Posted on 05/25/2011 4:18:44 PM PDT by MinorityRepublican
Edited on 06/01/2011 11:59:21 AM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh addresses a dinner to mark the government's second anniversary in New Delhi, India, Sunday, May 22. Mr. Singh just announced India would offer $5 billion in development aid to African countries for the next three years.
(Excerpt) Read more at csmonitor.com ...
I play RISK too.
Excellent. Way to go, India!!
Interesting how these two rivals happen to be the two nations with a major female shortage due to sex-selective abortion. With all the wars, African nations must be missing marriageable young men. Do the math here.
That's not true.
The Indians have a worse reputation among Africans than the Chinese. (Hard to believe, but its true).
When we talk about Indians and Chinese we are really talking about a combination of their respective attitudes towards Africans and their business practices.
The Indian view of the World is largely coloured by the caste system. The worst place to carry the baggage of the caste system is Africa.
And conversely Africans also launched an ethic cleansing of sorts against Indians in many places especially under the infamous Idi Amin of Uganda. And as they later on realized it was a disastrous thing to do. The Indian community (with warts and all) were a good think to have for the economy. I have had family members who fled to UK and are now millionaires. One would hope the Africans have learned their lesson when they are welcoming Indians in again. No ones perfect, least of all the Africans themselves.
You have got that right. I have worked closely with both newly arrived Chinese and newly arrived Indians here in the U.S. The Chinese are very open about their superior racial attitudes. It seems to me even the second and third generation Chinese have that built-in disdain for white, black and brown. OTOH, I know Indians who consider themselves "black." This surprised me.
Thank you for your perspective :)
OTOH, the sectarian and ethnic violence within Africans in places like Rwanda, Sierra Leon, Sudan, Zimbabwe, Burundi would make cast systems look like paradise.
I never claimed what Africans did in places like Uganda was right. For every Uganda, there are forty other countries that did not persecute the Indian community. Nobody harmed any Indian or took any Indian life in West Africa, for example.
However, you cannot deny that for all the years of interaction between Indians and Africans, the Indian community has remained insular and that Indians don’t particularly like Africans. For example, the Indians have been around West Africa for at least a hundred years but you are more likely to see a Chinese-African couple on the streets of Lagos than an Indian-African couple.
Indian emigrants to the United States are typically more exposed and better educated than the average Indian in Africa.
I am not delusional. I have a clear understanding of Chinese attitudes towards Africans, but there are a few important points:
1. The Chinese are more desperate for business, so they are willing to go the extra mile to interact with locals.
2. The Chinese Government understands the importance of public diplomacy (obviously the Indian Government does not) and there are many outreach programs to acquaint Africans with Chinese culture and vice versa.
3. We’ve had a hundred years of interaction with Indians in Africa with very minimal integration (at least in West Africa where I live). I strongly doubt the Chinese would be less adaptable than the Indians.
I hope you are not trying to say that marriage is the only indicator of racial tolerance? There are a lot more White-African couples in the world, does that mean Whites and Africans historically enjoyed a better relationship? Were Africans ever raped, enslaved, persecuted or racially abused by Indians? African hatred for Indians is similar to European hatred for Jews. The reason being their economic success. Indians in turn have genuine reason to fear the Black community. Here in US many Indian students have been killed and many gas stations/convenience stores have been robbed in Black majority neighborhoods. Similar incidents have happened in Africa and UK.
As for Indian-African couples....
I have actually known some Indian African couples from Nairobi and Jamaica.
I don’t think Idi Amin went after Indians because Indian had cast system, were insular and weren’t marrying enough Africans. He went after Indians for the same reason Europe went after the Jews. Their economic success turned them into object of hatred.
Obviously since the Chinese are now coming with larger money bags you would be more sympathetic to them but you are overlooking some other important areas of historical relationship with India.
Indians over decades have contributed the largest number of peace keeping forces under the UN to bring stability in many African countries including Congo, Somali, Sierra Leon.
Some of the first independence movement in Africa were first started by Indians in SA, Kenya and Namibia. (Gandhi first started his independence movement in SA not India.)
Independent India was the country at the forefront of struggle against European colonization of Africa. As also the struggle against apartheid in SA. Not only Indian government but also Indian people were very much part of the struggle.
The fact that Indian government is not as concerted in her effort as the Chinese government is because, a heavily bureaucratic and chaotic democracy like India lacks the efficiency the Chinese government has. Indian is economically far behind China and also has a lot on her plate within India, to worry about development of Africa.
The problem is that India has been static, while the Chinese have been dynamic.You could also say that the Chinese built the Tazara railway and supported many anti-colonial liberation struggles.
I admit that the Indians have been active in peace-keeping but the Indian contribution has rarely been decisive, both on the battlefield and politically. What ended the Sierra Leonian Civil War was intervention by the Nigerian led ECOMOG and the British Army. The UN effort in Somalia and Congo has not been successful and presently African Union troops (from Uganda - 4,480 troops and Burundi - 2,000 troops) are leading peacekeeping efforts there under the auspices of AMISOM (African Union Mission to Somalia). In addition, the Ethiopians intervened in Somalia.
History can only take you so far. We live in the present. The Indians have so much to offer, if only they can get their acts together. The most optimistic person about the future of Africa was an Indian Cement Plant manager I once interviewed - and he represents what Indian can offer Africa; efficient and affordable technical competence.
Fiji and Jamaica are not in Africa.
I was in South Africa last year, in South Africa the Blacks don’t like the Whites either and vice versa. The experience of South Africa does not apply to the most of the rest of Africa. South Africa has a unique history.
The Apartheid regime in South Africa played a game of “divide and rule” with the Blacks, Indians and “Coloureds”. As recently as 1983, P.W.Botha proposed a constitution in which there were to be three houses of parliament; one for the Indians, one for the Coloureds and one for the Whites. No provisions were made for the Blacks.
Unfortunately, the terrible terrible history of that beautiful country makes racial reconciliation difficult. You will not see the same visceral hatred of Whites and Indians in most African nations.(Zimbabwe is an important exception).
Idi Amin was quite simply, mad. He did not just persecute Indians but scores of his own country men.If you recall, he murdered a prominent Anglican bishop.
You also claim that other parts of African do not have significant Indian populations. Idi Amin expelled 80,000 Ugandan Asians, but I can tell you that there are a lot more than 80,000 Indians in Nigeria.
Have you talked to Africans living in India? As you rightly pointed out Africans in general treat Indians much better than Indians treat Africans.
Secondly, Black Americans are not Africans.
The sad fact is that an African would prefer to live in Shenzhen, Shanghai, Qingdao or Beijing than to live in Delhi, Calcutta or Bangalore and it is not because the Chinese have better infrastructure or the Indians have more freedom of press.
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