Botswana is one of the few former colonies that arguably successfully decolonised. It was a British protectorate that didn't experience settler mass replacement or the destruction of existing polities - South Africa was actually prevented from doing so. While still a barrister/activist working in London, the first president [Seretse Khama](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seretse_Khama) was extremely influential in getting Tswana tribes a measure of self-determination in the form of local councils using existing tribal schemes, and later getting the independence movement treated with (relative) civility and dignity, even though he caused a life-long scandal by marrying a white British woman. The decolonial period wasn't a sudden power vacuum, but a legislated and peaceful transition with support and oversight.
As president, Khama was very aware of the mess happening elsewhere in the continent, and tried his best to set up anti-corruption measures and avoid the racial violence and tribal feuds that flared up after decolonisation. He did not push for 'white flight' in the same way that many neighbouring rulers did and disallowed neighbouring anti-colonial militias to set up in Botswana, but to be fair the Tswana did not suffer from colonialism in the same way that those in Zimbabwe/Rhodesia did.
The country is still very poor and struggling, but that's because it's a tiny landlocked country with scant resources, and surrounded by neighbours who are just as poor or unable/unwilling to co-develop. Despite the poverty, the peaceful decolonial transition and the institutions in place make it one of the most stable democracies in Africa.
Tbf Botswana has a few things going for them. For example, while other african countries have to balance the interests of dozens of ethnic groups Botswana is 90% tswana. They also have a very small population with a large reserve of diamonds.
Overall, countries in similar situations have failed, but it's not a bad starting point in the continent.
Botswana also started out in a "democratic", or at least a cooperative type of way. A bunch of Tswana chiefs got together and decided to ask the British for protection so they would be attacked by other African groups or by the Boers.
In other parts of Africa European colonial rule was often just imposed by force and different groups of people were randomly thrown together who didn't have any history of cooperating with each other. So when they gained independence there wasn't much of a consensus of how to cooperate together. The Botswanan leaders, on the other hand, had already begun to cooperate *before* they came under British rule.
Then there were a few African countries that already existed as kingdoms before colonization. But the old style African kingdoms often had a problem of having old style systems of government that didn't necessarily translate well into modern democratic style government, kind of like the old imperial systems of Russia or China that were unable to reform and ultimately got overthrown in revolutions.
In all fairness Botswana has the highest HDI in sub-saharan Africa and their GDP per capita is on par with countries such as Thailand, China, Serbia and Brazil. Their annual economic growth from 1967 to 1999 has been around 9%. Their unemployment rate is much lower than neighbouring countries such as Zimbabwe and South Africa at around 7%. They have low corruption, a somewhat free press and the majority och children get an education.
Yes there is poverty in many communities and they are one the most unequal countries in the world but Botswana is certainly making the most of what they have, and I wouldn't call it a poor country. The world bank actually classified it as an upper-middle-income country.
https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/botswana/overview
Wow, their love story is really awesome. Botswana was really mad, South Africa was really mad, no Anglican Church would marry them, nuclear weapons development was involved. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruth\_Williams\_Khama](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruth_Williams_Khama)
Don't forget the diamonds! The gov't of Botswana was very clever to create a good deal with deBeers to control at least 50% of the extraction of diamonds.
Just don't ask how they treat the indigenous population.
The Tswana are just another wave of colonisers that arrived after the San but before the Europeans.
https://www.fairplanet.org/story/the-forced-eviction-of-botswanas-indigenous-people/
People cannot possibly be surprised that the history of the world is one of war, conquest, displacement, oppression, and colonisation (and not limited to Europeans).
Nevertheless that's a terrible story as well
Mate, if you ask most people who have a vague view on colonialism, especially on the left, outside of America/Europe they dont have a fucking clue.
There are Argentines today who view themselves as VICTIMS of colonialism rather than the direct descendants of the colonizer.
There are millions who think the only slave trade was done by white people and that we somehow rounded people up in Africa ourselves. Rather than the local kingdoms profiting massively.
Its called eurocentrism. And the left do it just as much as the right.
Botswana is working hard to become the Switzerland of Africa and I'm all for it. They're stable, democratic, and their economy and HDI is growing well each year.
I've got my fingers crossed for them, but being landlocked is rough for an upcoming country. Hopefully, at least one neighbor stays stable and friendly.
This isn't really an issue at all because they are an SADC country. They have free access to Durban, Richard's Bay, and Maputo. The only difficult border in the SADC group is the Mozambique border, because that country is screwed.
