[Blood of Tyrants]

My daughter is young and has some liberal ideas. She asked me once where Africa would be culturally and technology wise if the Europeans hadn’t colonized it. I told her about 100 years behind where they are now and to prove it, I only have to show her articles like this.

[Telepathic Intruder]

Africa was sparsely populated by tribal hunter-gatherers before European colonization. Average life expectancy was about 25. Tribal wars were common, which in modern Africa continues in the form of frequent ethnic cleansings. Every attempt to blame the white man for Africa’s problems only drags them further down into savagery.

[LukeL]

You mean Europe that brought paved roads, vehicles, airplanes, running water, electricity, and modern medicine? Besides all of those things what has the whiteman done for anyone?

[BlackVeil]

Only 100 years? I think you understated the case.

[Cronos]

My daughter is young and has some liberal ideas. She asked me once where Africa would be culturally and technology wise if the Europeans hadn’t colonized it. I told her about 100 years behind where they are now and to prove it, I only have to show her articles like this.

To answer her, you need to point out that "Africa" is a number of different entities at different states of development and there are 5 different races in Africa. Let's take this one by one:

1. Caucasians in North Africa (Afro-Asiatic speakers like Arabs, Jews, Egyptians, Berbers): The North Africans and Mediterraneans are part of one civilization (until Islam split it) - their cultural and civilizational levels were the same as Europe until the 1700s. They were colonized by Europeans only from the late 1800s. If there was no European colonization, they would be at the same level they are now
   
   
2. Khoi-San/Bushmen/hottentot: these people are a completely different race from black Africans (Negroid peoples) - completely different. In fact Negroid peoples have more in common with Caucasians than they have with Khoi-San. The Khoi-san split off from the rest of humanity quite early. Their civilizational level was hunter-gather and has remained that way. They were racially discriminated against by the negroid peoples who migrated south around the 13th century and the Khoi-san were pushed into the Kalahari and some merged with the negroid folks -- the !Xhosa (Nelson Mandela's tribe) for instance. The Khoi-san civilization was not in the least bit affected by European colonization (they were treated like animals yes, but their civilizational development was not affected)
   
   
3. Malagasy/Madagascar people: these are actually austronesian (Malayo-Polynesian) people related to people in Borneo who migrated there around 500 AD. Their civilizational level was at the large clan levelsinitially but then in the 7th century Omani traders came and later in the 8th and 9th century therecame another wave from Java -- these were Indianised Malays i.e. the Tamilian indians had set up kingdoms in what is now indonesia-Malaysia and brought hinduism to these places and these now spread to Madagascar. They formed kingdoms. If the French had not conquered the lands, they would be a united kingdom (they were heading that way under King Radama I. They HAD a functioning centralized kingdom that was progressive until the French brutally occupied the country in 1895 - so if the French had not done this, Madagascar would be in a better position today if no European colonization
   
   
4. pygmies - these are a different race from Negroids. They were jungle people living in the Congo and were brutalized by the Negroid people to such an extent that they were kept as slaves by blacks and their languages were destroyed utterly. No change with the onset of French colonialism as these people had already been colonized and enslaved by the black peoples
   
   
5. Negroid peoples:
   
   1. Some like the west Africans and northern east africans were conquered by Muslim Arabs or berbers and initially enslaved, then converted. Their civilizational levels before European colonization in the 1800s were about the same levels as Europe in the 1400s - a number of different states, some notably more organized, others little more than confederations. European colonization in places like Senegal delayed their progress by decades but Euroepan colonization in the rest of sub-Saharan africa sped up their civilizing
   2. Some were still clans, not yet nations, and these were south of the Congo, the Zulus being a notable example. European rule stalled the civilizational development and these now are stuck in limbo
   3. Some were still in a tribal or pre-tribal state and these were in the jungle areas of the Congo. European colonization was bad as the Belgians and French treated them as animals (King Leopold of Belgium killed 10 million congolese while raping their country) - pure exploitation with no benefit and giving stone-age peoples guns

So, as you see, it is a mixed bag. Some places were not affected, some were, as you say 100 years behind, some places like Botswana, Senegal and Kenya have actually uplifted themselves (the first two have very non-corrupt progressive civil societies), some would have been 1000 years behind or more.