A GENERATION of university students grew up on Walter Rodney's famous 1972 book, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. By uncritical acclaim and frequency of use, the book has achieved the status of sacred text. The launch of the African Union a couple of weeks ago has resurrected a long, lingering interest in raising some critical questions about the central premise of the book.
Rodney set out his proposition as fact at the start of his second chapter: "It has been shown that, using comparative standards, Africa today is underdeveloped in relation to Western Europe and a few other parts of the world; and that the present position has been arrived at, not by the separate evolution of Africa on the one hand and Europe on the other, but by exploitation. To set the record straight", Rodney declared, "four operations are required."
The first is a reconstruction of the nature of development in Africa before the coming of the Europeans.
The second is the reconstruction of the nature of development which took place in Europe before expansion abroad.
The third operation is an analysis of Africa's contribution to Europe's present state (reminiscent of Eric Williams' equally famous study, Capitalism and Slavery).
The fourth, which is the essence of the book, is analysis of Europe's contribution to Africa's present 'underdeveloped' state.
Emphasising that "a survey of the scene in Africa before the coming of Europeans would reveal considerable unevenness of development, the historian went on to set out the often neglected, little known stories of great African civilisations of the pre-European period. Rodney's example ran from Egypt through Ethiopia, Nubia, Morocco, the Western Sudan, and East Africa to Zimbabwe. The political and military skills and exploits of the great Zulu leader Shaka Zulu were dwelt upon at some length. The suppression and loss of this history is, of course, one of the large negative consequences of the entry of the imperialistic and racist Europeans.
Rodney's Marxist historiographic perspective is very clear. He launches his study with an extensive 1964 quotation from the Latin American revolutionary Che Guevara which proclaimed "The surging growth of the countries in the socialist camp" vis a vis capitalist ones, and which called for the complete elimination of capitalist exploitation as "The only way to solve the questions now besetting mankind".
Rodney himself boldly declared that, "It is one of the functions of those who justify capitalism (bourgeois writers) to try to pretend that capitalism is here to stay. A glance at the remarkable advance of socialism over the last 50-odd years will show that the apologists for capitalism are spokesmen of a social system that is rapidly expiring."
In Rodney's view underdevelopment "expresses a particular relationship of exploitation the exploitation of one country by another. All of the countries named as 'underdeveloped' are exploited by others; and the underdevelopment with which the world is now pre-occupied is a product of capitalist, imperialist and colonialist exploitation.
Walter Rodney's answers to "Some Questions on Development" are nothing short of a fulsome socialist homily and a bitter anti-capitalist polemic. He got blown up back in his native Guyana in 1980 before recent history (not mere theory) so thoroughly discredited the most fundamental elements of his framework of analysis.
If Walter Rodney has turned out to be so wrong in the fundamentals of his framework of analysis what confidence can be reposed in his conclusions about how Europe underdeveloped Africa?
Challenging the thesis of "Western responsibility for Third World backwardness", P.T. Bauer one of the world's leading economists, who has been Professor of Economics at, of all places, the London School of Economics as well as a fellow at Cambridge University, demonstrated that, "the poorest and most backward countries have until recently had no external economic contacts and often have never been Western colonies. It is therefore obvious that their backwardness cannot be explained by colonial domination or international social stratification".
Rodney's own extensive data, mobilised of course for the opposite purpose, ironically bears Bauer out. Comparing per capita income of African countries with those of Western developed countries revealed that although all African figures are lower than Western ones the lowest African ones are indeed for countries which have had the least colonial presence and impact! In 1968 US dollars: South Africa (543), Ghana (198), but Congo and Malawi (52 each). The same is true for steel and sugar consumption, infant mortality, calorie intake, and for doctor to population ratio, which then was: Tunisia (1:8,320), Niger (1:56,140), Chad (1:73,460).
P.T. Bauer points out in Equality, The Third World, and Economic Delusion (1981) that, "Some of the most backward countries never were colonies as for instance Afghanistan, Tibet, Nepal, Liberia, [and] Ethiopia." And he lists a number of Western contributions to development in Africa from wheeled traffic to rudiments of public health.
Bauer acknowledges the West as contributing to Third World poverty in two significant ways: Western activities, particularly since World War II, have done much to politicise economic life in the Third World paving the way for state-controlled economies and totalitarian states. Secondly, Western influence has helped to bring about the sharp decline in mortality in the Third World and a population surge with many more poor people surviving!
