Africa - Made Better or Worse by European Colonisation?

[Fisherking]

I think you have over generalized with you statement Karel de Stoute.

Some of the practices seem brutal and barbaric but how widely are they spread?

Every Continent has had its good guys and bad guys.

Some cultures are more palatable to us than others. There are many groups in Africa as different as Danes from Arabs and to lump them all together obscures the picture.

Civilization and culture are relative terms. Many of our own advances have come from contact with so called savages.

Much of representative government came from Native American Tribes as did the knife, fork, and spoon you eat with at meals. Prior to that our European Ancestors ate with fingers and eating knife.

Africa has given us mostly food stuffs and ways of cooking.

It has seldom been the case that subject people have been viewed as much better than beasts. We do a poor job of assessing what is worthwhile and are more intent in remaking the same familiar society as where we came from.

From Ireland to the Pacific Islands the pattern seems much the same. The Natives are incapable of self rule so we must act in their best interest if they like it or not.

But the cultures had managed just fine before we got there.

Did we aid them to advance technologically, indeed.

Did we teach them to solve problems of government, no but then we don’t always do the best job either.

But that is just my view.