₦airaland Forum

Hello Nairaland community!

I signed up here specifically to respond to this post, and I hope you don't mind my 'wedding-crasher' approach...This topic has interested me for awhile, and I've given it much thought. I'm familiar with the usual explanations involving exploitation, colonization, that Africans are too 'religious' and superstitious, etc, but none of them has really explained how these things would have prevented them from developing. Many other places in the world have been exploited, colonized, and are 'strong faith' cultures that have responded to modernization. Sure, a few have not, but they are scattered about...only in Africa, and in particular sub-Saharan Africa, are they so prevalent. If you look at a world map, it would almost appear as if the sub-Saharan region was a kind of 'homeland' for traditions and values we often think of as 'backwards'...which I found very, very interesting, and I'm forming a theory...

This is where most believe the human species began. DNA from the Khoisan people show it them to be the closest to those original ancestors of us all. This is your 'ground zero' for the human race.
We also know that in those early times, there were several great migrations out of Africa, and into Asia, the ME and Europe. One theory is that climate change forced them out...yeah maybe, but I don't think that explains it. For one thing, if things were THAT bad, then why didn't they all leave? Why would so many have remained? Did climate change and famine only effect a few? While bad weather may have been A factor, it wasn't THE factor. The point is that a big chunk of the existing human population apparently decided to pack up and leave, in several massive waves...

But forget about WHY they left. Instead think about the KIND OF PEOPLE who would have done this. To pack up your shit, abandon your home, and head off into the unknown takes a certain kind of personality. Not everyone will do this, regardless of how bad things are. It takes a bold person, someone with a degree of courage (or recklessness..), it takes someone who is willing to gamble. Someone with a higher tolerance for change, someone who can think outside of the box. Someone who is WILLING to discard the old and adopt the new. If you don't have these characteristics, you would probably not be joining that exodus...you'll stay home, where it's safer. You might even breathe a sigh of relief because now all of your 'problem children' have gone...the loudmouths, the irresponsible fun-seekers, the ones who always want to change things, the questioners, the ones who don't respect the old ways, etc...good riddance, you might think. But this is where your innovation comes from...

What this did was to split the human race into two groups, the ones who left, and the ones who stayed, with each group now taking on a specific 'personality'. The ones who remain are likely to be conservative, traditionalist thinkers, not open to big changes, preferring stability and custom. Nothing wrong with that, as long as you have a few folks who will 'pull' the rest along as needed.
But all of THOSE folks left. They took off, to Asia, the ME, and up into Europe. And these are the places we start seeing human civilization establishing...a particularly aggressive form of civilization that would ultimately morph into today's Western World. Each successive wave of migration would have been a further 'brain drain' from the African groups. Not necessarily a drain on talent, but a drain on the types of people willing to put those talents to use or question the status quo.

2 extremes out of one homogenous whole. This created a cultural bottleneck for both groups. Before any balance could be restored, both groups had laid the foundations for the types of societies they would become. In the regions they settled they built cities, and empires, and trade networks. And in their zeal they exploited and enslaved those who wouldn't or couldn't keep up. It's as if this culture got a cocktail of steroids and methamphetamine...
But the culture that remained got a different cocktail, Xanax and Ambien, and they're still nodding off there in sub-Saharan Africa. Individuals WITHIN these cultures can and do try to balance things, but the cultural structure is STRONG. So you see Westerners defending the worst excesses of their cultures, and traditionalist African cultures doing the same for theirs...and in BOTH cultures the reasonable folks are left to scratch their heads and go, "Wtf?"

It has nothing to do with race, or religion, or culture...it is ALL about the MINDSET. Are you an adventurist, or a traditionalist? The only reason these 'backwards' societies are in Africa is because that's where the original group WAS. It is unfortunate that the racial characteristics of this group get all the attention when they had nothing to do with it. At the time of the splits, BOTH were the same 'race'. The refining into distinct physical 'types' occurred later. The 'backwards' African nations took on the personality of the majority of their people, those ones that stayed, and they mistrust and fear 'innovations' coming into their world from the outside. They are not likely to tolerate any new ideas coming from 'in-house' either.
Western culture too is an extreme...too many innovators and disrupters and rule-breakers, and disdain for tradition and the past. That's because those nations were formed by all the malcontents who had left. Each group would have had enhanced cultural 'founder effects' seen in the societies they went on to create...An example of a similar phenomenon in our own time are nations like America and Australia, both largely founded by marginal groups from elsewhere, who went on to create nations with distinct personalities.

The TRUTH is, both groups need each other, to balance their own worst excesses. The 'adventurers' have to be respectful and patient with the traditionalists, and they in turn must stop fearing and tolerate some of the imperfections in their fellow man.


Its just my theory, anyway. Thanks for listening, and carry on...