[coldtea]

>This is the same mentality that contributes to these countries remaining poor. Just kick out the “WASPs”…so that the local kleptocrats take over.

The "local kleptocrats" are usually just lackeys of those WASPs, put in place, supported financially and diplomatically, with arms and so on (and by pressuring their opponents) to ensure the stealing continues. On their own, they're small time crooks, the real bulk of the countries riches still goes back to the post-colonial masters...

>The problem is corruption and lack of rule of law, not WASPs

Corruption and lack of rule of law is a feature, not a bug. A feature kept in place by those bugs, the WASPs, with the help of loyal local scum.

"But, but, but those WASPS kept the rule of law an order when they governed directly as colonial masters"

Yeah, when you rule a colony and live there as ruler, it tends to benefit you to keep the rule of law. You get to stroll safe, and besides all your own colonial stealing is done "by the book" and is a-ok since it's based on your laws.

It's when you leave the place (or get kicked out) that you opt for the "divide and conquer" and "get friendly local scum to power" approaches, and helping keep the country poor, corrupt, and at war, pays dividends...

And you have your establishment scholars point out how it's the local's bad culture and unfitness for rule of law that prevents them for flourishing.

It's the same kind of people who would have written that the locals are inferior races and need taming and someone to keep them in order, a century or so ago...

[jcranmer]

By your logic, Zimbabwe should be the flourishing paradise of Africa; I'm not sure there's a country that has seen so thorough an enmity between its post-colonial ruling elite and its former colonial master (well, maybe Algeria). Yet ZANU-PF's signature achievement is the forced redistribution of land away from the white settlers, and in the process promulgated the utter ruination of its own economy.

[blackhawkC17]

Zimbabwe kicked out all the WASPs. Where did they end up? A failed state.

The issue is not WASPs, it’s bad governance. But I guess life is easy when one can just blame WASPs rather than examine themselves to find fault.

We Africans have autonomy but refuse to use it for good. It’s condescending to assume we have no role in our problems and, to follow the logic, no role in the solutions.

[pasabagi]

Isn't it a bit a matter of culture, though? Colonial administrations are built to extract wealth from a country. So, when you get independence, that's still what the government, hell, even the infrastructure, is built for. Half the rail lines go straight to a port, all the bureaucrats know is how to squeeze people. So you end up with 'bad governance', even decades later, because that's the culture of governance that gets passed on, generation to generation.

[blackhawkC17]

Many previously colonized countries have become very successful, e.g., Singapore, Canada, Ireland, Bahrain, Cyprus, etc. Heck, even the USA was a colony, so previous colonialism is no excuse for not building a thriving country.

Good governance can be learned and implemented within a short while. We Africans just refuse to.

[pasabagi]

I think the only country you've mentioned that's a) not a city state and b) run by the colonized people, not the colonizers, is Ireland. If you look around the world, there's a pretty strong correlation between length of colonial subjugation, and the misfortunes of the people who were colonized today. I mean, in the USA, it was a colony for a long time, and there are hardly any Native Americans left, and those that survived live in the worst parts of the country, generally in poverty. The same is basically true of Canada, or Australia.

Countries like Japan, never colonized, or China, only briefly and partially colonized, seem to recover way faster. I also don't think it's specifically an African thing: look at the Phillipines, or Pakistan, or large parts of the ME.

[blackhawkC17]

Okay, we can keep making excuses. If we follow your logic, these countries (including mine) are destined to be mediocre and nothing can change it in the short term.

We should never push for change...it's the colonizer's fault always.

[pasabagi]

I guess it's a question of what change you push for. Imagine you go to post-revolution Haiti, and you just try to push for economic growth. You recognize that the country has an internationally competitive sugar industry. So you work out ways to convince everybody to go back and work on the sugar plantations, producing sugar for export. Except, you're in competition with the slave plantations, so you can't really pay people good wages or have good conditions. People don't like that, so they revolt, and you repress them with force. Before long, you have produced something like pre-revolution Haiti.

Sometimes it's important to recognize the history in order to push in the right direction. I don't know what the right direction is, but I think saying that Africans just suck because they've been dealt an awful hand seems unfair. I figure it's just really hard to get out from under the feet of an international system that was built for and by colonizers, and there are very few clearly good choices about how to do it.

[ginko]

Why WASPs in particular? Not even Anglo or Protestant, just wondering.