161–170 of 415 posts
At which point we admit that current approaches to helping these countries does nothing and we reach out for other, radical, approaches and ideas?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Bring back colonization for limited amount of time ie 50years. During that time establish government, educational, civil structures and start the economy. Re-educate the society, instill the values of high-trust society. Pull out of the country gradually replacing foreigners with local population. The name 'colonization' might evoke some sentiments, but we can call this some other name.
Because colonists are totally expected to do a good job this time, not just pillaging resources, setting new apartheid systems, generating even greater famines like what UK did in India and doubling down on the lazy job of drawing straight line borders not taking in consideration the human gropings in the land, what generated a lot of the current conflicts, by splitting affine people in different countries and bunchi…
The previous colonial/imperial regime of the Mughal Empire was just as much a burden on the population.
The main reason India is able to feed its population today is the green revolution post WW2, especially the work of Dr. Swaminathan in India. Without it I think we would still see massive famines in India.
This is going to be the point where everyone blame the non interventionist movements for murder for the next thirty years.
Unlikely. That didn't happen in response to the failure to intervene to prevent the Darfur genocide before it started rather than just patrolling afterward to keep violence "to a minimum", the "Effacer le tableau", the massacre of the Hutus, the Rwandan genocide, the Gukurahundi, or the Cambodian genocide. I think this is closer to the Onion story about American mass shootings: people shake their heads with sorrow wh…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
We didn't do what throwaway3521 said, though. We tried to do it "on the cheap", just occupying, not actually transforming the society, and not staying for 50 years. For context: We occupied Japan for, what, 12 years? We technically occupied Germany longer, but practically it was about the same (I think - from memory and not researched). In that time, we transformed them from violent, racially superior, conquer-the-wo…
I would assume a more important factor was that Germany and Japan were both very organized, successful industrialized societies long before facing their respective downfalls in the wars. Iraq and Afghanistan both had a very, very different starting position and it would be unreasonable to expect a similar outcome.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
what are you suggesting
Bring back colonization for limited amount of time ie 50years. During that time establish government, educational, civil structures and start the economy. Re-educate the society, instill the values of high-trust society. Pull out of the country gradually replacing foreigners with local population. The name 'colonization' might evoke some sentiments, but we can call this some other name.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How about going in the other direction? Completely stay out of their business and let whatever emerges from the chaos develop on its own? Central planning of societies doesn't have a good track record, especially when there are competing external interests. Look at the horrific consequences of the American meddling in geopolitics of the third world over the last 100 years. The CIA and war industry is responsible for…
Central planning has a very good record in countries like China/South Korea. Non central social changes are just very very slow.
You should also compare it to situation where those countries wouldn't be centrally planned. Not so possible without time machine, so let's leave out measuring of efficiency of such systems. Ie when in Eastern Europe communism and central planning failed and fell down overnight, literally all those economies experienced massive boosts. I know I've lived through such transition there, hard to describe with words.
Ah yes, blame the lack of rulers and not colonialism or war.
They have been independent since 1956. Other (majority non-European) British colonies/protectorates as diverse as Singapore (ind. 1965), Belize (ind. 1981), India (ind. 1947) and UAE (ind. 1971) managed to build peaceful societies. We need to recognize that the people of countries like Sudan are not children who don't know any better, contrary to European leftists' views. They are fully functioning adults who made a…
Nitpicking here, but Sudan specifically only passed the median population age of 18 in the 2020s.
At which point we admit that current approaches to helping these countries does nothing and we reach out for other, radical, approaches and ideas?
You suggestion below is getting downvoted which isn't that surprising given the general tilt of HN. But I think there is a related question that's a bit better to ask. What are the social, political, cultural and intellectual preconditions of a free society? What ideals and values does the culture need to hold before you can have a stable government that in a general way - values liberty for its citizens? While I'd l…
Anyone who knows the history of the past decades and centuries of western interaction with the Middle East and Africa knows what a laugh this is.
The US is currently paying Egypt's current rulers billions a year to prevent and violently crack down on anyone who wants "modern governments built around such ideals as individual rights, rule of law, checks and balances, multiple political parties, free speech, independent court systems, a secular state". I watched former Meet the Press host Chuck Todd question whether it was wise for Obama to allow the Arab Spring to push out the violent dictator Mubarak. Speaking of capability for "enlightenment values" - the citizens risk their bodies and lives to go out in the street and fight for free elections and such, while the US arms the dictator fighting against those values.
And what would a free Egypt do? It certainly would not be as cooperative of these people "making aliyah" and then slaughtering Palestinians on Egypt's border in Gaza, that's for sure.
As you mention Africa, I think back to when I watched Reagan cooperating with the apartheid South African government, again fighting against those who wanted "modern governments built around such ideals as individual rights, rule of law, checks and balances, multiple political parties, free speech, independent court systems, a secular state, etc."
I could go on and on over the past decades - speaking of rule of law and all of that, I won't even go into what Israel is doing right now - they're showing Israeli soldiers raping Palestinians on Israeli TV now (and on Twitter too, for now at least) - nor will I go.into the US support of all of this.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Democracy export? That has worked so well in Iraq and Afghanistan...
We didn't do what throwaway3521 said, though. We tried to do it "on the cheap", just occupying, not actually transforming the society, and not staying for 50 years. For context: We occupied Japan for, what, 12 years? We technically occupied Germany longer, but practically it was about the same (I think - from memory and not researched). In that time, we transformed them from violent, racially superior, conquer-the-wo…
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Afaik, the latest UN statement on Gaza was that there is high risk of famnine, but there is insufficient evidence to conclude one has happened yet. https://www.ipcinfo.org/fileadmin/user_upload/ipcinfo/docs/I...
There may be food insecurity problems in Gaza, but the current publicly available data seems to suggest that Sudan is much much worse.