Historically, Africa (and other third world lands for that matter) has not been an agrarian region. Originally, the only agrarian peoples in the world were those of the Middle East. Third world countries are undeveloped for a reason-the soil is not very fertile, and they are lacking in natural resources. When these missionaries began spreading "compassion" into Africa, they gave the people a surplus, and thus their populations grew to such an amount that their hunter-gatherer lifestyles could no longer support them. Obviously, they began farming, but even then they couldn't provide enough food, and another wave of starvation ensued
Africa
is the most resource rich continent on this earth. The notion that Africa "lacks natural resources" even after colonialism is utterly ridiculous. Third world countries are underdeveloped for many, many reasons but "the soil not being fertile" is not exactly a prime factor. (Yes in the Sahara it is,
I know.)
As other commenters have noted, Africa has been home to various empire's throughout history. They flourished due to trade, natural resources,
agriculture, etc.
During the time of colonialism, the colonists focused on getting the native populations to farm
cash crops. Thus, overtime the knowledge of how to farm actual food was lost.
To worsen the problem, other foreign aid programs began exploiting pictures of starving children as propaganda to encourage those in Western countries to donate more money. The population again grew, and they needed to farm the land more extensively, and they ended up depleting the soil almost completely of the already low supply of nutrients it contained.
Somehow you managed to be right, yes, western aid in the form of food and medicine and what have you, increased the general population significantly. The problem is then that in order to sustain such a massive population and prevent starvation you have to continuously feed them. This is where western countries went wrong. Instead of building infrastructure and teaching the natives to farm for themselves they simply donate money and food which just grows the population some more and eventually when money dries up, leads to massive starvation.
So yes, to some extent I agree with you but your reasoning and deduction is illogical, stupid, and was something any 5th grade could have corrected.
What westerners do not really get about Africa, is that diversity and freedom
flourishes here more than anywhere else in the world. Western countries
are all about monopolies of power, and homogenization of economies.
Africa has always been closer to the pure message of Christ, than the west.
Yes. Diversity and freedom reign supreme huh. Oh right so does rape, murder, war, starvation, and a host of other issues that don't sound very "heavenly" to me. And before I'm accused of being an ignorant westerner, I too have lived in Africa.
