Hey, so before I start I just wanted to say:
this video idea came to me from a college professor I had
and it's only a theory, okay? Got that? A theory. Good.
So Africa is pretty amazing,
it's a rich land with some spectacular resources
and natural beauty. It contains the
world's second largest rainforest; the Congo rainforest.
Impressive deposits of gold, iron and copper
are to be found here,
among many other minerals and in future, some of the richest wildlife
areas on the globe. But also,
today, many places in Africa lag behind the rest of the world. When it comes to
life expectancy, income and access to resources like
fresh water and food. This leads many to ask
why: "In a land so abundant with resources
is there such scarcity and lack of development?"
Well, as it turns out, geography might be to blame
Many people connect the issues plaguing Africa today
back to colonialism (which is a fair assessment)
for me, it doesn't really capture the full picture
that's not to say colonialism hasn't had horrific
and lasting consequences on the people of Africa. But it's
possible that the true issue is one whit the continent itself.
All of this might com down to the fact that Africa is
longer than it is wide... really. here's Eurasia:
Europe and Asia. You can see it's much longer than it is
tall. But, looking at Africa, it's virtually the opposite;
stacked vertically, taller than it is long.
this might not seem like a big deal, but just you wait
So, if you haven't realised, depending on the latitude
the climate of an area will change. Near equator will be hot
and humid, while near the poles will be cold and dry
for the most part. But changing longitude doesn't really
affect these things. So, being longer than tall,
Eurasia has mostly the same climate types throughout, whereas
Africa passes through many, many
different climate sounds. It starts with the
Mediterranean, which quickly becomes the semi-desert
Full desert is next and then it's back to see-desert
(sometimes called the 'Sahel'). After the sahel comes
grasslands which eventually, finally become
forest. at his point, we have crossed over the equator
and we begin to find more grassland then more semi-desert
another full desert and then finally back to the
Mediterranean climate we found at the Northern tip of the continent
then, add in features like highland climates, where there's highland arid
semi-arid, semi-humid and humid
you have a very fractured landscape
compare this to Eurasia, which has a polar climate, a temperate
climate, a small Mediterranean climate
a desert and a tropical zone. there are some alpine areas
as well, most notably the Himalayas, but
even still, you can see these
massive areas of single climates formed and each one
roughly corresponds with a powerful area.
So, the Eastern temperate zone became China, while the tropical
zone to the South became India.
The desert became the Muslim Empire
and the Western temperate region became the powers of Europe.
The Mediterranean also roughly corresponds with the heart of the Roman
Empire. What all of this shows is that large areas of
the same climate allow civilisations to
unite, grow and thrive.
This happens because people who live in a single survive
by farming and hunting the same foods,
experience the same hardships and therefore live very similar lives.
This allows them to interact with each other
forming a common language and systems of interaction,
like trade and defence from outsiders. They develop
the same lifestyle and end up sharing
a common culture without even trying. IN short:
climate unites people through culture.
It's interesting to think [that] the reason the Roman Empire failed was
because of invaders from the North who lived in a
different climate zone, and therefore held different
values and cultures than Romans who tried to conquer
them. And the Mongols who invaded China have never
permanently ruled, also being from a different climate
zone, while they did have great success conquering
Westward, where the climates where roughly the same.
It seems these places were destined to remain
independent, in large part due to their unifying
geography which made them resilient to outside forces,
but, in Africa, you didn't really get this.
Of course, some empires emerged states like
Egypt and Mali experienced times of great power
prosperity. But Egypt was locked to
the Nile and was never capable of expanding much beyond the river valley.
And Mali straddled the narrow sahel region
between the Sahara and the tropics, which was much larger
centuries ago, but still limited. Beyong their
lands, they found people with vastly different lifestyles
and cultures who would resist assimilation by
different culture and they became trapped by their own climate,
unable to expand and develop further.
A map of individual African culture groups would look something
like this: with thousands of tribes and clans,
each one distinct and therefore
opposed to joining forces to resist outside powers.
This also caused small tribe to never develop
much trade beyond their neighbours and, therefore, new
ideas and teechnologies could not easily diffuse
through Africa, the same way they had between Europe, the Middle East
and Asia. That's not to say Africa didn't have innovation
of its own. And actually, many of mankind's
earliest advancements in language, medicine,
architecture and mathematics came from Africa.
But, without large-scale exchange throughout the continent
and with other civilisations, these advancements were repeated
and the numerous tribes of Africa fell
behind, technologically. By the 16th Century,
Africans were confronted by people who had benefited from
a unifying geography and trade with distant
lands. They wielded guns, sailed on massive ships
and completely overpowered
local populations. Africans fell victim to harsh
colonial rule, whilst foreign powers competed to take
advantage of the land that had doomed its own inhabitants.
Because Europe was smaller and relatively poor in
resources, Europeans were forced to seek outside
their own lands to advance their civilisation. So, geography both caused the Africans to
lag behind and also encouraged the Europeans to push out
beyond their own lands, then the colonisers
grouped the people into arbitrary borders, so, desert
tribes could be paired with a sahel and a forest tribe
and told they were one, like in the modern country of Mali.
This, of course, lead to internal issues within
basically every African nation. Dissension
and civil war has followed in nearly every African country since
colonisation. And you can see the countries that have had the most
success today are the ones that lucked out and ended up with
borders that
coincided with the natural climate zones. These included
nations like Ethiopia, which for the most part is
humid and mountainous and managed to maintain independence throughout
colonisation. Egypt, which is all desert surrounding a
single river, with a long history of unity
and South Africa, which is mostly semi-arid, Mediterranean
climate. And, where it wasn't, they allowed the tribes to
stay independent
This nation of Lesotho, smack-dab in the middle of the country.
There are, of course, simplifications in all of this,
but, generally speaking, this is how geography
made it difficult for African empires to expand
and withstand the test of time.
Thanks for watching, I hope I didn't step on too many toes with this one. Let me know
how I did in the comments. Again, this is just a theory I learned
and, of course, other factors were at play
as well. If you want to see more of this, why not subscribe
and give this video a like?
I'll be back next week with another video. Thanks.
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