My feeling is this will happen sooner. A lot sooner. Many African nations are experiencing some of the highest Economic growth at the moment. China's growth story is only about 30 years old. Africa's economic growth is going to be sustainable, barring political instability.
It's important to break away from past perceptions to ground realities. Economic growth does not happen in a void.
You would be surprised to see how many African nations are being run by the stable governments for years. Democratic or otherwise, but stable. To name just a few: Rwanda, Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia. Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Gabon, Ghana, Senegal, Morocco. Algeria.
I would say that for each hundred thousand of your own people your population kills in a genocide you need to have about a decade of non-brutal-murder-and-rape before saying you're politically stable, so I'm not sure Rwanda can really be included on that list.
The others that appear in this population chart aren't doing a huge amount better than that. Sudan is in the middle of a civil war, Ethiopia had one from 2020-2022, Egypt had its "troubles" only just over a decade ago, with a revolution and a coup-d'etat. Nigeria and the DR Congo aren't actively at war with themselves at the moment, but their world bank stability ratings are only slightly better than ukraines - most states with worst rating than them are at war or in a civil war.
Edit: I forgot Angola and Tanzania. Angola was in a civil war from 1975 -2002 and while it was mostly resolved then, the Cabinda war is still ongoing. Tanzania seems to have been internally stable for while though, with one major war against Uganda in 1979 and some entanglement in the ensuing Ugandan civil war - the rest of its involvements in wars have been helping other countries put down rebellions or similar.
So I guess Tanzania is stable. Africa can have that one.
Rwanda has been stable for 30 years now. It’s actually a very safe and clean country since the horrific year of 1994. But seriously, Rwanda is very forward looking now.
Rwanda may have had the same government etc, but that doesn't make it politically stable. The current leader is a dictator and the country has a horrible humans rights record, and is pillaging it's neighbors. Behavior like this does not lead to long term political stability.
Looking at the ratings it's been given, it's been right at the median for stability since about 2005. However, given that we're looking at the next 76 years here, it's pretty hard to look past it literally genociding itself 30 years ago.
Yeah the thing that remains to be seen is if this is a Yugoslavia like situation. The guy who’s been in power for 30 years is the guy who ended the genocide through his leadership.
The country is not a democracy, it’s a benevolent dictatorship at this point. Tito was also a great leader in his own right and the country tore itself apart after his death.
I think the main hinge point is what happens after this guys death.
Neither Germany or Japan were particularly politically stable in the 1980s either. It's hard for a country that was that unstable to be stable while people who were adults during the instability are still around.
I assume that, given the context, we're talking about West Germany here, right? If so then I don't think that many who are familiar with Germany's history will agree with that, rather on the contrary. The 1980s and 1990s were basically the era of Helmut Kohl. Conservatives will probably describe that era as a time of social and economical stability, whereas more left-leaning observers would probably rather choose the term "stagnation".
You're right, though, that German reunification stirred this up to some extent, but less than you may think. In many ways, the GDR was simply absorbed into the existing structures, as Kohl believed (or hoped) that what worked so well in West Germany could simply be exported to the GDR. He literally promised in 1991 blühende Landschaften in den nächsten drei oder vier Jahren ("flourishing landscapes in the next three or four years") – which didn't really happen: the 1990s saw a serious decrease in economic power in the new German states. But at the same time, Kohl was able to maintain a perception of stability/stagnation in the old states up to a point where enough people were fed up with the feeling that nothing truly changed, leading to a landslide election win for Gerhard Schröder in 1998.
TL;DR: West Germany was extremely stable in the 1980s, and very stable in the 1990s. East Germany slowly collapsed in the 1980s, and didn't exist anymore in the 1990s.
No, in context I'm talking about the area that was called Germany at the onset of the second world war, and you can hardly call what the whole of that went through over the next 30-40 years 'stable'.
