Decolonization Of Africa:Good Or Bad?

It was a mixed bag. There were good things and there were bad things. It should have been done more slowly and more efficiently: Rhodesia is an example of the only place where this almost happened. Ian Smith, had he closely followed the early Canadian model could have kept Rhodesia on the right track.

He could have achieved his vision of an 'equal partnership' between blacks and whites simply by adopting a model of parliament with a Senate consisting of wealthy land owners who served for life; and a House of Commons elected in completely free elections, without basis of race. As long as he gave them enough power, he could have packed the Senate with 'his people' as a check on black nationalists. It could have been augmented if they straightened out the independence issue and the UK recognized their independence within the Commonwealth; and the Queen appointed him or one of his cronies as Governor-General. When there was a problem, he could have used the Senate and the stronger then usual Governor-General to keep things in order; and slowly work their way to a more usual model of government.

This is an interesting proposal, but I would wager that the chances of Mugabe and Nkomo accepting this as being close to zero. It's a good approach, but by the time Smith was willing to talk about sharing power, Mugabe and Nkomo were dead-set on majority rule and that Thatcher was not about to side with another bunch of racists at a time when she was getting hammered for her attempts to stop the world from landing on South Africa.
 
That's not actually entirely true. The slave trade had been largely supressed in Western Africa (and not long before the Scramble), but it was still active on the East coast, and was used as a justification for most of the Scramble.

Also, the slave trade was generated almost entirely by Europeans. At first it was for plantation slavery, and later, by the ivory trade and the desire for revenue. Because of sleeping sickness, ivory could only be transported by people, and people had no desire to walk from the Congo to Zanzibar carrying elephant tusks, hence slaves. Slaves were also the only way to generate tax payments in cash for most people.

This is all true, of course. What I was responding to was this chap saying that the "expansion of empires", that is, the Scramble, had resulted in "the slave trade and the destruction of African culture", which is just not true. European trade, as opposed to Empire, caused much of the slave trade, but I was making that these were distinct phases, and theoretically one could have a TL with European trade (hence the expansion of the slave-routes) but without a Scramble.

But creating a habit of homocidal violence? WTF?

It's controversial, but its hardly a Whisky Tango Foxtrot suggestion. I believe there's a book out there of some repute whose argument is that much of the "logic" of the Nazi system in Europe grew up in the various African empires, such as a need for a direct control of raw materials, a willingness to use brutal exploitation to get them, the need for "living space" and the willingless to create a system where a tiny settler majority controlle dall political life... even a belief that when a population was in an inconvenient place, it should be destroyed.
 
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