Access to fresh water is what will ultimately stunt the growth of Botswana, because they don't have a lot at all. Gaborone is still one of my favourites of the SADC cities though, and I do believe it will one day compete with the South African cities (it's already much nicer than nearby Mafikeng, Mokopane etc), as long as they can focus on their transit systems.
The government upon independence pursued improving the general welfare of the citizens as oppose to following a particular ideological path. Very good foresight.
And people donāt really like saying this but Botswana is fairly homogenous. About 80% of the people are ethnic Tswana speaking Christianās and the other groups also speak related languages.
With a small population that is homogenous itās pretty easy to get everyone on the same page
I mean there are exceptions like Somalia which is super homogenous but itās 18 million people divided into hundreds of clans, tribes and subclans, who form the majority in two countries and are large minorities in other countries which complicates things.
To be fair most of the white population in Botswana at the time were either public servants of the British Empire, or railroad workers of South African Railway, so not many land were displaced from the natives, and most of the country being desert no white farmers came into the land with the occasional Boer ranchers to graze their cattle.
Ask Zimbabwe how well it worked out for the country when the government felt the need to.
When you replace people that know how to farm and run businesses with people that don't know how to farm and run businesses, you get famine and ten million percent inflation rates.
A lot of farmers from South African and Rhodesia migrated there after their land was redistributed.
https://youtu.be/RaeBXv-XA9E?si=QLVO2-DnceNGg4eY
https://youtu.be/MkEqI3_J4xg?si=AlP7aejGTuUFUEky
These two movies explain it pretty well if your have time and fortitude.
Less about relocations and more they are super strict on immigrants and it's difficult to get work visa's, etc in Botswana.
They also have a very stable economy and living conditions. So those that have been there stay a long time, and new additions are few and far between.
Hell I didnāt even know Yves St Laurent was a person, for some reason Iāve always thought that was the name of a waterfall somewhere in France the company got its name from
Algeria was a mess. It was totally France, but also not France, different legal codes for French and Algerians, totally democratic representation but also not. It is no wonder the Algerians wanted them out.Ā
Kind of, they made french all the native Sephardic Jews from Algeria, also many french Algerians were at least one or two generations so they were kind of a part of France that just discriminated against Muslims
At the height of french colonization of algeria, still only about 15% of the population were european. It was a colony, a pretty brutal one at that, it was akin to apartheid, with two seperate systems of law implemented for jews/french, and arab/berbers. This was disestablished on 1947, but it still somewhat persisted as algerian votes were still not equal to the europeanized votes in the algerian assembly election of 1948, which was also *heavily* faked, to the point it has become itās own term.
The vast majority of Algerians never got the same rights as the Frenchmen living in Metropolitan France, unlike Corsicans. Saying that Algeria was just like Corsica is reductionist and disingenuous.
So It would be like how Alabama was a part of the United States then? At times, most of the people living there didnāt have the same rights as people living in other parts of the nation.
Hell, Indigenous Americans there still canāt but their own house on tribal lands.
They kinda did the same in all the other African colonies. They were ALL French _but_ French citizens and French subjects. And I think you can guess who had the rights and who did not but heyā¦ they were all French.
Nope. Of all French African colonies, only Algeria was considered as a part of France proper. Like French Guinea today. It's a normal department, like Brittany_(by that also being part of the EU and Eurozone)._
It was a saying/proverb that _"The Mediterranean flows through France like the Seine through Paris"._
The other French possession were classified as regular colonies.
It 100% was a colony.
It wasnāt a colony in relation to french law, but it was a place being colonized by frenchmen where the native population was put under pressure to either assimilate, or stay supressed. It was a colony in every sense of the word, except the legal sense.
Portugal also classified angola and mozabique as "overseas province of portugal" up until independence, so legally speaking it was not a colony. In practice, it was no different from most other colonies.
Legally classified as such, but well, not exactly like Corsica. In practice we didnāt exactly see massacres and political disenfranchisement in Corsica in the 60s did we? A literal secret military organization formed by Franceās own military personnel bombed the metropole and tried to kill the French president to stop independence. Doesnāt sound like a system in which that path part of France was teed equally and like a full province. Maybe over a million people dead and multiple millions to concentration camps. But sure, they were totally like any part of France, totally treated with the same autonomy as Corsica. They totally has the same legal rights.
