Why is Botswana the only African country that isn't a shithole?

Why is Botswana the only African country that isn't a shithole?

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  1. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Good leaders

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >Good leaders
      Yeah who seem to flee to South Africa for political asylum.

  2. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    leaders that actualy care for their nation instead of their own kin. no amount of aid gibs could replace that.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      A lot if that aid is super fractured, no realy plan or basically propping up ivory tower jobs for expats from abroad.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        And nowadays the line between aid and loan is super thin because a lot of aid is done for foreign policy reasons (EU border "aid", America propping up Mekes in Ethiopia) or come with conditional strings attached that aren't tied to tangible performance metrics or something concrete.

  3. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Tanzania seems nice too

  4. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Tourism

  5. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Botswana is like 90% ethnic Tswana

  6. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Hottentot admixture. Most bantu populations from southern africa have it.
    The part of southern africa with the least khoisan admixture (mozambique) is also the shittiest.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >Hottentot admixture
      How the frick does that do anything?

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Khoisans have lower IQs than West Africans so that doesn't make any sense.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      What does on in those three orange ones? Central African Empire, Chad and Black person have always seemed pretty good from what I seen on YouTube.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        civil wars and boko haram, mostly

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        >Central African Empire, Chad and Black person always seemed pretty good from what I seen on YouTube
        What? CAR and Chad have always seemed like failed states to me. don't know about Niger, but yeah dude what do you mean? What did you see on YouTube? I'm serious, because I'm very ignorant on all three countries

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          Well they have epic architecture and nice people. Have you seen the central african empires capital?

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            The country is called the central african republic, Mr. Bokassa

  7. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Always assumed it was because its basically run by international mining companies with money and long term thinking. That and it is a smaller, more homogeneous population than most of its neighbors. I would like to be wrong though.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      You are wrong.

  8. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    They've had good leaders for generations.
    So despite having a shit hand, they've been relatively successful.
    A US with Botswana-tier luck in terms of leaders who care, would've had colonies on Mars by now.

    I say luck, because I don't know what safeguards and traditions really lead to this in their case.

  9. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Namibia is also pretty cool, apart from the AIDS thing

  10. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Botswana liberalized its economy and supported free market capitalism while other African countries implemented protectionist and socialistic economic policies that stifled free trade. Free trade lifts people out of poverty. Same reason why Gabon is not a shithole

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Gabon is not a shithole because their leader during cold war was friendly with France, they provided them with oil.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Gabon is by definition a shithole. Do recall a ton of kids died due to bad medicine imported from South Asia

      Botswanians have significant non-black DNA

      By that definition Cabo Verde would be paradise which spoiler alert it's not.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        cabo verde is paradise for african standards

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          No it's no. No natural water source and most of the population emmigrated or are outside the country. After slavery was banned it's who purpose was null so the Portuguese just let it rot and focused on their other projects.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Burkina Faso improved fricktons under Thomas Sankara, a literal communist, and then went to utter shit once it was open to be exploited by foreign companies

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        It improved under Sankara because his strong, centralized commie government was committed to getting rid of the ooga booga shit in Burkinabe society. "Improved" from mud huts doesn't mean much, you're going to have to demonstrate to me how his reforms were conducive to a stable, prosperous, and secure society in the long term. By the fact that his government collapsed and his country became riddled by war, poverty, and corruption seems to me to be a good indication that wasn't the case.

  11. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Botswanians have significant non-black DNA

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Verifiably false.

  12. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    It's honestly a funny story

    >be Seretse Khama
    >be the crown prince of a powerful tribe
    >fall in love with a British woman who's there studying anthropology or some shit
    >elope
    >your tribe is outraged because you were supposed to have a political marriage, or at least pick one of their own women
    >the white community is outraged because you married a white woman in the 1950s
    >the apartheid South African government is so angry at the precedent that it sets that they pressure the British to cease recognizing you as the head of your tribe
    >this triggers a backlash in your tribe, who recognize you as the heir to the throne, and among the British community, who are furious that the government betrayed one of their own subjects to appease a bunch of foreign racists
    >by the time the British leave, you are considered a hero by both the locals and the British
    >use your unusually good relations with the west and unusually high amount of public support to carve out a liberal democracy based on the British political system
    >hire the old British civil servants on as contractors, so the civil service doesn't collapse as soon as the British leave
    >maintain fiscal discipline, put all the profits from the countries diamond mines into a trust so the country can save for the long term
    >focus very heavily on combatting corruption and professionalizing the government
    >create the one and only African society to maintain a full democracy from independence onwards, with zero political prisoners and zero wars
    >accidentally become the George Washington of Africa because you wanted some white meat

