re: Winston Churchill is no better than Adolf Hitler says Indian politician Dr Shashi Tharoor

Evil Churchill was behind it all.

It's Churchill's fault that Burma fell to the Japanese military. Ignore the fact that Burma supplied 15% of India's rice by 1940. And the fact that after January 1942, no rice from Burma entered India until after the war.

Don't mind the influx of refugess from Burma either (estimates range from 100,000 to 500,000) along with the additional soldiers stationed there for an anticipated invasion.

Let's also ignore that weather that included a typhoon and three tidals waves that hit in late 1942. This was followed by a fungal infection that significantly diminished crop yield.

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The only evidence by an expert in the subject concludes, 'The only other instance [of disease damage]that bears comparison in loss sustained by a food crop and the human calamity that followed in its wake is the Irish Potato Famine of 1845.'.

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It was all Churchill. Obviously we should just believe the politician. I doubt anyone has done any scholarly research on this subject whatsoever. LINK

It's not like anyone researched and wrote a book on the subject that ranges in price quite remarkably: LINK

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Dr Shashi Tharoor

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is a retard

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Don't know why Hitler is the one compared to when it comes to evil.

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Because he wasn't a communist.

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Westerners didn't invent malaria but they damn sure continue to prevent eradication.

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But, muh bird eggs?

Just another slamming of evil ole whitey pitch. I do not identify by race or ethnic persuasion anymore as it is so much and so many out there. Whitey blaming whitey is an everyday occurrence.

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You need to educate yourself on the fall of colonialism.

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The continent has done so well since the Brits, Belgians, Dutch and French have left them to their own devices.

Yay Africa!

They drew country lines based on nothing. They gave the political party that controlled the capital power over countries. They took resources and didn't take any responsibility for the damage they caused.

You clearly don't know anything about Africa.

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They drew country lines based on nothing.

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True.

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They gave the political party that controlled the capital power over countries.

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They have no say so in the post-independence states. They were forcibly ejected in most places or it was made so unpleasant, the only choice was to grant independence and leave.

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They took resources

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And built harbors, highways, railroads, electrical plants, water treatment plants, dams, bridges, you know "civilization" -

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didn't take any responsibility for the damage they caused.

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The West still nurses Africa like a newborn child - to this very day.

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You clearly don't know anything about Africa.

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You don't want to tangle with me, son.

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Yeah that's what happens when an imperial power makes up countries. You need to educate yourself on the fall of colonialism.

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You sound like someone who just finished your mandated history classes for your Ag-D major, so I'm going to try to keep the condescension out of my post as much as possible. Forgive me if some seeps through.

In the 1400s, Africa (from this point forward, when referring to Africa, I mean sub-Saharan Africa, excluding Ethiopia) was almost entirely without any civilization past the development point of chiefdoms, or small communities of mostly distantly related persons. This is pre-colonialism. Africa had a few small kingdoms, but they tended not to last very long and were quite local. Benin, Dahomey, and a few river tribes in the Niger or Mali watersheds, but again, they were both: relatively new and relatively unorganized.

In addition, at this time you had areas such as Europe (blessed with excellent arable land in large coastal plains, numerous natural harbors, a large collection of domesticated animals and plants which had lead to dense population growth, navigable rivers, and abundant natural resources) and western China (Same goes for the Yangtze watershed) which had tons of advantages.

So why did Europe colonize Africa and not the other way around? For the same reasons Africa today is still a shithole. Are their borders arbitrary? yes. So are many borders in Europe, surprise surprise. The border between Germany and Poland was drawn on a map in 1945 without regard to language or culture. Yet, its a peaceful border. Why? Because the Soviet Union forcibly removed 99% of the Germans from the modern state of Poland. Stettin was never a Polish city, yet today it is.

African nations suffer from many, many disadvantages, much of which is pre-determined by geography and climate. Arbitrary borders are a relatively minor problem in the grand scheme of things they have to deal with. More important is that none of the countries have a unified culture or language, its expensive and difficult to connect one area to another via natural or modern transportation, and even when connected to the coast for import/export, again, they have few natural harbors, and even fewer harbors which are easy to connect to interior resource areas.

A great example is the DCR. The DCR is the remnant of the Belgian colony of the Congo, and covers most of the Congo river basin, a huge river system that on a map, looks as useful as the Mississippi river system in the US, able to connect vast areas of resources cheaply and drive that cargo to the coast where it can be exported for profit. But like all rivers in Africa, the Congo river is full of cataracts, preventing easy transport of goods. Most importantly, the last 200 miles of river before it connects to the ocean is cataract. The only way the Belgians were able to export anything from the Congo is to float it down a stretch of navigable river to Kinshasa, and then unload it, and load it onto a railroad for the last 200 miles to the sea, to the poor ports on the Atlantic. This railway has to pass through highlands to get to the ocean, which further increases the rail cost.



I'd advise you to read two books: Guns, Germs, and Steel, which is a good starting place. Further reading for more modern explanations of why some areas do better than others is Prisoners of Geography, which I happen to like as a general overview of some of the main ideas.