After a few generations, sub-Sahara African would have reverted to itspre-colonial ways, and completed its transition from a collection offailed states to a living record of humanity’s past.
I welcome James Jackson’scourage in pointing out the fact that Africa’s chronic dysfunction isthe result of, not white European rule in the past, but black Africansrule in the present—that, rather than its being the result of Europeancolonialism and post-imperial indifference, as is the Left’scontention, chronic dysfunction in the region is the result of Europeanpost-colonialism and post-imperial aid programs.
I will not accuse him of Leftism, but Mr. Jackson still commits thefallacy— characteristic of the Left—of judging sub-Saharan Africa byEuropean standards, and still seems to assume that Africa would developinto a European-style civilization if only Africans stopped playingvictim and got their act together, for once and for all. This latter assumption stems from the belief, held by the Left, thatblack Africans are Europeans with black skin. Said belief is linked toanother belief, one that values progress and measures it in terms ofconvergence with Europe’s present techno-industrial society—a type ofsociety characterized by complex social organization, high technology,industrial production, scientific discovery, capitalism, rule of law,private property, citizen’s rights, modernity, and secular rationalism.The abnormality of these beliefs in relation to some non-Europeansocieties is not obvious to us, because we take them for granted. Buttaking cognizance of it is important, for the consequences arecatastrophic: they underpin the entire aid and white guilt enterprise,which have fuelled a population explosion in the Dark Continent and theconsequent tide of hungry and resentful immigrants into Europe andNorth America.