Which Africa?
Via Rod, I came across this rather extraordinary article by one Kevin Myers in the Irish Independent, in which he proclaimed Africa worthless:
They are now — one way or another — virtually all giving aid to or investing in Africa, whereas Africa, with its vast savannahs and its lush pastures, is giving almost nothing to anyone, apart from AIDS.
Far be it from me to tell anyone to be more optimistic, but if this statement is true of some parts of Africa (and I think you can fairly say that it is) it is manifestly untrue or at least grossly exaggerated concerning other parts. There is also a matter of when we are talking about: fifteen years ago, you would have listed Zimbabwe and Ivory Coast as success stories of post-colonial independence, and at that time they were doing reasonably well, but today you would list them as tragic cases of disaster to varying degrees. My inclinations towards pessimism should make me conclude that this shows that even the seemingly successful states in Africa are going to collapse into chaos and disorder eventually, but I’m not sure that this shows that at all. I think those two cases in particular do show that the politicisation of ethnicity through elements of mass democracy and the division of a country along ethnic lines tend towards the creation of ruinous, exploitative and oppressive policies that destroy previously flourishing states. The case of Zimbabwe does point to the inherent difficulties in transitioning from an old, entrenched anti-colonialist political class to a new political leadership, but it does not necessarily mean that Zimbabwe will be doomed to this cycle forever.
One of the perennial justifications offered for intervention in various African countries is the assumption, often unstated, that Africa as a whole is a hopeless disaster that will collapse in on itself if no one else does anything. We, and by “we” I mean mainly Westerners, do not take this view of any other part of the world, except perhaps when it comes to Arab states (more on that in a moment), and this is very curious. Crucial to developmentalist ideology is the idea that Africa is thrashing about impotently and needs still more aid, when surely the thing that Myers’ article tells us is that it has been the habit of development “aid” and the desire to “do something” to save immiserated Africans that have compounded the problems many African nation-states face. One essential thing that I think should be taken from Myers’ article is the recognition that it would help African states to provide them with fewer crutches of aid and loans and integrate them more fully into the world’s economy. If, as James has wisely observed, growing corruption worldwide is the great story of the decade and one of the great threats to political life in many “developing” countries, the role of development aid in fostering corruption cannot be ignored.
As William Easterly has said in one of his many salvoes against the destructive ideology of developmentalism:
But in fact, the real Africa is quite a bit different. And the problem with all this Western stereotyping is that it manages to snatch defeat from the jaws of some current victories, fueling support for patronizing Western policies designed to rescue the allegedly helpless African people while often discouraging those policies that might actually help.
As Prof. Easterly laid out last year, fatalities caused by war account for an extremely small percentage of deaths in Africa, and economic growth in sub-Saharan Africa has been considerable:
But this doesn’t quite square with the sub-Saharan Africa that in 2006 registered its third straight year of good GDP growth — about 6%, well above historic averages for either today’s rich countries or all developing countries. Growth of living standards in the last five years is the highest in Africa’s history.
The real Africa also has seen cellphone and Internet use double every year for the last seven years. Foreign private capital inflows into Africa hit $38 billion in 2006 — more than foreign aid. Africans are saving a higher percentage of their incomes than Americans are (so much for the “poverty trap” of being “too poor to save” endlessly repeated in aid reports). I agree that it’s too soon to conclude that Africa is on a stable growth track, but why not celebrate what Africans have already achieved?
Easterly makes the vital point that the standards by which African progress is often being measured demand incredible improvements in very short spans of time, and so naturally African states keep falling short despite making reasonably good progress. Easterly quoted an Ugandan journalist who asked the obvious question: “What man or nation has ever become rich by holding out a begging bowl?” This is the basic conservative understanding that dependence created by aid can be positively harmful. Whatever their intentions, humanitarians and developmentalists are working to distort and stunt the development of African nations.