CLASH OF CIVILISATIONS
South Africa and Zimbabwe present two interesting cases in the discussion. Both were under white minority rule well into the period when most states had achieved Independence under black majority rule. Zimbabwe to 1981; South Africa under Apartheid to 1994. But in the dreadful days of Apartheid the net movement of free migrant labour was from the frontline states into South Africa. Zimbabwe, with the highest literacy rate in southern Africa (88 percent) and under one black ruler, Robert Mugabe, since Independence, is number 117/162 on the UNDP 2001 Human Development Index but even so Zimbabwe was still ahead of more than three-quarters of other African states. South Africa was number 94/162 seven years after Apartheid. Rodney relied heavily on comparative UN data in his own work.
The historian attributed a shocking naiveté to Africans: - "certain Africans became unwitting allies of Europe. Many African rulers sought a European 'alliance' to deal with their own African neighbour. Few of those rulers appreciated the implications of their actions. They could not know that the Europeans had come to stay permanently; they could not know that Europeans were out to conquer not some but all Africans. This partial and inadequate view of the world was itself a testimony of African underdevelopment relative to Europe."
Clearly African underdevelopment is a far more complex matter than a linear cause to effect result of European exploitation, as Rodney so wrongly argued 30 years ago. A far more productive analytic approach would be to attempt to balance contributing factors, and European exploitation may not be number one in a fairer, more balanced analysis. A necessary fifth 'operation' is missing from Rodney's very influential work. It is not only bad history to dismiss the substantial positive out-turns of the clash of civilisations on the African continent as across the rest of the world, in favour of proclaiming the very real negatives; it is dishonest.
Posts: 42922 | From: , | Registered: Jan 2010
| IP: Logged |
quote:Europe didn't under develop Africa. Africans did that. No one else could.
Clarifications needed.
Songhay--the centre of African trade and commerce during the 16th century--was invaded and defeated by a Moroccan army led by ex-Spanish slave Judar Pasha[castrated] and an army of 4,000 mainly Spanish mercenaries.
Pasha's newer and more advanced guns and cannon allowed his expedition to defeat a much larger Songhay army at the Battle of Tondibi in 1591. Gao was destroyed in the process.
Kati, the Songhay historian recounted this auspicious day in his Tariq after the war was over. The Moroccan goal was to capture the Trans-Saharan gold and salt monopoly that Songhay enjoyed.
After that defeat, the central power of West Africa fell by the wayside and never recovered. Just look at how weak Mali is today.
After that deafeat the economy of West Africa then fell into the hands of the Europeans who penetrated the Western coast of Africa to exploit for labour power for the Americas.
So instead of African labour going to develop West and Central Africa, the African economy, i.e. its labour and capital was perverted to o African to serve the needs of Europe.
As a result the wealth of Europe grew and that of Africa diminished. There was no "Accumulation of Capital" to lead to further development as was the case with Western Europe. The "Trans-Atlantic Trade" benefited Europe and diminished Africa--that is West Africa.
This is what is meant by "How Europe Underdeveloped Africa".
Posts: 5492 | Registered: Nov 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
Niggas still trying to rationalize Black African failure with the exception of Melaninking who keeps it real. Respect, Melaninking.
Posts: 816 | Registered: Oct 2011
| IP: Logged |
This is standard history. Check any History of West Africa written by Africans or Europeans. UNESCO History of Africa, Cambridge History of Africa, Ajai and Crowder, etc.
Why betray you moniker? You're about facts, right?
Posts: 5492 | Registered: Nov 2004
| IP: Logged |
quote:Europe didn't under develop Africa. Africans did that. No one else could.
Clarifications needed.
Songhay--the centre of African trade and commerce during the 16th century--was invaded and defeated by a Moroccan army led by ex-Spanish slave Judar Pasha[castrated] and an army of 4,000 mainly Spanish mercenaries.
Pasha's newer and more advanced guns and cannon allowed his expedition to defeat a much larger Songhay army at the Battle of Tondibi in 1591. Gao was destroyed in the process.
Kati, the Songhay historian recounted this auspicious day in his Tariq after the war was over. The Moroccan goal was to capture the Trans-Saharan gold and salt monopoly that Songhay enjoyed.
After that defeat, the central power of West Africa fell by the wayside and never recovered. Just look at how weak Mali is today.
After that deafeat the economy of West Africa then fell into the hands of the Europeans who penetrated the Western coast of Africa to exploit for labour power for the Americas.
