Best postcolonial Africa?

That gets you more war and misery becaue a lot of people want the white colonialists out NOW! Or better yet yesterday but now is the next best thing and they'd be perfectly willing to take up arms to make it happen.

Training the locals also leaves you with the issue that they might be seen as collaborators of the colonial powers, that they dont intend to leave, just give you a local figurehead and continue business as usual.

The only real alternative to leaving instantly is giving them full rights and not leaving at all.
It's all about timing though. They wanted them "out NOW" in the 50s IIRC. If everything was Dominionized in the 20s or 30s then by the time we get to the 50s they really could just leave peacefully IMO.

Of course this does require both sides to have good behavior and intentions.
 
It's all about timing though. They wanted them "out NOW" in the 50s IIRC. If everything was Dominionized in the 20s or 30s then by the time we get to the 50s they really could just leave peacefully IMO.

Of course this does require both sides to have good behavior and intentions.

Thats's the thing. For Dominions in the 20s you'd have to start right away during the scramble for Africa. The necessary mindset for that to happen would most likely prevent it from happening in the first place.
 
Thats's the thing. For Dominions in the 20s you'd have to start right away during the scramble for Africa. The necessary mindset for that to happen would most likely prevent it from happening in the first place.
You almost have to fuck up Europe in the lead up to make them willing to just let go of Africa. Say a war vs USA over Venezuela in 1903, a more devastating WWI, and then a bigger Great Depression could do a lot to curb their influence and ability to project.
 
What about Dominion Status for Rhodesia.

An interesting case although not officially a dominion, but remember that, like South Africa, this semi-independent status really only applied to the minority of European descended settlers, not the native population. Case in point when Rhodesia unilaterally declared independence in 1965 it did so under the control of a white premier (Ian Smith) leading an almost exclusively white government and its declaration of independence was actually illegal because it declared independence prior to granting its people majority rule (in Violation of the No Independence Before Majority (African) Rule). Hence it was really a case like South Africa where you have a wealthy white elite living in prosperity but most of the native Africans still living in conditions similar to sub-sahara Africa. Indeed that carriers through to today with Zimbabwe still quite poor and suffering problems with infections disease and political corruptions, all despite the quasi-dominos style home rule.

Again the comparisons you could draw between the life-styles of the settler populations of the dominions like Canada, Australia and New Zealand would be with the of the white settler minorities in Rhodesia (or South Africa or even India) but not with the native African "Subjects" of HMG. In short even conferring dominion status isn't going to change the fundamental underlying differences (and inequalities) in countries that are primarily composed of European settlers vs countries mainly still populated by native peoples but controlled by Europeans (either in Europe or on-site).

NOTE: A better dominion vs Africa colony comparison would be looking at the status of the Native population of Canada and Australia (or even the USA) vs the stars of the Native Africans in European colonies. Of course, unlike the Africans, the Native Australians and Canadians had had their populations absolutely decimated the century before.
 
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Again the comparisons you could draw between the life-styles of the settler populations of the dominions like Canada, Australia and New Zealand would be with the of the white settler minorities in Rhodesia (or South Africa or even India) but not with the native African "Subjects" of HMG.
I wonder how the white colonies in Africa could have done if they'd not depended on native labour for their farms and wealth? In Canada, Australia, NZ the settlers farmed the land themselves, since there was no labour source, with some exception for Oz if prison labour could be had.

So, for Rhodesia to succeed, they should have built a territory for themselves, pushed out the native population, and built their own autonomous economy. They'd still need more population growth, so immigration from the UK, Europe and other white settler places (Canada, USA, etc.) could be encouraged. However, being landlocked was not a wise choice for location, perhaps trade some territory with the neighbours to get to the sea.
 
I wonder how the white colonies in Africa could have done if they'd not depended on native labour for their farms and wealth? In Canada, Australia, NZ the settlers farmed the land themselves, since there was no labour source, with some exception for Oz if prison labour could be had.

So, for Rhodesia to succeed, they should have built a territory for themselves, pushed out the native population, and built their own autonomous economy. They'd still need more population growth, so immigration from the UK, Europe and other white settler places (Canada, USA, etc.) could be encouraged. However, being landlocked was not a wise choice for location, perhaps trade some territory with the neighbours to get to the sea.


