Anonymous A started this discussion 1 hour ago#134,068
This feels a bit like explaining to a child that Santa clause isn’t real, but Americans and / or Europeans will never colonize Africa again. I know white people think they have nuclear weapons and aircraft carriers and all of that, but it just will not happen, ever.
If you feel like arguing with this, keep waiting for it to happen, it literally just won’t fucking happen.
Anonymous A (OP) triple-posted this 1 hour ago, 6 minutes later, 15 minutes after the original post[^][v]#1,428,439
What’s a good analogy? It’s sort of like, a long time ago, 200 years ago, two guys armed with handguns robbed a bank that had one unarmed guard. And now, you want to rob the bank, and you feel more confident because now there are 7 of you, and instead of handguns you have rifles. Except, now there are 15 guards, they have handguns, and there’s no money in the vault. It’s the kind of thing where if you win you still kinda lose.
Anonymous A (OP) quadruple-posted this 1 hour ago, 2 minutes later, 18 minutes after the original post[^][v]#1,428,440
If you multiply the number of people in those scenarios by about 100 million, and replace rifles with modern western military technology and replace handguns with all the AK-47s lying around in Africa, that’s basically why it’s not going to happen.
Anonymous C joined in and replied with this 58 minutes ago, 2 minutes later, 54 minutes after the original post[^][v]#1,428,442
Then on the nuclear question, nuclear weapons aren’t strategically useful. If you nuked some city in Africa, it isn’t exactly obvious what that would accomplish apart from convincing all the other African countries they need to race towards making a nuclear weapon for their survival. Then you’d have to explain to the world why you just did that, which you can’t. That would be about the most stupid thing you could possibly do.
Anonymous C double-posted this 56 minutes ago, 1 minute later, 56 minutes after the original post[^][v]#1,428,443
@1,428,441 (B)
That map is from 2009, you might want to update your information on the Sahel region. There have been a bunch of coups and now there are anti-western pro-Russian military juntas leading those countries.
Anonymous C triple-posted this 51 minutes ago, 5 minutes later, 1 hour after the original post[^][v]#1,428,444
Interesting thing: Nigeria was actually against the pro Russian military juntas and threatened to invade Niger over this, and the United States bombed Nigeria under Trump.
Anonymous C replied with this 39 minutes ago, 7 minutes later, 1 hour after the original post[^][v]#1,428,447
@previous (B)
"Neocolonialism" isn’t the same thing as colonialism. Neocolonialism is just western resource extraction from Africa. It’s not comparable to what actual colonialism was. Neocolonialism is backfiring in that it’s been inspiring anti-western populist authoritarian governments. Long term, it will end up doing far more damage to the west than good.
Anonymous C double-posted this 27 minutes ago, 11 minutes later, 1 hour after the original post[^][v]#1,428,448
I guess, the thing is, two things can be true at the same time. It is true that the west tries to economically exploit Africa because they see African countries as weak. It’s also true that Africans know that and they resent that, so for some people in some parts of Africa, it might start to look more appealing to turn to an authoritarian figure that promises greater independence. But the issue with that is, is the west doesn’t see those countries as important because they’re militarily weak now, but these are developing countries with much higher birth rates than developed countries that will be much larger in the future, and countries where the military controls the government tend to be dangerous. Even if there is neocolonialism in Africa, it does kind of matter whether it’s the European and American sphere of influence or the Russian and Chinese sphere of influence.
Anonymous C triple-posted this 21 minutes ago, 6 minutes later, 1 hour after the original post[^][v]#1,428,449
Russia and China aren’t the same though. China is more interested in building infrastructure, Russia is more interested in pushing authoritarianism and anti-western ideology with a militaristic approach. That doesn’t matter at all if the west can provide an alternative that shows western alignment and democracy are superior. But if the west doesn’t do that, and instead the west looks down on Africans, acts like they can do whatever they want, and sees them as an uncivilized threat, that’s not going to turn out well.
Anonymous C quadruple-posted this 20 minutes ago, 49 seconds later, 1 hour after the original post[^][v]#1,428,450
But it’s like, what’s a democratic country in Africa that is sort of western, that would be the most obvious to be a strong American ally in terms of ideology? South Africa. How’s that going? Not good. Just saying.
Anonymous C quintuple-posted this 2 minutes ago, 17 minutes later, 1 hour after the original post[^][v]#1,428,451
Then there’s also the issue where in the 22nd century, due to the low birth rates in Europe, the Americas, and Asia, Africa will be the last continent to have a demographic decline. Based on the examples of the countries leading in the demographic decline (Japan), it could be possible that economic growth in develop countries stops at a certain point.