So instead of African labour going to develop West and Central Africa, the African economy, i.e. its labour and capital was perverted to o African to serve the needs of Europe.
As a result the wealth of Europe grew and that of Africa diminished. There was no "Accumulation of Capital" to lead to further development as was the case with Western Europe. The "Trans-Atlantic Trade" benefited Europe and diminished Africa--that is West Africa.
This is what is meant by "How Europe Underdeveloped Africa".
Lamin
Barbarians will always be at the gate. However, African, like China and the Americas will always have a native that not only opens the door, but will provide them with a detailed map of the compound.
These natives are always fooled by the barbarians. See my thread on the Chinese opinion of whites whom they opened the door for and allowed in.
Soon after, their land was flooded with Dutch/English Opium and Jesuit instigated wars.
The most powerful tool of the barbarian is, the bribe. Still works in Africa and the middle east today as it did thousands of years ago.
I know what you are attempting to say about whites being the aggressors, but would they have been so successful had they not had so many willing inside accomplices?
Posts: 2403 | Registered: Feb 2010
| IP: Logged |
posted
The pentetration of West Africa from the Western coast by Western Europe(British, French, Spanish, Portugese, Dutch, etc.) traders perverted Africa's economy to the extent that most of trade and commerce was developed by the trading enclaves set up on the West coast of the continent. The internal trade of West Africa and even further south as far as the Congo no longer existed.
The wealth generated by the produce of the low cost captured labour compared to its profits led to the rapid development of Capitalism and its morphing from its commercial phase to its industrial phase--thanks to Research and Development of new technologies. The colonisation of Africa by the same nations that first penetrated on the West coast was a logical outcome. Colonisation was essentially and economic enterprise that used forced African labour to grow cash crops and to excavate the other raw materials and minerals of Africa for Europe's benefits.
The map of West Africa provides prrof of this colonial history: small, quilt work type countries that were carved out along North-South lines according to colonial whim. They are very weak militarily and run by chosen acolytes of European neo-colonial interests.
Attempts to reverse the present situation is automatically met by violent and savage reactions from Europe--intent on keeping its way in Africa as a whole.
Posts: 5492 | Registered: Nov 2004
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by MelaninKing: Waste of time article from mentally deranged view point. Europe didn't under develop Africa. Africans did that. No one else could.
your knowledge of history seems to be under developed. You don't know what your talking about. Hard to develop something under colonialism and then under a educational and monetary system setup to benefit Europeans. Read a book, learn history THEN form a INTELLIGENT opinion instead of forming ideas based off of animalistic instincts.
Posts: 1296 | From: the planet | Registered: May 2011
| IP: Logged |
posted
lamin, explain why China was able to build the great wall to fend off barbarian invasion, yet Africans were so militarily incompetent & weak to protect themselves? Really?
Posts: 816 | Registered: Oct 2011
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by MelaninKing: Waste of time article from mentally deranged view point. Europe didn't under develop Africa. Africans did that. No one else could.
your knowledge of history seems to be under developed. You don't know what your talking about. Hard to develop something under colonialism and then under a educational and monetary system setup to benefit Europeans. Read a book, learn history THEN form a INTELLIGENT opinion instead of forming ideas based off of animalistic instincts.
Why are the under Colonialism in the first place? Simply because some ignorant ancestor saw them on the coast, greeted them, and lead them straight to their village. You would have thought the next village would have been smarter, but they proved to be as dumb as the first. Africa's demise is due to tribalism, superstition, and ignorance more than any other external factor. This still remains true, today, hundreds of years later.
Posts: 2403 | Registered: Feb 2010
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by MelaninKing: Waste of time article from mentally deranged view point. Europe didn't under develop Africa. Africans did that. No one else could.
your knowledge of history seems to be under developed. You don't know what your talking about. Hard to develop something under colonialism and then under a educational and monetary system setup to benefit Europeans. Read a book, learn history THEN form a INTELLIGENT opinion instead of forming ideas based off of animalistic instincts.
Why are the under Colonialism in the first place? Simply because some ignorant ancestor saw them on the coast, greeted them, and lead them straight to their village. You would have thought the next village would have been smarter, but they proved to be as dumb as the first. Africa's demise is due to tribalism, superstition, and ignorance more than any other external factor. This still remains true, today, hundreds of years later.
your stupidity seems to be boundless
Posts: 1296 | From: the planet | Registered: May 2011
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Doug M: Africa as a continent has always been underpopulated relative to other continents. Europe is 1/8th the size of Africa and has almost the same size of population. America is 1/5th the size of Africa and has almost half the population.
