I am receiving A LOT of racist and uninformed comments on this video every day and I want to adress them here. 1. Sub-saharan Africa didn't develop any written language This is simply incorrect. A prominent example of the Ge'ez script. But there are several others. 2. They couldn't even invent the wheel (in sub-Sahara Africa) Anyone who says this doesn't know how wheels work. They did have the wheel, but it was of no use to them. In order to use wheels for transport you need a lubricant. In Europe, Asia, and North Africa they had the wild boar (and later the domesticated pig). These were animals with a lot of fat which could be used to lubricate those wheels. But they are not native to Sub-Saharan Africa. Without sufficient and cheap fat wheels were useless. It's why places that didn't have easy access to fat didn't use wheels. Even with our modern technology we still need to use lubricants... If anyone thinks a pre-industrial civilization could fix this issue, which we still can't fix today, needs to lower their expectations. On top of that, Africa has a lot of rivers and African river ships were so incredibly advanced that when Europeans tried to invade Africa in the 16th-18th centuries that they were easily defeated by the local Africans. 3. Africa didn't have any countries/empires Even a short google search easily disproves this. Here are just 20 of them: Mali Empire, Ghana Empire, Songhai Empire, Kanem-Bornu Empire, Sokoto Caliphate, Jolof Empire, Oyo Empire, Benin Empire, Kaabu Empire, Aro Confederacy, Ashanti Empire, Kong Empire, Bamana Empire, Wassoulou Empire, Kongo Kingdom, Luba Empire, Lunda Empire, Zulu Kingdom, Maravi Empire, Rozvi Empire.
Did you just imply africa has no animals with fat? You know one of the oldest trace of animal husbandry comes from africa right? Here's a quick example: "Having killed a fat ox, the men are busily engaged in boiling down the fat. Care should be taken to sprinkle a few drops of water in the pot when the fat is supposed to be sufficiently boiled; should it hiss, as though poured upon melted lead, it is ready; but if it be silent, the fat is not sufficiently boiled, and it will not keep"
@@moiseman no. I said "sufficient and cheap fat". pigs will eat anything, even feces. pigs were an incredibly cheap source of fat. oxes take 3-4 years to mature while a pig only needs 5-6 month, an ox needs more food to survive, etc. It's not that they had no fat, it's that they didn't have it as cheaply and on large enough scale like in Eurasia.
@@ayasugihada Africa did develop quite rapidly after slavery was banned, but those few decades weren't enough to catch up with Europe. I even state this in the video.
That's an easy cop out though? Just look at the places through time that have been invaded that aren't in Africa that are still destabilised. You don't come and divide and conquer ethnic groups and then expect it to be all great when you finally withdraw. People love to group Africans as one group when in one country you can find numerous ethnic groups with their own problems etc
Ah yes. All of us that were raised in the 60's snd 70's heard that same guilt trip. "You need to finish all of your food. Remember, there are starving children... etc. etc." Being grateful for my culinary good fortune was never a problem. Until that fateful day that dinner was Liver w/onions and Brussels Sprouts. About an hour in, I had only managed to choke down a couple of bites of this horrible meal. With tears in my eyes from the revulsion I felt for the food. I asked my Mother if I could be excused from the dinner table. Her reply was the predictable "starving children in Africa" coercion. Without caution or forethough, "Well send it to them" came angrily out of my mouth! Boy! Was I in trouble for a few days! But, that particular motivational statement was never used again.
As a Nigerian, the video almost brings me to tears. Even till today, the last of the corrupt leaders from the 50s to the 80s still have their hooks entrenched in the government. I hope my generation can put away the Relegious and Tribalistic ideals that have not helped anyone.
As a African Living in America this also brings me to tears because the real reason is the Portuguese came in with their religion which is Christianity and tricks our people. 1490 was the year Africa took a turn for the Worse!!! Africa is the only continent that can survive without any other continent/Country but there's no other continent or country that can survive without Africa NOT ONE!!!
Africa is the richest continent in the world can't no other continent survive without Africa but Africa can survive without anyone!!!!! The Europeans just need to take their hands off of Africa and let them be!!!! They were thriving way before the first European ever settled on Africa's Shores every since then Africa has never been the same
The government of Ghana admitted to this years ago! During the slave trade, the rulers of a region sold fellow Africans to the point it got out of hand. Tribes were selling out tribes. Instead of uniting, Africa was easily taken advantage of because one village or tribe didn't care about the others.
This is a really weird. When the romans ravaged northern Europe people don't conclude "whites were hurting whites". We acknowledge their ethnic variety. Africans weren't selling their own. They were selling people from different regions. They might have both been "black" but they weren't the same people.
@@sben125 Also, much of the sale of of slaves was out of self-preservation and the deals were highway robbery. The West militarily was more advanced and had already determined to take over as much of the world as possible through Christian/Catholic decrees or Papal Bulls that established things like the Doctrine of Discovery that was used to take over brown skin people's lands around the world, massacre, and make them Christian via "perpetual slavery." Kings like Badu Bonsu resisted selling others as slaves and was ultimately beaten back and beheaded for "sedition" against one of the European Crowns. The fact that Africa stayed poor despite selling so many slaves is a key indicator that the nature of these deals were highway robbery with the threat of death. Focusing on African in such a negative sense also ignores that Africa wasn't the only place devastated by Europe's genocidal Empire. The Americas all North, Middle and South , Australia, and all the Asia Pacific and Polynesian/Melanesian Isles, Caribbean Isles, etc. suffered much the same fate and are in much the same condition today. Separating these issues as if they're not all the same, having the same root cause, and the same current day perpetrators is a carefully crafted way to draw eyes away from the big picture. The Western European Empire, which includes The US, Australia, and other offshoot nations, was built on and still thrives on the destruction and subjugation of non-white nations.
20 minutes in, and as a Ghanaian living in South Africa, I'm genuinely impressed by this video. I expected to hear all the usual talking points, but this video accuractely discusses how african slavery was different to western slavery, how Africa's historical relationships with its neighbours affected its economic growth, how colonialisation left African countries isolated from its iwn neighbours, the education failure, etc. A truly nuanced take that many people living here aren't even aware of. I did not expect a foreigner to have this level of understanding into our historical struggles. It's not infantilising, it's not racist. It's just facts 👏👏👏
Just to clarify for people who don't know this already,, Nigeria prince mail is a scam case as the 419 fraud. There is no official Nigerian prince! Nigera has a president.
@@eghosa2705 that's not the point I was trying to make, notice what I said was " no official prince". However, you are right, Nigeria is divided into hundreds of small ethic groups, there are definitely many local prince, which I don't consider as official prince. This is also what led to their failures- too many ethic groups and religious beliefs, which is hard to organize and unstable, the country went through nine constitutions in 24 years. Even their laws are different across the country.
@@igormac9431 I mean, you're not wrong Even if your comment appeared to have a little malicious intent, I have to admit that majority of the population here in Nigeria don't know it's history. Just recently, history was removed as a core subject in our secondary schools Its sad, really because if we never learn why we made mistakes in the past, we can never grow as a people These days, those with a tertiary education make it their goal to leave the country in search of greener pastures. While I understand them, it doesn't change the fact that it's detrimental to us in the long run. It just puts the past into perspective; when the leaders just did what would be beneficial to them then, with no regard for the future.
@@Flint_the_uhhh sorry if it came off that way. I think that majority of the problems in the world are due to poor education, lack of information and usually both. I mean look at US.perfect example even tho they are rich, it causes different problems.
@@playcat22211 what are you talking about? The jews never had an empire. If you're talking about modern day israel , you need to read up on your history. The jews not only did they have a lot of money, they got help from half the world. They used that very smartly but there is a huge difference between the jewish and pretty much any other struggling people.
“When an African becomes rich, his bank accounts are in Switzerland, he goes to France for medical treatment, he invests in Germany, he buys houses in Dubai, he Prays in Rome or Mecca, his Children study in England or Canada, the whole family all take Western Nationalities and they travel to Europe for tourism. When he dies, he returns to be buried in his home country. Africa is a graveyard for Africans, how could you ever expect a graveyard to be developed?” - one of the realest things I have ever heard, the first step is for all those millions of middle/upper class Nigerians (including my dad) living and raising families abroad, to invest and give back to their country.
I think this is what happens with China. Lots of lots Chinese people fleet from the country during the colonial time, and civil war. Lots of them refuse to come back, but they keep on sending money to China. To this time, trader who buys goods from china industries, are Chinese overseas. Chinese overseas built schools in China, and send their kids to study there (not to life there!) So they can back home, and become successful business man outside of China. The Chinese overseas seems like having this mentality of building China from the comfort of their now adopted country
To an extent, don't take it too hard... some of us come from lines that have so many areas of the world we could claim as 'heritage' that where we are, is as contemporaneous, much the same.
@soehokgie This is so true is the Chinese who built Malaysia 🇲🇾 they call Chinese Malaysia they are the most rich people in there they live nice apartments and drive 🚗 nice cars. However they are most economical growing country in the world. I just heard that they lend money to America 🇺🇸 government and rest of world. You see they are the one who are building and modernising Africa such us Nigeria 🇳🇬 Kenya 🇰🇪 and Uganda 🇺🇬 too
As a Nigerian I would say this is one of the most accurate representations of African economic history on UA-cam. Although there were a lot of generalizations, which would be impossible to avoid trying to fit the economic history of an entire continent in 40 minutes, you did a good job!
I haven’t seen a more comprehensive summary on this issue. As a Nigerian, it breaks my heart to see such vast potential wasted. My take is that if we can provide quality education and healthcare to our people, it will act as a catalyst for positive change across the continent. Thank you for this video
I'm going to be honest here, the single most important thing here that needs to happen is stable government. Governmental stability is probably the number 1 factor in a successful economy as that investment doesn't just get stolen by an elite. This ties into social cohesion where you trust your own neighbor to not steal your stuff. The second most important is to have a liberal enough system to have free markets and robust trade so that the economy can adapt. Everything else comes second and will be a net benefit.
@@buddermonger2000 I agree with you 100%, but Africa is not good ground to sow that seed. The prevailing systems of tribal preference, greed, bribes, dash and connections make the continent a wildly speculative place for investments. A board of directors would be hard pressed to explain to stockholders why they risked their money in such a market when there were other possibilities. The general attitude is still that trade is a form of theft.
@@Dutch_Uncle That's why I put governmental stability as number 1 as a stable government is indicative of enough social cohesion as to not do that. Since of course... trade is still seen as a form of theft it currently lacks enough to not trust your neighbor to not steal your stuff. In lacking that it can't even get to the second most important one.
@@buddermonger2000 but to achieve government stability, we need to educate our people on the desirable qualities to look out for in a capable leader. The ethnic divisions and elections rife with vote buying tell us that we need to enlighten the electorate
I worked with a co-worker, whom was in South Africa. As a general rule, if you take all of a workers possessions, they leave the country. We also helped a man leave a country in Africa, and become a doctor. We helped him out. He brought lots of stuff back for charity to help the children, whom has seen nothing but war in their country.. The "stuff" was siezed, and sold to help the war effort. It was his intent to go back, but after his charity was defeated...he stayed in the USA.
It's really sad. Africa is such an underdeveloped and chaotic place in so many different parts that we can hardly even imagine it. And the worst part is, there doesn't seem to be any solution to the problem.
I'm afraid that as much as I can't dispute what may have happened to your friend, I must say the tone of your text implies a certain level of generalization and to some extent a simplification of the challenges we face in Africa. And on that you are appallingly wrong my friend...
Thank you so much for making this video. As an African myself (Nigerian, specifically) it always annoys me when most people only attribute Africa's current problems to "colonialism or racism", effectively removing personal responsibility of us Africans, and ignore more important factors like geography, climate, socioeconomic systems, political unity and leadership. Thanks for focusing on those areas.
@@holiantoon8426 Don't know why my commment has been deleted, maybe because I said some forbidden word and this is also the exact reason that I altered the word that you mentioned. African tribes are tribal, of course, and that leads to favoritism, but no, you know well what I meant. Let me spell it out: The inte-l on average of Africans is significantly bel-ow that of other peoples.
@@mrRunist Intelligence and education level are different things. Better education systems would bring many great minds just like it does everywhere else.
@@kanieraliapeng724 Nah, most of them use religion for personal gains. Either to keep people in line, to justify their rule, or to simply obtain those bribes.
So, basically, even if there are improvements in terms of education and people become more skilled and talented, those people can't contribute anything into the economy very well, because of their corrupt government, which results to migrating into a wealthier country.
So what happened for say the 80 thousand plus years before white man showed up? Why have black people progressed so little without being helped so much. Africa since the 1960s has received 60 times more.aid then Europe got in total to rebuild post ww2. I'm coloured btw
@@thehorsecockexpress1068 Because in the past most of their treasures that would drawer tourism and most of their natural resources have been taken by the west? Also as the commented explained the governments are corrupt nowadays
@@thehorsecockexpress1068 before the white man showed up they were literally the same as everyone else. Kingdoms and culture rose and fell like everyone else. When the white man showed up many kingdom also rose and fell. In most of history, Africa was practically on the same level as most continents. What changed was guns. Not muskets cause Africans were able to fight back most colonizers when musket warfare was primarily the go to (they definitely suffered more loses than the Europeans but not without consequences to the Europeans). After the machine gun became a thing. Yea that was basically a sweep. Plus, let’s not forget that Africa current position is a recent development. Now if you are wondering why you learn so little about African nations until their recent history, it’s because African history was never focused on the world scale. We don’t hear about their kings and their influence mainly because they adopt other Cultures to be more connected to the wider world (how most East Asian nation had Chinese influence. In Africa’s case Islam), but kept their roots close to their people. Oral history is the norm in most African world (not because written language isn’t a thing there it is, just that writing is just not common, like everywhere else, and when conflict with Europe spread many cultural and historical site were flat out destroyed, some by rival African countries looking to gain power only to realize that they didn’t have the respect of Europeans (there was a puppet African king that consistently asked an European nation (don’t remember which one) to stop raiding their people and the nation just ignored him, but he couldn’t fight lest his people get destroyed). After all that, colonies were set up to make sure the people were dependent on the Europeans, dependent on one source of economical goods, cultures destroyed, people starved, and forced to live with former neighboring kingdoms with different ideologies. Once those colonies are gone, well the counties struggled to find effective leaders to rule peoples of different ideologies, add that with greed, lack of education, and ill fitted aid... yea it explains why the continent as a whole is struggling. Hell, let me put something into perspective, I am a Yoruba Nigerian who was raised Christian. I was thought to see anything that is culturally relevant to being Yoruba as demonic and wrong. Thus, anything I could be proud that my people gave the world, I never learnt of. Kingdoms that Yoruba people should look up to as their Rome, I never learnt of because going to oral teachers is akin to visiting demon worshipers. So, it’s not that we don’t do anything or influence the world, it’s just recently that’s how it looks like. Countries in Africa can’t do what other nations did because they can’t honestly unite the same way other nations did. Imagine putting a Japanese, Russian, and an American into a room, after ww2 with just one fish and gold, leaving all of it to the American and saying that a new country treat everyone well. Even if they do manage to unite it will take some time and effort. Sorry for the essay. If you manage to read this far, I commend you.
Well, I really get a laugh when YOU @$$hats blame whites "stealing African rescources", .. . considering that it is FROM those "stollen" resources that such things as THESE VERY COMPUTERS we're all using here were FASHIONED (metals, Plastics, glass), .. . lmao!
It's always funny how every nation on the planet wants to sh/t on the US, but then also wants to move there after a few years. You want the benefits of living here but without having to endure any of the problems inherent here.
