The Last Warrior of Africa’s ‘Forgotten Army’: Gambia and WWII

And the hypocrisy of bringing up South Korea... like North Korea doesn't exist. I guess because it has to be us African savages who don't have leadership and vision right? North Korea doesn't fit the narrative so we'll pretend they weren't part of the Korea that was colonized... right.

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I always tell people trying to act like an entire continent is just magically incapable of giving birth to a leader this example of why these countries end up like this.

(The choice of Texas comes from the fact it's usually white Americans saying this stuff, so this might be lost on others, but feel free to sub in "big group A that looks down on small group B")

Imagine today the Netherlands invaded North America, and then took Texas.

Then they took not Mexico, but just Chihuahua state (3 mil pop), an area half the size of Texas (29 mil pop)

That'd be bad enough right? Imagine Texas of all places having to deal with the humiliation of being conquered, then topping it off with becoming the same country as the Mexicans they have a history if looking down on.

From there the Netherlands puts the Mexican minority in charge of the Texans knowing the history of anti-Mexican racism in the state.

They intentionally treated the Mexican minority as kings, and the Texan majority as second class citizens to ensure distrust and hatred between them. So even if you weren't some anti-Mexican racist before, you sure more likely to be one now... After all, all the negative notions that were already stewing just got proven right?

That ensures the Mexicans who are in higher positions of power are loyal to the Netherlands, and are highly motivated to maintain this new state, lest the Texans get their payback for the current set up.

In the meantime the rest of the US undergoes the same thing.

Then one day, the Netherlands just leaves.

I'd like to know what leader and "vision" you think would keep the average "damn illegals" Texan from not revolting immediately and destroying every reminder those Mexicans ever existed in a position of power over them.

You have a country that was intentionally engineered as a powder keg. That was supposed to be the leverage that kept things running.

So is it any surprise that when you haphazardly toss the powder keg out the window because sour grapes about losing your new toy... it explodes?

Oh yeah then I guess to sprinkle some spice on all that, let's remove Christianity from the Mexican side. Netherlands brought it, but only the Texans took to it. So now the Mexicans are also heathens to the bible thumpers.

Taiwan, SK and Singapore are western protectorates. Particularly US and ENG heavy investment in these states post WW2 [Germany included]. The US is built on the dead indigenous populations - and is an extension of the British isles as is Australia, South Africa, New Zealand. All seem to be mysteriously well for themselves.

My point is just to shift your perspective just ever so slightly and you might come to an altogether different conclusion.

> What’s important is the leadership and their vision.

Blanket statements like these are and always have been the common European view of Africa for centuries. To suggest that africans are incapable of thought. It gives them a right - I suppose a righteous cause - to pillage and do as they please since they were dealing with barely human animals...cattle.

Just after WW2, Hitler had reduced Europe to rubble and independence was granted...but was it really?

African leaders with an african agenda - back in the 50's and 60s- just after independence suddenly found themselves dead, suddenly farmers and their sons had AK47s and righteous cause to overthrow a government they had previously never dared to speak of. Suddenly, American companies were getting absurdly favourable terms to extract minerals by the military leaders of whatever coup was successful, EU rose from the ashes and the music started playing again. Africans know that familiar tune. It's been playing for centuries.

I found it fascinating that we had the patron system during Roman times where people made daily visits to a rich local and got paid basically for showing up and chatting. This created a useful network of connections all around. Meanwhile today in some instances we call this bribery, or organized crime.

Saying that India has managed to develop is an exaggeration, though. India supports a large (and maybe growing?) middle class (because India is large) but it has an enormous number of people who precariously, and no better than their great-grandparents.

This doesn't actually address why an Asian Tiger like Singapore was able to rapidly industrialise or the difficulties of implementing good governance and economic policies.

1) It's about 1600 years since Britain was a Roman colony. A lot has happened since then, such as the Dark Ages. When Rome was in charge the local population was in effect the Welsh (and Cornish and Bretons). How's Wales doing now relative to England?

2) Yes, the US was a British colony, but the dominant group in the US is still the descendants of the colonizers.

I don't the history of Singapore, but I would be curious to know who was in charge when England took over versus who is in charge now.

In all these cases there is a complex history which can't be glossed over by saying "they were all colonies". Important issues are the support they were given to create or rebuild institutions, population replacement, the extent to which they achieved control of their own resources, the institutions they were left with, or whether they were saddled with debt. Haiti was a colony that achieved its freedom, but was left with a crippling debt to its occupiers which it only finished paying off in the 20th century.

How well did British colonisation work out for Native Americans? That would be a more fitting comparison to make. Look at life in the reservations.

Did the Romans meddle in British affairs after they were booted from the isles? How was life in the British isles in the aftermath (let's be generous and give them 100 years) of Roman colonisation for the common people?

Singapore is an interesting, and exceptional case. But also worth noting that even here, the economically and politically dominant Chinese Singaporeans supplanted indigenous Malays. The Chinese mostly arrived during the British colonial period.

People who espouse this sort of thinking also say similar things about South Africa. "Apartheid ended almost 30 years ago. You should be over it." Or that Black Americans - people who were only accorded full civil rights in the 60s - should get over centuries of domination since it's "already" been a couple of generations since they could vote and sit at the front on a bus. I could keep going.