World Influence On The Modernization Of Africa

World Influence on the Modernization of Africa

World

Influence on the Modernization of Africa

Developing Political Systems

The way countries, nations or states act
and base their policies on many times reflect what their past was like.

This is very true in the case of Africa. The only problem is that

Africa is said to have no history. This just means that Africa’s many cultures
did not affect the way imperialists and other influences acted towards
the huge continent. Everything was based on their interests and consequently
this meant that the way of dealing with Africa in every way was based on

Western traditionalists. To this we must answer the question how has the

Western World affected Africa’s present stage and what must be done to
undo what is wrong and hopefully correct this situation.

Africa first played a role in Europe’s
and the America’s history when the U.S. and Great Britain needed labor.

They needed a lot of it and they needed it cheap. There was nothing cheaper
than free labor. It would require an initial investment to African "leaders"
but it paid off almost instantaneously. This is what we used to call slave
trading. In around the 1860’s this became an illegal act. However, like
any other crime, this trading could not be stopped entirely. British Naval
ships were set up as blockades but sometimes Slaves were stored in spaces
that were no higher than 12 inches so not all slave carrying boats could
be stopped. In fact while the Navy stopped approximately 103,000 slaves
from entering the slave force about 1.7 million entered it. Since this
trade was illegal it was even more profitable than before. The slaves that
were stopped from being shipped all the way west were being sent to Freetown,

Sierra Leone and Monrovia, Liberia and they were called recaptives. These
were towns set up by the British and some liberal Americans to send former
slaves and recaptives back to their home continent. It wasn’t their home
but it certainly was a lot closer than before. These recaptives were not
welcome with open arms because they had renounced their religions and African
names and replaced them with Christianity and English names. They did this
because they felt they had been betrayed when they were sold in the first
place. There was even more hostility to these recaptives because they spoke

English and the British, along with the rest of Europe, were the ones starting
to take over Africa politically. When Europe came into power they took
their English speaking, Christian modernizers and put them in charge of
the newly colonized countries.

Africa was colonized by Europe by countries
such as Great Britain and France, which one can still see evidence of today.

This was done at the Berlin Conference. The only two countries not directly
colonized where Ethiopia for somewhat religious and Biblical reasons and

Liberia, which had a legitimate government and this way the West would
not have to directly imperialists the country but could just tell the leaders
what, they wanted. The leaders obliged in return for not being colonized.

When first colonized the many cultures languages and religions were not
considered. Consequentially many opposing people came to live in the same
state and this resulted in bloody hatred and eventually civil wars in many
of these countries. Europe did not realize how many different nations there
were in Africa when they were dividing it up amongst themselves. They just
wanted to colonize and wanted equal shares for each other. Possible tension
did not enter the minds of these colonizers and even if did it did not
severely alter any decisions. In fact it was better for them if no group
had a majority in a region because this would lessen the chance of a revolution.

The peripheral countries of these new African boundaries usually did what
the European core countries did. They wanted to enhance their status quo.

The peripheral countries were heavily exploited. Their raw materials were
taken from them relatively cheaply made into sellable products and sold
to the world and back to Africa at high prices. At this rate Africa’s economy
would never go up and would probably even go down. Since agriculture was
its only source of income not much more could be done.

Many people question why Africa did not
use its raw materials to make its own processed finished products. The
answer is that there was heavy discrimination against this idea by the

West. If Africa tried to use their cocoa to make their own chocolate the

Swiss, for example, would say the world does not want chocolate from Ghana
they want Swiss chocolate. The countries would listen and be forced to
sell their raw materials at cheap prices to Europe. Additionally Africa
did not have the technology ready to compete with these industrial nations
and leaders. They did not have the money or the education at this time
to have the same resources as the imperialists.

