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Originally posted by TheBandit795
Paul of Nisbis,
First of all, are we talking about Africa here? Or the Islam. I for one definetaly wasn't talking about Islam here. There are other threads for that.
Originally posted by TheBandit795And wasn't Egypt one of the wealthiest and most powerful cultures on the planet? One of the cradles of western civilisation??
Originally posted by TheBandit795How about the Ethopian emprire which was also wealthy and powerful in it's peak times.
Originally posted by Paul of Nisbis
An example of what? Two religions don't exist in peace when they mingle into one artificial mess. If anything, the Muslims will hate them even more, Christians and Jews at least get the option of serfdom if they bow before the Muslim aggressor, but I doubt it will be extended to this group, who will be considered Muslim heretics to be wiped out. All they are doing is weakening the resolve of Christianity, making it easier for the Islamic virus to spread and destroy that country.
Originally posted by Souljah
And the News I have posted is an Example, how this two Religions CAN live exist in Peace - but I guess that is an Artificial Mess for some people like you.
Originally posted by Paul of Nisbis
Once again, that is not two religions living in peace, that is a desperate attempt at appeasement within a country where the Muslims are engaging in yet another attempt to impose Islamic law.
I could lecture you some more on the benefits of western civilization, and Christianity, but what's the point. Good luck with learning Arabic.
Originally posted by Souljah
You were right - you DONT WANT to KNOW, thats your problem. If you did, your mind might have reacted differently. Or not.
Frankly, all the Aid that comes to Africa is NOT ENOUGH, if it were, there would not be Wars, Famine, Starvation, Diseases and DEATH all over the Place. And did you know that PRIVATE DONATORS give alot more then any Goverments or Companies?
Exactly. Thats why America has SUPER SIZED MENUS, so that the realy FAT people can Thrown the Extra Pounds of French-Fries - oops I mean FREEDOM-Fries
You have given them NOTHING but empty Hopes and small packages of food - when in fact they need somebody to BUILD them Farms and Infrastructure -
So now its they have to cope with it, when before you said there is nothing wrong with their Enviroment, and that they should live like they did thousands of years ago.
THE HELP GOES TO THE JEWS not the PALESTINIANS! If you did not notice, Palestinians DO NOT Live in Isreal - they live in West Bank and Gaza Strip,
Yet the United States still give FREE Military Technology to Isreal,
All I am saying si that, WE - as the Human Race, as the CITIZENS of this PLANET - can Togather, Make it BETTER, FOR EVERYONE! Not just for the Few, Rich - but for everybody! PEACE AND JUSTICE FOR ALL - remember?
Errr, the West has Enormous Resources, because they STOLE alot of it in the Past.
But, you are practicly GIVING Free Aid to Isreal, why not the Africans, a People that REALLY need it. It is not like Isreali's are starving and dying from simple curable diseaes, is it?
And I think the Asia has a little bit different Climate, then the Africa. Yes, Asia was once also colonized but the White Man, but their history is alot different and their way of life.
The US prolonged the rule of Zairian dictator Mobutu Sese Soko by providing more than $300 million in Weapons and $100 million in Military Training. Mobutu used his US-supplied arsenal to repress his own people and Plunder his nation's economy for Three decades! To top it all, His family holds his fortune, and his country holds his $12 billion debt - in a nation with an annual income of $110 per capita, each resident theoretically owes foreign creditors $236.
They are not BEGGING - they are DYING as we speak! That is not Begging, that is a CALL FOR HELP.
So you see a Dying man on the Street, you can see that he is in PRETTY Bad shape, what do you do?
So it is YOUR WISH to Give one Third of 14 Billion dollars worth of ARMS to known human rights abusers? It is YOUR WISH to transferre weaponry to 18 of the 25 countries involved in active conflicts?
Originally posted by dr_strangecraft
Compare China with Africa.
-Both were completely balkanized by a slew of European colonizers. England, France, Germany, Netherlands were active in both situations, and supported each other's inherent rights to Empire at the same time they competed amongst themselves to see which empire could get the largest.
