teohjitkhiam’s Reviews > The Fortunes of Africa: A 5,000-Year History of Wealth, Greed, and Endeavor > Status Update

"By the 1980s, Africa was renowned for its..army dictators and one-party presidents who strutted the stage enforcing their personal control, tolerating neither opposition nor dissent, licensing secret police to silence their critics, cowing the press, emasculating the courts, and making themselves exceedingly rich. Once in power, their abiding preoccupation was to stay in power, employing whatever means..necessary."

"In 1945 there were four independent states in Africa: Egypt, nominally independent, headed by a corrupt monarch, but subject to British political interference..Ethiopia, a feudal empire..restored to Haile Selassie after five years of Italian occupation; the decaying republic of Liberia, little more than a fiefdom of the American Firestone Company which owned its rubber plantations; and the Union of South Africa.."

"By the 1930s, colonial governments..Needing trained recruits to fill the lower rungs of the administrative service..began to support missionary efforts to set up schools..became the nurseries of new African elites. The small elites..produced..were concerned primarily with their own status, seeking..gain for themselves..paid little attention to the welfare of the rural masses. Few espoused nationalist ambitions."

"With a large part of the Herero population trapped in the desert..von Trotha set about rounding up groups still left in Hereroland. German troops were formed into what became known as Cleansing Patrols – Aufklärungspatrouillen – and given orders to shoot on sight..Many Herero were tricked into surrendering..and then killed. Those who survived were taken to Konzentrationslagers and forced to work as labourers."

"[Menelik] gathered an army of 100,000 men and set off on the 500-mile march..Pressed by Rome to bring Menelik to heel and restore Italian prestige, [Baratieri] led an attack..at Adwa on 1 March 1896 but was routed..Italians publicly renounced their claim to a protectorate and recognized Abyssinia as an independent sovereign state..Abyssinia was the only African state in the entire continent to achieve this status."

"A major factor behind the tide of European encroachment [apart from Belgium's King Leopold II] in Africa was..Germany’s victory in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1 and its unification..produced a new balance of power which the German chancellor..Bismarck, was determined to maintain in Germany’s favor. Bismarck at the time had no interest in establishing..colonies in Africa, but he used the territories..as pawns.."

"[The British] assumed that such a demonstration of imperial might would have a salutary effect on the restless mood of the Transvaal Boers – defeating an enemy whom they had so conspicuously failed to dislodge. But in fact by crushing both Cetshwayo and Sekhukhune, the British had liberated the Transvaal Boers from the two greatest threats to their security. They now saw a new opportunity to get rid of the British."

"..[Khedive] Ismail’s grand projects and..military adventures were financed by a borrowing spree. A cotton export boom during the American civil war..also encouraged..more borrowing. European financiers..seized on the opportunities..charging exorbitant rates of interest..The cost of servicing the debt..amounted to..two-thirds of the government’s annual revenue. Each new loan was swallowed in an ocean of borrowing."

"..Livingstone had handed [Stanley] his journals and dispatches, including his account of the massacre at Nyangwe..Livingstone’s evidence and the public outcry..ensued had a direct impact. In..1872, the British..decided to enforce the abolition of the sale of all slaves, whether..in Zanzibar’s domains or for export..in seeking to suppress the slave trade, the British had been impelled to establish a ‘new Sultanate’."

"The culmination of the feud came in 1852, when Transvaal Boers attacked Sechele’s kraals, killed..abducted..stole..and destroyed Livingstone’s house..The purpose of the raid was to punish Sechele for refusing Boer demands..Livingstone was away at the time. But as a result..he developed an abiding dislike of the Boers...referring to them as ‘white thieves’ and complaining of their mendacity, greed and stinginess.."