aengus: What is the geographical explanation?

Read Jared Diamond’s “Guns, Germs, and Steel”.

Africa’s north-south orientation meant it missed out on having the Eurasian super crops and domestic animals spread into it. This meant that the food base for large states/cultures just wasn’t there, so the continent was locked into tribalism.

Progress had to be introduced from outside because the lack of these crops meant there was no surplus to support large knowledge/artist classes.

Tribal cultures make bad administrators. Loyalty to the local group at the expense of the whole. And we do have white “tribal” cultures … Chicago is a good example. If you aren’t part of the machine in Chicago, you ( that is, everyone else ) are screwed.

That is what Condolezza Rice called Zimbabwe’s thugtator Robert Mugabe. (h/t: Instapundit.) She is just noticing this now?

Since he went into Pol Pot territory a few years ago, I have maintained that Mugabe is a disgrace to Western civilization, a….

Hard to call this one whities fault. History has made it so crystal clear that even Ray Charles could see that Africans make terrible administrators.

Not so. In quite a few parts of Africa, business is booming, and black African capitalists are the reason. We just don’t hear about it, because a) it doesn’t fit the media narrative and b) it would mean crediting President Bush, who built on and greatly expanded initiatives started by Bill Clinton.

Consider a few facts: The Ghana Stock Exchange regularly tops the list of the world’s highest-performing stock markets. Botswana, with its A+ credit rating, boasts one of the highest per capita government savings rates in the world, topped only by Singapore and a handful of other fiscally prudent nations.

More here.

I’m not saying it is a racial thing, but a geographical thing. There is a difference.

It may not be a racial thing but attributing it to geography makes no sense. The white Rhodesians after all had to work with the same geography when they ran Zimbabwae prosperously. Also why are both the mountains areas of North America and the Lowlands of Holland and Belgium both prosperous? What is the geographical explanation?

What will be the state of things in Zimbabwe 5 years hence?

I’d guess largely the same. Sub-saharan African countries are almost universally messed up because that’s the nature of African societies.

It’s good that Mugabe is gone, because he was especially bad, even by African measures, and his absence might mean some small improvements, but if Africa’s history teaches anything, it’s “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”

After all, we’re talking Zimbabwe here. What used the be the breadbasket of Africa has now become the basket-case.

Hard to call this one whities fault. History has made it so crystal clear that even Ray Charles could see that Africans make terrible administrators.

I’m not saying it is a racial thing, but a geographical thing. There is a difference.

I’d love to see Zimbabwe have a DECENT government that puts it back into economic play and creates prosperity for its people.

Mommynator on April 1, 2008 at 3:56 PM

Me too. It’s going to take a generation to even begin to get there though. It’s hard to revive an agricultural based economy when all of the expertise has been run off. Many of the white farmers went to Zambia and Malawi to start over. I’m not so sure they’d come back now.

Even if they did, what will they come back to? Will the new government give them their land back? Not a chance in my book.

I got an email from a good friend in Malawi earlier today. He said it is a tense situation in Zim and the surrounding countries. Mozambique and Malawi governments have sent troops to their borders to stop any exodus of Zimbabweans into their countries. It could still get ugly if the citizenry gets bent on revenge. Hopefully not.

An electoral drubbing so huge he couldn’t rig it. Or, I guess, he was so incompetent and unpopular that even the people he paid to rig it decided to cast their own vote by allowing the real results to stand…….

They found out the hard way that their poverty wasn’t the result of the “white man’s greed” afterall.

Ian Smith was quite well liked by the blacks in Zimbabwae in the last years before his death in 2007.

I do hope this works.

If he would have only done that, he could have programmed the entire election results with his garage door opener.

At least they could do no worse than Mugabe.

Let’s not count our chickens. Things can always be worse. Even if Mugabe steps down quietly this does not guarantee a peaceful transfer of power. A regime is more than one man, however vile he is. It’s still a long, rocky road for Zimbabwe.

I am sure the UN is ready willing and able to TRY scumMugabe
for crimes against humanity..I just feel it. /sarc off