I believe It's worse in South Africa. Zulus consider any black who who isn't zulu inferior. They say Zulus, whites, and Indians are superior and any black person who isn't zulu is filthy and inferior.
Is truly disheartening how even with the countries that are escaping poverty the fastest, it still takes decades to even see most of it disappear, and how many people never really had a choice and they have to live at terrible human conditions…
I lived in West Africa. Didn’t visit, didn’t stay in a bubble, I lived in the country. Africa has tons of money. It’s all stolen by the few of their own people, and they make those few their heroes. End of story.
While I agree with your statement about money being stolen in the hands of the few. I completely disagree with them being made into "heroes". Secondly the major problem in Africa is the fact that our leaders are quite literally selling the continent. China comes in, wants a mine worth over a billion. So- 1. Instead of the government using the thousand domestic PhD engineers and making it a domestic project, they bring foreign Chinese workers to do the work, while the younger generation is qualified but unemployed. 2. Then when China does decide to mine, they don't get the land for a fair price. A mine worth 2 billion, they can get for 20million. They just have to give an extra 20 million to the right people and its done. 3. China then takes the raw resources and refine them, then when they sell them, they are now worth over double. All while our pathetic 70+ year old corrupt President is wasting the bribe money on his worthless farm. Look it up, almost all African presidents have farms. They think we are still in the 20th century where farming was everything. We are truly doomed! The younger generation is waking up but I fear it's just too late. We are being trapped into debt.
@@KilgoreTrout1212 True, but the amount of money they bring in is still high from natural resources combined with near slave labor and child labor. Could they make a lot more money if they had developed beyond animals? Yes, but still have tons of money that is stolen by very few with zero going back to their people.
Historically the largest African empires exported raw materials across the Saharah to get rich, but once those empires fell they often resorted to slave trade to make up for the lost money. The Songhai empire (the successor of the Mali empire) for example had a 20 year period of civil war where opposit factions sold the captured soldiers as slaves in northern Africa. Before then the state was built around the city of Gao, a rich trading city. This was largely due to the unclear rules regarding the line of succession once a king died. Polygomy was common, so kings often had a lot of sons, all fighting for the crown. Slave trade was already well established in Africa long before western colonies exploited it and started systematically buying slaves, which indirectly forced those opposing kingdoms and tribes to either sell more recources than they could ever gather or sell slaves, destabilising the economy already back then. Slave trade is a very touchy subject of course, so I'm trying to keep this objective and not draw any conclusions.
Yes prior the the Europeans/USA slavery times the whole world had slavery but that still a piss poor excuse for the Western countries which exploited slavery for centuries.
Having worked for many years in Ghana, I have to say that with even the "reasons" mentioned in the video, its an extremely complex subject. In Ghana I got very frustrated with the corruption and the cultural cast system so entrenched in their lives. I always felt that it would be an ideal place to invest in large factories, but having worked in the mines with many of the locals, I know it wouldn't work. Workers with real natural talent would be overlooked by local leaders, meaning you often had to use someone totally unsuitable for the task in hand, Grrrr.
Many foreigners have experiences similar to yours. There's a Dutch-Ghanaian who has been living in Aburi for like 15 years, and his stories about his struggles with ECG will break your heart. The man loves Ghana and chooses to stay here for some inexplicable reason, but the shit he goes through and the money he has spent (since 2008) just to get power to his house for more than 2 weeks at a time would seem like fiction to anyone who lives in a 1st world country.
There is poverty in this world because the greedy profit from the misery of others. Not just Africa all over the world. Poverty exists because of greed and the unequal spread of wealth, poverty is absolutely man-made and on purpose.
@@DevinDTVHope for a better life isn’t greed. Want isn’t even greed. Want at the expense of all else is greed. An addiction to earning money instead at the expense of deeper things beyond it, like community, is greed. Community oriented progress is what has solved most of our issues, not greed. Greedy people have been tricked by cooperative people into cooperating with the system for everyone’s benefit, but the system should always seek to use the greed for everyone’s advantage, not glorify the greedy and allow them proportional power to their wealth. Take a look at Africa’s government full of greedy and corrupt politicians. Does that seem like a good society? Yet American business people have been pushing the “greed is goo” lie for so long so many people believe it that it’s about to swallow our society in selfishness like any other backwards country. Get a grip on reality.
30:52 is a major factor. Without Engineers, Doctors and scientists your country is not much of a country. After WW2 Russia and the US were in competition to obtain the best engineers, doctors and scientists from Germany. They already had their own business people and the only value German politicians offered was the ability to test rope strength.
Except Germany did not suffer a prolonged brain drain. The country today is one of the largest economies in the world with some of the best engineers, doctors, and scientists in the world. It's institutions survived and this is critical. A country with developed institutions that survive a conflict or crisis will continue to generate competitive output indefinitely.
You would think that in 2021, this would be obvious to African leaders, and so you would expect that they would be taking measures to promote people going into these fields. You know, subsidized education, scholarships, heavy recruitment, great pay after graduation................well in Ghana, nope. Still the same pathetic nepotism, corruption and mismanagement. Hurray for my motherland............
@@Squidward558 Also Germany was put back on its tracks to strengthen western Europe with the soviet union's influence growing in Eastern Europe. The Germans were enemies in ww2 and there was even talk of utterly destroying it as a country by keeping it agrarial, but reforming Germany was a far more beneficial choice to keep the west solid than let the soviets eat the rest of Europe.
This is a very well-made and well-researched video, not breaking down to the conclusion of "Europe bad, Africa good" like I've seen some people do, but also addressing the part Europe had in setting Africa up for failure. Once again, great video
@King Arthur just typed up whatever tf a lefty clone is, its gibberish. also i am not antisemetic. who cares if youre racist? BASICALLY EVERYBODY YOURE RACIST AGAINST. when u start putting words in people mouths based on their race, dont be suprised when they call u racist.
I once was discussing this issue with a Kenyan man. He asked me if I recall the scene in Braveheart where the English king says “the problem with Scotland, is that it’s full of Scots”. He then said, that’s the same problem with Africans. He said “we are our own worst enemy.”
@@SerfsUp1848 with all due respect, if you can’t extrapolate the real world relevance from an artistic statement by creative art, then I can’t help you. Art imitates life.
As a Nigerian, this is sooo accurate especially the part about skilled labour basically being outsourced to other countries as educated people leave Nigeria for better lives in more developed countries
Well, I really get a laugh when YOU @$$hats blame whites "stealing African rescources", .. . considering that it is FROM those "stollen" resources that such things as THESE VERY COMPUTERS we're all using here were FASHIONED (metals, Plastics, glass), .. . lmao!
This perfectly explains what I witnessed growing up in Kenya. Big government and tribal politics continue to slow development down even as the economy grows as tribal kings and their cronies duke it out for power and influence at all levels.
This is a propaganda video, if you want the truth copy and paste the following words in your UA-cam search bar and press enter: why the west want sub-sahara africa to stay poor
Those who wail about this video blaming everything on whites have indeed clearly not been listening to the video.... It's hard to be nuanced or want to be more informed when you're buying into white supremacist talking points. Had to point that out.
@@vforvendetta6408 That is a propaganda video. Why would 700 million people want Africa to be poor? So they can pay taxes that gets sent there every year in foreign aid?? Or to see all the organizations begging them for money?? Or to hear the media say they must take in and pay for millions of migrants because they are so poor?? You are stupid, really really stupid if you belive that. Blame the politicians and bankers etc in all the countries that are involved but don't blame the whole nations of the west.
@@vforvendetta6408 That is BS. I was born in Sub-Saharan Africa. The reason Africa is poor is because of Africans, period. The tribalism is so deeply embedded it will never go away and African leaders have no problem selling out their own people if it means keeping themselves wealthy and in power while everyone else stays in poverty. Africa was poor before colonialism, during colonialism, and after colonialism.
I myself am African and my dream is to be a scientist to better our continent our country is peaceful and growing but I believe leaders uses the majority not in benefiting our country but themselves I can never understand grownups
Never lose hope my friend. With the internet, you can teach yourself nearly anything. Don't hesitate to ask around for information, someone is always willing to teach.
Possibly one of the best videos I have ever listened to on Africa. However, I am surprised that one obvious issue you have only alluded to but should have emphasised is this: Who makes the decisions in any country is the key to what will be achieved and for how long. Who made the decision that South Korea should put their emphasis on just three industries? Who made the decision that bribery would be the way to do business in Africa after independence? Who decides how many children will attend school and the number of schools to be built for them? Who decides that democratic values and human rights should be upheld? Who is responsible for reversing the policy of exporting raw materials and instead concentrating on manufactured goods? I could go on. Decisions and policies their implementation, as well as the people who do the planning, organisation and so on are their LEADERSHIP. When the people in government fail, no country can make any progress at all. Most African countries have been independent for at least 60 years. During that time, the lack of good leadership or precisely GOOD GOVERNANCE has been our toughest problem to overcome. It is the most intractable problem, a detriment and impediment to our progress pervasive throughout Africa since independence. Indeed, individual Africans and their families may have prospered since then. However, it takes GOOD GOVERNANCE to uplift millions of people in any country. Moreover, there isn't a single African country lacking the means (brains, work ethic, etc) and resources (human and natural) to prosper. Imagine that Nigeria alone, often called a "poor" country, has made an average of USD4.3 trillion from their crude oil and natural gas exports since oil was discovered there in 1956. Yet their wealth fund as of 2023 is a mere USD2.3 billion. Compare that to the USD51.62 billion one of Norway, the largest in the world and equivalent to USD295,000 per Norwegian citizen. Norway has been exporting only a fraction of the same commodities from the North Sea as Nigeria and only started doing so in 1971. Another example is the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) also referred to as a "poor" country, only to find that their natural resources of strategic minerals in that country are valued at USD7.4 trillion, which is more that the GDP of the USA and Europe combined! Incredible, isn't it? Hence, the means and natural resources such as oil and natural gas at our disposal in Africa will not amount to anything until we have achieved GOOD GOVERNANCE. Therefore, the African countries are not yet rich as you have pointed out, nor are they "still poor" at all as the title of your video indicates. We are simply badly governed "low-income" countries.
Good governance comes from good people and culture. Norwegians are rich because they voted for a government that work for that goal. Africa isn’t because everyone is selfishly looking after their own family, tribe race etc instead of the common good. It’s a culture issue as much as good governance
@@zurielsss I would put it a bit differently. I hold that Africa is not yet rich, nor is it "still poor" at all. Rather, our so-called leadership behaving "selfishly" as you have stated, is a "culture" as well "character" and an "attitude" issue, to quote one of the African officials I was listening to on a talk show the other day. Hence, it is quite obvious that the means and resources at our disposal in Africa will not amount to anything, until the people in government who make policies and implement them have overcome these vices. Therefore, both the terms "low-income" and "poor," often used interchangeably about Africa are not the same. You may have noticed that when the leadership in Africa once in a while gets a number of economic policies right, there is a noticeable change in economic growth. Today, the list of the world top 10 fastest growing countries is dominated by African countries. That is a sign that the economic fundamentals in Africa are intact and that what is lacking is good leadership or precisely GOOD GOVERNANCE to achieve our goals.
@@apolokaggwa6521 you are waiting for good governance to fall into your lap from decades of bad governance. While not impossible it’s highly unlikely. “Top 10 highest growth” is stemming from decades of bad management, you finally do a few things correctly and you can see a huge growth due to a small base. It’s the sustained growth for decades of improvements that I am pessimistically predicting probably not happen.
This video is an eye-opener. Wow. I'm an African(Ghanaian) and I really thought the problems we have are little and can take a short time to solve. smh. This is disastrous. Now, the Chinese are coming in. What the hell is going on? In fact, you need more than (like and subscribe). Well done.
Yeh china may put us on hold they r used to trapping countries in huge debts and i think because nigerias govenment is a bit more corrupt than our nigeria may suffer
@@gitgudnga As for Nigeria, let's not go there. I just hope they come out of whatever is going on there. Corruption everywhere and the mentality of the leaders is "We only care about our families and no one else, let's grab whatever we can and leave. "
This was massively informative! It is impossible to distill the histories of millions of people, over several centuries, into a 40 minute video, but this is an excellent starting point for learning more
Dont Take it at face value though. The Video is kinda biased against europeans and negelects the real reason why africa is behind. The Video says for example that africa Fell behind because of slavery.. but why didnt africa enslave Europe? When they were even? Fact is they werent even and subsaharan africa was already waaay behind economically and technologically speaking in Times of mansa musa.
Good point. The reason was that Europeans had better naval technology due to poor access to Asian Markets, so they created ships capable of traveling to Asia.
@@HistoryScope Thats closer to the truth :) the access to asia is the point. Europe always had transfer of knowledge from asia even way back in roman times. They were even ruling huge parts of europe thinking of the mongol invasion, the huns, the umayyads or the ottomans. Africa had none of that. Asia and Europe combined had a much higher population/competition and thus a much higher potential for advancement. In german sociology thats called "Narbeneffekt" which means that something big happened way back which determines the future. Everything else just derived from those (and other) geographical differences.
As a South African , I can only say that shortsighted greed, total lack of empathy for their fellow citizens and race/ethnicity not merit based appointments in government and the private sector are the main causes for the shoddy situation that is the African continent today. With the enormous agricultural, mineral, energy and tourism wealth at our disposal, Africa should be the most prosperous continent on the globe easily. Africans only have themselves to blame.I don't see it getting better for a long time.
@@harryeisermann2784 Used to be when a whole race was treated like animals in their own country. The sad thing is people as a whole refuse to live in peace among themselves, the ones in power are always trying to oppress the ones below them. It's no use for a country to be first world meanwhile there is a whole group of people who are treated like they are not people. Even the so called first world countries have tons of such inequalities. Why is there BLM movements if all is rosy in the so called first world countries.
As a South African you can clearly see that lack of education/skills + corruption are definitely the two main drivers keeping Africans poor. If we can just focus on skills development, rights to protect property(so those with skills don't just leave with those skills and investments) and zero-tolerance corruption policies. We could definitely be one of the greatest nations on earth.
To fix South Africa, tax people with property worth over $500,000. Tax them 5% annually, use the money to fund schools, hospitals and entrepreneurship. You don't really want to get rid of the corruption, its the corruption that is making sure that the ill gotten wealth & power of the minority groups remains in their hands. So, do you REALLY want to get rid of corruption and also get rid of white hegemony / supremacy ?
Japan: low on resources, rich Africa: rich in resources, very poor Edit: I wanna let you know that this is a joke and I know that countries like Morocco, South Africa and small islands like Mauritius and Seychelles are middle income- rich income countries
Governments of countries rich in natural resources have no incentive to educate the wide population, since education is not required for a working economy and an educated population would be a threat to those in power.
A prior boss had horror stories about working on contracts in Africa. The amount of money that had to be set aside for bribes, learning how to adjust for equipment regularly being stolen during "inspections", the general unreliability of any type of infrastructure - it gave me a headache just listening to the stories. I can't imagine what it was like trying to actually deal with it.
The life expectancy of equipment is less in Africa than it is in the US or Europe. If the grease or lubricating oil specified in the service manuals is not available, either nothing will be done or an unsuitable local substitute will be used. This increases the wear on the equipment and prompts breakdowns. China provided some diesel locomotives for Nigeria Railways, and the reason for the problems was identified by the Chinese as improper fluids used in the shops. The Nigerians insisted that the equipment was bad.