-Both situations were a welter of small ethnic communities, largely undeveloped, that were practically enslaved to feed European mercantilism.
-Farmers in both areas were forced to switch from subsistence farming to cash crops that served only European markets.
-Multiple occupying forces in the region, while rivals, came to each others' aid in times of widespread uprising. Boxer rebellion is the classic example.
So, how did China throw off such oppression and become a world power itself? Africa has natural resources that equal or surpass China's.
Leaders like Mao and Chang Kai-shek had a task of unifying many ethnic minorities in the midst of their civil war. Surely, the Imperial powers tried to use both of them to re-insert themselves into China, but failed.
It is not like China was self-ruling before the Europeans got there, either. While Africa was oppressed by muslim slavers, Chiina had been ruled by a non chinese minority (the manchu people) since 1611 AD, with the imposition of the alien "Quing" dynasty . . . . Roughly the same time-period of European colonization of Africa.
And, more that native African Leaders like Shaka Zulu, the Quing absolutely refused to modernize, knowing that modernization meant the end of minority Manchurian political and social hegenomy. The Western Powers were aware of this fear, and exploited it to an unbelieveable degree.
So what is the difference here? If anything, the African cultures had a much longer exposure to european technology & military, and could have evolved alongside.
Originally posted by Attero Auctorita
Do we really need moderators calling people, who they believe they have a superior view to, son? Show a little class.
Originally posted by Paul of Nisbis
Seeing the role of Islam in the decline of native black African civilizations, how can we discuss Africa without mentioning it, especially when some people in this thread want to put the all blame on Christian Europe? And, in fact, aren't Christian blacks still being kept, right now, as slaves by Muslims in Sudan?
Well, Egypt was in Africa, but I don't think it was black, as opposed to Ethiopia:
What distinguishes Ethiopia from Ghana, Songhai, etc. is that Christianity, which they received from Egypt (which was Christian by peaceful converison for centuries before Islam invaded them) enabled them to flourish even when all other African civilizations crumbled before Islam. It is no accident that they were the last African country conquered by a European power, and only for a brief time, by the fascist [godless] Italy.
Originally posted by Souljah
I disagree. China had a prior history of a Chinese Empire, which was United and Big before the Western colonizers arrived. Africa never had a King who would Unite the entire Continent to say - like Chinese had. It was far easier to Divide and Conquer African people then it was to do the same to Chinese.
True. I would just add, that African climate is alot different from Chinese.
True. However, IMHO the Chinese people had not Suffered and Endured as much as the African did - there was no BIG Slave Trade of Chinese people, like it happened to African.
You are talking about Apples and Oranges here. China is a COUNTRY and once was an EMPIRE - African Continent NEVER was an EMPIRE and never was a BIG, Country like China. You can not compare a Country to a Continent.
So you saying that Africans need some Communism?
Originally posted by AceOfBase
It's true that the European empires fell but with the exception of the Russians they generally aren't living in poverty today.
Also, this thread seemed to put the blame for the collapse of the African civilization on the Europeans but as myself and others have pointed out many of those regions were colonized by the muslims before the Europeans began to colonize them. Some of the regions fell into decline even before the muslims showed up.
Originally posted by Souljah
Tell me, besides spreading across the North and parts of West Africa, how has Islam Plaqued Africa? Has the Turkish Empire Colonized the ENTIRE Continent? Have the Exploited its Natural Resources for their own Greedy purposes? Have the made big Money by trading with slaves, gold, ivory and spice? Yes, the Muslims were the first to reach African people, but they had never Exploited and Conquered it like the European colonists.
And Islam is NOT a Virus - it's a Religion.