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >accidentally become the George Washington of Africa because you wanted some white meat
      based

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Based they should’ve just invited white coal burners to bleach up the place. If anything if Africa took all the white or asian women that were willing to migrate and marry then they’d do us a service by weeding out the coal burners and also raise their IQ without causing race wars.

  13. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Because just like the successful nations in the Middle East, Botswana was headed by a king for a long time, who maintained power even after the country's transition to democracy.

  14. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    good and honest founding father
    good resources
    not many ethnic conflicts
    didnt ape out and expel the whites

  15. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Natural resources, which are a good thing when white people and arabs have them, but a bad thing when they're found in african countries, but sometimes they are a good thing when africans have them. That is my understanding from Jared Diamond books, reddit threads, and vireos from youtube 'intellectuals'.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      midwit moment

  16. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    The initial leader was basically so whitesouled he married into the British aristocracy and thus knew what needed to be done to make the coutry run instead of being an 80 IQ jungle warlord whose only thought was "money good."

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >married into the British aristocracy
      She was just a civilian. She was the one who married up.

      good and honest founding father
      good resources
      not many ethnic conflicts
      didnt ape out and expel the whites

      >didnt ape out and expel the whites
      Why do people say that. Most whites in Africa if they left did so of their own Accord. Hell they still vastoy benefit from colinialvwra policies and their aftermath.

  17. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Daron Acemoglu's and James Robinson's work "Why Nations Fail" uses Botsawana as a case study of what went right in contrast to several failed African states close by. As usual you probably should take their assessment with a grain of salt, because they are classic liberals, look at the situation through a decidedly liberal lense, and advocate for liberal policies. But they make a persuasive case that it's all about the institutions, mang.

    Their model is that societies can have either extractive or inclusive economic institutions and either exclusive or inclusive political institutions. Typically you get them as a set and the economic and political insitutions work in tandem. Which is to say that an extractive economy (which is geared towards exploiting the populace for the benefit of a small elite) is very likely enabled by an exclusionary political system (which is geared towards keeping everyone but a small elite barred from the decision making process). Likewise, an inclusive economy (which is geared towards allowing all people to pursue material success) is probably enabled by an inclusive political system (which lets all people participate in the decision making process).

    Acemoglu and Robinson are of the opinion that the failure of so many African states is rooted in extractive/exclusionary institutions set up by the former Colonial powers. When the European empires left the continent, their institutions did not and merely were retooled to serve the enrichment of local elites instead of European elites.

    Botswana, however, had the good fortune to take a different path. When the Brits annexed Botswana and were about to hand it over to the British South Africa Company for exploitation, three Tswana chieftains (pictured) travelled to London to plead to Queen Victoria that their country be turned into a protactorate and be allowed to preserve self-government for the most part. They succeeded and thus prevented the establishment of bad institutions.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Why nation fail is such a shitty book
      >it just because institution bro !!! Culture and race had nothing to do with it !!!

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        It literally is just institutions.

        Brianlets can't cope with that.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          It's not like they're "just" institutions either. Institutions are the building-blocks for societies and their cultures. And institutions like election norms, independent judiciaries, municipal governments, government agencies, etc. for example could be the difference between some of these African nations being a relatively prosperous liberal democracy and a shithole consumed by civil war for three decades.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Have you read Gareth Austin's 'The ‘reversal of fortune’ thesis and the compression of history'?

  18. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    I think having two neighbours who would really prefer not to have another communist shithole on their borders helped.

  19. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Is it really not a shithole or is it just not a shithole by the standards of Africa?