The Europeans tried to make Africa another
version of the west. They tried to set up schools, hospitals and other
bureaucracies that were successful back home. Many people would argue that
because of this Africa had no history. More specifically this means Europe
molded Africa’s history. They did not let the African nations play out
their destiny themselves. When Europe set up governments in their colonies
they did not want, for the most part, the traditionalists, which consisted
of the kings and chiefs, to be involved in running the show. They instead
took the recaptives who were modernizers because they saw what went on
in the West while they were. The British knew that the modernizers would
be more loyal to them than the traditionalists, being grateful for the
freedom they were granted for slavery. The modernizers would favor westernization
during colonialism and eventually after it too. They were now the bourgeoisies.

They believed that now, when the British were finally moving out of Africa,

Africa could not go back to traditionalist values. They believed that post-colonial
independence would have to bee taken care of by now the sons and grandsons
of the recaptives who have since become doctors, lawyers and teachers.

The traditionalists disagreed saying the British should give back what
they took away from them many years ago. They agreed they had to modernize
somewhat but they were still inherinent to the power of their returned
independence. In the end the modernizers were the ones to be named the
rulers of newly independent African countries. The only problem was that
when the countries became independent they continued to run as they were
during colonial times. Partitions of the states remained as they were.

Instead of like in Europe where nations, cultures and ethnic groups collectively
rule themselves under self-determination, African leaders self-determined
that the countries where staying as they were namely as sectors that the
imperial powers set up. This meant ethnic clashes continued.

Now that these African nations had become
independent they wanted to start to upgrade the economy. They had seen
what the Asian Tigers had done and were led to believe that nothing could
stand in their way to achieve the same if not similar goals. First they
relied on the dependency theory just as Latin America had in the past.

This broke down in the 1980’s. This happened for a number of reasons the
most important one being it was too deterministic. Africa did not have
too much input in this theory. They had to industrialize in a way where
the international economy could help them out but where Africa did not
have to totally rely on it. This is because they don’t want to all of a
sudden go into deep depression because the countries they depend on fall
into a recession.

Africa cannot jump into a world market
economy as quickly as it wants. It has to establish itself, industrialize
and be certain it can compete with the rest of the world before it actually
does. It has to forget what happened to it before, how it may have been
slowed down by Europe before. It has to forget the history that people
claim it doesn’t even have. It has to progress and not even look back.

It cannot blame its financial state on the fact that destiny was not allowed
to play itself out. Many people, including me would argue that maybe it
was destiny what happened with Europe colonizing and then handing over
power to the modernizers. It could have saved Africa from even worse trouble
than it is now. The fact is that there could be millions of scenarios played
out of what could have happened. There is no way to prove if any of these
scenarios could or could not have happened so there is n point to give
a second or even first look at them. Once again we must progress. Africa
is a huge continent that now has many educated people whether it was from
learning in Europe or not. They have to implement a system where agriculture
is not their main source of income. This is because agriculture is everything

Africa has relied on since anyone can ever remember and its land is suffering
from it. Combined with dry summers agriculture will not always be there.

The people of each individual nation have to work with each other. They
have the manpower and intellect to become a superpower continent. Maybe
not in my lifetime and maybe not in my children’s lifetime but these things
take time. The United States did not become rich over night. They too at
one point were a colony of the British. They too were exploited for their
raw materials and their labor. They were not given their freedom as easily
as the African nations were. This is not to say Africa did not suffer in
trying to become free or did not deserve it like the U.S. It is just to
say that this suffering should not last forever.

The first step should come from the government.

They need to take loans. It doesn’t matter if they are high interest. Money
needs to be in the economy. A federal deal such as Franklin D. Roosevelt
has to be implemented. Money has to be given to the people, not the elite,
so that they can spend the money on goods that are being produced. In time
enough money spent will lead to more jobs, which lead to more money, which
will start to pay for new technology. Africa does not have to be rich to
start involving itself in the world economy it just needs an economy that
is working, producing and always moving ahead. Once they land in the international
trade business everything becomes a bonus.

Africa in all its existence to Europe
has relied on others to decide what’s best for them. Africa is now in a

Western style mode. This does not mean it should be there but it is now.

The government has to start taking advantage of today’s capitalist economy.

Money tends to keep people of all nations happier. With money everyone
is guaranteed food, a home and a better chance at democracy.

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