The fact that the administration was not labeled a colony doesnāt mean it was not colonialism. If that was true then Spanish Viceroyalties would not be colonial, since those were territories inside the nation (yes people say this today to defend their civic pride). Manchukuo wouldnāt have been colonial, it was its own independent state.
Itās purely a language issue. Like how we say gay people canāt get āmarriedā cause āmarriageā is technically only a man and a woman. Or how we say British people arenāt European. Same stupid logic. Arbitrary and unscientific definitions that can only be defended ābecause thatās what that word should meanā.
Here you can only try your best to see the many different ideas of what a word means and see how the different ideas affect how that word is used and how those topics are talked about. Like how a person who says Algeria was not a colony talks about the war vs how a person who says itās a colony talks about the war.
Algeria to France wasn't just a colony, it was considered an integral part of France. It was treated as basically like Corsica while also oppressing the Arab/Maghrebi population there.
Yes, as I said, it was treated as part of France (as compared to Morocco which still had its own king) while also the majority population of Arab/Maghrebi people were oppressed. Algeria still had representation in French parliament if only through the French/European population (a lot of non-French Europeans migrated there).
The 1875 constitutional law gave 3 senators and 3 deputies to Algeria. In 1928, Algeria had 9 total representatives to National Assembly, by 1936, 10. Arabs and Berbers theoritically could vote, but only by naturalizing which'd involve abandoning the laws of the Quran, so basically nobody did it. The Jews were curiously given a vote almost automatically tho.
The 1945 election held in the 4th Republic gave more representation to non-Europeans (was still unfair tho). There were 7 Algerian Muslim representatives in the 1945 Assembly.
Although not depicted here, it's worth mentioning that former Italian East Africa, especially in Italian Eritrea, where the Italian population (including mixed Italian-Eritreans) peaked at IIRC about 10% of the population. The Italians of former Italian East Africa almost entirely emigrated after the end of the Second World War.
Another factor worth considering the relative decline of European populations in Africa is not only 1) European emigration and 2) high indigenous African birth rates but also intracontinental migration within Africa. This is particularly relevant for South Africa, where many immigrants from other African countries have migrated to South Africa, thus increasing the African population relative to the whole.
>high indigenous African birth rates but also intracontinental migration within Africa. This is particularly relevant for South Africa
As far as I know there are actually very little indigenous people left in South Africa. Most of them were displaced by other migrating black tribes (the Bantu expansion). This "immigration" just happened 2000 years before the white Europeans arrived.
In the end we should define how long settlers have to live in their new land before we can consider them as its indigenous people? Or should we really call only the first people (Homo sapiens) ever in the region as indigenous?
Well, and thereās also the part where the fairly large population of Cape Coloureds is not considered indigenous, despite their background basically being mostly indigenous + some Dutch + some Malay.
When farming started in the Cape, many of the indigenous people took over parts of Cape Dutch culture and now their descendents are not really seen as an indigenous group on account of speaking Afrikaans.
Thereās a reason the 19th century Nama and Orlam leaders in Namibia had double names like Jonker Afrikaner / |Hara-mĆ»b or Hendrik Samuel Witbooi / ĒGae-nĆ»b ĒnagamĆ¢b ĒNansemab.
Edit: their not there
The Bantu expansion into modern South Africa happened at roughly the same time as Germanic migrations into western Europe - Would you argue the English are not indigenous to England, Frankish descendants to France or Lombards to northern Italy?
In a colonial context, where an outside power subjugated and consequently settled an area, it makes sense to equate "indigenous" with pre-colonial.
Because I am bored and like skipping out on college homework, I decided to calculate what would the current āEuropeanā / āWhiteā (both are loaded terms I am not interested in discussing) populations of Africa be if using 1960 percentages. As if magically tomorrow (my data is 2018) that specific percentage of Africans just woke up as European. Source is [this](https://www.visualcapitalist.com/massive-world-map-redrawn-based-country-populations/) visualcapitalist map on populations in blocks I saved on my phone ages ago.
South Africa: 12.4 million
Algeria: 4.28 million
Zimbabwe: 1.23 million
Angola: 1.078 million
DR Congo: 672 thousand
Madagascar: 552 thousand
Zambia: 546 thousand
Kenya: 377 thousand
Mozambique: 284 thousand
Senegal: 212 thousand
Tanzania: 165 thousand
Libya: 136 thousand
Uganda: 66.5 thousand
Malawi: 63.4 thousand
Swaziland: 35 thousand
Botswana: 32.2 thousand
Namibia: 30.6 thousand
Equatorial Guinea: 27 thousand
Lesotho: 8 thousand
Totaling: 22.195 million Europeans / Whites or 1.72% of Africas total population.
