Map of Africa if decolonization was handled decently?

This is factually wrong - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_between_democracies. The fact that the link Wikipedia article exists, and has content, is enough to disprove that ridiculous claim.

I'd like to point out to that the "List of wars between democracies" article on Wikipedia (WP is not a reliable source and ridiculous to cite it as part of an argument I'd like to point out) is a terrible list of 1) nations that weren't even nations or 2) nations that were democracies only in name or 3) used presidents who were popularly elected as "democracy" (in which case the Czechoslovakia versus Germany in the 1930s would have been two democracies at war). And they even list WWI and Kaiser Germany as a democracy!!! The article's sole purpose is to try and disprove the thesis in political science that democracies don't go to war (and yes, this is taught in every university's poli sci department!)

The article was nominated for deletion and while it was kept due to "no consensus" it appears to have been because determined people with an agenda that saved it.

From the talk page of the WP article-
I had seen bad articles, but this is one of the worst definitely. Implying that pre 19 century governments could be democratic in anyway that resembles the meaning of the word today is just laughable. Guidaw (talk) 03:24, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

This is absolutely true, but previous attempts to fix it was strongly opposed by one single very determined editor, and those who wanted more NPOV viewpoint just ran out of energy. Perhaps it's time, many years later, to try again. --OpenFuture (talk) 13:09, 15 January 2016
 
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One of the problems discussed in another thread was that lack of nationalism between groups. The Europeans may have called the inhabitants of the Congo, Congolese, but that doesn't mean they considered themselves Congolese. Same way that Ireland isn't a part of the UK. The Irish don't consider themselves British, or at the very least members of the UK.

One thing that really established borders in Europe was the Rise of Nationalism that gripped Europe in the 19th century. While this occurred throughout the world at varying times, it didn't really occur in mass in Africa. People may have wanted independence from the Europeans, but they didn't also want to be South African, Congolese, ect. A good degree of the blame for that can come from attempts of European Empires in wanting to stop a unite opposition from opposing them. What you would need to do is totally revamp how the Europeans treated the Colonies. Figure out a way to unite the different inefficiencies and cultures together. Europeans and especially the British have a habit of drawing arbitrary lines and creating nations without a lot of thought to it.
 
Creating countries along straight up ethnic lines of control and the general idea of "self determination" is an idea fraught with disaster.

there is never enough land and resources available to "buy" everyone off and get them to be happy with their share. This quickly promotes tensions and instability with everyone saying "THEY GOT MORE!!"
 
Creating countries along straight up ethnic lines of control and the general idea of "self determination" is an idea fraught with disaster.

there is never enough land and resources available to "buy" everyone off and get them to be happy with their share. This quickly promotes tensions and instability with everyone saying "THEY GOT MORE!!"

Agreed, it would resemble the Balkans more than anything else.
 
I'd like to point out to that the "List of wars between democracies" article on Wikipedia (WP is not a reliable source and ridiculous to cite it as part of an argument I'd like to point out) is a terrible list of 1) nations that weren't even nations or 2) nations that were democracies only in name or 3) used presidents who were popularly elected as "democracy" (in which case the Czechoslovakia versus Germany in the 1930s would have been two democracies at war). And they even list WWI and Kaiser Germany as a democracy!!! The article's sole purpose is to try and disprove the thesis in political science that democracies don't go to war (and yes, this is taught in every university's poli sci department!)

The article was nominated for deletion and while it was kept due to "no consensus" it appears to have been because determined people with an agenda that saved it.

From the talk page of the WP article-
I had seen bad articles, but this is one of the worst definitely. Implying that pre 19 century governments could be democratic in anyway that resembles the meaning of the word today is just laughable. Guidaw (talk) 03:24, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

This is absolutely true, but previous attempts to fix it was strongly opposed by one single very determined editor, and those who wanted more NPOV viewpoint just ran out of energy. Perhaps it's time, many years later, to try again. --OpenFuture (talk) 13:09, 15 January 2016

While I agree that there's a lot to be said about that article, and that it proves very little (the only really clear-cut case was Finland's continuation war, and that was in a framework of alliances, thus proving nothing), I think that the "modern democracies don't go to war with each other" axiom is in itself fairly weak when expressed as an absolute or used as an explanatory tool. It only really holds empirically with well-developed, established democracies that are also rich countries with large middle classes and weak militaries, which leaves you with a very, very narrow range of "democracies". It also lacks, in my opinion, any clear theoretical basis.
 

SRBO

Banned
I Banned someone for this sort of thing just a couple weeks back. Of course he also lionized Ian Smith.

I'm going to cut you a break since you managed to avoid that, and you also avoided the egregious comments you made in December.

Consider this to be your one Get Out of Jail Free Card.

Well he isn't wrong tho

Allowing Mugabe to exist (thanks amerilards) was a mistake. Josiah Gumede would have been a better president



On the topic of African (de)colonization, it would never be done good because the colonization was never truly done decently. European colonization was just annexation of land according to current state in the region (with some assumptions in unexplored places) and left the native societies intact, assuming they're actually for real and stable even though they were trash tier. The solution would be a complete overhaul of the entire native sociopolitical system, which requires a change in European policy from simple exploitation to something else (like making it a directly represented part of the state and not a separate bog standard heap of shit they call a """""""""""""""""""""""""""""colony""""""""""""""""""""""""""""")
 
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Really, if we'd decolonised Africa along the lines of ethnic/linguistic groups, I wouldn't be surprised if the argument would be flipped to some degree or another and it would thus be "if we'd drawn lines on a map of Africa and called it a day, Africa would be way better off." I still lean toward the idea that Europe did the least bad solution to "solve" the mess they made.
 
What would have been needed was a much slower decolonisation period - IE Britain retaining the African colonies for a good while longer but setting up a timetable for decolonisation, with individual county/province-level areas holding referendums/electing provisionary governments who would choose whether to become a fully independent state, a commonwealth nation/crown colony or join up with an another national entity (a pre-existing state or group of counties working towards becoming something or other), with the former colonial overlord (or, if the UK is basically broke after WWII as per OTL, the USA as the primary creditor to the colonial overlord) guaranteeing the independence and the borders these democratic processes build up.

It would be a long, expensive and slow task that corruption and clueless, arrogant and/or racist whites can still easily ruin, but it would probably be the best shot at actually building a stable and (eventually) prosperous Africa.
 
What would have been needed was a much slower decolonisation period - IE Britain retaining the African colonies for a good while longer but setting up a timetable for decolonisation, with individual county/province-level areas holding referendums/electing provisionary governments who would choose whether to become a fully independent state, a commonwealth nation/crown colony or join up with an another national entity (a pre-existing state or group of counties working towards becoming something or other), with the former colonial overlord (or, if the UK is basically broke after WWII as per OTL, the USA as the primary creditor to the colonial overlord) guaranteeing the independence and the borders these democratic processes build up.

It would be a long, expensive and slow task that corruption and clueless, arrogant and/or racist whites can still easily ruin, but it would probably be the best shot at actually building a stable and (eventually) prosperous Africa.

In that case probably a nonexistent World War Two or at least a much, much shorter and less expensive one for European nations.
 
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