That is part of it. The other part is the intentional underdevelopment by which European companies take out all the resources like food, water, electricity, tin, copper, aluminum and so forth to build up their own societies but turn right around and make up all sorts of gimmicks like the swing water pump as substitutes for actual infrastructure in Africa using the same resources. Or the current agricultural scams where most of the best land is used for crop export with all the modern technology and infrastructure to support it, while the worst land with no technology or infrastructure is used to feed Africans, almost guaranteeing continued hunger in various places every year. And the NGOs come in and offer token programs that do nothing but make them rich and leave Africans worse off, like tiny little hand pumps that break 2 months after the NGOs leave or little water spigots driven by solar power that you actually have to pay for in rural areas. What happened to water being free? What happened to the old fricking fashioned hand pump? Or the electricity NGO that is going around putting 2 light bulbs and a cell phone charger in huts or houses that uses a car battery that gets recharged as opposed to wiring up African towns to the electrical grid.... But at the same time all those foreign mining companies and plantations have plenty of electricity flowing from power plants that are purposely not tied to the national grid....
posted
One can simply look at Africa today to deduce what happened hundreds of years ago.
What did Africa leaders do when they observed the west instigating the coup in Libya? Nothing. They sat on their trifling asses and wallowed in the illusion that it did not and would not affect them at that point in time. Nor would it affect them in the future. They were/are wrong, and as their tribal kingdoms fall to Arabs, one by one, they will have no one else to blame but themselves. Interestingly, the same is true for African Americans and their long and drawn out self destruction.
posted
I have a new found respect for you, Melaninking. Perhaps not all Afrocentrists are obtuse after all.
quote:Originally posted by MelaninKing: Africa's demise is due to tribalism, superstition, and ignorance more than any other external factor. This still remains true, today, hundreds of years later.
quote:Originally posted by MelaninKing: Waste of time article from mentally deranged view point. Europe didn't under develop Africa. Africans did that. No one else could.
your knowledge of history seems to be under developed. You don't know what your talking about. Hard to develop something under colonialism and then under a educational and monetary system setup to benefit Europeans. Read a book, learn history THEN form a INTELLIGENT opinion instead of forming ideas based off of animalistic instincts.
Why are the under Colonialism in the first place? Simply because some ignorant ancestor saw them on the coast, greeted them, and lead them straight to their village. You would have thought the next village would have been smarter, but they proved to be as dumb as the first. Africa's demise is due to tribalism, superstition, and ignorance more than any other external factor. This still remains true, today, hundreds of years later.
your stupidity seems to be boundless
When swimming in known shark infested waters, it's only you to blame for not being armed with a spear gun and taking the necessary action to defend yourself. Only a fool will blame the shark.
Posts: 2403 | Registered: Feb 2010
| IP: Logged |
posted
MelaniKing, have you experienced some kind of epiphany as of late? This is not like an Afrocentrist to speak this way. I am taken aback, to be honest.
quote:Originally posted by MelaninKing: One can simply look at Africa today to deduce what happened hundreds of years ago.
What did Africa leaders do when they observed the west instigating the coup in Libya? Nothing. They sat on their trifling asses and wallowed in the illusion that it did not and would not affect them at that point in time. Nor would it affect them in the future. They were/are wrong, and as their tribal kingdoms fall to Arabs, one by one, they will have no one else to blame but themselves. Interestingly, the same is true for African Americans and their long and drawn out self destruction.
I simply see the world for what it is and take responsibility for my own actions.
Once a white attempted to run me over with his car. He didn't succeed because I did not allow it. Instead I jumped out of the way, reached into his car window, grabbed his throat and squeezed. I am no victim.
To be free, you must first break the mental shackles of psychological slavery.
I have no political alliance, no social group affiliation, no religion, no financial ambitions, and no illusion about whose reality we are living in.
Free your minds and your weak asses will follow.
Posts: 2403 | Registered: Feb 2010
| IP: Logged |
posted
Right on, my dude! Right on! Suddenly I do not feel alone while wading though this sea of Negro ignorance.
quote:Originally posted by MelaninKing: I am nothing of the kind.
I simply see the world for what it is and take responsibility for my own actions.