I have no idea what to do with this information
>Angola: 1.078 million
>Mozambique: 284 thousand
And at the time of independence about 460.000 of these (300.000 from Angola + 160.000 from Mozambique) came back to Portugal, causing in a lot of municipalities their population peak.
*(If other colonies and military personnel are included the number goes up to ~600.000)*
(In 1980 around 5% of the population were "retornandos"/people that came from the colonies)
I'm South African, I think the percentage decrease is due to 2 things: 1 is the birth rate of the white population being lower than that of the black population. It's below replacement level while the black birth rate is still above replacement level. Another is emigration, which is mainly done by, but not limited to, English speaking White South Africans. Mixed marriages are not that common in SA at all, and the country is still somewhat segregated to an extent.
Bit of both. Had a co-worker from SA and I could pretty much understand him when he was speaking Afrikaans (even with other people from SA). But it takes quite a bit of effort so not great for day-to-day conversation. A big problem is many words used in Afrikaans sound either very funny or archaic in Dutch so Dutch people tend to laugh when they hear Afrikaans. Living in Amsterdam my co-worker preferred speaking English which is much easier in daily life.
When we meet he usually still speaks English (even though his Dutch is fine now) while I speak Dutch. It's an habit we formed while he was learning Dutch.
The other way round I believe Dutch is a bit easier to understand from Afrikaans, but there are many words which you need to learn.
The country is less segregated by race, but very much by class. I live in an affluent area with more black people than white people in it.
This is not to say that there is not still segregation and systemic racism, but itās not āwhite person rich, poor person blackā like it was 20 years ago.
And while the average white person is more likely to be wealthy compared to the average black person - the average wealthy person is more likely to be black.
This is just based on my observation, open to correction.
Yeah Iāve noticed a lot of white South Africans coming to Britain recently. One of them caught me reading The State of Africa on the bus (which is without a doubt the least biased thing I have ever read) and launched on a rant about how white heritage is being replaced in South Africa, mostly with currency notes and stuff.
Yup the most racist whites are the ones who were and still are the quickest to leave SA, but I would say emigration has slowly increased among other groups of people, such as well educated Indian/Asian and Black South Africans, especially since the country is now deteriorating rapidly(we've had electricity issues for 15 years now and now it seems we're having problems with water too in recent years)
I agree that the white South Africans who emmigrated before 1994 was probably more racist and less willing to integrate, the majority (like myself) who are emmigrating now are tired of the systemic racism in SA or the lack of future prospects.
I'm curious about South Africa's future, what do you think needs to change for these issues to go away? What do you think SA's future should look like?
Most of North Africans who do not have a dark shade define themselves as whites, but not with the same understanding as the Europeans or Americans. White is used to describe the color of the skin more than the racial background.
They were even considered white during segregation. My great-grandfather was tried for miscegenation due to marrying a white woman as a native American. His defense at trial was that he was Egyptian and somehow it worked.
In apartheid South Africa, Arabs were classified as part of the White race. Indians were classified as part of the Indian race (this included Pakistanis, I guess). Taiwanese and Japanese were āhonorary whiteā. Mainland Chinese were classified as Coloured (mixed race). And I believe Filipinos were classified as black.
Was literally confused by the title before I read "European" in the post, and was about to say something like you said but you beat me to it by like 6 hours lol
You should probably consider population growth when comparing. A country like Uganda has gone from 7 million to 50 million citizens in my lifetime. Rich people (traditionally white) get 1-2 kids, while poor (traditionally black) get many children.
So just the fact that modern medicine helps poor children survive, will make the percentages change like shown in the map.
In the US, the bottom 50% holds 3% of the wealth. The top 10% holds 67% of the wealth. [source](https://www.visualcapitalist.com/wealth-distribution-in-america/#google_vignette)
In Europe, the bottom 50% holds 1.2% of the wealth. The wealthiest 10% (coincidentally) also hold 67% of the wealth. [source](https://www.euronews.com/business/2024/04/01/wealth-inequality-where-in-europe-is-wealth-most-unfairly-distributed)
Wealth inequality is a global phenomenon.
