Congo is uniquely awful since you failed to realize that that country was the target of the leopold genocide (one of the top 5 largest in humanity’s history that set the precedent for the forever wars and poverty the country has been stuck in for decades now). I’d advise that you stop trying to justify your initial beliefs before you make yourself sound even worse and more arrogant over not just Africa but history in general.

>>715944
>leopold's genocide
how does that change any of what I said?

>>715946
I’m ending the discussion here. I’ll leave with advising you to not start arguments with people out of ego, nor should you approach anything related to Africa without reading anything on the continent before putting in your own ideas of what’s right

>>715947
I am an African man living in Africa. I do not need a crackka to tell me when and where I should talk about Africa.

>>715937
>>715933
horrible points
the slave trade slowed african development down substantially. we are talking about millions of your population being shipped away continuosly for hundreds of years, and you think that africa would be the same without colonialism?

>>715933
>functionally the same
absolutely not, thats completely retarded, the state borders, the local governments, the languages, the religion, the resources extraction companies and many more things were directly inherited from colonial era, ofc everything would be massively different

>>715937
fucking kys you pro colonial fuck, implying there wouldnt have been development without colonialism is the most imperialist reactionary shit I've read today

>>715950
Fair enough but that doesn’t answer specifically the question on colonization. You’re referring to the centuries of trade of goods, slaves, and commodities between much of africa and different powers prior to when colonization would officially happen (late 1800s, pre ww1 point). That window of time was too brief and too shallow politically for any tangible historical impact besides certain genocides and wars to have never occurred. I’d be more pressed about blacksmithing, proxy armies, and the general attitude between infra African collaboration efforts on the continents history than anything related to what’s happening outside of it

>>715937
Mods, why was I warned here?!
I am not defending colonialism and its horrors. I'm just stating how colonialism changed Africa, whether the colonists intended it to be this way or not.

>>715950
nobody is defending the slave trade

>>715953
you misunderstand. I did not say there would be NO development. I said that for development to occur, there has to be connections, and colonialism did those conenctions. Nobody knows, in the absence of colonialism, when, who and what would have caused those connections.

There is no if in history, you can imagine it however you want.