Once a white attempted to run me over with his car. He didn't succeed because I did not allow it. Instead I jumped out of the way, reached into his car window, grabbed his throat and squeezed. I am no victim.
To be free, you must first break the mental shackles of psychological slavery.
I have no political alliance, no social group affiliation, no religion, no financial ambitions, and no illusion about whose reality we are living in.
-------------------- "TRUTH IS LIKE LIGHTNING WITH ITS ERRAND DONE BEFORE YOU HEAR THE THUNDER" - Gerald Massey "TRUTH IS FINAL" -Mumia Abu-Jamal Posts: 3446 | From: U.S. by way of JA by way of Africa | Registered: Jan 2010
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by the lioness: MK is not an afrocentrist he's an Islamicist of a sort
MK, you haven't been around for a while. I don't know if you are aware, "facts" akas are "Confirming Truth" "Superman" "Break the Bull"
an army of one
(not including buddy Anglo-Pyramidologist aka Cassisterides)
Thanks for the heads up, but I can surmise who is who simply from the responses.
FYI: Although I grew up in the Catholic and Baptist churches, and though I do prescribe to spirituality, today I observe no religion.
Posts: 2403 | Registered: Feb 2010
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by facts: Right on, my dude! Right on! Suddenly I do not feel alone while wading though this sea of Negro ignorance.
quote:Originally posted by MelaninKing: I am nothing of the kind.
I simply see the world for what it is and take responsibility for my own actions.
Once a white attempted to run me over with his car. He didn't succeed because I did not allow it. Instead I jumped out of the way, reached into his car window, grabbed his throat and squeezed. I am no victim.
To be free, you must first break the mental shackles of psychological slavery.
I have no political alliance, no social group affiliation, no religion, no financial ambitions, and no illusion about whose reality we are living in.
Free your minds and your weak asses will follow.
Are you familiar with terms such as colonialism, neo-colonialism and imperialism?
I suggest you look them up, backwoods trailer park redneck trash!
Posts: 22234 | From: האם אינכם כילדי הכרית אלי בני ישראל | Registered: Nov 2010
| IP: Logged |
quote:lamin, explain why China was able to build the great wall to fend off barbarian invasion, yet Africans were so militarily incompetent & weak to protect themselves? Really?
The invasions were coming thick and fast so they had to come up with something fast.
But the Europeans attacked from the coast and captured Hong Kong and Macau. Later coastal cities like Shanghai became European enclaves. The Chinese were supervised in these areas.
But Japan invaded China and slaughtered them at the Rape of Nanking. Korea was also invaded and colonised by Japan.
India was invaded by a number of states including the Greeks under Alexander, the Muslims from the North, and lastly by the Brits who ran the place with just a few overseers for more than 300 years. India was known as the "jewel" in the colonial crown.
It looks like winning or losing in history depends consciousnes--racial in some cases--and weaponry and military organisation.
For whatever reasons blacks historically just did not cultivate a proactive racial consciousness. Hence the accomodation of invading Arabs in North Africa and Europeans in Southern Africa.
Posts: 5492 | Registered: Nov 2004
| IP: Logged |
quote:why did the Zulus lose the Anglo-Zulu War? Posts: 9097
Guns versus assegais. No competition.
True to that, but what it does show is that Zulus had a organized hierarchical structured society. Posts: 22234 | From: האם אינכם כילדי הכרית אלי בני ישראל | Registered: Nov 2010
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by facts: lamin, explain why China was able to build the great wall to fend off barbarian invasion, yet Africans were so militarily incompetent & weak to protect themselves? Really?
quote:lamin, explain why China was able to build the great wall to fend off barbarian invasion, yet Africans were so militarily incompetent & weak to protect themselves? Really?
The invasions were coming thick and fast so they had to come up with something fast.
But the Europeans attacked from the coast and captured Hong Kong and Macau. Later coastal cities like Shanghai became European enclaves. The Chinese were supervised in these areas.
But Japan invaded China and slaughtered them at the Rape of Nanking. Korea was also invaded and colonised by Japan.
India was invaded by a number of states including the Greeks under Alexander, the Muslims from the North, and lastly by the Brits who ran the place with just a few overseers for more than 300 years. India was known as the "jewel" in the colonial crown.
It looks like winning or losing in history depends consciousnes--racial in some cases--and weaponry and military organisation.
For whatever reasons blacks historically just did not cultivate a proactive racial consciousness. Hence the accomodation of invading Arabs in North Africa and Europeans in Southern Africa.
