Don't Worry, Nothing important here

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

The reality is Africa is a hole in a lot of places because of poverty or a lack of strong institutions, colonies are noted for not having strong local institutions as it tends to empower the locals, therefore everything is run in second gear from wherever the centre is.

Usually someone will point to places like Ireland as an example of a democratic former colony but the problem is that the institutions here were strong precisely because London made no distinction constitutionally between Swinford in Co Mayo and Swindon in Wiltshire. (there may have been a inate social bias between the two but that's a differ story)

This helped us greatly in our independence movement as London needed low to mid level civil servants from within Ireland to run the place, after we just continued on the same style of running the place and really just painted the post boxes green is all.

I don't really believe this, the Colonies had strong institutions, you can see this especially in the former Idian and Asian economies, the difference was that in African the institutions were majority-run by colonists, largely because there was no educated local class to work with. Even so - men like Mandela were able to become Lawyers in South Africa and I don't believe there was a ever a "keep the darkies stupid" policy, at least not in British colonies. Rather, the focus was on Westernisation and Christianisation.

[Rhyfelwyr]

I know this BBC article looks mainly at India but we shouldn't dismiss colonialism as being all bad.

After all, it created relatively strong state institutions, a political class, introduced concepts like democracy etc.

I know I don't have a crystal ball Strike, but African states would have none of the typical preconditions for democracy without European intervention.

[Greyblades]

I dont think the policies of pre dismantlment european colonies is realy relevent, the issue here is whether we should take the responsability to aid our former dominions and try to set right the mistakes we made or just or let them sort themselves out. For the record I'd vote for the latter unless we are explicitly asked not to interfere by both loyalist and rebelion factions in these civil wars.

[gaelic cowboy]

I don't really believe this, the Colonies had strong institutions

No the colonies had strong central control thats not the same as good institiutions.

you can see this especially in the former Idian and Asian economies, the difference was that in African the institutions were majority-run by colonists, largely because there was no educated local class to work with.

you basically agreed with my point then that stronger local empowerment breeds more chance of sucess later, how long do you think these classes of people would have stayed educated if they were kept out of the political and economic system.