This isn’t ACCURATE bro your right but this lacks perspective . The Christians got the Ok from the Pope to capture the people of North Africa as long as they were converted to Christianity , their are groups of Europeans that believed their were indigenous Europeans in Zimbabwe and settled in that area in belief that that is their homeland (their probably not wrong) but this was collectively everyone’s fault but don’t take this video serious it’ lacks the Christian outlook on religion perspective , the greed for controlling trades to Asia and the Arabian peninsula are huge factors , religious wars was definitely a factor too ... you can’t cover the reason Africa is poor in a 9 minute video ... you would need to read in chapters ... it was all evil none the less
This lacks so much of perspective and anthropological, and cultural relativism that is almost places slavery in an ambiguous nonsensical way.There is too much at heart to some up in 40 minutes. SLAVERY UNDER CHRISTIANITY AND EUROPE, was way different to in Arab and African country. Orientalist assess, will fool.the masses
Very good video! Can you do one about South and Central Americas? They have many similarities with Africa and it would be cool to understand why they are still poor and corrupt.
Slavery has nothing to do with the poverty in Africa. Africa is poor because the food grows on the trees all year round. Technological Civilisation only emerges in places where planning ahead is required as part of the culture. The local people never had to think ahead for more than a day or a week.
This is a propaganda video, if you want the truth copy and paste the following words in your UA-cam search bar and press enter: why the west want sub-sahara africa to stay poor
@@9thebear This video didn't talk much about China giving loans to African nations. The African nations get into debt because the infrastructure projects help the chinese get the resources out but don't really help the citizens.
It was very good. But got the impression that too mach was put on external causes. External forces can only cause chaos in a country that is already dysfunctional. Africa has produced very few kingdoms in history that have been competitive in the world for its time. Even before the slave trade and colonialism. Temperature / climate is also one of the most important factors for a country's prosperity. There are almost no rich countries in warm climates and almost all countries in cold climates are rich.
@@niklasmolen4753 One other aspect rarely mentioned is the lack of horses in many parts of Africa because of a couple of diseases that are often lethal for them. Horses have played an important aspect in transport, trade and communication in most (if not all) the countries that developed what we might term advanced societies by the Middle Ages.
@@avv397 Lamas are not nearly as good as horses. And it seems that the availability of suitable pets / livestock has been crucial to the development of advanced civilizations.
@@niklasmolen4753 No, not as good as horses, but at least they're better at carrying things than goats, plus you get the wool as well. I agree with you about pets and livestock, a very long story with a fair bit of guesswork (I think)
The research that this excellent video is backgrounded in is nothing shy of authoritative and judiciously scholarly. It's one production that must be watched literally multiple times. Almost as good as reading a book! Congratulations! Bravo!
or maybe having the majority of the population only have basic education led to them not being able to take part in the economy, meaning they were stuck poor.
@@kmakumane258 we have free education and free university and free housing and stipends for students in South Africa with limited success . Low pass rate. Need to change their behaviour.
This is a propaganda video, if you want the truth copy and paste the following words in your UA-cam search bar and press enter: why the west want sub-sahara africa to stay poor
@@deonkotzee6641 that only started recently and even then most who graduate struggle to find work. Those who want to start a business struggle with capital because the wealth of the country is skewed disproportionately in favor of the minority. There is rampant corruption in SA but if you watched the video, you'd know it's a result of how apartheid left the country. If apartheid treated natives fairly, then you wouldn't have poor people that are ultra loyal to the Anc.
As a Ugandan, I have always been so concerned about our role in our situation besides other factors involved as mentioned in the video. By watching this video I now know how to build the introduction of the book am writing about what's happening in our society and why is the situation most likely to persist. The book is titled “THE ARCHITECTURE OF THE THIRD WORLD” why poverty might persist in poor societies.
@@sandstrommadam said an English native speaker to a Ugandan. Mate, you should be worrying more about your stupidity and ignorance before posting with such arrogance 🤣🤣
@@soundsofgaia8451 judging by his last name he's probably from a Nordic country so I wouldn't be so quick to judge either mate. I'd also consider that constructive criticism rather than judging but to each his own I guess
@@scooterbob4432 That's not the least bit accurate. You might also be very surprised to learn that US citizens are a diverse group, and don't all think alike. You should make less effort to show your ignorance, even though many must find it amusing. I know that I do!
I was actually wondering about that point, as if he meant at the time then yes you could argue that Africa profited from the triangle trade. But the long term demographic effects of exporting human beings destroyed west African society overtime. So it was a bad deal for Africa (although that is with the benefit of hindsight) Edit: Oops, I watched a few more minutes and the video said what I just said. Excellent work History Scope, I think a common mistake with this comment is talking about the profitability at the time, without the long term effects. I find this topic really depressing, but it's important to learn.
@@thesudaneseprince9675 Also, West African states became completely dependant on the slave trade. So when the British banned slavery and began raiding slave ships, the West African economy crashed hard and it hasn't ever really recovered.
Imagine putting together an illustrated 40 min video and some asshat hears a mistake and centres a comment on it. A pretty pathetic comment on a pretty informative video.
I'm not even African but when you mentioned that they are improving in most sectors, creating new jobs and opportunities for Africans, I almost cried. I'm only 20 years old, and one of the things that I want the most is to see a developed and rich Africa before I die. They deserve it. All the best to Africa, from Johannesbourg to Algiers, and from Freetown to Addis Abeba.
@@420technique420 lmao wow this is such a blanket ass statement that discounts the millions who have tried there absolute best and failed or moved. like wow, I get it, some ppl ARE lazy but this such a shitty generlaztion
@@r.p5380 Somalia was never the best country. South Africa was the only nuclear power and even had a space program. But also, African dictators moved in and stole the country right out of the hands of its Founders. Turned it to shit over night.
Absolutely one of the most profound documentaries on Africa ! The insights in putting this documentary together with the research that goes behind the scenes is genius! The realities mentioned is unfortunate yet stands as truthful: I have personally pondered this question for over 40 years ; This is by far the an example of journalism ( addressing a difficult; even a sensitive subject ) with a gifting of international intelligence and great excellence! One of the best documentaries I have ever seen !!!!!!!!!!
I'm from Kenya and have literally seen this video unfold in real life from minute 14:30. But I'm hopeful we will be among the economically growing countries rising on the continent in the 21st century...though the corruption and leadership issues may be big stumbling blocks.
Victimhood is another stumbling block, there is a growing number of Africans who keep on blaming Westerners for the state of the continent, while it may have some truth, it does not help us in advancing in any way and makes us lose the sense of self-responsibility to work hard, take risks and build our communities and families
@@philipbanda6637 by stealing intellectual property from other countries AND letting more people starve to death than were killed by the Nazis... yea, look to China.
@@bartonbella3131 Especially with the efforts the PRC is making to spur their development. They were doing it back in '04 in Ethiopia when I was there for the GWOT.
My sister is having her JSS3 (halfway secondary school) exams right now and her class was annoyed because they suddenly added History to the syllabus again after removing it a while ago. After watching this I'm actually really thankful because not enough schools in Nigeria approach History outside Civic Education.
Honestly. I remember when I was in secondary school and there was not any history. It was only government and civic education. It's good to be enlightened more.
@@imakepancakes My primary school wasn't really conventional, being that they taught very differently from most schools so my sisters and I were used to taking History, until Js1 in another school showed us that it was not even in the Nigerian syllabus.
They don’t teach history by design, easier for foreign powers to take advantage of those who know little to nothing about themselves or the lands they reside in.
Never have I watched a video that perfectly describes Africa's situation and reasons behind our afflictions so well. Thank you so much for exclusively shining light on this. Our leaders are power hungry savages who amass wealth by looting public resources, investing and monopolisation of the private sector for personal gain while capitalizing on our self imposed weaknesses like tribalism. Looking forward to when most Africans will wake up and demand for a better Africa. Here in Kenya most youths are tired of our incompetent government which has been constantly increasing taxes within last 10 years pay with a subsequent increase in graft cases but minimal to zero economic progress.
You're not so tired that you won't show up for political events when the people running are paying you $5 a few free t-shirts and gifts.... in exchange for your vote. I just saw a documentary on it the other week.
In Kenya corruption and tribalism are endemic. Corrupt politicians benefit from tribal loyalty that propels them to power..they loot from the government and use the money to bribe gullible voters
It might be that you need a new government in the various countries that have dictators , and corrupt officials . I would suggest using the U. S. government as a model , which was initially set up to provide equal representation and liberty and individual rights . That only works when a society generally is a moral one . There needs to be communication , and a willingness to work toward an unselfish society that cares for the welfare of the people . I don't mean socialism welfare , but rather the well-being of the people . The Christian religion put an emphasis on giving when people need help. But that only works when it's voluntary . When charity is replaced with government mandated programs , the whole system eventually collapses . Government only takes . It does not produce anything but tyranny and the erosion of rights and freedom , which breeds corruption .
Thank you for pinpointing Kenya. I have a live case study where the former governor of Laikipia , with the tacit support of the central government have slammed brakes on a 1..2 billion shilling project soliciting bribes which the client we represent would not fathom being part of. What a bunch of troglodytes.. very shameful. The multiplier effect of this project would have alleviated the plight of lots of businesses,both inter and intra-county.
True, in as much as Europe needed slaves, we also needed slaves too but the problem is that we sold them for fast money while Europe used them for greater wealth. Not to say slavery is good but I think we needed to have good use for our own slaves.
If you like content on Africa theres some really good channels! New Africa does a lot of long docs like this while Home Team History does shorter videos on more specific topics, both very good production and quality 💕 Afrohistory productions is a newer channel and less high budget but does really really good videos as well on so many topics 💃🏻
This content is so important to all African. I wish this video was dubbed in French, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic and Chinese. Salute from Equatorial Guinea 🇬🇶🇬🇶🇬🇶
Who cares how they got the slaves? The point is, the slavery that existed in Africa was humane. They had slaves due to war or debt. The chattel slavery in the United States was abhorrent and evil.
@@PaperMario64 yh because selling people is very humane that makes sense. Btw I hate America just as much but selling your own people for money is just disgusting.
Before watching the video: I once worked with a cameroon immigrant. He told me corruption is why his continent fails. He also told me one day he will be famous for killing his dictator.
I second his words. Corruption and stupidity is whats killing Africa. And there is a very very long line of people behind me who would want to kill these dictators.
@@triplemoyagames4195 don't forget revolutions tend to destabilize the country even more. look at the libyan revolution for example. i'm sure they will achieve democracy and widespread reforms in the future, but right now their revolution and civil war came with a very high cost, with most of its people now criticising the revolution leaders.
@@andenfighter0078 because the leaders too are corrupt. I didn't say violence is the best option. It is the only viable one that will gain progress. Politics proves futile, with young ones just being paid, or gotten rid of I don't want violence, I just do not see another way.
Technically, it started that way. Despite how people treat it now, 'matrics' (matriculation exams) were intended as nationwide *entrance* exams for tertiary education, not *leaving* exams for high school. The word 'matriculating' literally _means_ enrolling in university. Graduating high school after grade 10 (old standard 8, about age 16) without taking it used to be the norm. Only a small percentage of students intending to study further (the 'matric' students) used to stay on in school for the subsequent two years. Everyone else went to apprenticeships, vocational colleges, or directly to work.
@content nuker Its your right, you don't have to apologize, lol, I actually think people should focus more on themselves and quit these social justice things.
Thank you for such a great breakdown of the situation. The violence that has resulted from all these problems and frustrations boiling over in the people is so complicated. Here in California, we are benefiting from the brain drain from Nigeria. Many professionals are in my community from Nigeria. I can't blame them. I'm grateful for the good news part of this video. The US is struggling with our own lack of good leadership and low education.
Only problem i have is him suggesting africa didnt have raw materials and that the americas had it thats why the slave were basically migrant workers, utter nonsense.
@@cyprianusmuranda1273 Yeah, that doesn’t make any sense. Africa was the richest continent in the world when it came to resources, which is why there was such a scramble for it in the first place.
Very true I don’t know why. I think it’s because in the grand scheme of things after 15 century Africa kinda became a dull and a “nobody” country. We learn a lot in BC years but later in history it becomes dull and “non important” in school. It makes sense tho but I wish I knew some of this stuff earlier
@@stale_meme_boi6159 I think its because Africa has been in a dark age since the drying up of Gold mines lead to the decline of the Mali empire. The European dark ages were mostly skipped over in school as well come to think of it. All I remember learning from that time is a little about how they lived. All the politics and civil war after the fall of the Roman Empire is skipped in favor of learning about the Renaissance and Enlightenment.
School history classes tend to be a very broad way of teaching to give you the bare-bone information on historical events. Death counts? lesser important people? religious nuances? nuaces in general? *nope! here; have 1 page dedicated to the Roman Republic/Empire(how the fuck are you going to condense such a big nation into 1-2 pages?) and then 5 chapters to WW2, because that is REAL history!* Everything but the "big picture" isn't of importance. dollars to donuts that it's either because of political reasons(and i'm not gonna open that conspiracy-can of worms) or because kids have said _"I'll never use this in the real world!"_ too often.
They don't want to reveal that africans captured their fellow africans to trade them to the Americans for mere goods but instead focus on "racist" America and plantations.
There is corruption in every country across the globe. No government can exist without some members exploiting it for personal gain, but nor can we decend into the anarchy that would surely ensue without a government. So there is no clear answer or solution. Maybe humans will evolve to be less greedy and selfish (not saying everyone is) but until then we will have to make do. Luckily humans also do amazing things as well! It's not all gloom and doom!
I don't fully agree with this, but also I partially do. It's difficult to find one that doesn't have an agenda or control in mind. but I almost guarantee there are some religions that are just about spirituality. Mind you, I'm not an expert and I could be wrong.
This is a well-made very informative video. I wanted to learn more about African history after reading a book about Congo. I learned so much in 40 minutes watching your video and make more curious to learn more. As someone coming from a poor country that was colonized for several centuries, I wish African people all the best.
I’ve always found the modern African situation so interesting, yet very frustrating. Been in Gabon for 4 years when I was a kid following my parents that were sent there both for diplomatic and military reasons. I was literally living in a French military camp, and it is obvious that French military presence was there only to secure their access to Gabonese ressources such as Petrol and Timber… which profit would only go in the hands of the elite. But that’s just one of the many ways Europe, the West or now China exerce control over Africa. The central Bank of Africa is still regulated by the EU to fit their own interest, making import and export only profitable for the EU. Ridiculously expensive and useless infrastructures such as unaffordable 5 star hotels, marinas or empty stadiums are built in contract with China, which only deepen national debts and never answers public actual needs. I mean, I remember being so confused to see a gouvernement building in Libreville, covered with golden glasses and run on 24/7 AC while entire slums with no electricity, no food, no water surround it. Not far from that, a Chinese company was half-way from finishing a marina when a corrupted agent literally left with the money. Like I’m not kidding, the guy took the money and left like that, leaving an entire construction site on hold in front of now a completely wasted coastline. I had African friends from the rising middle class that were attending the French school like I did. They were smart, and could be the drivers of Gabonese economical development. But all of them who had enough money to study and work in France would leave and never look back. To be really honest, I highly doubt that Gabon or Africa as a whole can actually get better, as per now. The situation is terrible. Corruption, political violence, fake democracies, constant European interference, brain escape and the dependance on foreign disguised charity. Shifting the game would require a complete political or economical reconfiguration, and the overall instability would never allow it. But I really hope I’m wrong. I mean damn, I wanna see Africa rise and prove everybody wrong just like Asia did, and give the West some healthy humility.
What you're saying is very accurate even here in Cameroon and Nigeria. I wish Our leaders in Africa could be leaders and actually look beyond their families. All of Africa's pain today is powered on strong greed. Here greed isn't looked at as a a negative aspect but as the normal way of life.
