Zimbabwe 2.0 Inbound
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Please explain how long (in years) the descendents of violent colonisers have to be on land before its 'fair enough' and the land is immune to being handed back to the descendents of the original owners who are still around and complaing of being discrimated against.. .
Please detail how you come to whatever figure you suggest and confirm whether or not it's universal. (and if not why not)
The fact remains that at the same time as white europeans were expanding into what is now south africa from the western cape area that the zulu's were launching a very brutal expanision from the North eastern areas, Killing, raping and displacing many other blacks as they did so....
That you have no sympathy for white farmers, in the here and now, in SA who face tacitly approved state sanctioned murder, rape and gross mutilation on top of a govement that wants to legalise stealing land they have worked on and maintained and whose members sings such delightful songs like "kill the boer" is a refection I would suggests of a rather morally deficient charcter
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Pretty much. Basically it boils down to the fact that Africa has abundant natural resources and land, but has to deal with horrific levels of disease, impenetrable trade routes (thousands of miles of forest an mountains), relatively few waterways for transportation/travel (civilizations generally grow in coastal areas and on large rivers - eg Egyptians, Mesopotainains, Romans, British).
Many of those issues are still prevelant today, especially the transportation issue. Conversely those reasons are in part why Britain became the industrial powerhouse we are/were. Abundant resources but benign climate, fewer diseases, easy topography and short travel distances, access to vast expanses of water for trade and travel and other civilizations close by to trade with.
That said, conversely to what was mentioned earlier there were quite a number of civilizations in sub Saharan Africa prior to colonization. Many may not have built large buildings and modern weapons, but they were organized, hierarchical, centralized civilizations with civil servants, governments and taxes.
Many of them waned and fell naturally prior to colonization (Zimbabwe for example, who actually built large buildings) some were wiped out/absorbed by European colonization, and a few still survive (Ethiopia being one example, never colonized). The Zulu army of 20,000 didn’t just magically appear from nowhere for example.
The idea Africa was entirely full of disparate small “backwards” tribes with no contact with the outside world before the Europeans was a great excuse for the exploitation and colonization of Africa, but certainly not reality in significant parts of the continent.
Interestingly it’s becoming apparent that it’s the same in South and Central America. There were huge cities, some bigger than those in the west at the time, with millions of people living and working under organized governance, until the Europeans arrived. We (well mostly Spanish and Portuguese) decimated the population with disease and death and now many of the small tribes in the Amazonian basin are beloved to be the remnant populations that survived what can pretty much be described as a biblical event. (Obviously that’s simplified but it’s the gist).
As for the thread. It’s a massive shame if they follow through with this, unfortunately if they do SA may well become like Zimbabwe is now. Divisive policies never work, but are great in getting voted form those thatfeel downtrodden. It’s not “your” fault, blame those that are different to you!
Soldato
I read somewhere that white farmers own something like 72% of farmable land whilst only accounting for 8% of the population.
This clearly isn’t the answer but does seem like some rebalancing needs to be done.
This clearly isn’t the answer but does seem like some rebalancing needs to be done.
Africa has as much colonization and invasion as Europe did, over similar time frames. Ethnic groupings of people that are now present in places in Africa now didn’t necessarily start there, and quite often took land off those that were there before them.
Soldato
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What do you think this "rebalancing" will achieve exactly?
Caporegime
'Rebalancing' makes no sense unless the new owners of the land actually know how to farm it properly.
They don't think like that!
**Assuming that's aimed at me**
I never said there were no civilisations just a lack of advanced ones give the large area encompassed by sub Saharan Africa.
Large more permeant settlements (i.e. made from stuff like stone) are a hallmark of more advanced organised civilisations the world over be it China, Europe, The middle east, south America or anywhere else...
That Europeans initially thought Great Zimbabwe might have been built by Arabs is a testament to the rarity of such structures in sub Sahara Africa... and great Zimbabwe... the biggest ruins in sub Saharan Africa is not exactly that impressive compared to the ruins of other continents left by the likes of the Greeks, Chinese, Aztecs, Hindus (Ankor Wat) and many others
The Black African nations may on occasion have been able to raise primitively armed armies in the tens of thousands but that's hardly impressive when the Chinese were fielding professional armies running into the hundred of thousands by 300BC
Same goes for the Aztecs who could field armies in the hundreds of thousands by the time the Spanish turned up
of course by yourself mentioning the South American advanced civilisations (prior to European colonialism) you reinforce my point about the comparative lack of development in Africa as the Civilisations in South America faced many of the same issues you cite as holding the pre colonial Africans back but this didn't stop the emergence of complicated civilisations that left a serious physical imprint
A minority owning a disproportionate amount of land is true the world over.... take England and Wales for example
Given that the 'rebalancing' invariably involves a Marxist style land grab with predictably bad results I suggest you are asking the wrong question to which you think you are not getting the 'right' answer
Soldato
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We best start taking land off the Queen. Rebalancing and all that.
Yea some of them are forming militias from what I hear, because the police and government don't care or are actually working against them. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the attackers which the farmers catch are simply never seen again (shot and buried in the middle of nowhere). When you go out with the intention of robbing, raping and murdering you get whats coming I suppose.
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Our climate isn't benign, it's the most diverse of any area of similar size in the world. I would suggest that is one of the reason why we developed. The more problems you have to solve the more advance you become.
When our development was on the similar level as Africa say after the Roman colonialist left, disease and life expectancy would have been just as bad if not worse here, cold winters kept the population down.
But it's that that made people learn and develop better farming which came about due to necessity. Where in Africa, hunter gathering with some subsistence farming was fine for a large part of the continent, so they didn't need to develop more intensive farming.
When we developed better farming methods that allowed to have more free time to develop other skills and so on, we get increasing progression in most generations.
