Africa is known for its poverty, but a lot of people don't know what led to this state. Some would think that it is because of colonization, corruption or foreign independence. There used to be a time when African countries were rich, like in the 14th century. Many would conclude that Africa has no history asides from that about mommies and pyramids.
On the contrary, Africa is much involved in history, as any other country in Europe. In the 14th and 15th century, Africa's property began to fall behind gap, from the rest of the world. This was caused by two different external forces, two empires. One needed slaves, and the easiest way to get those slaves was from East Africa. So, they would go into war with countries in the Eastern African. This slave trade process continued till the 19tu century.
The second empire, was the Western European empire. A similar thing was also happening with them. They began by going to Africa, to trade items. Soon, it escalated into taking a stop in Africa, whenever they were going to Asia. Later on, they went to East Asia and saw the Indie Americans. Afterwards, they set up colonies.
The system of government of the people in the East Asia was the same as that of the Europeans. Which involved the noble system of knights, dukes, peasants. There was slight hitch, the peasants were dying. And, a dying peasant, is an unproductive one. So, they needed to find a replacement, and dived into West African slave trade. Although, the kind of slave isn't the same way people think of it to be. Those slaves had rights, and a family structure. Sadly, African countries were happy to sell slaves to the Europeans because their gold mines were drying up during that time.
The African countries willing to sell slaves, would go into war with other African countries in order to get more slaves to sell. At that time, this seemed like a good deal for African leaders. They would weaken their rivals, and earn money at the same time. Soon, the slave market evolved from a market where slaves had rights, to one where people were stripped of their rights and sold to the highest bidder.
Slave traders would come to the continent, and go with as many slaves as possible for them to be sold to the Americans. These slaves would work their backs out. The slave traders also sold raw materials from Africa to the Europeans, who would use it to produce manufactured goods. The profit from this, would be used to buy more slaves.
It was a good deal for everybody, except the slaves. The Americans received slaves, the Europeans received raw materials, and the West Africans received manufactured goods. While the plight of the slaves remained not an issue to them. Whenever the Americans tried to take slaves by force, it would fail because Africans were still very strong. Over the centuries these African empires collapsed into different walls, and they were more than willing to sell their former slave partners as slaves to the Americans.
So, as their empires rose and fell, there were always merchants wanting to buy slaves. As the Europeans found more colonies in America, more slaves were needed. Unfortunately, these had a long term effect on the economy of Africa. While European, Asian and American industries developed, African industries stagnated. And soon, they could no longer compete with the rest of the world. The African industries soon became unimportant and small. Yet, the Africans continued to go along with this because, they couldn't invest in industries and had to protect themselves.
That was where all the economy was being diverted to. It didn't take long for the African economy to decline, while the people who bought slaves were having a better, more effective economy.
The Europeans and Americans continued to buy these slaves because it was opportunity for them to earn profits. These profits came at the expense of the long term wealth of Africans. With most of the people involved, not realizing this. When a region becomes weak, a stronger region would exploit from them.
In the 19th century, suddenly, African slave traders started to lose customers. This was because, Slave trade was becoming illegal around the world. For Africa, this became a problem because the economy of Africa relied on this slave trade. Since they didn't build up their industries because of the slave trade, they lost their main source of income. Africans could no longer buy many of the tools they relied on.
The 2nd significant event to happen in the 19th century was industrialization. Americans and Europeans, were starting to produce more than any other part of the world. Africa became very insignificant to them by the middle of the 19th century. This was when they started to see the worst in Africa, and spoke about their lack of culture, no system of government. Racist beliefs were also started. People now had little or no interest in Africa, as Africa had nothing to offer.
The third major event, was the ability for Americans and Europeans to carry heavy equipment across the sea. Before industrial revolution, it would have not being possible. But, with new technology it became easier and profitable. That was when the leader in Belgium, decided that Belgium should have a colony. Of course, Africa was available and now weak. So, once again the strong took advantage of the weak. Soon, all other European countries joined in to take over Africa to build their colonies.
There were major significant effects of the colonization. The first, was that it created a worse economy for Africans. They were driven out of the most fertile regions and given plantation to work on, while the colonial masters owned the profits. Most of the taxes paid by the Africans were rarely used to better their lives, but to make life worse for them.
The European colonizers were only interested in the exploitation of resources in Africa. Also, the infrastructure created by the Europeans in Africa, was simply to make exporting raw materials out of the continent convenient. None of it was made for the improvement of Africans.
After world War 2, Africans started demanding for their Independence. Protests, riots and rebellion was brought up. Until the Europeans realized that a few million European couldn't control more than 200 million Africans. Between 1945-1975, almost all African countries became independent. Africans thought that if Africans ruled Africa, then wealth would follow suit. But, this didn't happen.
History has shown that former colonies that some become developed, such as Ireland, New Zealand and South Korea. Yet, not a single African country can be called developed. This is because of the way that the colonizers left Africa. They left Africa with no skills, no connection to fellow African countries, and no good economy. There was no way to bring prosperity to African countries, but at the same time, the independent leaders of Africa promised to bring prosperity to Africa.
