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okcrumpet t1_iu9ky11 wrote

People keep acting like China or east asia is the default outcome. These places had unified political institutions going back thousands of years. The more likely model of what “success” will look like is South America or Indian. And that’s if states in west africa can form stronger institutions, which is no guarantee. There’s so much more subnational affiliation in West africa (tribes, ethnicity, religion) that politics becomes just a revolving door of interest groups and corruption. Not great for nation building. The countries doing well in africa are countries that have one dominant ethnicity or have gone through the difficult (sometimes violent) process of forming a nation state like Rwanda.

Everyone wants Africa to get their due. But it is hardly the default and prognosis (especially in West africa) is not China like at this moment

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NobleWombat t1_iu9oywb wrote

This is the problem with nationalism oriented state building; a far better model is federal state building.

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MetalBawx t1_iuapzfn wrote

Yeah well good luck seeing that change without a mountain of blood.

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NobleWombat t1_iubym85 wrote

That doesn't make any sense. Nationalism requires bloodshed, federalism does not.

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MetalBawx t1_iuddmd6 wrote

Trying to force a change of government especially from the outside tends to result in violence and if a country is badly split in terms of culture or ethnicity then it's even more likely a civil war will break out.

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Southern-Trip-1102 t1_iucn4hh wrote

Not nessarily, if everyone forgets their ethnicity in favor of a nationality then what bloodshed would there be. Though this would require a very effective movement to avoid resistance.

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NobleWombat t1_iucnga2 wrote

That's just genocide.

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Southern-Trip-1102 t1_iuco4lk wrote

How so? Humans have had their cultures changed, replaced, transformed for our entire history. Whether my group has a red or blue flag doesn't actually have any real value.

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No_Breadfruit_2639 t1_iucv8hu wrote

It's actually happening with less blood though 😅😹 especially in west Africa. The desert has gotten a project in which it will be turned into a solar farm (African power hub) and part of it an actual agricultural farm. There's has been some interaction with some Arabs (Qatar and Dubai) for this kind of transformations

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MunchingLemon t1_iu9yxpz wrote

So confidently incorrect, China did not have a unified political institution before the revolution it was famously an extremely fractured country run by different warlords

Edit: absolutely classic Reddit moment, I have studied Chinese History (not arm chair YouTube history) this is how misinformation spreads lol

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YaAbsolyutnoNikto t1_iu9zs7l wrote

Yes and no. The entire history of china is about unifying and breaking apart.

They have been unified 1 million times already.

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MunchingLemon t1_iu9zyuy wrote

Yes I know that, but that is not what the original post I was responding to was saying

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Words_Are_Hrad t1_iuaiww0 wrote

>These places had unified political institutions going back thousands of years

That is, in fact, exactly what the person you responded to was saying. You just chose to take a knee jerk interpretation and assume that's what they meant.

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Zandrick t1_iub77qs wrote

That first comment is saying that China had a unified political institution for thousands of years, the other guy corrected by saying it was fractured, then the other other guy says it fractured and unified a number of times.

None of you agree on any of it.

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MunchingLemon t1_iuaj3bq wrote

That is literally not what the original post said or means

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Truth_is_Liberal t1_iua600r wrote

While Chinese culture has never been as monolithic as it is today, they did still have common cultural traditions stretching back thousands of years. Africa is much more disparate - there are usually dozens of major cultures in every single nation, and most spread across borders of neighboring nations. It's a mess, quite literally by design.

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MunchingLemon t1_iuajrg0 wrote

Traditions are not the same as political institutions, but other than that I agree

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GreatArchitect t1_iuc9b3p wrote

Lol, imagine being ignorant to the historically socio-cultural diversity of China.

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SiCur t1_iuakxmi wrote

Would you expect any different? The worst thing you can do on Reddit is discuss the things you’ve studied. Its like going to a 7-11 and hearing some people arguing about politics by the slurpee machine. Let’s say you teach political science at Harvard … do you engage in the conversation or say hell no and walk away? Likely the latter.

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Catfulu t1_iuajv1f wrote

>China did not have a unified political institution before the revolution

>I have studied Chinese History

Tells me you didn't study Chinese history without telling me you didn't study Chinese history.

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SvenDia t1_iua2l6q wrote

You could say the same thing about many European countries not that long ago. Germany in particular wasn’t a unified nation until 1871.

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beceladon t1_iuaxz1l wrote

Interesting, Italy was also not unified until 1871.

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SvenDia t1_iub4ne8 wrote

That’s true. I didn’t mention Italy, but it is kind of interesting that both countries became fascist in the 1930s. And you could probably point to the communist governments in China and the Soviet Union as examples of authoritarian responses to unification in the recent past.

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goodsam2 t1_iudph52 wrote

I mean Germany kinda was and in the 1870s they made fun of Germany as little Germany because they weren't united with the Austrians.

I think we need to look at language and cultural barriers falling over decades. Getting Africans on the internet probably kills a lot of the tribalism at least in the current system.

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Gitmfap t1_iuaem14 wrote

I came here to say this, you said it better

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Eleventy22 t1_iuahhid wrote

Wasn’t Rwanda subjected to a genocidal purge of 800k people in a 3 month window which then turned into a larger regional war that cost the lives of over 5 million?

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casualsubversive t1_iucb9qg wrote

That is part of the "difficult (sometimes violent) process of forming a nation state" they referenced. And that was almost 30 years ago. Post genocide, Rwanda is very successful, by certain metrics. But it's no Western European liberal democracy.

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guareber t1_iud2ffv wrote

South America success? Please explain.

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okcrumpet t1_iueb3kw wrote

South america per capita income is much higher than africa and even india and I believe china. And we don’t consider most of these states very successful in the modern economy

Shows just how far west africa has to climb

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guareber t1_iueg1sc wrote

They aren't, really. África is way worse, but SA isn't successful at all.

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