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Talk:Africa/Archive1
Always at a loss[edit]
I really am always at a loss as to when people mention slavery they utterly ignore the middle easts involvment in africa which included far more people and continued for far longer....
- Slavery was an institution in Africa and the Middle East long before the Europeans stumbled on it and turned it into an industry - check out the Bible. While slavery was evil wherever it was practiced, there was a quantitative and qualitative change for the worse once the Europeans began to ferry shiploads of slaves across the Atlantic. Rational Edperception 08:34, 25 April 2008 (EDT)
- Industrialised it!
ContribsTalk 08:40, 25 April 2008 (EDT)
- "enslavement was the African lot" This commits the common error of lumping all of Africa together. The European slave trade focused on West Africa, one relatively small portion of the continent. I don't think slavery is something we want to be flippant about. Rational Edperception 08:42, 25 April 2008 (EDT)
- Industrialised it!
- To lump all Africans together by writing "enslavement was the African lot" is either flippant or ignorant. Slavery was never the Egyptian lot, nor the Moroccan lot, nor the Ethiopian lot. Rational Edperception 15:00, 25 April 2008 (EDT)
Someone has to teach you how to do a Google search... Slavery was never the Egyptian lot,nor the Ethiopian lot, nor the
Moroccan lot. PFoster 15:09, 25 April 2008 (EDT)
- Your patronizing sarcasm aside, your grasp of English usage seems a bit weak. The phrase "the African lot" imples all Africans, the phrase "the Moroccan lot" implies all Moroccans. If your Google skills are up to the task, you might wish to confirm that the majority of the population in none of these countries was ever enslaved. Rational Edperception 15:29, 25 April 2008 (EDT)
- No, of course it wasn't - if by "lot" you mean "the fate of a majority of the X people..." but your answer implied -to me at least - that slavery wasn't an important historical factor in those three particular countries. Which it was. Peace. PFoster 15:33, 25 April 2008 (EDT)
- Your reading skills could use a bit of work, too. Problem with those who do all their reading on the internet. I stated quite clearly that my objection was the lumping all Africans together with the phrase "the African lot" was inaccurate, and proceeded to give three more examples where the term would be inaccurate. I have lived in Africa, I have African friends, and they would find your sophomoric generalizations insulting. Rational Edperception 15:36, 25 April 2008 (EDT)
- My reading mostly happens in real books, sweetie. Some of them even without pictures. In no way was I implying that all Africans should be lumped together. Reasd what I said - that slavery was an important historical part of the development of the three specific countries that you mentioned as being states within which slavery was NEVER "the lot" of the people who lived there. PFoster 15:43, 25 April 2008 (EDT)
- No. What you said was "Someone has to teach you how to do a Google search", and proceeded to send a lot of irrelevant links about countries where slavery has been practiced. Try to remember you are responding to what I wrote - which was that Africans should not be lumped together in one undifferentiated group with the phrase "the African lot". Check out the meaning of the phrase "the human lot" It refers to ALL humans. Sweetie? I didn't know you cared! Rational Edperception 15:57, 25 April 2008 (EDT)
- My reading mostly happens in real books, sweetie. Some of them even without pictures. In no way was I implying that all Africans should be lumped together. Reasd what I said - that slavery was an important historical part of the development of the three specific countries that you mentioned as being states within which slavery was NEVER "the lot" of the people who lived there. PFoster 15:43, 25 April 2008 (EDT)
- Your reading skills could use a bit of work, too. Problem with those who do all their reading on the internet. I stated quite clearly that my objection was the lumping all Africans together with the phrase "the African lot" was inaccurate, and proceeded to give three more examples where the term would be inaccurate. I have lived in Africa, I have African friends, and they would find your sophomoric generalizations insulting. Rational Edperception 15:36, 25 April 2008 (EDT)
- No, of course it wasn't - if by "lot" you mean "the fate of a majority of the X people..." but your answer implied -to me at least - that slavery wasn't an important historical factor in those three particular countries. Which it was. Peace. PFoster 15:33, 25 April 2008 (EDT)
- Your patronizing sarcasm aside, your grasp of English usage seems a bit weak. The phrase "the African lot" imples all Africans, the phrase "the Moroccan lot" implies all Moroccans. If your Google skills are up to the task, you might wish to confirm that the majority of the population in none of these countries was ever enslaved. Rational Edperception 15:29, 25 April 2008 (EDT)
Colonialism was a curse, making many African states hodgepodges of groups who hate each other...[edit]
If we're going to talk about making generalisations about Africa, this is one I'd like to see some finesse added too. The idea that Africa is a continent that is simply teeming with ethnic conflict - and that the "tribes" (another over-simplification) are unable to live in the same borders - is a gross over-simplification which ignores history. Yes, the colonial powers, especially the Brits, but pretty much all of them, used ethnic groups as a means to divide and conquer and to impose colonial rule, and yes, the after-effects of those policies continue to have effect in Africa. However, that sort of reductionism ignores important things such as the ways in which Africans worked across those alleged "ethnic divides" during the anti-colonial struggle and the relative irrelevance of ethnicity in the politics of many African countries...plus, the "groups who hate each other" analysis tends to take the politics out of African conflicts, framing them as "age-old ethnic conflicts" and not doing enough to engage with the economic and power-based roots of these conflicts...PFoster 21:28, 25 April 2008 (EDT)