United States House of Representatives, Committee on Foreign Affairs
May 20, 1992
To summarize a complex situation, Mr. Turabi helped turn a poor country in the throes of a decades-long civil war into one of the most wretched places on the planet. The Christians of the Sudan face imposed starvation that recalls the Stalinist famine in the Ukraine. Rather than deliver food, the Sudanese air force has responded by bombing relief sites. Of the regime's many barbarisms, perhaps its outstanding accomplishment lies in its forcing some 400,000 Christians out of their homes and into the barren desert; thousands have already died and many more are in jeopardy unless rescued immediately. Among relief workers, the Sudanese authorities are known as the "Khmer Rouge of Africa"-accurately, for they may be mounting a killing field unmatched since Cambodia's.
www.refugeesinternational.org...
In order to keep the Sudanese Liberation Army and the Justice Equality Movement from controlling any territory in the Darfur region, the Islamic government in Khartoum has employed a campaign of terror in which Muslim women from Darfur are victims of rape conducted and directed by Muslim men from the Arabic nomadic tribes known as the Janjaweed.
“As you have raped me, please don’t leave me alive… kill me with your gun” begged Almina to her rapist. “May shame kill you” was the reply of the Janjaweed militiaman who raped her on July 4th.
In the run-off election of November 8, 2005 between soccer legend George Weah and former finance minister Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, Johnson-Sirleaf became the first female elected head of state in African history. She was inaugurated on January 16, 2006.
Liberia
Originally posted by Netchicken
Africa has certinaly been exploited historically, but when the west left they often left countries well on the way to first world status, Rhodhesia, Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana. What happened after that is the responsability of the new states themselves.
The problem is that you can't take tribal based groups and weld them together to become nations from the outside, as the west tried to do.
It has to be an internal intrinsic change of the people themselves. Thats why the new nations failed, they are based on artificial borders and tribal groupings. They also imposed western ethics and social structures upon people unready and unable to live in that manner.
When the western "leaders" left, the people reverted to more traditional practices and societies. African nations have to develop their own way forward, the western template of a good society is not necessarily the right one for every people. This is exactly the issue facing Iraq.
That working through takes generations, it also takes a degree of honesty and self awareness admitting that their society has problems that only they can take the blame for. People can't call themselves victims forever, they eventually need to stand on their own feet and start afresh.
Originally posted by Rebel_Lion
Islamic countries actually pay tax to their poor and have a brotherhood thing going on unlike the flailing west that still needs to keep a rich and poor divide to survive.
Originally posted by Souljah
I knew people would start Diverting the Topic to typical Islamo-Bashing - which is very Fashionable today. Tell me, besides spreading across the North and parts of West Africa, how has Islam Plaqued Africa? Has the Turkish Empire Colonized the ENTIRE Continent? Have the Exploited its Natural Resources for their own Greedy purposes? Have the made big Money by trading with slaves, gold, ivory and spice? Yes, the Muslims were the first to reach African people, but they had never Exploited and Conquered it like the European colonists.
And Islam is NOT a Virus - it's a Religion.
[edit on 2/2/06 by Souljah]
Originally posted by Souljah
Tell me, besides spreading across the North and parts of West Africa, how has Islam Plaqued Africa? Has the Turkish Empire Colonized the ENTIRE Continent? Have the Exploited its Natural Resources for their own Greedy purposes? Have the made big Money by trading with slaves, gold, ivory and spice? Yes, the Muslims were the first to reach African people, but they had never Exploited and Conquered it like the European colonists.
BBC
Mohammed Ture Askiya promoted Songhay in the Muslim world. He went to Mecca. He visited the Caliph of Egypt, who in turn made him Caliph of the whole of Sudan. Sudan was a loose term for a large area in sub-Saharan Africa usually embracing Mali, Chad, north west Nigeria, and Niger. In government matters, he took the advice of three distinguished jurists, or qadis. Generally the government of the Askiya dynasty was more centralised than that of the Mansas of Mali.
TRADITION AND TRADE
Some aspects of traditional religion were preserved, including the sacred drum, the sacred fire, and the old types of costume and hairstyle. As in Mali, there was a privileged caste of craftsmen, and slave labour played an important role in agriculture. Trade improved under Mohammed Ture Askiya, with gold, kola nuts and slaves being the main export.