Quote from: oprahwindfury on December 18, 2014, 12:11:52 PM

This is not meant to be an offensive post, I am genuinely curious as to why Africa is so far behind the rest of the world.

The Roman Empire had running water, amenities, reliable shelter and clothing for its entire populace 2,000 years ago. 2,000 FRIGGIN YEARS AGO. They created art, sculptures, vast architecture using 2,000 YEAR OLD technology yet if you go to a random area in Africa, it is plagued by poverty, destitution and just overall squalor.

Why is Africa 2000+ years behind the rest of the world and what can be done to correct this??

Again. Africa is a continent. A continent that was divided by the powers from the Old Europe. Of course people were already fighting before the Europeans came, like anywhere else.
The same way you say "Africa", the Old Europe saw "black people", not 100s of specific ethnic groups with different cultures and territories. Rwanda is a perfect example of what happened when you do a social experiment on such scale.

Belgium became a very very rich country thanks to... Africa

Congo Free State (18851908)[edit]
Main article: Congo Free State

A white missionary posing with Congolese man, mutilated by the Congo Free State government

Colonial rule in the Congo began in the late 19th century. King Leopold II of Belgium, frustrated by his nation's lack of international power and prestige, tried to persuade the government to support colonial expansion around the then-largely unexplored Congo Basin. Their ambivalence resulted in Leopold's creating a colony on his own account. With support from a number of Western countries, who viewed Leopold as a useful buffer between rival colonial powers on the Continent, Leopold achieved international recognition for a personal colony, the Congo Free State, in 1885.[2]

The Free State government exploited the Congo for its natural resources, first ivory and later rubber which was becoming a valuable commodity. With the support of the colonial military, the Force Publique, the territory was divided into private concessions. The Anglo-Belgian India Rubber Company (ABIR), among others, used force and brutality to extract profit from the territory. The regime in the Congo was responsible for using forced labour, murder and mutilation to force indigenous Congolese who did not fulfill quotas for rubber collections. It is estimated that millions of Congolese died during this time.[3] Many of the deaths can be attributed to new diseases introduced by contact with European colonists, including smallpox which killed nearly half the population in the areas surrounding the lower Congo River.[4]

A sharp reduction of the population of the Congo through excess deaths is widely considered to have occurred during the Free State period but estimates of the deaths toll vary considerably. Although figures are estimates, it is believed that as many as ten million Congolese died during the period,[5][6][7][8] accounting for a fifth of the population. As the first census did not take place until 1924, it is difficult to quantify the population loss of the period and these figures have been disputed by some who, like William Rubinstein, claim that the figures cited by Adam Hochschild are speculative estimates based on little evidence.[9]

Although the Congo Free State was not officially a Belgian colony, Belgium was its chief beneficiary in terms of its trade and the employment of its citizens. Leopold II personally accumulating considerable wealth from the rubber and ivory exports of the colony acquired at gunpoint. Much of this was spent in numerous programmes of public building in Brussels, Ostend and Antwerp.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgian_colonial_empire

So if you are looking for stones beside the stone age of Africa, look for them in buildings around in Brussels... Cool