Then add a lot off other competing European nations doing the same and having wars with them. Wars force tend to make advancements even faster than normal.
Africa stagnated, not because they were any less capable than Europeans, but because they didn't have any reason to improve. Population was reasonably stable.
Africa has a lot of problems because it's had an increase in population that doesn't match it development level. European interference/help has allowed the population to grow faster than if would have if we had left them alone.
Man of Honour
If they succeed in killing everyone who they decide is "white", who will they pick as a target next? A political ideology based on blaming everything on a target group obviously requires a target group, so they'd have to pick another one.
Soldato
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Presumably the wrong type of black, until the wrong type of black gets oppressed enough to start a revolution, one side wins and starts persecuting again.
The usual circle
the 'wrong' type of black already gets killed over there
whites can usually afford private security, immigrants from Zimbabwe etc... are seen by some as stealing their jobs
plenty of vigilantism too - people getting themselves a tyre necklace/set on fire based on hearsay
That made me smile! Even with the caveat of “any similar size” it’s still rather tenuous (most European countries are laughing to start with).
The UK has a mild, benign climate. The fact it’s just below freezing and there’s a couple of inches of snow on the ground and the “world” has stopped is a good example of that. Come back when the UK has 70C annual temperature swings (or 40C swings in 24 hours), when temperatures regularly hit +/-40C, when hurricanes and typhoons regularly batter the land, where feet of rain regularly fall etc. etc.
It’s also worth pointing out that the UK is in a temperate climate zone, it’s that because the climate is benign, no extremes.
You’re right regarding population, but it’s worth pointing out that European populations were reasonably stable as well. In fact the population has hardly changed in hundreds of years (increasing gradually) until the industrial revolution, when populations exploded.
The UKs population for example sat around 2-5 million for much of the last thousand plus years, until around the end of the 18th century, which is when it exploded and didn’t slow down until recently.
Here’s one example, with a chart for easy viewing (on phone so difficult to embed).
http://urbanrim.org.uk/population.htm
Mechanization was the key to that, not just farming techniques.
I’m not sure about your suggestion of stagnation either. There were plenty of wars, both between empires/kingdoms and more locally. Trade was quite advanced in many of the civilizations and some of the cities would have rivalled European ones at the time.
On the subject of farming, there certainly was extensive agriculture in parts of Africa. The problem is large tracts of it weren’t (and aren’t) particularly good for agriculture.
Here’s a chapter from a textbook that gives a good overview. Basically Environment (climate and poor soils), disease (both cattle and people) and population shortages were all issues.
https://www.aehnetwork.org/wp-conte...Production-Systems-in-Pre-Colonial-Africa.pdf
Growing crops in tropical and subtropical and desert climates is difficult. Soil and nutrients are eroded away by water and wind making actual good farmland quite sparse (mainly highlands where it’s cooler and soils can develop). The UK and much of Europe don’t/didn’t have this issue because our benign/temperate climate means we have thick, fertile souls. Zimbabwe and parts of South Africa are good examples of places with similar more temperate climates and good soils, hence why they was/have such good agricultural land.
There’s an interesting point in that link that I’d never really considered before. Much of Africa is at its own latitude relative to attached land, meaning there’s a lot less foodstuffs that will grow there. Again, Europe was lucky because we could grow the same crops as those developed in the Middle East, sub Saharan Africa not so much. The introduction of Maize from South America was a massive change.
(Partially) agreed.
Africa is one of the few places left that still has huge herds of wild animals, and huge tracts of “pristine” land. That’s all going to disappear to cope with the population increase unfortunately. Unless we can help countries get over the population explosion jump quickly (increased development, education and prosperity).
Realistically this is basically going to be an argument about the exact definition of “advanced civilization” and relative nature, and the exact definition of sub Saharan Africa, which may never end.
There were civilizations with millions of citizens, cities of tens (and potentially hundreds of thousands) of people, advanced trade, political and justice systems, and quite substantial might (armies in the tens of thousands were quite common, able to defeat quite large European armies, especially earlier on, when technological disparity wasn’t as great).
The building of grand monuments wasn’t quite at the same scale as some civilizations in South America at the time, but then neither were most European civilizations. Many of the civilizations did build impressive structures though (the churches in Ethiopia and Timbuktu to name two well know ones).
I’m not really into playing Top Trumps, but again, it’s worth noting that most European civilizations throughout much of the last century couldn’t match those sizes either. As mentioned in the previous post to Sasahara the industrial revolution, subsequent massive increase in population, mechanization and requirement for less people working for survival changed all that.
What we are increasingly becoming aware of is how little we actually know about pre colonial civilizations in both South America and Africa. We claim to know more about civilizations in South America, but that’s largely because there are a few stone ruins creating frozen snatches of time. That’s just not as prevalent in Africa, both because there were probably less stone buildings and because there was less abandonment.
Edit: I’m sure we would agree however that there is a distinct lack of civilizations in Southern Africa. Most of the civilizations were in West Africa and just south of the Sahara, perhaps in part indicative of favourable environment.
Heavens forbid it goes back to what it was before whites arrived. Because you know, farms, cities, spirit crushing office jobs, obesity, diabetes, reality tv, electronics, anti-depressants... that is superior. Everyone should be jammed in to the superior european way!
Let it go back to what it was. Let the population shrink back down. Let them go back to subsistance farming and herding. It's not an inferior way of life, just different. We don't have to "develop" (industrialize) every square cm of earth to the european ideal.
Let it go back to what it was. Let the population shrink back down. Let them go back to subsistance farming and herding. It's not an inferior way of life, just different. We don't have to "develop" (industrialize) every square cm of earth to the european ideal.
Soldato
They'll probably just resort to following many other African nations and slaughtering each other with spears and machetes because their Grandparents were born in different villages.