You have to remember something. Africans are the mothers and fathers of humanity. Look at Africans in terms of this and you will understand the problem. It is like a parent to its child, always greeting with open arms, always willing to over look short comings. Think about the bastard kid who goes out and kills someone and comes home with the bloody knife. Mom opens her arms and hugs the child and says "its going to be ok son". This is the African mentality. I have seen this time and time and time again. I tell family members and other Africans I know that we need to stop this stupid sh!7. They are not our brothers, they are not our children and they do not have our best interest at heart. I have one friend who is constantly talking about how we need to educate humanity and that will stop whats going on, to which I said yeah, BULLSHi&!
This is why I constantly keep saying African NEEDS the diaspora. Those on the continent do not understand what we are up against. Where as the diaspora does, because they have seen it for generations now. African can provide that cultural link by which the diaspora can re-find itself and become one with who they are again. The knowledge the diaspora has gained while abroad can then help Africa to heal and to equip itself against those who mean us no good. I would also like to see Africa abandon Western modes of governance. That works for them and their culture, it doesn't work for us. We need to go back to a modernized version of traditional governance. One elder Oba/Oni/Obay and their elder counselors NOT voted in by people who have no idea what it takes to be a proper ruler. African mystery schools also need to be updated and made mandatory for anyone in government.
Posts: 1296 | From: the planet | Registered: May 2011
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by facts: lamin, explain why China was able to build the great wall to fend off barbarian invasion, yet Africans were so militarily incompetent & weak to protect themselves? Really?
In the 13th century, Genghis Khan invaded China and after breaking through the Great Wall the Yuan dynasty was established by his grandson. The Mongols ruled China from 1271 - 1368
posted
Unfavourable ecological realities that limited African population growth, making it vulnerable to exploitation by outsiders.
Extracts from John Reader's 1998 book, ‘Africa: Biography of the Continent’ . The sub-headings are my own -
Comparative population growth ‘It has been estimated that about 1 million people inhabited Africa when the emigrants left the continent 100,000 years ago (see Chapter 10). By AD 200 numbers are said to have risen to 20 million – of whom more than half lived in North Africa and the Nile Valley (and thus would have been part of the Roman Empire population in AD 14), leaving a sub-Saharan population of under 10 million. By AD 1500 the population of the continent is estimated to have been 47 million and in a state of ‘stable biological equilibrium’, with population size fulfilling the potential of the environments that people occupied. Meanwhile, the out-of-Africa population had risen to just over 300 million.
A massive disparity is evident. While the out-of-Africa population grew from just hundreds to 200 million in 100,000 years, and rose to just over 300 million by AD 1500, the African population increased from 1 million to no more than 20 million in 100,000 years, and rose to only 47 million by AD 1500. And yet both groups were descended from the same evolutionary stock. Both groups inherited the talents and physiological attributes that evolution had bestowed during the preceding 4 million years in Africa.
Why did the migrant population grow so much faster? Or, to approach the disparity from another direction, what prevented the African population from achieving similar levels of growth? Since the ancestral stock was identical, the divergent history of the two groups implies that Africa itself was in some way responsible.’ (p3-4)
‘So why did the migrant population grow so much faster? Answer: because they moved out of Africa. By leaving the tropical environments of the cradle-land in which humanity had evolved, the migrants also left behind the many parasites and disease organisms that had evolved in parallel with the human species. Throughout their evolutionary history humans have been opportunists, whose numbers were kept low by environmental factors for much of the time, but whose potential for population growth ensured they would multiply rapidly whenever circumstances permitted. In short, humans are adapted to maximize numbers and colonize new territory. Out of Africa, beyond the reach of the insects and organisms, which had infected generation after generation, the multiplication of human numbers quickly assumed a hitherto unprecedented scale.
Of course, the initial absence or near-absence of organisms capable of living on or inside the human body was a passing phase. In time, as is all too evident, biologically and demographically significant diseases developed among the migrant populations too. But by then they had had more than a head start. Meanwhile, contemporary populations in the tropical African cradle-land remained constrained by debility and disease.’ (p234)
Pests and diseases ‘The hominids...kept away from tsetse fly-infested regions and so never acquired immunity. The strategy avoided the risk of trypanosomiasis, but also denied humans access to almost two-thirds of the potentially food-producing regions of sub-Saharan Africa.’ (p236)
‘While the trypanosomes restricted the growth and development of human populations in Africa by limiting the extent of land area available for them to occupy, the primary effect of other parasites has been to debilitate the people themselves, and thus lower their capacity to produce food. It has been claimed, for example, that where bilharzia is endemic the disease can cause an average loss of 40 per cent of an adult’s capacity to work. A study of sugar-cane workers in Tanzania quantifies the point in more direct terms: workers infected with bilharzia earned at least 11 per cent less in bonuses than those who were not infected.
