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Comment by maxklein | Hacker News Reader

The real revolution in Africa happenned when it opened up to the world. Africa has always been completely isolated from the rest of the world till very recently. Recently, cellphones arrived, internet arrived, equal access to the information on par with the Western countries arrived.

And the results are impressive: most of the wars have ended, the age of coups is over, african professionals are going back, business is now being done with countries from everywhere.

Africa is not yet a good investment opportunity, but it is the best market for physical goods at the moment.

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"most of the wars have ended, the age of coups is over"

Really? There may be fewer wars, but there are still a lot (look at the list of ongoing conflicts on Wikipedia). There was a coup in Niger a week or two ago. Things may be getting better, but they are not good.

Of the ongoing conflicts with 1000+ deaths per year, 6 are in Asia and only 2 are in Africa. And of those two the sudanese war, which has only resulted in ~2,500 deaths I'm not sure can be called a war.

Compare those with the wars of the 70s and 80s, I think this is a remarkable period of stability.

The coup in niger was for an actual breach of democracy - the democratically elected president tried to overstay his term, and he was stopped by the military. Which is at it should be. They have also appointed a civilian prime minister.

So things are a LOT better than before.

For convenient definitions of "conflict", sure. But that doesn't necessarily mean Africa is that much better a place to live. For example, there might not be a "conflict" in Liberia right now, but the place is still hell on Earth.

> Of the ongoing conflicts with 1000+ deaths per year, 6 are in Asia and only 2 are in Africa.

Can you give a citation?

As an example, South Africa is basically engaged in a civil war with itself (22,000+ people die violent deaths).

Zimbabwean life expectancy fell by more than 20 years - more people die there. Zim is basically a civil war (which nobody would acknowledge). Eastern DRC - easily more than a thousand, the same with Sudan.

Also note that sub-Sahara Africa only has a population of 700 million. Asia has a population that is two to three times larger.

> The coup in niger was for an actual breach of democracy - the democratically elected president tried to overstay his term, and he was stopped by the military.

You are ignoring a few things - the ruling parties is becoming incredibly intertwined with government (i.e. it is not democratic anymore, even if they hold elections). Sure, it is a bit more stable - but I doubt that it is better.

There were also recent coups in Mauritania, Madagascar.

Citation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ongoing_conflicts

For people like you who want to believe that Africa is in a war, no citation will do most likely.

The Asian wars are killing a hell of a lot more people than the African wars also.

If you want to believe that nothing is getting better, then let's not continue the conversation. If you are willing to actually look at the facts and compare the 80s to now, then we can talk.

> For people like you who want to believe that Africa is in a war,

I happen to live in Africa. You ignored all of the examples I gave you. Zimbabwe has probably one of the largest displaced populations in the word – yet you do not view this as a “war”.

> Citation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ongoing_conflicts

Yeah, it doesn’t include Zimbabwe. It doesn’t include the eastern DRC. So you use unfinished or badly written WP articles as your source? Or do you use an extremely strange definition of conflict?

> The Asian wars are killing a hell of a lot more people than the African wars also.

Again, you are wrong. Firstly, of the Asian countries you mentioned, only India counts as a 1000+ deaths per year (with a population of 1.5 times that of sub-Sahara Africa).

> If you want to believe that nothing is getting better, then let's not continue the conversation.

You seem to base your argument on ignorance and self-delusion that is typical of the African renaissance movement. So I doubt that this conversation would be informative from your side.

> If you are willing to actually look at the facts and compare the 80s to now, then we can talk.

You made the statement “Of the ongoing conflicts with 1000+ deaths per year, 6 are in Asia and only 2 are in Africa.” which is blatantly false (by your own citation). Sure the place stabilised since the 80ies – only because the USSR fell (a major sponsor of conflict).

Then again, the 90ies an early 00ies were not particularly rosy (Rwanda, DRC war).

My citation says that there are 6 in asian and 2 in Africa. How is this false? And Iraq has way more than 1000+ deaths a year.

Living in Africa does not make you an authority. Point to some proof for your statements.

> My citation says that there are 6 in asian and 2 in Africa. How is this false?

You use an extremely broad “definition” of Asia (i.e. instead of the Africa, Middle-East, Asia) you group everything that is remotely in Asia as Asia. If we take your definition into account, the population of Asia is 5.7 times that of sub-Sahara Africa. You also conveniently leave out civil wars from that list (e.g. Eastern DRC, Zimbabwe, etc…).

Why is Zimbabwe left out? Do you know that thousands of people either die through state famine or killed by Zanu thugs?

> And Iraq has way more than 1000+ deaths a year.

Ahh… yeah an American war in the Middle East. Let’s group that with “Asia” and compare a land-mass of 4 billion people to a continent of less than 1.

> Living in Africa does not make you an authority. Point to some proof for your statements.

I have shown you numerous shortcomings in your Wikipedia article. Yet you persist to compare apples and oranges (sub-Sahara Africa is small compared to Asia).

Maybe living in Africa (and having lived in various African countries) does not make me an expert. But neither is someone who never even visited the continent and relies on half-baked WP articles. You are in denial about Africa and the violence in Africa.

From your posts I cannot determine if you are just extremely ignorant or if you are a troll. For your part I hope that you are a troll.

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