In this essay, I will summarize Jared Diamond's accounts of world history and evolution of culture. Jared Diamond begins Guns with a prologue which sets the stage for the rest of the book. Approached in New Guinea by his friend and local politician Yali, he is posed a question: "Why is it that you white people developed so much cargo and brought it to New Guinea, but we black people had little cargo of our own?" Yali's question flared a nerve in Diamond. This question brought about the thesis of his book, that environment is more persuasive on development of civilization than people may have once thought.
Although it was the underdog, it was quite effective and had a huge impact in liberation and imperialism. Ghandi is a famous and common name brought up in nonviolence methods. There was much violence in India during British control, for example, clashes in between Muslims and Hindus. Muslim-Hindu conflict cost at least a million lives. In 1945, the British viceroy handed power back to India freely.
On 4 August 1972, the then President of Uganda, Idi Amin, ordered the expulsion of his country's Indian and Pakistani minority, giving them 90 days to leave Uganda. [1] Amin said that he had had a dream in which God told him to order the expulsion.The ethnic cleansing of Indians in Uganda was conducted in an Indophobic climate in which the Ugandan government claimed that the Indians were hoarding wealth and goods to the detriment of indigenous Africans and "sabotaging" the Ugandan economy. [2] Former British colonies in Sub-Saharan Africa have many citizens of South Asian descent. They were brought there by the British Empire from British India to do clerical work in Imperial service, or unskilled/semi-skilled manual labour such as construction or farm work. In the 1890s, 32,000 labourers from British India were brought to East Africa under indentured labour contracts to work on the construction of the Uganda Railway.
Outline: "Bad People" CAR Genocide: Seleka militants Bosnian Genocide: Yugoslav Army and the Bosnian Serbs nationalists Reason for killing: Congo Genocide: Christian vs. Muslim Rivalry Bosnian Genocide: Territorial Disputes, wish for political domination. The UN has approved of intervention in the CAR due to reports of the extreme brutality occurring in the country. (Three days ago) The CAR's leader, Michel Djotodia, does not have much power over the militant groups, and is mainly ignored. Idea: The Congo genocide proves to be a bigger problem than the Bosnian genocide due to the possible mass effect that the ensuing war may cause. Idea: The UN has been more eager so send French and African Troops to intervene and help out the country.
The author states, “Nor have all of America’s overseas military interventions been on the side of darkness. When the Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic was orchestrating the slaughter of countless innocents throughout the territory of the former Yugoslavia in the early 1190s, the powers of western Europe responded with little more than pious hand-wringing. The United States did not react as quickly as it might have either, but in the end it was American firepower that stopped Milosevic” (85). Mark Hertsgard goes to list plenty of other examples where the US involvement abroad is positive including places such as: Kenya, Moscow, China, and Zimbabwe. However, most of US involvement abroad often caused blowback.
We cannot rewrite the past, but we can write our future. I will be looking into a modern day conflict focusing on the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). Hopefully, we can write a future that sees an end to lies and cover ups. The LRA’s origins begin in 1986 once Yoweri Museveni became president. A Ugandan priestess and rebel leader, who was a member of the Acholi ethno linguistic group and a self-proclaimed mystic, founded the cult like Holy Spirit Movement (HSM), or Holy Spirit Mobile Forces.
In 1991, Ethiopia fought for their independence until 1991, year in which its rebel forces defeated Ethiopian military. In April 1993, an internationally monitored referendum took place, in which, an estimated 98.5% of the registered people voted, and 99.8% of these were in favor of independence, although the borders were not clearly defined. However, the main reason for the recent conflict is the fact that Ethiopia no longer has a border along the Red Sea and therefore shipping and goods-trading relies on going through other countries such as Eritrea to get to the shore. Ethiopian propaganda has said to its people that one of the things the government wants to do is to ensure that a more amenable government is in place, one that agrees with Ethiopian interests. A ceasefire agreement was signed in Algiers in June 18, 2000.
To what extend was the colonisation and decolonisation of Britain’s Africa driven by individuals within Africa? Before the 1870’s Africa was largely unknown to the outside world but, in the 1880’s the scramble of Africa began, where European counties, especially Britain all wanted to colonise Africa. Was the whole reason for British colonising Africa economically or strategically driven or was it led by individuals in Africa (men on the spot) or was it more of a top down process led by the government in Britain? And even though Britain fought so hard to control large parts of Africa it is clear that after World II Britain’s empire was declining especially after India gain independence in 1947. However, the British did try to revive their African empire in the late 40’s and early 50’s but their sudden fall into a steep imperial decline with the Suez crises saw individuals like Macmillan to acknowledge that decolonisation was the only way forward, as it would be more beneficial for Britain to decolonise than to resist the rise of nationalism.
The Imperial British East Africa Company was chartered in 1888 to administer Kenya, but the company soon found itself losing large amounts of money through its vain attempts to extend control over the interior (“History, British Colonization”). In 1890, the Anglo-German agreement was signed, which made arrangements with the King of Zanzibar for protection of his land. This eventually failed in 1895, and the British government formally took over Kenya in that same year, renaming it the East Africa protectorate. In 1920, it was declared a crown colony. In their colonial conquest, the British followed a policy of divide and conquer, allying with some African groups against others (“History, British Colonization”).
Having been colonized in 1900 by the United Kingdom, the newly formed Nigeria was a number of independent and hostile states with linguistic and cultural differences that did not easily combine. The history of Nigeria is one of convenience rule for the UK as they wished to combine all the indigenous under one territory. The Governor General of Nigeria between 1920 – 31 , Sir Hugh Clifford, described Nigeria as ‘a collection of independent Native States, separated from one another by great distances, by differences of history and traditions and by ethnological, racial, tribal, political, social and religious barriers,’ (Benard quoted Nigeria