AhmedK said:
Yeah Knight, thanks a lot bro, all those ideas where in my head, but I wasn't able to get them into words, that is exactly what I was looking for. Do you know anything about Egypt, examples of these things taking place? Being that you live there and all? I visit once a year and I can see the results for sure.
btw, Shifty, I need all the help I can get it does not have to have basis in africa, but thanks anyway.
Well officially, Egypt has gained independence from Britain in 1922, but that was only to be ruled as a Kingdom that was directly sponsored by the UK, which made it similar or worse to the official occupation.
On the 23rd of July, 1952, Gamal Abdel-Nasser led a successful patriotic revolution that overthrew the Kindgom and started the official Republican rule in Egypt, which could be considered the beginning of Egypt's modern history.
Of course, at that time (check the previous economical problems) we had no infra-structure, no source of electricity to provide the nation, no source of income for the country, and no education, that was previously limited to only the elite.
So Nasser started building Egypt's High Dam on the River Nile, which -till nowadays- remains Egypt's prime electricity generator, and agricultural water provider. This solved many problems. But it didn't solve Egypt's massive economic and debt burden from the occupation/kingdom days.
So the logical step was to start 'nationalizing' the Suez Canal company, (1956) which was still under control of the United Kindgom. The Suez Canal is an Egyptian-dug water-link between the western hemisphere and the eastern hemisphere of the planet. This is how important the Suez Canal is to world-wide sea navigation. The Suez Canal provided a massive source of income to the country, and solved many of its economical problems.
This move, however, upset the United Kingdom so much, and in 1956, 3 countries -England, France and Israel-, invaded Egypt from 3 different fronts. However, this invasion was partially stopped by the Egyptian Armed Forces (on the northern front) and was frowned upon by the United States and The Soviet Union, and the three armies retreated.
Now Nasser's government, as patriotic as it was, was a pure military one. And they adopted a Socialistic approach to the countries economical problems. This may have been good back then, but 20 years later, all the problems started to surface. Because simply, not any government, specially a poor one, could feed, educate, and employ 70 million Egyptians. That is what's happening nowadays.
As I said in the first post, a country is mostly freed by a military move that forms a non-democratic rule in the country. This is mandatory in the beginning, due to the unstable nature of the country. But when problems keep rising, this non-democratic government establishes itself stronger and stronger in the country... this is one of the inevitable problems of post-colonization.
Also, Socialism serves this goal even better, by keeping the power in the hands of the government, rather than with the people, as privatilization implies. This is a right policy for a transient post-occupation phase, but definetly not as a long-term plan.
When you have the government being the main provider for the people. The result will be a low-quality service with low-paying jobs for the community.
But after Nasser's death, President Sadat came to power, and wanted to end this socialism approach and abruptly begin privatilization. This drove the country to a short version of the American Great Depression, and riots and crime struck on the street, which drove Sadat to return back to the previous -yet rather modified- economical system. He also made education free through school and university, and compulsory from ages six through 15.
After Sadat, came Mubarak who, since 1991, has overseen a domestic economic reform program to reduce the size of the public sector and expand the role of the private sector.
Also, (check the previous post), as regards ideological extremism that appears with the prolonged presence of a foreign occupying force (specially if it's a brutal one). In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood was founded in 1928, and even after the actual independence, Egypt kept suffering a lot on its account, and the group was responsible for the assassination of President Sadat (who I consider the best, most efficient and patriotic personality in modern Egyptian History) in 1981. That is an example of the last point I mentioned in the previous post.
So when you have a country that is springing from occupation to occupation then from war to war, technological advancments and scientific research always find themselves naturally second to other requirements of life, as freedom of land, and availability of proper electric, economic and educational systems. On contrary to the other countries that had to deal with such problems centuries ago and are now open to the realms of scientific advancement and research.
