Africa’s Dark Age

The end of colonialism throughout Africa was several generations premature. Colonialism began in Africa on the wrong foot and left it on the wrong foot.It went in with imperialistic expansionist aspirations. A century of European occupation put an effective end to a Bronze Age agricultural system of traditions and customs that had been orderly administered by clan chiefs for a thousand generations. It then abandoned its colonies when the administration costs got too high, leaving 800 million people without the farming smarts they once had, nor the industrial smarts to compete on the world market. Hence the chaos we see today.

Part of the responsibility for the chaos in Africa today can be laid at the door of African intellectuals of post WWII, who where all educated in European universities and then thought that book knowledge was enough to lead their peoples into the 20th Century. Almost all of them studied for degrees in law or medicine. None in economics or engineering technologies. As a result they were not practically orientated enough to realize that their nations needed modern infrastructures as well as a solid base of well-trained conscientious tradesmen able to establish a viable industrial base, and that the colonials at vast expense were slowly doing that job for them. It was those intellectuals who first agitated for freedom of colonial rule and gave the Europeans the excuse they needed to get out, knowing full well the economic difficulties that lay ahead for Africans.

From a more general point of view related to the evolution of human consciousness, colonialism, since before the Greeks, helped to spread scientific ideologies and technology to less advanced indigenous populations. If we had been wise enough from the very beginning to realize that the spread of scientific knowledge should have been conducted in a teacher/pupil milieu instead of an attitude of master/servant, Africa and world society in general would be far more peaceful and more advanced than it is. To a certain degree this is what Christian missionaries tried to accomplish in sub-Saharan Africa. Though they helped to spread literacy among a vast oral-based culture, they had the problem of selling a superior white God.

In the 1980's I lectured on two dozen American universities and argued against divestment in South Africa. Post-colonial Africa needed more involvement from the developed world not less. But the anti-apartheid rhetoric was far too loud to get my voice heard.The evolutionary imperative that drives all specie to colonize and have significant impacts on indigenous populations is far from simple. None more so than humans. The great value I discovered when studying the colonization of Africa was how clearly it shows the repetitions of history. Africa is a living repository of much of the social turmoil and spiritual complexities of what happened two thousand years ago when Rome colonized the tribes of Europe and the resultant post-Roman chaos of the Dark Ages. Post-colonial Africa is now heading in her own Dark Ages. If not re-enlightened by us, she may well remain there for a thousand years. That need for technological training in Africa is desperate. Without it there is little hope. Tens of Millions of cooking fires every day is denuding her already sparse bushveld.

The technological assistence Africa needs must come in two forms.

Africa is still in the process of leaving a Bronze Age agricultural milieu. At least half of the people remain iliterate and another quarter barely able to read with little or no work-skills. Africa's transition into Her own Iron Age of industrial development must encompass a generation or two of training in basic industrial trades. This effort must be accompanmied by an orthodox scriptural dogma that ensures conscientious crafstmanship. Africa needs a solid foundation of well-trained school-techers, doctors, nurses, buiilders, plumbers, electricians, miners etc to build, man aand maintain a modern infrastructure. Roads, rails, communication lines, schools, clinics etc. originally built by the colonials was only partially done and is now falling to pieces.

In the meantime, for all that to happen, a vast workforce of young foreign graduates, trained in the most advanced technological disciplines, needs to be injected into the continent to halt environmental decay and install the clean and sustainable energy needed for the industrial base to be laid. They must also help with the teaching process and deal with the disaster of AIDS.
Isn't that premise counter-intuitive? Wouldn't it make far more sense to encourage African liberation and self-expression given that you seem to see Africans as the ethnic group most closely connected to their pre-historical roots? Is the alternative not a case of the blind leading the partially sighted?The massive humanitarian requirement described above is one of the main reasons why I believe that the artificial barrier of money needs to be removed. While a monetary-based world economic system continues to determine human development and global management, Africa will continue to die and the rest of us will carry the guilt load into the future. It is our fixation that the carrot of money is the only way to get humans to behave like humans that is blinding us to reality. Trying to squeeze a profit out of every penny invetsed for the benefit of a tiny few takes all of us into the realm of insanity