Myers’ attitude towards Africa is no doubt influenced by experiences in some of the worse, more conflict-ridden states (or, in Somalia’s case, pseudo-states) and his appropriate horror at the irresponsible attitudes of many southern African governments, not merely that of Mbeki, about the region’s public health crises. Myers makes many legitimate points, and I’m sure the sweeping generalisations he ends up making are the product of frustration with the stigma against saying such things publicly. Still, it occurs to me that this overly broad view of Africa is very much like the American view of “the Middle East,” which people in this country will commonly refer to as exceedingly violent or unstable, when it has been–outside of a very narrow strip of the Levant–relatively quiet, peaceful and stable until recent years. Americans believe this because they are frequently shown only those parts of the region that make international news, and those tend to be the parts where there are intractable conflicts, and they are now often told that America’s role in the region is to provide stability in a region that supposedly would otherwise lack it. That almost exactly the opposite might be true is not really considered a serious view. The idea that Africans can make their own way in the world without ongoing assistance and support also seems to be quite unusual and controversial. Developmentalists and interventionists have many incentives to propagate the idea that outside aid and meddling are essential for the well-being of the regions in question, but this not credible. The most important thing to take away from Myers’ complaint is that these are the people who have exacerbated many of the problems that they then use to justify continued interference.
God save us – and the poor Africans – from the well intentioned but befuddled help of these Western “developmentalists and interventionists.” These folks see Africa as a perfect platform for them to play out their wish fulfillment fantasies of saving humanity, colorfully illustrated by the appropriate African baby or peasant woman. How patronizing and cheap.
I am all for solidarity between Western and African Christians (of which there are a lot actually) but anything that cuts the “development mafia” and their government enablers (USAID, DFID, etc.) down to size is a very good idea.
Daniel,
The most obvious fact about sub-Sharan Africa is that Great Unmentionable: that it is black. Does race explain societal failure? I don’t know and neither do you, because to ask the question—much less seriously to study it—is to be read out of polite society. Witness James Watson.
It is indeed heartening to learn that good news comes out of Africa, not only bad. However, it is hard to take seriously any analysis of African affairs that will not acknowledge that Iceland has certain important things in common with, say, Alabama but not with, say again, Haiti—the last of which country seems to have rather more in common with Zimbabwe than she has with either of the other two. The obvious explanation, race, may be the wrong explanation, but if so then I am still waiting for a convincing refutation of it.
There is a fundamental corruption in our discourse regarding Africa and Africans, Daniel. It cannot be impermissible to ask why Detroit lies nearly in ruins whereas, for instance, Boise does not. Are you familiar with Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs and Steel? Mr. Diamond was courageous in his own perverse way, boldly, forthrightly defending the probably indefensible proposition that race does not matter. However, one suspects that you are more likely a disciple of Charles Murray than of Mr. Diamond.
I like your work and I like your style very much. Were I asked to criticize your work—and I have not been so asked—I might observe that your work were too pessimistic, never that it were too hypocritical. This is why to analyze “Which Africa?” without acknowledging so an obvious facet of the matter as race does not seem your style, even when one appreciates the article’s uncharacteristic optimism. Thus the present comment.
Your (maybe unwritten) response may be that it is too early in your career for you to risk Steve Sailer-style marginalization, that an elderly Pat Buchanan can afford the risk whereas you cannot. If so, then this would be a wise response. But, if so, then why write on Africa at all?
I recently met a white American who had worked four years in Japan. He remarked on the near impossibility of losing one’s wallet in Tokyo without having it returned, observing that organized crime existed in Japan but that even Japanese mobsters did not stoop so low as to fail to return a lost wallet found on the street. All this was strange and interesting to me, and the more so when the man reminded me that the population of Tokyo’s metropolitan area rivalled the poputaion of the entire state of California. The depressing part of the man’s story came when he told me that his sole brush with common crime in Japan occurred when he was out late one night on an unfamiliar Tokyo street. A, er, if a euphemism may be employed, a broker of illicit personal services had propositioned him, suggesting that he might like the company of “a beautiful woman.” The man did not think it necessary to mention that he had turned the “broker’s” proposition down, but he did mention that the “broker” was not Japanese. The “broker” was an African American.
How typical.
Are you not as tired of the conventional double-speak as I am?
Howard
Howard,
I applaud your ability to speak Truth to Power. It takes great courage to insinuate the racial inferiority of black people through personal anecdotes–not just to whites but all other races on the planet.
