Ponderings of the Man from Mpofana...

I still think the single-language ethnostate is the most ideal form of country but there are various factors that contribute to a nation being less successful. In Africa; Burundi, Rwanda, Morocco, Lesotho, Eswatini, Botswana & maybe Egypt can be considered "nation states", but are not as wildly wealthy nor have as high a HDI as Greece or Spain, for example. So what is the problem?  It's just my theory but I think here, we have a cultural problem where in some lands untrustworthy leaders, external destabilising or geography have played a big role in keeping a nation state underdeveloped. This is not only prevalent in Africa's nation-states but in countries around the Caucasus & eastern Europe where the culture sometimes revolves around corruption & being downtrodden. Sometimes a nation has been oppressed & it's people depressed so long that the people do not see their country being any better because they believe "This is just how we are."...

This is the same train of thought as the fame blog I did several weeks back. Today, I tackle the habit of mysticising Africa. Many of us have heard of American comedians making fun of how unsophisticated Africans are & how harsh the African environment is as though going to Africa is like travelling back in time.  The problem this creates for Africans is that it limits our characters to set stereotypes. An African physicist, for example, would near need to be able to "kill a lion & kill a goat" to prove that they are African in the Western world. This double-standard is not applied to an Arab, Indian, Asian, European or American physicist.  An African astronomer would need to be Dogon or Dogon-orientated for their craft to be acceptable. And sadly, black construction site supervisors are typically less trusted by the West than black builders.  This is an extra weight that Africa has to carry worldwide. We are assumed to be "tougher" & are given heavier ...