Europe is far more responsible than people are willing to accept. The Commonwealth even more so. Europe carves up Africa with a pen but the Commonwealth carves it up with warships and superior firepower. British weapons manufacturers like BAE Systems repeatedly sell advanced weapons to rebel groups terrorist organisations and blacklisted countries to engineer civil war, they polluted agricultural landmarks, rediverted rivers and cloudseed their skies, they steal huge amount of natural resources such as fossil fuels and rare earth minerals whilst forcing them to purchase overpriced goods, the Commonwealth actively radicalises populations through media and intelligence agencies, disease, inflation, assassination of political rivals, propaganda, brainwashing and so much more. Sad part about it is that Africans are significantly more evolved than us Caucasians and would have built a far superior world to the one we built. They had evolved to become peaceful by nature which is why they couldn't compete against our superior firepower and our primitive warriors mentality. Same goes for the Middle East. The Commonwealth are far more to blame than anyone.
It's an inconvenient truth sadly. Our leadership has settled into a destructive cycle of "This leader wrecked our country and only fed his family so when it's my turn I'll make sure me and mine are taken care of". Rinse and repeat.
It is so sad right... Just thinking about them.. And knowing that no matter what you do or people do.. the situation will never get better. I have met with lot of people who migrated from south african countries. They used to tell the government is their biggest enemy. The rich are just trying to fill their pockets. Government are overturn in days and immigrants are ordered to leave the country.
As an ignorant, American, black male I appreciate this video beyond words. My own family had no idea the corruption was THAT bad! American schools don’t teach this kind of in-depth history in high schools. Thank You so much
I'm a White American and I agree- I didn't learn much if anything about Africa either. It's a shame. Almost all our focus was on America, Latin America, and Europe (mostly England, France, and pre-modern era Italy and Greece). We learned the geography and climates of Asia and Africa, but not a heck of alot more. And maybe we (students) sensed not much enthusiasm either. I didn't really understand why Africa has performed so poorly compared to much of the world. This video is very insightful. America has major corruption problems, too (BOTH parties). If we don't check ourselves, our economic inequality problems will drive some of our areas into 3rd world zones (some almost are) just like Africa and South Asia.
Same here in Germany. In context of Africa we only learned in school about colonialism. About the rich and divers African history before colonialism or today's problems which are linked to the history, we learned nothing. African history teaches in German schools as well in other western countries feels like: first there was nothing in Africa, than the Europeans came and started African history. It's sad that our history classes are that euro/western centristic.
Excellently researched, critically analysed, criatively produced , proficiently publicly youtube video reported announced. Good on you, keep up the goodwork.
Another aspect to consider under both colonization and the need for politicians to appeal to certain ethnic groups is the "Scramble for Africa." It's briefly mentioned in this video as European powers getting wealthier, and suddenly wanting colonies, but it is much more than that. Specifically, the borders (many of which still exist to this day) were drawn by Europeans, without consultation of the people actually living there. Thus cultural and ethnic groups did not correlate with national borders, paving the road for national instability for years to come.
In Australia, we are subject to constant propaganda about the benefits of diversity. Multiculturalism was forced on us by our political and business elites who wanted more people to sell stuff to, and more people competing for the opportunity to earn a livings. That keeps wages down and profits up.
@@joebloggs5318 Amen. I believe Artificial intelligence is the answer. It's a long chain of events but the idea is practical. If I can just convince the leaders to take it up, then it will work.💯
As Kenyans let’s start by dismissing the BBI it has no regards to our challenges but to benefit the political elites. All the possible presidential candidates makes me sick: all of them have questionable sanity. The more we vote in these same people the more we prolong our problems.
Wow, this is such an awesome documentary. As an African it is inspiring to do what I can to change things. Understanding this history and challenges is key to that. Great work breaking this down
LAUGHABLE description of "history", more idiotic than "The People's History" . Too much to correct, to even start. If you have a philosophical mind, you can detect the discrepancies without even needing to know the facts; and if you know the history, then you know...that's why God causes train wrecks...
Finally someone who know what he's talking about, no stereotypes or assumptions which happens alot when people are talking about Africa. But 90% of our problems stem from corruption. That's why a Chinese company will get a contract faster than an African in Africa because they can bribe their way through public offices
Things like corruption only happen when people allow it. Everyone need to stop making excuses for Africa. Success requires hard work and strong character which they are lacking. Good fortune comes to those that make it happen through concerted effort.
@@joriggs8948 Boy did you hit a nerve... Zalaiya Smith wants "Sources and Examples" these I can give he/she/it/them.... Look at what makes up the population and governments of the darkest continent and you will have your answer... As far as nate mugambi, I am not quite sure what langue nate is writing....
In 9th grade, on the first day of learning about Africa in our Global History class, the teacher asked us what was the first thing we thought of at the mention of Africa. I am ashamed to say that my answer was the citizens in poverty. I hope the African people eventually experience a good life. :)
@@Theempyreann Of course not :) Back in College I dated a woman from Togo for awhile (one the poorest most corrupt countries in the world)..... obviously, she wasn't poor (studying in Canada)
Well, I really get a laugh when YOU @$$hats blame whites "stealing African rescources", .. . considering that it is FROM those "stollen" resources that such things as THESE VERY COMPUTERS we're all using here were FASHIONED (metals, Plastics, glass), .. . lmao!
Our continent as a whole is not doing great. But this video has shown me how much we have developed over the last century, thank you for educating us with this
@Kin Kan keep in mind that many africans are actually caucasians and asians as well as black. Robots are a thing that will remain for a long time, but you still need people to design, repair and check them. Plus many places in Africa still do not have the capabilties of producing factories with as many robots as the Americans, Asians and Europeans. But you are right in that we have to figure things out differently due to the day and age we live in
This is impressive! The dots were well connected from start to end. A 40 minute video can obviously not cover everything but the essentials were well articulated. Would have been interesting if China had been connected with its growing power in the continent. Well done again!
I think the real reason "why?" wasn't mentioned. For some wierd reason you can't put together 2 letters in this video, and i'm tolking about letter "I" and letter "Q" that's the real reason why Africa is poor.
“These countries aren’t poor. These countries are rich! Only the people are poor! They’re not underdeveloped, they’re overexploited!” - Michael Parenti
@@psychopompous3207 not for medical and law school is mandatory or you can't get a job as a surgeon if you dont go to med school or residency with fellowship they're a lot of good degrees but most are useless and not needed.
@@calebbrininger7483 that's right... Academic rigour is vital for a broad understanding of the profession. I wouldn't want an engineer to build a dam or a bridge if he hadn't gone through the tough process of getting his qualification.
I am receiving A LOT of racist and uninformed comments on this video every day and I want to adress them here.
1. Sub-saharan Africa didn't develop any written language
This is simply incorrect. A prominent example of the Ge'ez script. But there are several others.
2. They couldn't even invent the wheel (in sub-Sahara Africa)
Anyone who says this doesn't know how wheels work.
They did have the wheel, but it was of no use to them. In order to use wheels for transport you need a lubricant. In Europe, Asia, and North Africa they had the wild boar (and later the domesticated pig). These were animals with a lot of fat which could be used to lubricate those wheels. But they are not native to Sub-Saharan Africa. Without sufficient and cheap fat wheels were useless. It's why places that didn't have easy access to fat didn't use wheels.
Even with our modern technology we still need to use lubricants... If anyone thinks a pre-industrial civilization could fix this issue, which we still can't fix today, needs to lower their expectations.
On top of that, Africa has a lot of rivers and African river ships were so incredibly advanced that when Europeans tried to invade Africa in the 16th-18th centuries that they were easily defeated by the local Africans.
3. Africa didn't have any countries/empires
Even a short google search easily disproves this.
Here are just 20 of them: Mali Empire, Ghana Empire, Songhai Empire, Kanem-Bornu Empire, Sokoto Caliphate, Jolof Empire, Oyo Empire, Benin Empire, Kaabu Empire, Aro Confederacy, Ashanti Empire, Kong Empire, Bamana Empire, Wassoulou Empire, Kongo Kingdom, Luba Empire, Lunda Empire, Zulu Kingdom, Maravi Empire, Rozvi Empire.
Did you just imply africa has no animals with fat? You know one of the oldest trace of animal husbandry comes from africa right?
Here's a quick example:
"Having killed a fat ox, the men are busily engaged in boiling down the
fat. Care should be taken to sprinkle a few drops of water in the pot
when the fat is supposed to be sufficiently boiled; should it hiss, as
though poured upon melted lead, it is ready; but if it be silent, the
fat is not sufficiently boiled, and it will not keep"
I'm glad you posted this comment when you did, hate it when peoples personal prejudices get in the way of understanding history.
@@ayasugihada
What did he reinvent?
@@moiseman no. I said "sufficient and cheap fat".
pigs will eat anything, even feces. pigs were an incredibly cheap source of fat. oxes take 3-4 years to mature while a pig only needs 5-6 month, an ox needs more food to survive, etc.
It's not that they had no fat, it's that they didn't have it as cheaply and on large enough scale like in Eurasia.
@@ayasugihada Africa did develop quite rapidly after slavery was banned, but those few decades weren't enough to catch up with Europe. I even state this in the video.
As someone from South Africa I honestly believe the biggest problem is not the lack of democracy but the amount of corruption .
A subtle, but important difference. No form of government does well under corruption.
Ask French. French take most resources, budget from Africa.
That's an easy cop out though? Just look at the places through time that have been invaded that aren't in Africa that are still destabilised.
You don't come and divide and conquer ethnic groups and then expect it to be all great when you finally withdraw.
People love to group Africans as one group when in one country you can find numerous ethnic groups with their own problems etc
He is telling the truth after ww2 the French backed out of Africa but took majority of its wealth
I'm on holiday currently in africa it's not like Europe the roads are dirt and its way underdeveloped
It’s obviously because I didn’t eat all of my dinner when I was 5
Holy shit this made my day
It’s all our collective fault
Ah yes. All of us that were raised in the 60's snd 70's heard that same guilt trip. "You need to finish all of your food. Remember, there are starving children... etc. etc." Being grateful for my culinary good fortune was never a problem. Until that fateful day that dinner was Liver w/onions and Brussels Sprouts. About an hour in, I had only managed to choke down a couple of bites of this horrible meal. With tears in my eyes from the revulsion I felt for the food. I asked my Mother if I could be excused from the dinner table. Her reply was the predictable "starving children in Africa" coercion. Without caution or forethough, "Well send it to them" came angrily out of my mouth! Boy! Was I in trouble for a few days!
But, that particular motivational statement was never used again.
@@toddroper6599 it leaked into the 90s babies too
pahaha I contributed to LOL. Nobodys fallen for that guilt trip
Africa is not poor , it is poorly managed
lol
nice way to put it
Africa can be the richest continent but they need money rn to extract oil and diamonds, etc
@ᴡɪɴᴛᴇʀᴍᴜᴛᴇ _
As an African I agree with you.
They are just forcing white-guilt.
I like the way it is
as an African, the emotions that this video invoked in me were insane. we can only succeed by working together.
No Africa can only succeed by removing corrupt leaders.
@@solushyperboreaRascist a hole
😐🤔🤨🧐🙄😔🥺🥲😢😭
Also a formal education for all children’s to build industrial and entrepreneurial skills
Well it’s certainly hoped that you didn’t go insane. Are you OK?
As a Nigerian, the video almost brings me to tears. Even till today, the last of the corrupt leaders from the 50s to the 80s still have their hooks entrenched in the government. I hope my generation can put away the Relegious and Tribalistic ideals that have not helped anyone.
well said it only keeps us divided and fighting each other
Then let us have our own countries then since we aren't even the same tribe or speak the same language
As a African Living in America this also brings me to tears because the real reason is the Portuguese came in with their religion which is Christianity and tricks our people. 1490 was the year Africa took a turn for the Worse!!!
Africa is the only continent that can survive without any other continent/Country but there's no other continent or country that can survive without Africa NOT ONE!!!
Africa is the richest continent in the world can't no other continent survive without Africa but Africa can survive without anyone!!!!!
The Europeans just need to take their hands off of Africa and let them be!!!!
They were thriving way before the first European ever settled on Africa's Shores every since then Africa has never been the same
@@endawvvknightz6526 You'ld end up with thousands of minuscule countries, it's simply not viable.
The government of Ghana admitted to this years ago! During the slave trade, the rulers of a region sold fellow Africans to the point it got out of hand. Tribes were selling out tribes. Instead of uniting, Africa was easily taken advantage of because one village or tribe didn't care about the others.
Honestly that probably one of the reasons natives get wiped out so quickly since in most Primitive cultures they live in small tribes an
This is a really weird. When the romans ravaged northern Europe people don't conclude "whites were hurting whites". We acknowledge their ethnic variety. Africans weren't selling their own. They were selling people from different regions. They might have both been "black" but they weren't the same people.
@@sben125
Also, much of the sale of of slaves was out of self-preservation and the deals were highway robbery. The West militarily was more advanced and had already determined to take over as much of the world as possible through Christian/Catholic decrees or Papal Bulls that established things like the Doctrine of Discovery that was used to take over brown skin people's lands around the world, massacre, and make them Christian via "perpetual slavery."
Kings like Badu Bonsu resisted selling others as slaves and was ultimately beaten back and beheaded for "sedition" against one of the European Crowns. The fact that Africa stayed poor despite selling so many slaves is a key indicator that the nature of these deals were highway robbery with the threat of death.
Focusing on African in such a negative sense also ignores that Africa wasn't the only place devastated by Europe's genocidal Empire. The Americas all North, Middle and South , Australia, and all the Asia Pacific and Polynesian/Melanesian Isles, Caribbean Isles, etc. suffered much the same fate and are in much the same condition today. Separating these issues as if they're not all the same, having the same root cause, and the same current day perpetrators is a carefully crafted way to draw eyes away from the big picture. The Western European Empire, which includes The US, Australia, and other offshoot nations, was built on and still thrives on the destruction and subjugation of non-white nations.
@@bagman1984 they are not primitive. I regard African tribes as the keeper of thr lands they occupy thry don't abuse it
The slave-trade is still active (Revelation 18:13, KJV).
"A dead peasant is an unproductive peasant."
Isn't that a Ferengi Rule of Acquisition?
Probably one of the high one's. 240- something or other
King Leopold 2: Whoops
Next gen seriously?
Well remember the first examination of ferengi compared them to " yankee traders" so there is that
No. "You can't collect money from a dead debtor" or was that the Chicago Mafia's 1st rule???? I forget,,,,.
20 minutes in, and as a Ghanaian living in South Africa, I'm genuinely impressed by this video. I expected to hear all the usual talking points, but this video accuractely discusses how african slavery was different to western slavery, how Africa's historical relationships with its neighbours affected its economic growth, how colonialisation left African countries isolated from its iwn neighbours, the education failure, etc. A truly nuanced take that many people living here aren't even aware of. I did not expect a foreigner to have this level of understanding into our historical struggles. It's not infantilising, it's not racist. It's just facts 👏👏👏
I happen to be Email friends with a wealthy Nigerian Prince
I happen to be email friends with Elvis’ ghost
happen to be email friends with the Prince of Zamunda?
Just to clarify for people who don't know this already,, Nigeria prince mail is a scam case as the 419 fraud. There is no official Nigerian prince! Nigera has a president.
@@richarddu3797 don't be stupid, Nigeria has ethnic royalties, so Yes there are kings and princes recognized in Nigeria by the people and govt
@@eghosa2705 that's not the point I was trying to make, notice what I said was " no official prince". However, you are right, Nigeria is divided into hundreds of small ethic groups, there are definitely many local prince, which I don't consider as official prince. This is also what led to their failures- too many ethic groups and religious beliefs, which is hard to organize and unstable, the country went through nine constitutions in 24 years. Even their laws are different across the country.
I'm from Ethiopia, Africa. I learned more from this video in 40 minutes, than I did in high school or college. Bravo! Thank you for posting.