Bilharzia, known medically as schistosomiasis, has a long record of association with humans. The parasite probably originated in Africa. Eggs of the schistosome fluke were found in the kidneys of two Egyptian mummies from the XXth dynasty (1200BC)...
‘..the power of the pharoahs probably rested on the fact that their subjects spent much of their lives paddling about in bilharzia-infested waters.’(p241)
‘The disease occurs wherever standing water facilitates the propagation of the host snail. It is so commonplace that a brisk haemorrhage from the bladder was regarded as a sign of puberty in boys, analogous to menstruation in girls...’(p237)
‘Hookworms, another parasite that evolved in Africa, are equally capable of debilitating a human population. A Unesco survey revealed an 80 per cent infestation rate among villagers and pygmies in the West African rainforest.’ (p238)
‘Falciparum malaria is the most common form of malaria in the tropics. In endemic zones nearly all children are infected by the time they are two years old.’ (239)
Soils ‘Africa, unlike any other continent, is divided into two almost equal parts by the Equator. Since most of the continent lies within the tropics, it does not experience the wide fluctuations in temperature which typify the climates of Europe and North America. (p98)
‘Relatively high and stable temperatures encourage growth when the soil is fertile and the rainfall is good. But there is a downside: the annual round of warm temperatures, with no seasonal change, means there is no relief from the activities of harmful bacteria or disease-bearing insects such as hard winter frosts bring to temperate climes. Furthermore, the total decomposition of vegetable matter is rapidly accomplished in consistently warm temperatures, leaving no time for the accumulation of humus, with the result that extensive layers of deep fertile topsoil are rare in Africa.
Fertile topsoils represent local concentrations of nutrients, but the overall availability of nutrients (from which that concentration is drawn) is initially determined by the nature of the geological parent material. Ancient granites and cratonic rocks , and the sediments derived from them, are poor in nutrients. Africa is the world’s most ancient and stable land mass...with a greater proportion of exposed granitic shield and cratonic surface than any area of comparable size on Earth. Nutrient-impoverished cratons and granites, basement sediments and sands cover about 90 per cent of African land surface; areas of nutrient-rich volcanic and associated sediments are corresondingly limited, concentrated in particular along the length of the Great Rift Valley in East and Central Africa.’ (p99)
Agriculture, nutrition and reproduction ‘The human population of Africa has never approached the size that the continent seems capable of supporting.
In the view of agronomists at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, Africa remains underpopulated even at the end of the second millennium, with a population approaching 900 million. Certainly the food-production potential of the continent has yet to be fully exploited. An FAO survey published in 1991 reported that only 22 per cent of land in Africa suitable for agriculture was actually in production (the comparable figure for south-east Asia is 92 per cent).’ (p243)
‘Three hectares of land (including fallow) is considered enough to feed a family and produce a surplus in any part of Africa where mixed agriculture is a viable, but the amount of labour required to keep that amount of land in protection seriously restrains a family’s ability to satisfy its needs. Pioneers clearing land for cultivation in the East African highlands invested up to 150 man-days of labour in the hectare, according to anecdotal reports. The annual round of planting and tending yam crops at typical locations in south-east Nigeria absorbed an average of 230 person/days per hectare. Weeds are a curse. Cleared ground creates conditions for profuse growth, especially in the humid tropics. In recorded instances, African farmers devote up to 54 per cent of their total labour output to the tiresome business of weeding, a greater proportion than weeds demand of farmers in any other part of the world.’ (p246)
‘A year –long study of energy expenditure among villagers cultivating clearings in the forest flanking the Gambia River in West Africa found that the effort required for some tasks exceeded the workers’ physical capacity by more than 50 per cent. Their body weight rose following the harvest, when food and leisure time were plentiful, but fell steadily when land preparations began again and the workload increased. Food stocks diminished rapidly and were almost exhausted during the period leading up to the harvest, when the workload was most demanding. At any one time in the course of a year the villagers were either enjoying an excess of food or enduring a deficit, hardly ever in balance. (p246)
‘Producing enough food to sustain the existing workforce is the first principle of subsistence agriculture. When production consistently fails to keep a community well-nourished, the seasonal round becomes a vicious circle: weakened by their inability to produce more food, farmers produce less and are trapped in a wearying struggle to prevent the circle becoming a downward spiral.