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      it is a shithole but it's the best in africa so it gets attention

  20. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    it is a crime, aids, and poverty ridden shithole just like everywhere else in SSA. it may have Eastern European tier gdp (woop de doo) but it also has extreme wealth inequality so it doesn't represent the average citizen's living standards, and it's largely propped up by diamond reserves and its white minority even if small probably plays a role too.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >largely propped up by diamond reserves and its white minority even if small probably plays a role too.
      Pulling BS out your Ass. Why aren't you shitting on Norway or other developed states with a substantial resource export economy? It's crime isn't big because it has lower densities and nine if the urban history other states have

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        >Why aren't you shitting on Norway or other developed states with a substantial resource export economy?
        Norway would still be a very wealthy country without oil/gas exports, it just pushes them over the edge. when their resources deplete, they'll still have their human capital to keep them afloat, unlike MENA oil states whose economy will probably collapse.
        >It's crime isn't big because it has lower densities and nine if the urban history other states have
        yet it still has the 28th highest homocide rate in the world, what does that say?
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          >Norway would still be a very wealthy country without oil/gas exports, it just pushes them over the edge. when their resources deplete, they'll still have their human capital to keep them afloat, unlike MENA oil states whose economy will probably collapse.
          Norways exports still show how much oil is used to feed the sovereign fund. ME also does that so the whole "once oil goes out they are done" shit is totally a non-issue

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Also Norways human capital isn't so great. They have a a ton of people who work fir the state so a large number of people are basically in jobs paid with state money to keto them happy

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          >what does that say?
          it's not very populated so that's natural
          ironically within africa botswana is seen as safe while ZA is seen as a violent shithole

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >Botswana is seen as safe while ZA is seen as a violent shithole
            Then why do most foreign tourists head to South Africa instead of safe Botswana?

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            South Africa is much better connected to the rest of the world and has a firmly established tourism industry. Tourism is a growing part of Botswana's economy though.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      RSA's white minority racism fricked up that country. They basically put all the smart educated black people like Mandela in prison, and denied proper education to 70% of the population.

  21. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Not everyone cranks it to race and culture

  22. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Because Botswana started off in a kind of democratic way, with a bunch of chiefs from the same ethno-linguistic group getting together and asking for British protection. Then as a British protectorate it enjoyed a lot of autonomy. It started off through a bunch of leaders cooperating so that served as a good basis for transition to western-style democracy, and they had a lot of experience with self-governing autonomy as a British protectorate.

    Functioning liberal democracy requires elite consensus. Basically the leading rich and powerful people of the society have to agree to follow a set of collectively agreed upon rules. Like if you have a game of football/soccer the players and coaches all have to agree that you can't just pick up the ball with your hands and throw it in the opposing net or bring a gun on to the field and shoot the goalie so you can get a goal. If players started doing those things, the came would fall apart. Same goes for democracies. When the politicians and their rich backers don't follow the rules, democracy doesn't work. The countries where the metaphorical soccer players bring guns on the field to shoot their opponents are the shithole countries.

    Most African countries were just a bunch of different tribes thrown together with arbitrary borders without any collective political tradition. Then in the 1960s they were suddenly given control over the government that had previously been run by European bureaucrats.

    Alternatively, a few traditional African states that survived under colonialism were typically medieval style monarchies like Tsarist Russia that weren't really compatible with modern Western-style liberal democratic principles.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      This is a big part of it.

      The British never actually ruled the country. They would just have the tribal leaders meet with British administrators in Windhoek, the British would give them instructions, and then the tribal leaders would just pretend to follow them.

  23. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    how come lesotho is a shithole when the surrounding countries (namibia, botswana, za, even eswatini and zimbabwe) fare much better? it's small and homogenous, shouldn't it be easier?

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      I dunno if they're that bad. They're at least a democracy now and have less AIDS than Swaziland.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Lesotho used to be like twice or 2.67 times the size but lost it over the years in the colonial era over overall reasonable compromises

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        And what does Lesotho's size have to do with its prosperity? Some of the wealthiest countries in the world are some of the world's smallest. Plus, Lesotho is a little under twice the size of Swaziland.

  24. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    like 70% aids rate

  25. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >Ctrl+F
    >Rwanda
    >0 results
    Good. As tragic as the Rwandan genocide is, Kagame is a dictator. And Rwanda's wealth is backed up by a foreverwar they're fueling in Kivu.
    It's not a good country.

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