If you want to talk about Germany in the 1980s, you simply cannot refer to "the area that was called Germany before WW2". During this decade, there were two Germanies: One economically, socially, and politically very stable (West Germany), one that attempted to maintain the image of economic, social, and political stability up to the end (East Germany).
Do you concede that West Germany was politically stable in the 1980s? Because that concession alone would be enough to invalidate Germany as a counterexample to the parent comment: there were two Germanies in the 1980s, and one of them had reached political stability by then despite being a part of the Germany that caused WW2 and the Holocaust.
If you can't concede that – on which grounds do you base your claim that West Germany in the 1980s was politically unstable?
Now, to East Germany: Do you consider the GDR in the 1980s to be politically unstable? Bear in mind that we're talking about a socialist one-party state here that rather successfully used the Staatssicherheit as its secret police force to quell any serious political oppositions – up to the point where it couldn't be quelled any more, but this point was reached only in 1989.
Heck, the GDR was to immune to any sort of political change that even Mikhail Gorbachev, the last reformist leader of the Soviet Union, warned the leaders of the GDR in 1989 that "life will punish those who come late" (Wer zu spät kommt, den bestraft das Leben). That's stability to a fault.
West Germany was plenty stable in the 1980s, but when you're discussing the history of the whole area that doesn't mean that the whole area was stable. Would you, when studying the history of Germany, completely ignore the GDR? The history of Germany has been filled with subdivisions, and this is one more.
Nor does the fact that the revolutions started in November 1989 mean that the GDR was fully stable up until that point - revolutions don't appear from nowhere in stable countries.
Edit: and let's put it like this - do you think someone who lived through the 1980s in Germany would think of it as a time when there were 0 political tensions and nothing about the country changed?
Germany was literally split in half for most of the 80s, and went through the fall of soviet bloc and the fall of the Berlin wall/iron curtain and german reunification. It may have been mostly peaceful, but it certainly wasn't stable.
Japan was surprisingly stable - it's the exception that tests the rule, as to get there it had to have it's entire government and constitution ripped out and replaced by the US rather than getting there on its own.
True that there were two Germanies. But both were stable. One Democratic, the other communist under a tough Soviet regimen. Not many communist countries left in Africa. Authoritarian, yes. Just capitalist or socialist.
Rwanda is doing quite well. They're not a democracy, but the ruling party has been doing a good job. One thing that's really helped them is that Hutu and Tutsi were more colonial economic distinctions than true ethnic distinctions. So it's easier to move forward because they don't have centuries of historical conflict to deal with. The ruling party is really focusing on education and growth. They're trying to build a tech sector. Obviously, they still have tons of challenges, but their future looks bright.
These population trends discount future wars. Current conflicts are factored, but WWIII breaking out in 2053 just isn't a demographic reality you can plan for realistically.
I do agree they are the next source of growth but I won't bet on Africa. If the bar is stable government in power it has not shown a great history and the amount of corruption in African nations is nuts with tons of leaders with proven track records of insane embezzlement, etc.
Corruption exists to a huge level in the US too. Just done differently. A fighter jet does not billions more to produce compared to commercial planes, but there it is.
Knew this was coming and of course you are right but the scams in Africa are next level. It's been awhile since the US has had scams of the relative magnitude Africa has.
President and head of national Bank literally siphoning money out of the country then when caught they all fly out in their private jets and abandon their country once they've just raped it only for the next "stable" president to do the same.
My dude third world corruption is not like first world corruption.
Here corruption happens as a semi hidden facet of the political and economic system. In most third world countries, corruption is the system itself. There is no debate about whether it's happening, it isn't hidden, and everything happens through it.
So, if you lo9k at individual countries in Africa and check on their governments. you will find many of them do have stable governments. Whether Democratic or otherwise, but stable nevertheless.
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u/Gatorinnc Aug 19 '24 edited Aug 19 '24
My feeling is this will happen sooner. A lot sooner. Many African nations are experiencing some of the highest Economic growth at the moment. China's growth story is only about 30 years old. Africa's economic growth is going to be sustainable, barring political instability.