It Matters: Colonialism

Here's the link: http://www.globalpolitician.com/23759-poverty

In the last weeks, both our english and social studies classes have been centered around the theme of colonialsim. Specifically in english, we have been reading the book "Heart of Darkness" which is essientually about a Dutch ivory supplying company that travels into Africa to exploit it for its resources and labor. The book gives the reader a secondhand experience as to what the colonization of Africa was like. One can look at statistics or read this book, or anything similar, and figure out that Africa suffered greatly during this time. Thousands died and even more were mistreated. Though many british might have benefitted from the colonialization of Africa, Africa suffered as economies and lives were destroyed. But besides being a dark point of history, why does it matter? After all, it is just history, events that have already happenned.
Today, Africa is the most impovershed continent in the world. Many of its inhabitants are dirt poor and many others are dying from famine or diseases. Africa, compared to other continents, lacks infrastrucure in both their politics and economy. Everything, from medicine to trade seems to be a significantly worse in the African countries then in other countries. How did Africa get so far behind the rest of the world? Both the article and I agree that a major reason Africa has fallen so far behind is because of the colonization that took place centuries before. First of all, it depleaded Africa of most of its valuable resources like gold, diamond, and ivory. Also, as the colonies grew in power, they eventually became powerful then the African leaders and ruled over a majority over Africa. When they imposed european rule, they also disrupted the little economic progress Africa was making as they pratically enslaved much of the population. Though the article makes a good point about how Africa grew under European rule, I believe the opposite. I believe that Europeans benefitted but Africa didn't. The article also points out that the wealthiest African countries were the last ones to liberate. But this fact is misleading. Hearing this you might think that colonialization was good for African society when infact it shows the downfall of colonialization. After liberation, alot of countries found themselves unable to continue what the Europeans had set up for them. In other words, colonialization made Africa dependent on Europe and has kept Africa from catching up with the rest of the world.