Why is Africa so poor? asks an article in Frontpage Magazine. Like many mainstream conservative outlets, they diagnose the symptoms well enough, lack of civil society & clean transparent government, but they neglect to be very specific about a course of treatment (corrupt international agencies & toothless NGOs?). Granted, this is better than much of the modern day Left, which either ignores the issue to focus on “injustice” that can be more directly ascribed to Western perfidy, or simply takes recourse to a blanket accusation of racism hanging over the continent like a mythical penumbra, affecting events far after its direct existence has been excised through decolonization and empowerment of native elites.
If we want most of Africa to step back onto the path of progress-toward-modernity, we need to speak it loud and proud as Jonah Goldberg did years ago, recolonize and take up the “White Man’s Burden”! In lieu of indigenous social & political structures, modern nations must provide them so that the native genius can be fully expressed and incubated, just as a secular modern elite was born from the British Raj to lead an independent India that stumbles unsurely but steadily along the path-of-progress. Civilized nations must feed, clothe and educate African elites and erase from their minds a tribal mentality. Eventually, these elites will revolt against colonialism and establish their own independent political structures, but that’s the whole point….
Oh yes, you say this has been tried before, but unfortunately it was aborted. Remember that most of Africa was untouched by European colonialism until the turn of the 19th century, while India had at least the benefits of 50 extra years, as well as a receptive indigenous elite which was already literate. The “colonial elites” of Africa were often semi-educated like Patrice Lumumba or illiterate like Idi Amin.
Of course, I don’t favor recolonization personally, but that’s probably the appropriate course of treatment if you want to cure the infection….
Comments are closed.