If that is true then there is your reason why africa is still poor.
@@igormac9431 I mean, you're not wrong
Even if your comment appeared to have a little malicious intent, I have to admit that majority of the population here in Nigeria don't know it's history.
Just recently, history was removed as a core subject in our secondary schools
Its sad, really because if we never learn why we made mistakes in the past, we can never grow as a people
These days, those with a tertiary education make it their goal to leave the country in search of greener pastures. While I understand them, it doesn't change the fact that it's detrimental to us in the long run. It just puts the past into perspective; when the leaders just did what would be beneficial to them then, with no regard for the future.
@@Flint_the_uhhh sorry if it came off that way. I think that majority of the problems in the world are due to poor education, lack of information and usually both. I mean look at US.perfect example even tho they are rich, it causes different problems.
@@playcat22211 what are you talking about? The jews never had an empire. If you're talking about modern day israel , you need to read up on your history. The jews not only did they have a lot of money, they got help from half the world. They used that very smartly but there is a huge difference between the jewish and pretty much any other struggling people.
Evil never lets anyone know there the history of criminal success
“When an African becomes rich, his bank accounts are in Switzerland, he goes to France for medical treatment, he invests in Germany, he buys houses in Dubai, he Prays in Rome or Mecca, his Children study in England or Canada, the whole family all take Western Nationalities and they travel to Europe for tourism. When he dies, he returns to be buried in his home country. Africa is a graveyard for Africans, how could you ever expect a graveyard to be developed?”
- one of the realest things I have ever heard, the first step is for all those millions of middle/upper class Nigerians (including my dad) living and raising families abroad, to invest and give back to their country.
I think this is what happens with China. Lots of lots Chinese people fleet from the country during the colonial time, and civil war. Lots of them refuse to come back, but they keep on sending money to China. To this time, trader who buys goods from china industries, are Chinese overseas. Chinese overseas built schools in China, and send their kids to study there (not to life there!) So they can back home, and become successful business man outside of China. The Chinese overseas seems like having this mentality of building China from the comfort of their now adopted country
That’s true. Africa is like an after thought for Africans. Sad
To an extent, don't take it too hard... some of us come from lines that have so many areas of the world we could claim as 'heritage' that where we are, is as contemporaneous, much the same.
@soehokgie This is so true is the Chinese who built Malaysia 🇲🇾 they call Chinese Malaysia they are the most rich people in there they live nice apartments and drive 🚗 nice cars. However they are most economical growing country in the world. I just heard that they lend money to America 🇺🇸 government and rest of world. You see they are the one who are building and modernising Africa such us Nigeria 🇳🇬 Kenya 🇰🇪 and Uganda 🇺🇬 too
You can't change geography.
As a Nigerian I would say this is one of the most accurate representations of African economic history on UA-cam. Although there were a lot of generalizations, which would be impossible to avoid trying to fit the economic history of an entire continent in 40 minutes, you did a good job!
You’re African… like you’d come at them for generalizations. Smooth pass you gave there 😂
I'm from Nigeria too, he did well in goin in depth, you are into history stuff too
@@ThelearnerXlove from🇮🇳 India 😊😊
I'm also a Nigerian
Nice to hear this from a Nigerian. Thank you
I haven’t seen a more comprehensive summary on this issue. As a Nigerian, it breaks my heart to see such vast potential wasted. My take is that if we can provide quality education and healthcare to our people, it will act as a catalyst for positive change across the continent. Thank you for this video
Sadly, one of the most underutilized resources in Africa is the intelligence of African women.
I'm going to be honest here, the single most important thing here that needs to happen is stable government. Governmental stability is probably the number 1 factor in a successful economy as that investment doesn't just get stolen by an elite. This ties into social cohesion where you trust your own neighbor to not steal your stuff. The second most important is to have a liberal enough system to have free markets and robust trade so that the economy can adapt. Everything else comes second and will be a net benefit.
@@buddermonger2000 I agree with you 100%, but Africa is not good ground to sow that seed. The prevailing systems of tribal preference, greed, bribes, dash and connections make the continent a wildly speculative place for investments. A board of directors would be hard pressed to explain to stockholders why they risked their money in such a market when there were other possibilities. The general attitude is still that trade is a form of theft.
@@Dutch_Uncle That's why I put governmental stability as number 1 as a stable government is indicative of enough social cohesion as to not do that. Since of course... trade is still seen as a form of theft it currently lacks enough to not trust your neighbor to not steal your stuff. In lacking that it can't even get to the second most important one.
@@buddermonger2000 but to achieve government stability, we need to educate our people on the desirable qualities to look out for in a capable leader.
The ethnic divisions and elections rife with vote buying tell us that we need to enlighten the electorate
I worked with a co-worker, whom was in South Africa. As a general rule, if you take all of a workers possessions, they leave the country. We also helped a man leave a country in Africa, and become a doctor. We helped him out. He brought lots of stuff back for charity to help the children, whom has seen nothing but war in their country.. The "stuff" was siezed, and sold to help the war effort. It was his intent to go back, but after his charity was defeated...he stayed in the USA.
I Would Love To Talk To His Friend and I Feel For Him May God Restore to Him All He Has Lost To 120% In Spirit and In Truth In Jesus Name
It's really sad. Africa is such an underdeveloped and chaotic place in so many different parts that we can hardly even imagine it. And the worst part is, there doesn't seem to be any solution to the problem.
WTF
south africa aint that bad tho
I'm afraid that as much as I can't dispute what may have happened to your friend, I must say the tone of your text implies a certain level of generalization and to some extent a simplification of the challenges we face in Africa. And on that you are appallingly wrong my friend...
Thank you so much for making this video. As an African myself (Nigerian, specifically) it always annoys me when most people only attribute Africa's current problems to "colonialism or racism", effectively removing personal responsibility of us Africans, and ignore more important factors like geography, climate, socioeconomic systems, political unity and leadership. Thanks for focusing on those areas.
Well spoken
Watching from Cameroon
And ra(e, don't ignore that factor.
@@mrRunist If by "ra(e" you mean "race"
Yeah, african tribes/nations were/are pretty racist against eachother.
@@holiantoon8426 Don't know why my commment has been deleted, maybe because I said some forbidden word and this is also the exact reason that I altered the word that you mentioned.
African tribes are tribal, of course, and that leads to favoritism, but no, you know well what I meant.
Let me spell it out: The inte-l on average of Africans is significantly bel-ow that of other peoples.
@@mrRunist Intelligence and education level are different things. Better education systems would bring many great minds just like it does everywhere else.
Corruption in Africa is insane. Almost every politician is corrupt. That's why Africa has a long way to go
Which is weird since they are extremely religious as well😂
Why though
@@kanieraliapeng724you aren't on anything 😭🙏
@@kanieraliapeng724Religion is a money making scheme
@@kanieraliapeng724
Nah, most of them use religion for personal gains.
Either to keep people in line, to justify their rule, or to simply obtain those bribes.
So, basically, even if there are improvements in terms of education and people become more skilled and talented, those people can't contribute anything into the economy very well, because of their corrupt government, which results to migrating into a wealthier country.
Pretty much
Summed up fantastically
So what happened for say the 80 thousand plus years before white man showed up? Why have black people progressed so little without being helped so much. Africa since the 1960s has received 60 times more.aid then Europe got in total to rebuild post ww2. I'm coloured btw
@@thehorsecockexpress1068 Because in the past most of their treasures that would drawer tourism and most of their natural resources have been taken by the west? Also as the commented explained the governments are corrupt nowadays
@@thehorsecockexpress1068 before the white man showed up they were literally the same as everyone else. Kingdoms and culture rose and fell like everyone else. When the white man showed up many kingdom also rose and fell. In most of history, Africa was practically on the same level as most continents. What changed was guns. Not muskets cause Africans were able to fight back most colonizers when musket warfare was primarily the go to (they definitely suffered more loses than the Europeans but not without consequences to the Europeans). After the machine gun became a thing. Yea that was basically a sweep. Plus, let’s not forget that Africa current position is a recent development. Now if you are wondering why you learn so little about African nations until their recent history, it’s because African history was never focused on the world scale. We don’t hear about their kings and their influence mainly because they adopt other Cultures to be more connected to the wider world (how most East Asian nation had Chinese influence. In Africa’s case Islam), but kept their roots close to their people. Oral history is the norm in most African world (not because written language isn’t a thing there it is, just that writing is just not common, like everywhere else, and when conflict with Europe spread many cultural and historical site were flat out destroyed, some by rival African countries looking to gain power only to realize that they didn’t have the respect of Europeans (there was a puppet African king that consistently asked an European nation (don’t remember which one) to stop raiding their people and the nation just ignored him, but he couldn’t fight lest his people get destroyed).
After all that, colonies were set up to make sure the people were dependent on the Europeans, dependent on one source of economical goods, cultures destroyed, people starved, and forced to live with former neighboring kingdoms with different ideologies. Once those colonies are gone, well the counties struggled to find effective leaders to rule peoples of different ideologies, add that with greed, lack of education, and ill fitted aid... yea it explains why the continent as a whole is struggling.
Hell, let me put something into perspective, I am a Yoruba Nigerian who was raised Christian. I was thought to see anything that is culturally relevant to being Yoruba as demonic and wrong. Thus, anything I could be proud that my people gave the world, I never learnt of. Kingdoms that Yoruba people should look up to as their Rome, I never learnt of because going to oral teachers is akin to visiting demon worshipers.
So, it’s not that we don’t do anything or influence the world, it’s just recently that’s how it looks like. Countries in Africa can’t do what other nations did because they can’t honestly unite the same way other nations did. Imagine putting a Japanese, Russian, and an American into a room, after ww2 with just one fish and gold, leaving all of it to the American and saying that a new country treat everyone well. Even if they do manage to unite it will take some time and effort.
Sorry for the essay. If you manage to read this far, I commend you.
My teacher is from Ghana and when I asked him why he moved to the US, he said it was complicated. Now I understand more, and it’s just unfortunate
Well, I really get a laugh when YOU @$$hats blame whites "stealing African rescources", .. . considering that it is FROM those "stollen" resources that such things as THESE VERY COMPUTERS we're all using here were FASHIONED (metals, Plastics, glass), .. . lmao!
It's always funny how every nation on the planet wants to sh/t on the US, but then also wants to move there after a few years.
You want the benefits of living here but without having to endure any of the problems inherent here.
You better do😂, I'm a Ghanaian too
Corruption & tribalism is a huge problem here in Africa, especially W. Africa.
I believe It's worse in South Africa. Zulus consider any black who who isn't zulu inferior. They say Zulus, whites, and Indians are superior and any black person who isn't zulu is filthy and inferior.
Forget about tribalism
and East Africa 😢
@@Novikedocumentary
Why?
Is truly disheartening how even with the countries that are escaping poverty the fastest, it still takes decades to even see most of it disappear, and how many people never really had a choice and they have to live at terrible human conditions…
I lived in West Africa. Didn’t visit, didn’t stay in a bubble, I lived in the country. Africa has tons of money. It’s all stolen by the few of their own people, and they make those few their heroes. End of story.
Sounds almost like the USA. 😁
@@oneshothunter9877 That’s why I call Louisiana a 3rd world country.
While I agree with your statement about money being stolen in the hands of the few. I completely disagree with them being made into "heroes". Secondly the major problem in Africa is the fact that our leaders are quite literally selling the continent. China comes in, wants a mine worth over a billion. So-
1. Instead of the government using the thousand domestic PhD engineers and making it a domestic project, they bring foreign Chinese workers to do the work, while the younger generation is qualified but unemployed.
2. Then when China does decide to mine, they don't get the land for a fair price. A mine worth 2 billion, they can get for 20million. They just have to give an extra 20 million to the right people and its done.
3. China then takes the raw resources and refine them, then when they sell them, they are now worth over double. All while our pathetic 70+ year old corrupt President is wasting the bribe money on his worthless farm. Look it up, almost all African presidents have farms. They think we are still in the 20th century where farming was everything. We are truly doomed! The younger generation is waking up but I fear it's just too late. We are being trapped into debt.
That and they were still using spears when America was putting asses on the moon.
@@KilgoreTrout1212 True, but the amount of money they bring in is still high from natural resources combined with near slave labor and child labor. Could they make a lot more money if they had developed beyond animals? Yes, but still have tons of money that is stolen by very few with zero going back to their people.
Historically the largest African empires exported raw materials across the Saharah to get rich, but once those empires fell they often resorted to slave trade to make up for the lost money. The Songhai empire (the successor of the Mali empire) for example had a 20 year period of civil war where opposit factions sold the captured soldiers as slaves in northern Africa. Before then the state was built around the city of Gao, a rich trading city. This was largely due to the unclear rules regarding the line of succession once a king died. Polygomy was common, so kings often had a lot of sons, all fighting for the crown. Slave trade was already well established in Africa long before western colonies exploited it and started systematically buying slaves, which indirectly forced those opposing kingdoms and tribes to either sell more recources than they could ever gather or sell slaves, destabilising the economy already back then.
Slave trade is a very touchy subject of course, so I'm trying to keep this objective and not draw any conclusions.
I got you, in conclusion humans are evil
@@nastybastardatlive ok and Jesus was a fanatic cult leader who told people to blindly follow him into danger
Civ V!!!!!
What!!???. Somebody sold you a bridge in Brooklyn. You telling fairy tales as facts.
Yes prior the the Europeans/USA slavery times the whole world had slavery but that still a piss poor excuse for the Western countries which exploited slavery for centuries.
Having worked for many years in Ghana, I have to say that with even the "reasons" mentioned in the video, its an extremely complex subject. In Ghana I got very frustrated with the corruption and the cultural cast system so entrenched in their lives. I always felt that it would be an ideal place to invest in large factories, but having worked in the mines with many of the locals, I know it wouldn't work. Workers with real natural talent would be overlooked by local leaders, meaning you often had to use someone totally unsuitable for the task in hand, Grrrr.
I take the video as a broad stroke approach since it's a whole continent getting distilled.
@@kailashpatirai Poor people have more children because it guarantees that one of the children will grow up and continue their legacy.
Many foreigners have experiences similar to yours. There's a Dutch-Ghanaian who has been living in Aburi for like 15 years, and his stories about his struggles with ECG will break your heart. The man loves Ghana and chooses to stay here for some inexplicable reason, but the shit he goes through and the money he has spent (since 2008) just to get power to his house for more than 2 weeks at a time would seem like fiction to anyone who lives in a 1st world country.
@@chichichichilling4822 tell us more details
@@KRYMauL more like 1 out of 9 children died before the age of 5 over there
There is poverty in this world because the greedy profit from the misery of others. Not just Africa all over the world. Poverty exists because of greed and the unequal spread of wealth, poverty is absolutely man-made and on purpose.
Can education help to break the cycle?
greed is what got people out of poverty in the first place. if everyone were complacent, we'd still be hunting animals with spears
@@DevinDTVHope for a better life isn’t greed. Want isn’t even greed. Want at the expense of all else is greed. An addiction to earning money instead at the expense of deeper things beyond it, like community, is greed. Community oriented progress is what has solved most of our issues, not greed. Greedy people have been tricked by cooperative people into cooperating with the system for everyone’s benefit, but the system should always seek to use the greed for everyone’s advantage, not glorify the greedy and allow them proportional power to their wealth. Take a look at Africa’s government full of greedy and corrupt politicians. Does that seem like a good society? Yet American business people have been pushing the “greed is goo” lie for so long so many people believe it that it’s about to swallow our society in selfishness like any other backwards country. Get a grip on reality.
Thank you Leon Trotsky!
