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Originally posted by Donnie Gangsta
Sub-Sahara Africa's climate is suitable for farming -- moreso than Europe, even. This is one of the reasons European colonialists all wanted to settle here.
Northern Africa is obviously a desert climate, and yet the Caliphite and Ottomon Empires managed to flourish in this climate. Although these countries are now far behind their Western counterparts, they're ridiculously far ahead of their sub-sahara neighbors, who happen to be black.
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Sub-Sahara Africa's climate is by no means more suitable for farming than that of Europe. It has droughts fairly frequently, the climate ranges from subtropical to tropical and much of the area consists of inhospitable land (desert, savanna, etc). In other words: what you said is nonsense.
The reason European colonialists wanted to settle the area is largely because of non-food farming. Something that has a completely different effect on the development of a region.
As for the difference in cultures between northern Africa and sub-Sahara Africa, please note the geographical isolation from which the sub-Sahara area suffers. Geographical isolation tends to severely hinder the development of cultures.
Cultures generally flourish when they come into contact with other cultures, not when they are cut off from other cultures.
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Originally posted by Donnie Gangsta
Ever seen the movie Zulu?
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Ofcourse there have been a few instances of large scale warfare in the area. A few instances, however, does not make a prolonged tradition of large scale warfare.
Quote:
Originally posted by Donnie Gangsta
The Caliphite Arab culture arguably started the Renaissance. The Moors invaded Southern Italy and Spain, and brought with them their culture -- art, music, and literature, as well as a bit of tradition.. At this time, Europe was in the dark ages. and this spread to France from Spain, and to Northern Italy from the South, sparking the Renaissance, which in turn brought about the Enlightenment. But anyway, the point of that was just to say that European culture arguably came from the Middle East/Northern Africa.
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The Moors were heavily influenced by Greek and (to a lesser extent) Roman culture. For instance, their medical tradition was largely taken from Greek culture. If you take one of the most influential arab philosophers, Averroes, you see that his works are actually largely based on Aristotle.
What the arab culture mainly did was bringing ancient Greek and Roman culture back to Europe (where the church had suppressed it for a long time - if it hadn't been for Hunain ibn Ishaq we probably wouldn't have much of the writings of the Greek philosophers left).
I simplified it a bit, but the main point still stands. Europe had a tradition to build on.
Quote:
Originally posted by Donnie Gangsta
But regardless, this cultural point does not excuse Africa from being shit. Africa had just as much time to develop a decent civilization and cultural infrastructure as Europe, or Asian, or anyone else in the world (all of which do in fact have some sort of tradition). Sub-saharan Africa is the only inhabitable part of the world that is such a shitty place to live. The only decent part of it was settled by Europeans.
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Geographical isolation, an inhospitable climate, no tradition to build on, exploitation by colonists, nations formed without any consideration for the actual tribes of people living in the area, less than a hundred years of independancy for most of the nations and extreme trade barriers are some of the main reasons for the situation being the way it is. That's not an opinion, that's a fact.
Quote:
Originally posted by Donnie Gangsta
Hm.. have you looked at any statistics of sub-Saharan Africans living abroad?
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Let me rephrase:
If Africans had been the original inhabitants of Europe, chances are they would have had developed advanced civilizations.
The black people living in other countries today are an entirely different subject and debate (one that I would gladly engage in at another time).