[omneity]

Many african countries are extremely resource rich. They do have money, but also corruption sapping a lot of it away.

That and I don’t think political instability is a fact of life.

I like to think of it through Maslow’s pyramid of human needs. As the lower layers start to be satisfied, even the conduits for violent impulses change in nature (from physical fights to toxic gaming behavior let’s say).

As Africa lifts itself and addresses the basic needs of its population, many of the challenges it is currently experiencing will start to fade away. It’s a bit of a chicken and egg problem but I also happen to be an optimist :)

[ethbr0]

There's also the underappreciated value of institutional inertia.

A large part of why mature democracies work is the historical mass of their institutions serving as ballast to keep the system from oscillating/crashing.

I.e. Courts work in large part because people believe they work. And they believe they work because they've historically worked.

Or, in individual terms in less stable countries: "Why should I act contrary to my individual interests when the state might be gone tomorrow?"

So a big part of creating stability is faking that stability until historical mass has time to form in everyone's minds.

[BurningFrog]

Being resource rich is a well known path to poverty: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse

It's no coincidence that the resource free Singapore and Hong Kong grew from desperate poverty to the richest cities on Earth, while the countries around them did not.

[gavaw]

>Many african countries are extremely resource rich. They do have money, but also corruption sapping a lot of it away.

Which is why they need their leaders replaced by Western puppets, which will divert all the riches to the West and leave some crumbs to the citizens. Since the current power structure doesn't leave anything to the citizens, leaving crumbs would be an improvement. See India for example.