Lmao dumbest shit I’ve read all day😊
I have lived in 14 African countries. The greatest problem are their corrupt politicians. It is endemic throughout Africa
Similar to the rest of the world. It seems like I’m other places when there’s perceived scarcity of resources the elite centralize the wealth.
West has corrupt government officials. But they are parasites that don’t kill the host, unlike those in Africa
Maybe it's a feature of democracy... Just a thought ay
What produced that?
Same for the UK and USA. We just hide it better.
30:52 is a major factor. Without Engineers, Doctors and scientists your country is not much of a country. After WW2 Russia and the US were in competition to obtain the best engineers, doctors and scientists from Germany. They already had their own business people and the only value German politicians offered was the ability to test rope strength.
Except Germany did not suffer a prolonged brain drain. The country today is one of the largest economies in the world with some of the best engineers, doctors, and scientists in the world. It's institutions survived and this is critical. A country with developed institutions that survive a conflict or crisis will continue to generate competitive output indefinitely.
You would think that in 2021, this would be obvious to African leaders, and so you would expect that they would be taking measures to promote people going into these fields. You know, subsidized education, scholarships, heavy recruitment, great pay after graduation................well in Ghana, nope. Still the same pathetic nepotism, corruption and mismanagement.
Hurray for my motherland............
@@Squidward558
Also Germany was put back on its tracks to strengthen western Europe with the soviet union's influence growing in Eastern Europe.
The Germans were enemies in ww2 and there was even talk of utterly destroying it as a country by keeping it agrarial, but reforming Germany was a far more beneficial choice to keep the west solid than let the soviets eat the rest of Europe.
Russia exist since 1991.
from 1922 to 1991 Russia was a part of the Soviet Union.
@@chichichichilling4822 are you helping your motherland, or complaining about it while standing on the sidelines?
6:50
Much of the Balkans have decided to become more than mere nations and have fled into space
Uhhh.. I don't know how I messed that up :D
Botswana: I’m I a joke to you?
Most of former Yugoslavia can into space!
The Balkans are the middle child of Europe, always forgotten unless they are taking the blame for something.
No one can stop the mighty space Empire of Bosnia- Herzegovina-Kosovo-Montenegro-North Macedonia-Serbia
This is a very well-made and well-researched video, not breaking down to the conclusion of "Europe bad, Africa good" like I've seen some people do, but also addressing the part Europe had in setting Africa up for failure. Once again, great video
However it covers up he involvement of Islam in he slave trade .
In 1957, South korea's economy was the size of Ghana's. In 2021, S. Korea is now the tenth largest economy, 25x the size of ghana (10x per capita).
@King Arthur You live life on easy mode stfu
@King Arthur that itself is rascist
@King Arthur You were born in a country where dying of hunger, lack of healthcare or violence is the least of your issues
@King Arthur just typed up whatever tf a lefty clone is, its gibberish. also i am not antisemetic. who cares if youre racist? BASICALLY EVERYBODY YOURE RACIST AGAINST. when u start putting words in people mouths based on their race, dont be suprised when they call u racist.
Is this factual?
I once was discussing this issue with a Kenyan man. He asked me if I recall the scene in Braveheart where the English king says “the problem with Scotland, is that it’s full of Scots”. He then said, that’s the same problem with Africans. He said “we are our own worst enemy.”
As a Scot myself, I can confirm this is a big problem here in Scotland.
Brave heart is extremely inaccurate.... It's a movie
@@SerfsUp1848 it’s not about the accuracy of the movie. It’s about the statement being relative.
@@zeck8541 a quote from a action movie about Scots is relative to the real world history of Africa?
@@SerfsUp1848 with all due respect, if you can’t extrapolate the real world relevance from an artistic statement by creative art, then I can’t help you. Art imitates life.
As a Nigerian, this is sooo accurate especially the part about skilled labour basically being outsourced to other countries as educated people leave Nigeria for better lives in more developed countries
Well, I really get a laugh when YOU @$$hats blame whites "stealing African rescources", .. . considering that it is FROM those "stollen" resources that such things as THESE VERY COMPUTERS we're all using here were FASHIONED (metals, Plastics, glass), .. . lmao!
I've worked with a few Nigerians, and you guys can keep them if you need them.
Wdym
i see alot of nigerians here in thr Philippines
@@dustindark4478 you probably have a low class job
Really advanced and informative video, thank you. I've learnt a lot and it is all logical. Keep it up!
This perfectly explains what I witnessed growing up in Kenya. Big government and tribal politics continue to slow development down even as the economy grows as tribal kings and their cronies duke it out for power and influence at all levels.
Oh damn, sounds like a mess. Sigh. I hope it improves
This is a propaganda video, if you want the truth copy and paste the following words in your UA-cam search bar and press enter:
why the west want sub-sahara africa to stay poor
Those who wail about this video blaming everything on whites have indeed clearly not been listening to the video.... It's hard to be nuanced or want to be more informed when you're buying into white supremacist talking points. Had to point that out.
@@vforvendetta6408 That is a propaganda video. Why would 700 million people want Africa to be poor? So they can pay taxes that gets sent there every year in foreign aid?? Or to see all the organizations begging them for money?? Or to hear the media say they must take in and pay for millions of migrants because they are so poor??
You are stupid, really really stupid if you belive that.
Blame the politicians and bankers etc in all the countries that are involved but don't blame the whole nations of the west.
@@vforvendetta6408 That is BS. I was born in Sub-Saharan Africa. The reason Africa is poor is because of Africans, period. The tribalism is so deeply embedded it will never go away and African leaders have no problem selling out their own people if it means keeping themselves wealthy and in power while everyone else stays in poverty. Africa was poor before colonialism, during colonialism, and after colonialism.
Trade restrictions kept ireland poor too. Ireland only became wealthy when it began to lift trade restrictions in the 1960s
Ireland became wealthy?
*er
wealthier, its not wealthy by any means
It has a much better quality of living now compared to the past
@@tristan6509 its economy is now booming
@@michaeldilorenzo5863 ireland is quite wealthy country tbh
I myself am African and my dream is to be a scientist to better our continent our country is peaceful and growing but I believe leaders uses the majority not in benefiting our country but themselves I can never understand grownups
If you’re a smart guy stay there and help!
I hope you achieve your dream, my friend! And improve your country! All the Best. 😊
Never change!!!!
Never lose hope my friend. With the internet, you can teach yourself nearly anything. Don't hesitate to ask around for information, someone is always willing to teach.
Rather bevome a politician to make change. No point bevoming a scientist n then u get no opportunity to do anything.
Possibly one of the best videos I have ever listened to on Africa. However, I am surprised that one obvious issue you have only alluded to but should have emphasised is this: Who makes the decisions in any country is the key to what will be achieved and for how long. Who made the decision that South Korea should put their emphasis on just three industries? Who made the decision that bribery would be the way to do business in Africa after independence? Who decides how many children will attend school and the number of schools to be built for them? Who decides that democratic values and human rights should be upheld? Who is responsible for reversing the policy of exporting raw materials and instead concentrating on manufactured goods? I could go on.
Decisions and policies their implementation, as well as the people who do the planning, organisation and so on are their LEADERSHIP. When the people in government fail, no country can make any progress at all. Most African countries have been independent for at least 60 years. During that time, the lack of good leadership or precisely GOOD GOVERNANCE has been our toughest problem to overcome. It is the most intractable problem, a detriment and impediment to our progress pervasive throughout Africa since independence. Indeed, individual Africans and their families may have prospered since then. However, it takes GOOD GOVERNANCE to uplift millions of people in any country.
Moreover, there isn't a single African country lacking the means (brains, work ethic, etc) and resources (human and natural) to prosper. Imagine that Nigeria alone, often called a "poor" country, has made an average of USD4.3 trillion from their crude oil and natural gas exports since oil was discovered there in 1956. Yet their wealth fund as of 2023 is a mere USD2.3 billion. Compare that to the USD51.62 billion one of Norway, the largest in the world and equivalent to USD295,000 per Norwegian citizen. Norway has been exporting only a fraction of the same commodities from the North Sea as Nigeria and only started doing so in 1971. Another example is the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) also referred to as a "poor" country, only to find that their natural resources of strategic minerals in that country are valued at USD7.4 trillion, which is more that the GDP of the USA and Europe combined! Incredible, isn't it?
Hence, the means and natural resources such as oil and natural gas at our disposal in Africa will not amount to anything until we have achieved GOOD GOVERNANCE. Therefore, the African countries are not yet rich as you have pointed out, nor are they "still poor" at all as the title of your video indicates. We are simply badly governed "low-income" countries.
He mentioned corruption several times. Corrupt systems are inherently systems that promote bad leaders and leadership decisions.
Good governance comes from good people and culture. Norwegians are rich because they voted for a government that work for that goal. Africa isn’t because everyone is selfishly looking after their own family, tribe race etc instead of the common good.
It’s a culture issue as much as good governance
@@zurielsss I would put it a bit differently. I hold that Africa is not yet rich, nor is it "still poor" at all. Rather, our so-called leadership behaving "selfishly" as you have stated, is a "culture" as well "character" and an "attitude" issue, to quote one of the African officials I was listening to on a talk show the other day.
Hence, it is quite obvious that the means and resources at our disposal in Africa will not amount to anything, until the people in government who make policies and implement them have overcome these vices. Therefore, both the terms "low-income" and "poor," often used interchangeably about Africa are not the same.
You may have noticed that when the leadership in Africa once in a while gets a number of economic policies right, there is a noticeable change in economic growth. Today, the list of the world top 10 fastest growing countries is dominated by African countries. That is a sign that the economic fundamentals in Africa are intact and that what is lacking is good leadership or precisely GOOD GOVERNANCE to achieve our goals.
@@apolokaggwa6521 you are waiting for good governance to fall into your lap from decades of bad governance. While not impossible it’s highly unlikely.
“Top 10 highest growth” is stemming from decades of bad management, you finally do a few things correctly and you can see a huge growth due to a small base. It’s the sustained growth for decades of improvements that I am pessimistically predicting probably not happen.
This video is an eye-opener. Wow. I'm an African(Ghanaian) and I really thought the problems we have are little and can take a short time to solve. smh. This is disastrous. Now, the Chinese are coming in. What the hell is going on? In fact, you need more than (like and subscribe). Well done.
Chinese would set us back for years
@@Kobs.A ikr. And it seems the leaders have also given up on the continent
Yeh china may put us on hold they r used to trapping countries in huge debts and i think because nigerias govenment is a bit more corrupt than our nigeria may suffer
@@gitgudnga As for Nigeria, let's not go there. I just hope they come out of whatever is going on there. Corruption everywhere and the mentality of the leaders is "We only care about our families and no one else, let's grab whatever we can and leave. "
Socialism is the new colonialism. Don't worry, the rest of the world will be brought down to Africa's level.
I believe the word "corruption" comes up alot.
I believe the word “europe” comes up alot
I believe the word "Africa" comes up alot
I believe the word "the" comes up alot
@@lukad7744 genius haha
@@migianthony how long y’all gonna hold on to that excuse? I believe the word “IQ” comes up a lot
This was massively informative! It is impossible to distill the histories of millions of people, over several centuries, into a 40 minute video, but this is an excellent starting point for learning more
Jea I am looking forward to see the rich history of sub saharan africa. Lel
And most of it ignores what really happened.
Dont Take it at face value though. The Video is kinda biased against europeans and negelects the real reason why africa is behind. The Video says for example that africa Fell behind because of slavery.. but why didnt africa enslave Europe? When they were even? Fact is they werent even and subsaharan africa was already waaay behind economically and technologically speaking in Times of mansa musa.
Good point. The reason was that Europeans had better naval technology due to poor access to Asian Markets, so they created ships capable of traveling to Asia.
@@HistoryScope Thats closer to the truth :) the access to asia is the point. Europe always had transfer of knowledge from asia even way back in roman times. They were even ruling huge parts of europe thinking of the mongol invasion, the huns, the umayyads or the ottomans. Africa had none of that. Asia and Europe combined had a much higher population/competition and thus a much higher potential for advancement. In german sociology thats called "Narbeneffekt" which means that something big happened way back which determines the future. Everything else just derived from those (and other) geographical differences.
your vids a so good ... easily explains complex themes... new fav channel ❤
As a South African , I can only say that shortsighted greed, total lack of empathy for their fellow citizens and race/ethnicity not merit based appointments in government and the private sector are the main causes for the shoddy situation that is the African continent today. With the enormous agricultural, mineral, energy and tourism wealth at our disposal, Africa should be the most prosperous continent on the globe easily. Africans only have themselves to blame.I don't see it getting better for a long time.
word
South Africa should be a first world country
@@SkiiYacht BUT it's fast becoming just another 3rd world failed state.
@@harryeisermann2784 Used to be when a whole race was treated like animals in their own country. The sad thing is people as a whole refuse to live in peace among themselves, the ones in power are always trying to oppress the ones below them. It's no use for a country to be first world meanwhile there is a whole group of people who are treated like they are not people. Even the so called first world countries have tons of such inequalities. Why is there BLM movements if all is rosy in the so called first world countries.
Have you not watched the video? Foreign powers and slave trade and all that have something to do with it as well...
As a South African you can clearly see that lack of education/skills + corruption are definitely the two main drivers keeping Africans poor. If we can just focus on skills development, rights to protect property(so those with skills don't just leave with those skills and investments) and zero-tolerance corruption policies. We could definitely be one of the greatest nations on earth.
Totally agree
To fix South Africa, tax people with property worth over $500,000. Tax them 5% annually, use the money to fund schools, hospitals and entrepreneurship.
You don't really want to get rid of the corruption, its the corruption that is making sure that the ill gotten wealth & power of the minority groups remains in their hands.
So, do you REALLY want to get rid of corruption and also get rid of white hegemony / supremacy ?
ANC needs to be thrown out of power, rather than simply going on with a neo version of Apartheid but against the Boar peoples this time.
@@jzk2020 There we go... the reason why RSA will never prosper again...
😄😄😄😄
Japan: low on resources, rich
Africa: rich in resources, very poor
Edit: I wanna let you know that this is a joke and I know that countries like Morocco, South Africa and small islands like Mauritius and Seychelles are middle income- rich income countries
Really makes you think.
Governments of countries rich in natural resources have no incentive to educate the wide population, since education is not required for a working economy and an educated population would be a threat to those in power.
@@uzefulvideos3440 I wish you would have given me the real reason instead of an asinine excuse.
@@remedialvibes9957 Based
@@remedialvibes9957 it’s called Dutch disease, look it up before you call people out.
this has been so informative, thank you for taking the time and sharing.
A prior boss had horror stories about working on contracts in Africa. The amount of money that had to be set aside for bribes, learning how to adjust for equipment regularly being stolen during "inspections", the general unreliability of any type of infrastructure - it gave me a headache just listening to the stories. I can't imagine what it was like trying to actually deal with it.
That's why digitisation of process is very important
@@hzuiel the sad thing is that it isn't jus an African issue we have those same problems in iraq aswell
Now imagine if all those things didn't just affect your work, but your entire life.
Yeah welcome to Ghana.
The life expectancy of equipment is less in Africa than it is in the US or Europe. If the grease or lubricating oil specified in the service manuals is not available, either nothing will be done or an unsuitable local substitute will be used. This increases the wear on the equipment and prompts breakdowns. China provided some diesel locomotives for Nigeria Railways, and the reason for the problems was identified by the Chinese as improper fluids used in the shops. The Nigerians insisted that the equipment was bad.
@@hasoonnine pretty much any crap country
as an african i just wanna say how much of a bruh moment africa was and still is today.
Am a fellow African and l can assure u that ur statement here is accurate
@@MED48L i am African (togolese) so I can verify you as well
What does that mean .