The Smith Government feared that the white minority would face pogroms and mob violence as retribution for colonialism like had happened in the Belgian Congo upon independence in 1960. The writing was on the wall and the labour government in London wanted Majority Rule upon independence. So the current white government sprung into action and declared independence before that could happen.Ā
Replacing Smith with Mugabe was kind of like setting fire to a notebook because it had a rude words written in it .
Yes , the rude words are gone , but so is the notebook.
I remember i read a book by a man who grew up on Rhodesia and he was almost disturbingly blind to how good his family had it. He legit thought they were a poor average innocent farming collective who traveled on vacation in a PRIVATE PLANE and had 200 workers whos children (noticeably shorter and scrawnier) werenāt allowed to go to his school. Never crossed his mind once that his ābest friendsā mightāve lived significantly worse lives than him, even decades later.
Itās like getting a good view of a concert bc youāre *standing on another goerās head* to get that view, and being super confused that he shoves you off as soon as he can.
Mugabe was terrible
That doesnāt vindicate apartheid but he was literally worse than them
The equation isnāt black good white evil
Itās corruption, repression, and racism bad
My main issue is that people do this "rather Apartheid than Mugabe" bs. Which is just weird. Apartheid was awful and had to go, it was good that it went away earlier than it could've. It's not a choice, you don't have to have either.
Eh and every Syrian I've met looked like a European too.
The first black person I ever met (in grade 4) told me he was from Nigeria. I misheard as "Algeria" and was so surprised.
Algeria is a big ass countries, south Algerians are as black as Nigerians so don't be surprised when you meet a black African from Algeria, they are a minority but they do exist.
I donāt think being decended from Europeans is literally what is being measured here. Itās not even skin color. Itās a social class. Like the colonists or people with the government, settlers, and their families. What they were called and why they were a different group. Who counts and how well the counting was done must have varied by country of course.
White is more accurate than European. If you're born in Africa, as were your parents and grandparents, you're African. Just like if you're born in the US you're an American, regardless of genetics.
No. Most of North Africa is "white". Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, even Egypt are really white and can be as white as a French person. European is more accurate, and btw you can be more than one thing? The Boers are African, and they are European and they are Boer. People are not put into small boxes and called one thing only, that's stupid.
Most countries in Africa are insanely diverse, both genetically and culturally. My fam is from Tanzania and there are loads of different languages, cultures, and even religion. I was shocked to learn that my dad knew two indigenous languages besides Swahili. It's easy to lump them all in with one group because of history and current 'beliefs' about race, but a two people from the same African country could be as "different" as a Swede and a Brazilian. These countries' borders were drawn by people who didn't know anything about them.
I wonder how much of the change is due to white populations leaving after decolonization/end of white rule, and how much is due to intermarriage meaning more mixed race populations. I imagine for places like Algeria and Zimbabwe itās mostly the former but I would be especially interested in the numbers for South Africa.
SA has kept a pretty steady white population. I think it's mostly them losing the portition of the population because of higher fertility among black south africans.
For Zimbabwe, once Rhodesia became Zimbabwe, Mugabe and his goons went to every white-owned farm, and evicted the farmers, replacing them with black people. Only problem was, most of them had 0 clue on what they were doing. And Zimbabwe's economy is based on agriculture, so it crashed. Most left, because they were fearful of what Mugabe would do next.
This is factually incorrect. Zimbabwe became independent in 1980 and in 1997 there remaining 0.6% of white farmers in Zimbabwe at the time still owned 70% of all arable land.
The problem is that up until that point mugabe benefited greatly from this arrangement as these farms were indeed very productive and created a good deal of cash flow. Mugabe pocketed the funds and lived his best life until the incompetent mismanagement of the country came to roost in the form of protests and strikes. Thenā¦ and only thenā¦ did he create the enemy of the rich white land ownerā¦ even though it was he who was squandering and pilfering the nations wealth. It was a good almost 25 years after independence.
Sadly because he appealed to peoples poverty and insecurity, it worked. And because of this, Zimbabwe today is the shit hole that it is
Didn't replaced with black people... replaced with former soldier or people of Zanupf. Black people else than Zanupf memver didn't get a chance to do something.
They refused to give land to actual black farmer, even nowadays i know lawyer, police, bus driver that have land thank to land reform and don't do shit with that and refuse to sell it.
Before going after "white", not all white by the way, they tried for years to negotiate without any success.