Considering the compelling evidence you have provided, I think we should move past the debate about black’s inferiority and grapple with a more pressing issue: interbreeding.
If blacks are stupid and socially inept because of their skin pigment, then it would follow that anyone who shares those genes would also share these short comings. Consequently, allowing blacks to breed with the other races is a recipe for social disaster and widespread stupidity and ignorance.
Unfortunately, we have let the cat out of the bag on this one. The interbreeding is already occurring. Since we can’t re-institute miscegenation, it behooves white people to study what effects this interbreeding will have on social stability and white intelligence.
For example, did you know that there has been a disturbing mixture of the races in the American South? Do you think that explains why the American South is poor, stupid, and ignorant ? Now its possible that white genes can combat black genes to some extent, all non-black genes are superior to whites. However, that is mostly speculation at this point. Right now we just don’t know how powerful black genes are.
If there was a person who was half white and half black, would he or she only have a quarter of the stupidity and social instability that a full blooded black person would? Or would black genes be dominant and overwhelm the superior white genes? I don’t know and neither do you “because to ask the question—much less seriously to study it—is to be read out of polite society.”
Note: If it was unclear, this post is satire. I strongly disagree with the racism I was caricaturing.
Brilliant post, Jaloren. Last line was not neccessary but indeed some people lack the gene to understand sarcasm when they see it so it was appropriate to add that sentence.
Jaloren and Bustrofedon:
Oh that is so very clever. I had not thought of that. You are right. Iceland resembles Zimbabwe after all, and if Iceland did resemble her not then the reason could not possibly be racial, because then someone’s feelings would be hurt. I was confused. I appreciate the correction.
Since I am learning Politically Correct lessons from you, maybe you will now teach me the answers to a few questions I have. My questions: What problem do you think ersatz moral posturing such as yours solves? Whom do you think it saves? What, exactly, would it take to convince you that something as elemental as race actually might matter?
I replying, beware pedantry. No responses that employ “[sic]” to a void offering a serious argument will be honored.
Cordially,
Howard
The record of African self-government is not wonderful, with some exceptions, e.g. Barbados. I would not exclude genetic factors from an explanation, but we must be careful.
Northwest Europeans spent centuries bashing one another and their peasants, which might have justified tut-tutting by say, a Chinese observer, on the congenital surliness and indiscipline of those hairy barbarins. In some ways, Northwest Europeans have improved since then, not counting WWI and WWII.
It may take Africans quite a while to develop civil society and institutions to improve their situation, and perhaps they will require tutelage from practical people like the Chinese. Or, perhaps, a few generations of Christianity will contribute to some improvement, and indeed, perhaps Africans will help rescue Euro-American Christianity from the current heresies.
Since Europe and we have wisely decided not to try to run the place, the best thing we can do on the state level is let Africans be Africans. Private charity and solidarity are different matters, and there, humility is warranted. How often do we have little understanding of what we’re getting into, matched by overweening arrogance.
In my own opinion, I think the story of improving success in Africa is the story of the goodie well drying up and Africans having to take more initiative to create efficient civil societies. The addage is when you subsidize something you get more of it, well for decades the West has subsidized numerous corrupt African governments who has no incentive to create efficient societies. However, for a period from about the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 to the rise of self righteous musicians like Bono, the Sub African trough ran dry. In order for African autocrats to remain high on the hog, they had to go about making their countries truly attractive to foreign investment. Bureaucrats demanding bribes had to removed (or at least hidden) roads had to be kept in good condition, and some sense of political freedom had to be made (if there is one thing the 1980s South Africa and the current “De-fund Iran” phenomena support is that when a country is painted as a “evil” it’s very hard to invest there without a proverbial tar and feathering). So when one looks over the past several years, the aftershocks of the decline in foreign aid to sub-saharan Africa created incetives for Africans to develop responsibile and relatively orderly societies. But now that the bleeding hearts like Bono and the Hollywood Stars see crusading for more dole to Africa, the problems begin again, as the corrupt elections in Kenya and Zimbabwe disturbingly portend. The politicians and, more importantly, the people need to stop listening to the soapbox prattlings of pea brained rocks stars and thespians best suited to entertain us, not decide our foreign policy.