@@haroldlamble5163 bruh
I hope your bruh moment eventually ends.
A sad, chilling lesson in economics, greed, but also in human ingenuity and perseverance!
Well said.
first part of your comment %100, and unfortunately, second part, %100, fuckin win double???
😂 😂 😂
This isn’t ACCURATE bro your right but this lacks perspective . The Christians got the Ok from the Pope to capture the people of North Africa as long as they were converted to Christianity , their are groups of Europeans that believed their were indigenous Europeans in Zimbabwe and settled in that area in belief that that is their homeland (their probably not wrong) but this was collectively everyone’s fault but don’t take this video serious it’ lacks the Christian outlook on religion perspective , the greed for controlling trades to Asia and the Arabian peninsula are huge factors , religious wars was definitely a factor too ... you can’t cover the reason Africa is poor in a 9 minute video ... you would need to read in chapters ... it was all evil none the less
This lacks so much of perspective and anthropological, and cultural relativism that is almost places slavery in an ambiguous nonsensical way.There is too much at heart to some up in 40 minutes. SLAVERY UNDER CHRISTIANITY AND EUROPE, was way different to in Arab and African country. Orientalist assess, will fool.the masses
Very good video!
Can you do one about South and Central Americas?
They have many similarities with Africa and it would be cool to understand why they are still poor and corrupt.
As an African, I want to thank you for this video, for it is by far the best video I have seen on UA-cam regarding this topic.
I'm from algeria
This answered at least a dozen questions I've always wondered about. Seriously, thank you.
Slavery has nothing to do with the poverty in Africa.
Africa is poor because the food grows on the trees all year round.
Technological Civilisation only emerges in places where planning ahead is required as part of the culture.
The local people never had to think ahead for more than a day or a week.
This is a propaganda video, if you want the truth copy and paste the following words in your UA-cam search bar and press enter:
why the west want sub-sahara africa to stay poor
It's really difficult to be informed about places you've never been to... You have to rely on other people's experience...
This video is a lot of half truths. I worked in Africa. Watch Empire of Dust if you want reality.
@@9thebear This video didn't talk much about China giving loans to African nations. The African nations get into debt because the infrastructure projects help the chinese get the resources out but don't really help the citizens.
Congratulations on an extremely clear and concise summary of a complex and tragic story. Many thanks for a huge eye-opener
It was very good. But got the impression that too mach was put on external causes. External forces can only cause chaos in a country that is already dysfunctional.
Africa has produced very few kingdoms in history that have been competitive in the world for its time. Even before the slave trade and colonialism.
Temperature / climate is also one of the most important factors for a country's prosperity. There are almost no rich countries in warm climates and almost all countries in cold climates are rich.
@@niklasmolen4753 One other aspect rarely mentioned is the lack of horses in many parts of Africa because of a couple of diseases that are often lethal for them. Horses have played an important aspect in transport, trade and communication in most (if not all) the countries that developed what we might term advanced societies by the Middle Ages.
PS Except for central and south america of course, though some of them did have llamas etc as beasts of burden
@@avv397 Lamas are not nearly as good as horses. And it seems that the availability of suitable pets / livestock has been crucial to the development of advanced civilizations.
@@niklasmolen4753 No, not as good as horses, but at least they're better at carrying things than goats, plus you get the wool as well. I agree with you about pets and livestock, a very long story with a fair bit of guesswork (I think)
The research that this excellent video is backgrounded in is nothing shy of authoritative and judiciously scholarly. It's one production that must be watched literally multiple times. Almost as good as reading a book! Congratulations! Bravo!
Bro had a thesaurus when he was typing this comment
As a South African I have one word for you ... Corruption !!!
i think that is all of
Africa
or maybe having the majority of the population only have basic education led to them not being able to take part in the economy, meaning they were stuck poor.
@@kmakumane258 we have free education and free university and free housing and stipends for students in South Africa with limited success . Low pass rate. Need to change their behaviour.
This is a propaganda video, if you want the truth copy and paste the following words in your UA-cam search bar and press enter:
why the west want sub-sahara africa to stay poor
@@deonkotzee6641 that only started recently and even then most who graduate struggle to find work. Those who want to start a business struggle with capital because the wealth of the country is skewed disproportionately in favor of the minority.
There is rampant corruption in SA but if you watched the video, you'd know it's a result of how apartheid left the country. If apartheid treated natives fairly, then you wouldn't have poor people that are ultra loyal to the Anc.
As a Ugandan, I have always been so concerned about our role in our situation besides other factors involved as mentioned in the video. By watching this video I now know how to build the introduction of the book am writing about what's happening in our society and why is the situation most likely to persist. The book is titled “THE ARCHITECTURE OF THE THIRD WORLD” why poverty might persist in poor societies.
you should get someone to look over your grammar before you release it mate!
@@sandstrommadam you probably don't speak any foreign languages, yet you judge others
A complete Marxist revolution led by the world's poor is what we need
@@sandstrommadam said an English native speaker to a Ugandan. Mate, you should be worrying more about your stupidity and ignorance before posting with such arrogance 🤣🤣
@@soundsofgaia8451 judging by his last name he's probably from a Nordic country so I wouldn't be so quick to judge either mate. I'd also consider that constructive criticism rather than judging but to each his own I guess
28:40 "And so Africa gained a reputation for being a very unstable country." You meant to say continent.
I am quite surprised why Americans think that Africa is a country. Tell them that there are more than 50 independent countries in the continent.
@@scooterbob4432 they know hun. Pretty sure it was just a mistake.
@@scooterbob4432 I’m surprised why Everyone thinks every american is like everyone else?
@@scooterbob4432 That's not the least bit accurate. You might also be very surprised to learn that US citizens are a diverse group, and don't all think alike. You should make less effort to show your ignorance, even though many must find it amusing. I know that I do!
@@scooterbob4432 53 I believe
This is a brutal analysis, we have come a long way, thank you for this enlightenment
"This was a good Deal for everyone, so long as you don't consider slaves to be people."
I was actually wondering about that point, as if he meant at the time then yes you could argue that Africa profited from the triangle trade. But the long term demographic effects of exporting human beings destroyed west African society overtime. So it was a bad deal for Africa (although that is with the benefit of hindsight)
Edit: Oops, I watched a few more minutes and the video said what I just said. Excellent work History Scope, I think a common mistake with this comment is talking about the profitability at the time, without the long term effects. I find this topic really depressing, but it's important to learn.
It's like livestock trading
@@thesudaneseprince9675 Also, West African states became completely dependant on the slave trade. So when the British banned slavery and began raiding slave ships, the West African economy crashed hard and it hasn't ever really recovered.
@@yoloswaggins7121 guess west Africa is a country and Nigeria doesn't exist
@@kingkai2800 What? I don't understand what you are saying.
28:41 yes Africa, my favorite country
You mean continent right?
@@hallooos7585 ...that is the joke
Imagine putting together an illustrated 40 min video and some asshat hears a mistake and centres a comment on it. A pretty pathetic comment on a pretty informative video.
@@thelocalfawz6580 imagine being so upset about a joke comment that even the creator likes
@@trunestor /r wooosh
I'm not even African but when you mentioned that they are improving in most sectors, creating new jobs and opportunities for Africans, I almost cried. I'm only 20 years old, and one of the things that I want the most is to see a developed and rich Africa before I die. They deserve it. All the best to Africa, from Johannesbourg to Algiers, and from Freetown to Addis Abeba.
@@420technique420 whats hilarious about people being poor ?
@@420technique420 lmao wow this is such a blanket ass statement that discounts the millions who have tried there absolute best and failed or moved. like wow, I get it, some ppl ARE lazy but this such a shitty generlaztion
@@420technique420 Somalia was the best country in Africa but even it couldn’t avoid a dictator, collapse and civil war
@@r.p5380 Somalia was never the best country. South Africa was the only nuclear power and even had a space program. But also, African dictators moved in and stole the country right out of the hands of its Founders. Turned it to shit over night.
What the Fack when was aligeria out of Africa, no one told me Fack.
Absolutely one of the most profound documentaries on Africa !
The insights in putting this documentary together with the research that goes behind the scenes is genius! The realities mentioned is unfortunate yet stands as truthful: I have personally pondered this question for over 40 years ; This is by far the an example of journalism ( addressing a difficult; even a sensitive subject ) with
a gifting of international intelligence and great excellence! One of the best documentaries I have ever seen !!!!!!!!!!
I'm from Kenya and have literally seen this video unfold in real life from minute 14:30. But I'm hopeful we will be among the economically growing countries rising on the continent in the 21st century...though the corruption and leadership issues may be big stumbling blocks.
Victimhood is another stumbling block, there is a growing number of Africans who keep on blaming Westerners for the state of the continent, while it may have some truth, it does not help us in advancing in any way and makes us lose the sense of self-responsibility to work hard, take risks and build our communities and families
Vast number of talented people, vast natural resources. Africa is the future but "ad astra per aspera."
From what we are learning in the Southern states of the US, Africa will be one of the top in economic growth in the next 20 years.
@@philipbanda6637 by stealing intellectual property from other countries AND letting more people starve to death than were killed by the Nazis... yea, look to China.
@@bartonbella3131 Especially with the efforts the PRC is making to spur their development. They were doing it back in '04 in Ethiopia when I was there for the GWOT.
My sister is having her JSS3 (halfway secondary school) exams right now and her class was annoyed because they suddenly added History to the syllabus again after removing it a while ago. After watching this I'm actually really thankful because not enough schools in Nigeria approach History outside Civic Education.
Honestly. I remember when I was in secondary school and there was not any history. It was only government and civic education. It's good to be enlightened more.
@@imakepancakes My primary school wasn't really conventional, being that they taught very differently from most schools so my sisters and I were used to taking History, until Js1 in another school showed us that it was not even in the Nigerian syllabus.
@@-faramoluwanbi-6469 nawa, you were lucky to have been taught history earlier sha
They don’t teach history by design, easier for foreign powers to take advantage of those who know little to nothing about themselves or the lands they reside in.
@@LilMiSSKimBerlyy And people who dont know the history are bound to repeat mistakes done in the past.
Never have I watched a video that perfectly describes Africa's situation and reasons behind our afflictions so well. Thank you so much for exclusively shining light on this. Our leaders are power hungry savages who amass wealth by looting public resources, investing and monopolisation of the private sector for personal gain while capitalizing on our self imposed weaknesses like tribalism. Looking forward to when most Africans will wake up and demand for a better Africa. Here in Kenya most youths are tired of our incompetent government which has been constantly increasing taxes within last 10 years pay with a subsequent increase in graft cases but minimal to zero economic progress.
You're not so tired that you won't show up for political events when the people running are paying you $5 a few free t-shirts and gifts.... in exchange for your vote. I just saw a documentary on it the other week.
In Kenya corruption and tribalism are endemic. Corrupt politicians benefit from tribal loyalty that propels them to power..they loot from the government and use the money to bribe gullible voters
how about work together and fight against them? make your own government
It might be that you need a new government in the various countries that have dictators ,
and corrupt officials . I would suggest using the U. S. government as a model , which was initially set up to provide equal representation and liberty and individual rights . That only works when a society
generally is a moral one . There
needs to be communication , and a willingness to work toward an unselfish society that cares for the welfare of the people . I don't mean socialism welfare , but rather the well-being of the people .
The Christian religion put an emphasis on giving when people need help. But that only works when it's voluntary . When charity is replaced with government mandated programs , the whole system eventually collapses . Government only takes . It does not produce anything but
tyranny and the erosion of rights and freedom , which breeds corruption .
Thank you for pinpointing Kenya. I have a live case study where the former governor of Laikipia , with the tacit support of the central government have slammed brakes on a 1..2 billion shilling project soliciting bribes which the client we represent would not fathom being part of. What a bunch of troglodytes.. very shameful. The multiplier effect of this project would have alleviated the plight of lots of businesses,both inter and intra-county.
So basically we were fighting eachother and being dumb while people were planning and developing
Bingo, and its still ongoing today,
True, in as much as Europe needed slaves, we also needed slaves too but the problem is that we sold them for fast money while Europe used them for greater wealth.
Not to say slavery is good but I think we needed to have good use for our own slaves.
this docu is golden, too bad we have very little quality content on Africa
If you like content on Africa theres some really good channels! New Africa does a lot of long docs like this while Home Team History does shorter videos on more specific topics, both very good production and quality 💕 Afrohistory productions is a newer channel and less high budget but does really really good videos as well on so many topics 💃🏻
Please check out a youtube channel called NewAfrica. Made by Africans about Africa.
The is indeed very little quality content on africa
@John Ashtone and that's a lie or should I say wrongful over generalisation.
@John Ashtone For a moment I thought you were serious haha
This content is so important to all African. I wish this video was dubbed in French, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic and Chinese. Salute from Equatorial Guinea 🇬🇶🇬🇶🇬🇶
Add Latin as well
Add Dutch as well
Y'all are real funny with this trolling ish...😂😂😂 keep em coming!
It’s important to everyone living and not yet born in this planet
@@malabo10 all right why not have it in sign language
Finally someone tells the story how it went, lot of people think European just walked in África and catched slvaes with butterfly nets
yh exactly lmao
For real, I learned more useful things here about the origins of slavery than my entire academic career.
Who cares how they got the slaves? The point is, the slavery that existed in Africa was humane. They had slaves due to war or debt. The chattel slavery in the United States was abhorrent and evil.
@@PaperMario64 wdym who cares it's very important to understand the context of which this took place.
@@PaperMario64 yh because selling people is very humane that makes sense. Btw I hate America just as much but selling your own people for money is just disgusting.
Which trade restrictions kept them from selling products to each other, since they were all "kind of similar" @ 16:43?? Please explain further. Thanks
Before watching the video: I once worked with a cameroon immigrant. He told me corruption is why his continent fails. He also told me one day he will be famous for killing his dictator.
yup. My wet dream is to start a whole revolution. Not to far off from the French revolution. Where we are just tired and snap.
Howd that work he dead
I second his words. Corruption and stupidity is whats killing Africa. And there is a very very long line of people behind me who would want to kill these dictators.
@@triplemoyagames4195 don't forget revolutions tend to destabilize the country even more. look at the libyan revolution for example. i'm sure they will achieve democracy and widespread reforms in the future, but right now their revolution and civil war came with a very high cost, with most of its people now criticising the revolution leaders.
@@andenfighter0078 because the leaders too are corrupt. I didn't say violence is the best option. It is the only viable one that will gain progress. Politics proves futile, with young ones just being paid, or gotten rid of
I don't want violence, I just do not see another way.
IN SOUTH AFRICA THE GOVERNMENT HAS NOW REMOVED THE NEED FOR STUDENTS TO PASS AN EXAMINATION TO GRADUATE.
sources?
Technically, it started that way. Despite how people treat it now, 'matrics' (matriculation exams) were intended as nationwide *entrance* exams for tertiary education, not *leaving* exams for high school. The word 'matriculating' literally _means_ enrolling in university. Graduating high school after grade 10 (old standard 8, about age 16) without taking it used to be the norm. Only a small percentage of students intending to study further (the 'matric' students) used to stay on in school for the subsequent two years. Everyone else went to apprenticeships, vocational colleges, or directly to work.
@content nuker Its your right, you don't have to apologize, lol, I actually think people should focus more on themselves and quit these social justice things.
@@philipbanda6637 What did China do that Africa didn’t?
OK THANK YOU. WHY ARE WE SHOUTING?
AND HOW IS THIS RELEVANT?!
"A dead peasant is an unproductive peasant."
It's hard to find a sentence that souds more British than that.
Try this then “ would you like a crumpet with your tea luv?”.
How about now, No milk or sugar.