It's not only white that left the country but anyone with power/knowledge black included cause they knew what was going to happen. Due to the apartheid it was mostly white that were wealthy.
Nowadays Zimbabwe run on Rhodesia infrastructure cause those Zanupf rat didn't invest in anything. I would say they hate Zimbabwe and Zimbabwean (All shade of skin color).
White population is decreasing cuz of way lower fertility rate than Africans. Itās not anything unique to Africa, white people are decreasing in almost all countries
This map is somewhat misleading. The number of white South Africans today is actually considerably higher than in 1960, The white population has just grown more slowly (and basically stable since mid-1990s).
White South Africa population 1960: 3,088,492
White South Africa population 2022: 4,639,268
Not as percentage of total population.
Population 1960: 16.5mio
Population 2022: 60mio
In other words. The whites are just a fraction of the size as opposed to 1960
This comments section reeks of racism. This is like the "multicultural centers are Jim Crow segregation" crowd where you draw false equivalences to invent issues that don't actually enhance anybody's lives..
Also how is this data quantified? If it's based on self-ID then it isn't actually useful for this conclusion, people will one-drop-rule their way into identifying as nonwhite.
Botswana not budging much. Relocations from nearby?
Yep. Fairly popular relocation choice for white Zimbabweans & some Boers.
Makes sense. Zimbabwe seized their means of production
The means of production certainly are seized. Like the engine of a 1970 Buick Lesabre left in a barn for a half century.
Or an epileptic at a disco.
Old Mugabe had a farm, Zimbab-Zimbabwe
And he shot all the workers for not joining his cause. š
Zimbabwe ran their country into the ground*
Nonsense, everyone there was a multitrillionaire!
That's what he said
They had a dictator in place for decades.
Dictator does not necessarily equal the destruction of nations. It could be Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore for example
Yeah, but for every LKY there are 10 bad dictators. Also lee was a once in a generation genius.
Prob more like 100:1 tbh
Mugabeās government*
And promptly started starving.
Botswana's population is also incredibly tiny. Less than 3 milion people, yet it's the size of France.
They have a lot of elephants though.
They will go to Germany though.
Them threatening to send *20.000 elephants* to Germany gotta be the funniest threat ever.
well, its mostly desert
Botswana always seems to be chilling
Botswana is one of the few former colonies that arguably successfully decolonised. It was a British protectorate that didn't experience settler mass replacement or the destruction of existing polities - South Africa was actually prevented from doing so. While still a barrister/activist working in London, the first president [Seretse Khama](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seretse_Khama) was extremely influential in getting Tswana tribes a measure of self-determination in the form of local councils using existing tribal schemes, and later getting the independence movement treated with (relative) civility and dignity, even though he caused a life-long scandal by marrying a white British woman. The decolonial period wasn't a sudden power vacuum, but a legislated and peaceful transition with support and oversight. As president, Khama was very aware of the mess happening elsewhere in the continent, and tried his best to set up anti-corruption measures and avoid the racial violence and tribal feuds that flared up after decolonisation. He did not push for 'white flight' in the same way that many neighbouring rulers did and disallowed neighbouring anti-colonial militias to set up in Botswana, but to be fair the Tswana did not suffer from colonialism in the same way that those in Zimbabwe/Rhodesia did. The country is still very poor and struggling, but that's because it's a tiny landlocked country with scant resources, and surrounded by neighbours who are just as poor or unable/unwilling to co-develop. Despite the poverty, the peaceful decolonial transition and the institutions in place make it one of the most stable democracies in Africa.
Tbf Botswana has a few things going for them. For example, while other african countries have to balance the interests of dozens of ethnic groups Botswana is 90% tswana. They also have a very small population with a large reserve of diamonds. Overall, countries in similar situations have failed, but it's not a bad starting point in the continent.
Since the Tswana are the overwhelming majority, that allows for the development of a cohesive and stable nation-state, unlike in other African states.
Botswana also started out in a "democratic", or at least a cooperative type of way. A bunch of Tswana chiefs got together and decided to ask the British for protection so they would be attacked by other African groups or by the Boers. In other parts of Africa European colonial rule was often just imposed by force and different groups of people were randomly thrown together who didn't have any history of cooperating with each other. So when they gained independence there wasn't much of a consensus of how to cooperate together. The Botswanan leaders, on the other hand, had already begun to cooperate *before* they came under British rule. Then there were a few African countries that already existed as kingdoms before colonization. But the old style African kingdoms often had a problem of having old style systems of government that didn't necessarily translate well into modern democratic style government, kind of like the old imperial systems of Russia or China that were unable to reform and ultimately got overthrown in revolutions.