To fufil this promise, most African countries adopted an economic socialism system. The leaders hoped it would work, and help to build industries. But, it didn't. The restrictions didn't aid trade between African countries. Since no one was willing to buy, the industries couldn't flourish. Secondly, a centrally planned economy would have more difficulty in succeeding the market, rather than other economies, which has different industries competing with each other.
So a combination of trade restrictions, inefficient government, lack of education, harsh environment and diseases meant that the system was doomed to fail from the very beginning. There was simply no way for African countries to reach wealth at that time, because of the underdeveloped countries they inherited from their colonizers.
Despite the fact that economic socialism was a terrible system of governance, African leaders chose it, because that was the same method that their colonizers used. For them to switch to a free market system, they would need skilled workers and entrepreneurs and they didn't have it at that time.
This simply explained why Africa didn't get rich immediately after independence. But, after a few decades it should have been easy to build a better economy because, by that time African citizens would have quality education and skills. Yet, it didn't happen. This can be traced to the corruption of Post independence African leaders. Most African countries adopted a democratic system, but it wasn't functional because it was a recent system.
Due to this reason, politics became an affair in which the aspiring politicians focused on specific ethnic groups. Focusing on one ethnic group over the rest, divided Africans further. To prevent this, a single party system was created. But, over the years, the elites now dominated the party. Which wasn't much different from what happened when they were colonized. The elite Europeans dominated them, and then the Elite Africans dominated them afterwards. Still, the leaders were afraid of being overtaken during coups so they diverted the economy. The money meant for development of the country was diverted to pay government workers and keep them happy enough not to start a coup.
At some point, corruption dug in deeper than everybody expected. Any company that wanted to run a successful business using raw materials, would have to pay the elites in exchange for it. Of course, that was bribery and with nobody to curb this excesses, it continued. Bribery became a huge problem in Africa, and the people weren't gaining from it. Companies would exploit their materials, pay the elites and they wouldn't get any profit, despite being the owners.
The people saw what was happening, and started to rebel and protest. With no strong military system, African countries had to request for aid from their former colonizers. They would provide their military aid in exchange for raw materials. 40 coups happened in Africa within two decades of their independence.
Soon, Africa was termed to have unstable governments. So unstable that, nobody was interested in investing in Africa. The problem was that, Africa was grouped as one single country. People didn't realize that there are different countries. For example, when someone hears about war in a part of Nigeria, they see it as war in a war filled zone. With that kind of instability, they didn't want to invest. If only they realized that the wars didn't affect the economic system, and it wasn't as bad as it was exaggerated to be.
In the 1980's education became better, more citizens became skilled, and politics was a more tolerable affair. Which was important because 3 major even happened during that time. The first was that, the infrastructure built by the colonizers was slowly depleting. Secondly, the little population in the continent that was educated, would move to better countries with a higher pay. This brain drain, made Africa to lose its best and most useful citizens.
Lastly, the soviet union decided to stop being a part of the cold war. So they stopped sending aides to their African allies. In turn, Western countries decided that they were also going to stop sending much money to African allies. All these affected the economy greatly. Quickly, African leaders no longer had enough money to keep themselves in power with the system of bribes.
With no choice, African countries went to Western countries requesting for financial aids. But, they were no longer interested in the materials in Africa, and couldn't provide this aid directly. Instead, they requested that there should privatization of industries in Africa, making it easier for countries to invest. African leaders tried to be sneaky, and pretended to privatize the industries. Rather, they would collect bribes in exchange for access to African markets. Everything still revolved around bribes, meaning nothing changed. Except that this time, Western industries supported this by rewarding foreign dictators with foreign aid packages.
Africa remained poor till 1989, which was when there were different protests around the world. Including Africa. Once again, Africans were protesting against their leaders. So, the western investors had to change tactics. Instead of giving bribes for fake privatization, they would pay African countries for reforming their government and solidifying democracy. This new changes, made African dictators to face 2 problems at once.
Firstly, their own people were getting restless and secondly, their income was reducing. Smartly, the dictators decided to reform the government only a little. But, enough to pacify the people, and impress the rich western countries. At least, democracy spread across Africa. Even though it wasn't completely fair and just. It still remained better than complete dictatorship.
The leaders in the 1990's, had to fight against corruption, in order to build a better system. They laid down policies that made Africans more involved in the activities of their countries. Also, international organizations such as African Union {AU} was established, to foster unity among African nations. Trade restrictions were lifted, and more things were set in place for a better economy. It has helped Africa to grow rapidly, and there has been progressive changes.
Finally, the 21st century. It's still too early to come up with any analysis. But, there are still many issues facing Africa. Africa countries are the least prepared for climate change, a 3rd of all children are malnourished. And, a 3rd of all children don't finish high school. Extremists find it easy to recruit the vast amount of poor unemployed people. Pandemics are common among the continent, with covid being just one among many. African countries are looking at the successes of East Asian countries, and adopting their policies.
This is the creation of more industries, good agricultural system and tech companies. A new generation of Africans are entering into the market, and are better educated, and skilled than any other generation before. With these hardworking entrepreneurs, the government has allowed a free market where it is easier to run an industry.
If the development in Africa continues, then it can finally bring an end to the systematic poverty that has plagued the continent for years. Africans are not only hopeful for the future, but for the first time since colonization, have the tools to get to the future they desire.