Well they had different industries for starters. Canada wasn't really a major food exporter until (relatively) recently so the need for manual labourers wasn't huge. most of the natural resource exports in the early dominion era were lumber, fish, mining (see the Klondike gold Rush) and a (rapidly declining) fur industry. none of these aside from old-style fur trapping really required much in the way of cheap manpower that could be gained by exploiting native people as unskilled labourers they way large agricultural plantations could do. rather they relied on either operating pretty advanced technologies with a degree of skilled labour (industrial fishing) or traveling to remote areas (mining, lumber production was largely in the sparely populated north-west) or a combination of both. In neither of those situations is it efficient to invest in bringing in large amounts of unskilled native labourers.

Besides it wasn't like white majority former European colonies in North America DIDN'T use cheap (i.e. "free") black labour to power a larger agricultural export industry...
 
A relatively late POD: for whatever reason, Lumumba isn't assassinated. The *DRC still remains poor, but it's Nigeria-poor or Kenya-poor, and not OTL-DRC-poor.
 
It's all about timing though. They wanted them "out NOW" in the 50s IIRC. If everything was Dominionized in the 20s or 30s then by the time we get to the 50s they really could just leave peacefully IMO.
It would be simplifying to say the Africans fucked it up entirely on their own. The French didn't want to stay longer either. Colonies were a moneysink and it was better to invest and rebuild the homeland. "La Corrèze plutot que le Zambèze" in the words of the cartiériste movement.
Let's not forget examples like the Gabon which wanted to be kept as a French département but was refused the status. It was just easier for France to establish a regime of cooperation with the countries under a very loose protectorate status, which more or less continues to this day with things like the French intervention in Mali and Centrafrica (not saying it's good or bad, just stating the fact) and Bolloré's railway project.

Czar Kaiser said:
There's a factor that no one has mentioned yer and that is how in many African countries internal commerce and growth was destroyed by colonial taxes and regulations which made the growth of the middle class impossible.
That's absolutely major and I forgot it as it destroyed pre-existing trade networks. I should add two things though: it's not just regulations: the whole transportation network was from the hinterland to the ports for exportation rather than across the provinces, which reinforced it in a way way more lasting than if it was just trade regulation.
On the middle class, I disagree, there was an educated black middle class in the cities, which spearheaded the independance movement thanks to their administrative experience and their study in Mainland's universities
 
The economic kneecapping continues today. Trade barriers prohibit the export of finished or value added agricultural products from Africa, for example, unprocessed coffee can be exported to the US market at workable duty rates, but not roasted and packaged.

Then there's the misapplied charity from the west, using poverty porn to coerce donations of money and goods for African aid. However this kills local African economies, since how can you, for instance, run a clothing manufacturer when the west is giving clothes away in your market ( any where else this would be called dumping). For instance, the recent spread the net campaigns to get western universities to supply anti-Malaria nets essentially killed the mosquito net industry in Africa.

IMO, the two best way to help Africa are free trade on finished goods, and microloans to the women, the lifeblood of any society. Once you help the women, the nations succeed.
 
Green Revolution in Africa

IOTL the Green Revolution faced a number of limitations when it came to Africa, which prevented, for better or for worse, the same socio-economic transformations taking root as happened in Mexico and India.

According to Wikipedia:

Reasons cited [for the failure of the Green Revolution in Africa] include widespread corruption, insecurity, a lack of infrastructure, and a general lack of will on the part of the governments. Yet environmental factors, such as the availability of water for irrigation, the high diversity in slope and soil types in one given area are also reasons why the Green Revolution is not so successful in Africa.

Whilst some of these problems may be inevitable others may be more open to change. A more successful Green Revolution could mean a stronger agricultural base, and the reduction in labour power required by modern agriculture would lead to more rapid urbanisation and industrialisation. Factor in the infrastructure developments that would be a prerequisite for a successful Green Revolution and Africa and Africa would probably be in much better shape, although it would then have to deal with the problems that come with the Green Revolution, in particular the ecological impact.
 
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