@@klashnacovak47 ooh that’s a good one
A dead peasant can be replaced by a better peasant. You're doing it wrong.
Isn't that a Ferengi rule of acquisition?
Thank you for such a great breakdown of the situation. The violence that has resulted from all these problems and frustrations boiling over in the people is so complicated. Here in California, we are benefiting from the brain drain from Nigeria. Many professionals are in my community from Nigeria. I can't blame them. I'm grateful for the good news part of this video. The US is struggling with our own lack of good leadership and low education.
This is the most reasonable analysis of the situation I have ever encountered since my birth. It connects all the dots.
you need to learn more about your history;
Only problem i have is him suggesting africa didnt have raw materials and that the americas had it thats why the slave were basically migrant workers, utter nonsense.
@@organisatiecoach1068 I know my history, but not much of Africa's history.
@@cyprianusmuranda1273 Yeah, that doesn’t make any sense. Africa was the richest continent in the world when it came to resources, which is why there was such a scramble for it in the first place.
@@punkgrl325 not true. Other parts of the world have resources as well. The difference is in the urgency for survival and the social structure.
This is so educative, but you never hear these things in history class.
Very true I don’t know why. I think it’s because in the grand scheme of things after 15 century Africa kinda became a dull and a “nobody” country. We learn a lot in BC years but later in history it becomes dull and “non important” in school. It makes sense tho but I wish I knew some of this stuff earlier
@@stale_meme_boi6159 Continent*
@@stale_meme_boi6159 I think its because Africa has been in a dark age since the drying up of Gold mines lead to the decline of the Mali empire. The European dark ages were mostly skipped over in school as well come to think of it. All I remember learning from that time is a little about how they lived. All the politics and civil war after the fall of the Roman Empire is skipped in favor of learning about the Renaissance and Enlightenment.
School history classes tend to be a very broad way of teaching to give you the bare-bone information on historical events. Death counts? lesser important people? religious nuances? nuaces in general? *nope! here; have 1 page dedicated to the Roman Republic/Empire(how the fuck are you going to condense such a big nation into 1-2 pages?) and then 5 chapters to WW2, because that is REAL history!*
Everything but the "big picture" isn't of importance. dollars to donuts that it's either because of political reasons(and i'm not gonna open that conspiracy-can of worms) or because kids have said _"I'll never use this in the real world!"_ too often.
They don't want to reveal that africans captured their fellow africans to trade them to the Americans for mere goods but instead focus on "racist" America and plantations.
Corruption is really like cancer.. Once it's established, it's almost impossible to fight it.. That's what happening here in our country..
There is corruption in every country across the globe. No government can exist without some members exploiting it for personal gain, but nor can we decend into the anarchy that would surely ensue without a government.
So there is no clear answer or solution. Maybe humans will evolve to be less greedy and selfish (not saying everyone is) but until then we will have to make do.
Luckily humans also do amazing things as well! It's not all gloom and doom!
same goes for religion. Two of africas main problems.
I don't fully agree with this, but also I partially do. It's difficult to find one that doesn't have an agenda or control in mind. but I almost guarantee there are some religions that are just about spirituality. Mind you, I'm not an expert and I could be wrong.
*our countries
the bigest problem in this world is human greed.
This is a well-made very informative video. I wanted to learn more about African history after reading a book
about Congo. I learned so much in 40 minutes watching your video and make more curious to learn more. As someone coming from a poor country that was colonized for several centuries, I wish African people all the best.
I’ve always found the modern African situation so interesting, yet very frustrating. Been in Gabon for 4 years when I was a kid following my parents that were sent there both for diplomatic and military reasons. I was literally living in a French military camp, and it is obvious that French military presence was there only to secure their access to Gabonese ressources such as Petrol and Timber… which profit would only go in the hands of the elite.
But that’s just one of the many ways Europe, the West or now China exerce control over Africa. The central Bank of Africa is still regulated by the EU to fit their own interest, making import and export only profitable for the EU. Ridiculously expensive and useless infrastructures such as unaffordable 5 star hotels, marinas or empty stadiums are built in contract with China, which only deepen national debts and never answers public actual needs.
I mean, I remember being so confused to see a gouvernement building in Libreville, covered with golden glasses and run on 24/7 AC while entire slums with no electricity, no food, no water surround it. Not far from that, a Chinese company was half-way from finishing a marina when a corrupted agent literally left with the money. Like I’m not kidding, the guy took the money and left like that, leaving an entire construction site on hold in front of now a completely wasted coastline.
I had African friends from the rising middle class that were attending the French school like I did. They were smart, and could be the drivers of Gabonese economical development. But all of them who had enough money to study and work in France would leave and never look back.
To be really honest, I highly doubt that Gabon or Africa as a whole can actually get better, as per now. The situation is terrible. Corruption, political violence, fake democracies, constant European interference, brain escape and the dependance on foreign disguised charity. Shifting the game would require a complete political or economical reconfiguration, and the overall instability would never allow it. But I really hope I’m wrong. I mean damn, I wanna see Africa rise and prove everybody wrong just like Asia did, and give the West some healthy humility.
What you're saying is very accurate even here in Cameroon and Nigeria. I wish Our leaders in Africa could be leaders and actually look beyond their families. All of Africa's pain today is powered on strong greed. Here greed isn't looked at as a a negative aspect but as the normal way of life.
Europe is far more responsible than people are willing to accept. The Commonwealth even more so. Europe carves up Africa with a pen but the Commonwealth carves it up with warships and superior firepower. British weapons manufacturers like BAE Systems repeatedly sell advanced weapons to rebel groups terrorist organisations and blacklisted countries to engineer civil war, they polluted agricultural landmarks, rediverted rivers and cloudseed their skies, they steal huge amount of natural resources such as fossil fuels and rare earth minerals whilst forcing them to purchase overpriced goods, the Commonwealth actively radicalises populations through media and intelligence agencies, disease, inflation, assassination of political rivals, propaganda, brainwashing and so much more.
Sad part about it is that Africans are significantly more evolved than us Caucasians and would have built a far superior world to the one we built. They had evolved to become peaceful by nature which is why they couldn't compete against our superior firepower and our primitive warriors mentality. Same goes for the Middle East.
The Commonwealth are far more to blame than anyone.
It's an inconvenient truth sadly. Our leadership has settled into a destructive cycle of "This leader wrecked our country and only fed his family so when it's my turn I'll make sure me and mine are taken care of". Rinse and repeat.
It is so sad right... Just thinking about them.. And knowing that no matter what you do or people do.. the situation will never get better. I have met with lot of people who migrated from south african countries. They used to tell the government is their biggest enemy. The rich are just trying to fill their pockets. Government are overturn in days and immigrants are ordered to leave the country.
Basically:
*COLONIZATION*
I got a sinking feeling in my stomach when he said that political leaders started targeting ethnic groups. Truth can be physically painful sometimes.
I am in Ethiopia and that is exactly what I felt. It is SAD! we are in war because of that!
@@ZemichaelMD Ghana. Misery loves company.
Rwanda Genocide go brrrrr
It's happening worldwide now. Identity politics is taking root in all political climates. If only we had examples of why that's a bad idea.
@@PoopaChallupa "Identity Politics" isn't taking root, it never went anywhere.
As an ignorant, American, black male I appreciate this video beyond words. My own family had no idea the corruption was THAT bad! American schools don’t teach this kind of in-depth history in high schools. Thank You so much
I'm a White American and I agree- I didn't learn much if anything about Africa either. It's a shame. Almost all our focus was on America, Latin America, and Europe (mostly England, France, and pre-modern era Italy and Greece). We learned the geography and climates of Asia and Africa, but not a heck of alot more. And maybe we (students) sensed not much enthusiasm either.
I didn't really understand why Africa has performed so poorly compared to much of the world. This video is very insightful. America has major corruption problems, too (BOTH parties). If we don't check ourselves, our economic inequality problems will drive some of our areas into 3rd world zones (some almost are) just like Africa and South Asia.
Same here in Germany. In context of Africa we only learned in school about colonialism. About the rich and divers African history before colonialism or today's problems which are linked to the history, we learned nothing. African history teaches in German schools as well in other western countries feels like: first there was nothing in Africa, than the Europeans came and started African history. It's sad that our history classes are that euro/western centristic.
The very fact that you call yourself ignorant makes you not ignorant as you are open minded and able to reflect on yourself
Why don't rich black people in the West help Africans?
@@Mikeb8134 why don't whites who ruined Africa help??
Excellently researched, critically analysed, criatively produced , proficiently publicly youtube video reported announced. Good on you, keep up the goodwork.
Another aspect to consider under both colonization and the need for politicians to appeal to certain ethnic groups is the "Scramble for Africa." It's briefly mentioned in this video as European powers getting wealthier, and suddenly wanting colonies, but it is much more than that. Specifically, the borders (many of which still exist to this day) were drawn by Europeans, without consultation of the people actually living there. Thus cultural and ethnic groups did not correlate with national borders, paving the road for national instability for years to come.
EXACTLY
yep
In Australia, we are subject to constant propaganda about the benefits of diversity. Multiculturalism was forced on us by our political and business elites who wanted more people to sell stuff to, and more people competing for the opportunity to earn a livings. That keeps wages down and profits up.
That is literally everywhere in the world even Europe. You just have to get on with it.
I heard Africa DID NOT SELL US EITHER AS THEY SAY
Am in Kenya, this documentary has stuck to the real point why Africa stays poor. Well brought out
Things can change. People like YOU are the future of Africa. You can do this.
@@joebloggs5318 I am Kenyan and I am going to change my country. Just wait and see
@@spaxxvilejohn9095 I look forward to the day the world knows your name because of your success.
@@joebloggs5318 Amen. I believe Artificial intelligence is the answer. It's a long chain of events but the idea is practical. If I can just convince the leaders to take it up, then it will work.💯
As Kenyans let’s start by dismissing the BBI it has no regards to our challenges but to benefit the political elites. All the possible presidential candidates makes me sick: all of them have questionable sanity. The more we vote in these same people the more we prolong our problems.
This is a vivid account on poverty-stricken Africa. We are determined tomorrow will be better. Thanks for the wonderful details.
thank you for educating me 😌✊
Did anyone see the Minecraft sugarcane
I was confused for the first 20 seconds because I couldn't figure out why this looked so familiar
Timestamp?
Edit: found it. 4:43
@@El_Presidente_5337 same it took me until it zoomed in to recognize lol
Wow, this is such an awesome documentary. As an African it is inspiring to do what I can to change things. Understanding this history and challenges is key to that. Great work breaking this down
I am American and find this video fascinating. Two thumbs way, way up.
Eye Que and Thirtene purcent ;)
LAUGHABLE description of "history", more idiotic than "The People's History" . Too much to correct, to even start. If you have a philosophical mind, you can detect the discrepancies without even needing to know the facts; and if you know the history, then you know...that's why God causes train wrecks...
this is what schools should teach... and about all people.
Good luck my friend 🙏🏽
6:46
Half of the balkans: “aight imma head out”
He even kept Kaliningrad but removed Russia...
Reject Kaliningrad and Russia
Return to Königsberg and Prussia
Lol yup
I learned a lot. Thank you.
As an African, all I want to say is thank you for this video.
Go Africa!
lol, this is not even a positive video for Africa.
@@tammyandretti9019 nope... But atleast it gives the west an idea of how Africa fell over the centuries
@@that._.one_dude lol 😂 so what western would do after watching this Video? is to laugh! isn't it?
@@tammyandretti9019 Africa isn’t one place idt the west is in any position to laugh considering the shit state of its own country
Finally someone who know what he's talking about, no stereotypes or assumptions which happens alot when people are talking about Africa. But 90% of our problems stem from corruption. That's why a Chinese company will get a contract faster than an African in Africa because they can bribe their way through public offices
Things like corruption only happen when people allow it. Everyone need to stop making excuses for Africa. Success requires hard work and strong character which they are lacking. Good fortune comes to those that make it happen through concerted effort.
@@joriggs8948 How are you sure that corruption only happens when people allow it? Sources and Examples please.
@@joriggs8948 absolutely dogshit take
@@joriggs8948 Boy did you hit a nerve... Zalaiya Smith wants "Sources and Examples" these I can give he/she/it/them.... Look at what makes up the population and governments of the darkest continent and you will have your answer... As far as nate mugambi, I am not quite sure what langue nate is writing....
@@davidsilvercreek8541 Racist
In 9th grade, on the first day of learning about Africa in our Global History class, the teacher asked us what was the first thing we thought of at the mention of Africa. I am ashamed to say that my answer was the citizens in poverty. I hope the African people eventually experience a good life. :)
You weren't wrong..... recognizing something is shitty, doesn't make you shitty.....
There are African people who are very well off and not living in poverty. Not everyone in Africa is poor and miserable.
@@Theempyreann I know, but I wish the majority was well-off.
@@Theempyreann Of course not :)
Back in College I dated a woman from Togo for awhile (one the poorest most corrupt countries in the world)..... obviously, she wasn't poor (studying in Canada)
Well, I really get a laugh when YOU @$$hats blame whites "stealing African rescources", .. . considering that it is FROM those "stollen" resources that such things as THESE VERY COMPUTERS we're all using here were FASHIONED (metals, Plastics, glass), .. . lmao!
really amazing document !!! thank you !!! ♥
Our continent as a whole is not doing great. But this video has shown me how much we have developed over the last century, thank you for educating us with this
@Kin Kan keep in mind that many africans are actually caucasians and asians as well as black. Robots are a thing that will remain for a long time, but you still need people to design, repair and check them. Plus many places in Africa still do not have the capabilties of producing factories with as many robots as the Americans, Asians and Europeans. But you are right in that we have to figure things out differently due to the day and age we live in
how will people ever know the real answers if youtube keeps banning everyone who talks about them?
Exactly
This is sounding very antisemitic!
There's a lot they don't want you to know.
@@electricityisaghost4644 Oy vey we've been found out, quick. SHUT IT DOWN!
Rebranding as flat earth videos
This is impressive! The dots were well connected from start to end. A 40 minute video can obviously not cover everything but the essentials were well articulated. Would have been interesting if China had been connected with its growing power in the continent.
Well done again!
I think the real reason "why?" wasn't mentioned. For some wierd reason you can't put together 2 letters in this video, and i'm tolking about letter "I" and letter "Q" that's the real reason why Africa is poor.
Imagine an African country that had Mandarin Chinese as the lingua franca.
@@Neighborhood-Black-Guy Chinese want the best for all African nations and intends to help...not exploit like the colonizers!
@@redgreen7021 Kansas was not bleeding because of banking, taxes, and tariffs.
funny how they leave China out of every topic including Afghanistan....lol "One Belt One Road"
Thank you for airing this history of Africa. please air other videos on information not included in this video.
“These countries aren’t poor. These countries are rich! Only the people are poor! They’re not underdeveloped, they’re overexploited!” - Michael Parenti
Why isn’t this top answer?
@@saucykossi6645 Because it's wrong.
The lenin pic checks out.....
@@desichalkos5627 How is it wrong?
Exploited by their own.
Excellent work. I learned more from this 40 min video than I did sitting 14 years in a classroom.
@@psychopompous3207 not for medical and law school is mandatory or you can't get a job as a surgeon if you dont go to med school or residency with fellowship they're a lot of good degrees but most are useless and not needed.
@@calebbrininger7483 that's right... Academic rigour is vital for a broad understanding of the profession. I wouldn't want an engineer to build a dam or a bridge if he hadn't gone through the tough process of getting his qualification.
Part of this is just and SJW fairytale
@@luigimanzoni2705 most of it.
its the same old game The Coming War on China - True Story Documentary Channel
One of the best history videos I have seen. Great work! You have won a new fan!