Nutritional deficiencies are particularly hard on childbearing women, whose pregnancies inevitably span at least one period when food is scarce and their workload high. The interval between births can be up to four years among women living under consistently stressful conditions (see page 118). In terms of a woman’s reproductive effectiveness, extended birth intervals should not simply limit the number of children born, but also ensure as many as possible survive. Even so, evidence from comparable situations in modern times shows that more than 30 per cent of infants probably died before reaching the age of five. The result was that although women married and began bearing children soon after puberty, they raised far fewer to maturity during their reproductive lifespans than was theoretically possible.
Children were precious, and the drive to reproduce became a central feature of African culture and social order.’ (p246)
African fauna: Elephants ‘Farmers...were in direct competition with elephants. Their preferred habitats were the same: medium to high rainfall regimes, soils capable of producing edible vegetation, and access to drinking water. Thus agriculture in Africa advanced at the expense of the elephant’s population size and range. Every hectare cultivated was a hectare lost to elephants. Conversely, since elephants found virtually all human food crops palatable, they inhibited expansion of the farmers’ population size and range.
Early farmers had recourse to spears, arrows, poison, fire, and noise, and they could dig pit-traps, but their capacity to keep a herd of hungry elephants at bay was always compromised by an inadequacy of numbers. In short, elephants compounded the problems of labour shortages and unpredictable environmental circumstances already restraining the development of agriculture in Africa, and from earliest times, were therefore a formidable obstacle to human population growth and expansion on the continent.’ (p255)
‘Lone farmers stood little chance, and if conflict or disease reduced a community’s manpower, elephants rapidly completed its collapse’. (p255)
‘In [colonial] Uganda, firearms and free ammunition were issued to famers, who were encouraged to kill marauding elephants. The policy ran from 1912-1921, when it was deemed to have failed – despite the death of several thousand elephants’. (p255)
Posts: 838 | From: London | Registered: Oct 2011
| IP: Logged |
posted
The Mission ad gentes of the African Churches
Introduction
The church in Africa is the fruit of the sacrifices of many foreign missionaries from different European countries. Apart from the early centuries Christian presence in North Africa, the next effort to evangelize the rest of the continent was during the fifteenth century Christian expansion but especially in the nineteenth century missionary efforts in sub-Saharan Africa. Today, the African church which is often regarded as the object of mission has assumed the agent of mission in its own territory and often beyond. With the Synod of Bishops, Special Assembly for Africa already celebrated, the church in Africa received a new impulse to renew its missionary duty and challenges. As Pope John Paul II said in the Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Ecclesia in Africa: the Synod was convoked in order to enable the church in Africa to assume its evangelizing mission as effectively as possible in the Third Christian Millennium. In fact, the dynamism of African churches in mission ad gentes was already echoed by Pope Paul VI at the closing session of the Symposium of African Bishops in Kampala, Uganda (1969): "By now, you Africans are missionaries to yourselves. The church of Christ is well and truly planted in this blessed soil." "Missionaries to yourselves", means that henceforth African Christians must continue, upon their continent, the building up of the church. This is a call to bear witness to Christ and to make him known to all those who have not yet received the gospel message. In this way they will come to love and follow him, because in him is the life and salvation which the Africans and indeed the whole humankind very much need.
In this short write-up I shall highlight those aspects in which the African local churches have assumed the needed responsibility for the mission ad gentes in the continent.
urthermore, the actual Church Year Book shows that Africa has the greatest increase (137.4%) on the scale of the number of baptized faithful across the world between 1978 and 2000. While the total population of Catholics in Africa stood at 54,759,000 in 1978, representing an increase of 7.24%, and at 81,883,000 in 1988, representing an increase of 9.13%, in 2000 the continent registered a Catholic population of 130,018,000, representing an increase of 12.44%. This shows that Africa is the fastest growing Catholic zone in the world, "where the increase has been 50% in the last ten years".
UBBFriend: Email this page to someone!
![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
![[Mad]](mad.gif)
![[Wink]](wink.gif)
![[Frown]](frown.gif)
Printer-friendly view of this topic