[Previous entry: "Africa's forgotten crises"] [Next entry: "Preval Declared Winner in Haiti Election"]

02/16/2006:

"The West's Debt to Africa"

Africa is poor and destined to remain poor for quite some time because of bad governance, failure to develop natural resources, corruption, inadequate or non-existent primary educational, scientific and technical training. Western countries and Euro-America are rich, because they have good governance, have developed their natural resources, have credible legal systems that are able to deal effectively with corruption, have educated their populations, and have a wealth of scientific and technical skills. This script, for some, adequately contrasts the poverty and the wealth of nations.

...In 1884 certain Western European nations, Britain, France, Germany, Belgium to mention some, convened the Berlin Conference to colonize Africa. King Leopold II of Belgium, a smaller and less important nation, extracted the Congo as his prize - territory then deemed of little economic importance. The turn of the century witnessed the invention of the automobile and a consequential global demand for rubber. The Congo had a rich supply of natural rubber. The Congolese were an available labor source to harvest the vines from which the rubber was extracted. Leopold II turned the Congo into his personal fiefdom - an actual slave colony. In 1908 when he handed the colony to Belgium, there had been some 10 million Congolese people slaughtered.

In 1956 the Congo had its first university graduate. Between 1908 and 1960, when the Congo became politically independent, there were a mere 17 university graduates from the already decimated Congolese population of some 13.5 million.
blackcommentator.com