Postby Somaliweyn » Sun Dec 30, 2007 4:24 am
[quote="Voltage"]Somaliweyn I can see a whole redundant argument ensuing in which the end result will be you running hightail and I thinking of how much time I have lost so I will sum it this way:
Somalia broke ALL relations with Britain in 1965, so that destroys any argument you have for neo-colonialism.
Also your understanding of neo-colonialism is not even rudimentary at best. It is not an aspect of neo-colonialism that our economy has always been dependent on Livestok export, no that just means Somalia was a developing country. It would have been neo-colonialism if the British STILL controlled the Livestock trade, if their middle man were there, if they had shares in the industry, or had some say in it's runnings. But as we all know, the livestck trade has always been, particularly under Siad Barre, a state run enterprise.
That in it itself shows what non-existent understanding you have of neo-colonialism, whether Somalia was ever under it, and I will not not respond to anything else you have to say on this subject since you have already proven to us all you want is an argument on a topic you have absolutely no understanding of.
Dismissed.[/quote]
LOL, I was easy on you since development economics is my field. Neo-colonialism is the strenghtening of ties between the European countries and their African domains after the period of independence, and this happened mainly because of economic ties and structures between the core (European countries) and peripery (African countries). Cultural and political neo-colonialism existed too, but was mainly the consequence of the economical aspect of neo-colonialism, since becoming dependent economically ment leverage for the countries you depend on.
So has you can see, we are not interested whether the trade was controlled or run but in how the economical structure of a country resembles what the previous colonial governments envisioned it to be. For example, Britain envisioned Northern Somalia's economy to be based on export of lifestock to Aden and the Arabian peninsula (Their militairy bases there). After 1960, Berbera had only exported lifestock as a meaningfull activity. In Italian Somaliland, the Italians envisioned the economy to be based on agriculture and mainly to export sugar, banana and other tropical products to mainly Italian mainland since these products were heavily dependent on Italian subsidies and thus not competitive on the world market. After 1960, Mogadishu had exported these tropical products with Banana export been the lion share to, guess where? Italy. And what was the reason? Because these tropical products were still dependent on foreign cash, not Italian subsidies this time, but Foreign aid from mainly Western countries in the beginning with Italy and Britain leading, and a short period of socialist aid before Somalia was handed over again to IMF and World Bank, two Western economic institutions. In which the Italians again entered the economy of Somalia.
After 1980s Somalia like many other African countries had to accept Structural Adjustment Programs of IMF/World Bank, which ment losing what ever economic freedom they had left to lead their own development process. A neo-colonialism at its best.
I would be careful next time before jumping to assumptions and conclusions about people. So far, that has been a main characteristic of you...which I have adressed on numerous accounts.
We should learn from history, and this requires been objective and serious.
Insha allah, we will built our economy patiently from scratch again. This time based on what we envision it to be, not whats in the interest of others.
