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| quote: | Originally posted by Fir3start3r
Lost me too...
Are you talking about colonization of Africa by Europe?
Kinda of a dumb argument if you consider that the USA and Canada used to be colonies and Congo's problem is it's own civilians...
Comparing aid to Congo and the Tsunami is a luducrious arguement  |
The point is that like with the tsunami, there are many innocent people who need aid. A civil war is different than a natural disaster and we should be able to prevent such things from occuring, but the reality is they do quite frequently and many people who had nothing to do with the cause of the war are affected in many of the same ways as the tsunami. The point of my previous thread was simply noting that while it's tremendous that all of us and our governments contributed, there are other areas of need that we should at least be aware of. It's obviously your right whether you feel it's a worthy cause and wish to contribute (I know some of us already do).
As far as North American colonization and African colonialization, there are some differences. The people who founded the United States and Canada as independent countries were descendents of Europeans, who had travelled there. The native peoples of North America were nearly wiped out by these colonies. In Africa, the native people now are the citizens of the former colonies. One slight problem though is that the boundaries of the colonies, and now independent countries, were drawn without regard to the cultures, religions and ethnicities that exist in Africa. It's exactly like Iraq, where the Sunni, Sh'ite & Kurdish people were all grouped together and now they're told to become a democracy in which one group essentially will have say over the other groups. In some cases these groups have not gotten along for generations and that's where power struggles are inevitable, such as in Rwanda.
A side bit of info on Congo, if anyone is interested in reading some more. It was a Belgian colony that saw the death of easily well over 15 million, as people were forced to gather natural resources. Entire villges were forced into essentially slave labor at the risk of death if they refused. Because the Belgians themselves did not police much ofthe colony and they did not trust the Africans they entrusted to force their policies, they required their guards to account for every bullet they fired by bringing the hand of the person they had shot, so that they would not stockpile ammunition to revolt against the Belgians. Since the guards often would take several shots to finally kill a fleeing person who refused to work, many living people had their hands cut off to make up the difference.
The first democratically elected leader of Congo was Patrice Lumumba of the National Congolese Movement. The day the country officially became independent, a number of provinces with heavy Belgian interest ceceeded from the country and prevented Lumumba from ever beginning to democratically govern the country. He eventually was captured and killed, with apparent CIA knowledge that he was being held. A number of Western countries,including the United States, feared his policies were too far to the left and that Congo might have turned Communist. Basically even after the colony became independent, it was run into civil war by sacking the eleted government and placing a military leader, Col. Mubutu, in charge. This is basically what led to the civil war that's still playing out.
HEre's some more info
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