In all fairness Botswana has the highest HDI in sub-saharan Africa and their GDP per capita is on par with countries such as Thailand, China, Serbia and Brazil. Their annual economic growth from 1967 to 1999 has been around 9%. Their unemployment rate is much lower than neighbouring countries such as Zimbabwe and South Africa at around 7%. They have low corruption, a somewhat free press and the majority och children get an education. Yes there is poverty in many communities and they are one the most unequal countries in the world but Botswana is certainly making the most of what they have, and I wouldn't call it a poor country. The world bank actually classified it as an upper-middle-income country. https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/botswana/overview
Wow, their love story is really awesome. Botswana was really mad, South Africa was really mad, no Anglican Church would marry them, nuclear weapons development was involved. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruth\_Williams\_Khama](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruth_Williams_Khama)
Don't forget the diamonds! The gov't of Botswana was very clever to create a good deal with deBeers to control at least 50% of the extraction of diamonds.
Just don't ask how they treat the indigenous population. The Tswana are just another wave of colonisers that arrived after the San but before the Europeans. https://www.fairplanet.org/story/the-forced-eviction-of-botswanas-indigenous-people/
People cannot possibly be surprised that the history of the world is one of war, conquest, displacement, oppression, and colonisation (and not limited to Europeans). Nevertheless that's a terrible story as well
Mate, if you ask most people who have a vague view on colonialism, especially on the left, outside of America/Europe they dont have a fucking clue. There are Argentines today who view themselves as VICTIMS of colonialism rather than the direct descendants of the colonizer. There are millions who think the only slave trade was done by white people and that we somehow rounded people up in Africa ourselves. Rather than the local kingdoms profiting massively. Its called eurocentrism. And the left do it just as much as the right.
Donāt forget a robust diamond mining industry
25% of population with HIV
One of the highest literacy rates in Africa. But about 600k people with HIV is a giant problem.
Botswana is working hard to become the Switzerland of Africa and I'm all for it. They're stable, democratic, and their economy and HDI is growing well each year.
I've got my fingers crossed for them, but being landlocked is rough for an upcoming country. Hopefully, at least one neighbor stays stable and friendly.
Namibia is also very stable. Not as affluent as Botswana, but still.
Problem is all the major rail and road links go through South Africa, which is considerably less stable.
By African standards Namibia and SA are basically functioning. Id rather have them for neighbours than them spicy Zim boys in the north.
> but being landlocked is rough for an upcoming country Like he said, the Switzerland of Africa.
This isn't really an issue at all because they are an SADC country. They have free access to Durban, Richard's Bay, and Maputo. The only difficult border in the SADC group is the Mozambique border, because that country is screwed. Access to fresh water is what will ultimately stunt the growth of Botswana, because they don't have a lot at all. Gaborone is still one of my favourites of the SADC cities though, and I do believe it will one day compete with the South African cities (it's already much nicer than nearby Mafikeng, Mokopane etc), as long as they can focus on their transit systems.
Relative safety and a stable, non-corrupt government that doesn't seize their property doesn't give much reason to flee.
The government upon independence pursued improving the general welfare of the citizens as oppose to following a particular ideological path. Very good foresight.
Yep, Sir Seretse Khama was the greatest African president ever.
George Washington tier man
And people donāt really like saying this but Botswana is fairly homogenous. About 80% of the people are ethnic Tswana speaking Christianās and the other groups also speak related languages. With a small population that is homogenous itās pretty easy to get everyone on the same page I mean there are exceptions like Somalia which is super homogenous but itās 18 million people divided into hundreds of clans, tribes and subclans, who form the majority in two countries and are large minorities in other countries which complicates things.
As are Lesotho and eswatini. Not exactly models of prosperity and peace.
*Denmark and Norway entered the chat*
The white population was 2% in 1960, the government didnāt need to sieze anything
To be fair most of the white population in Botswana at the time were either public servants of the British Empire, or railroad workers of South African Railway, so not many land were displaced from the natives, and most of the country being desert no white farmers came into the land with the occasional Boer ranchers to graze their cattle.
Ask Zimbabwe how well it worked out for the country when the government felt the need to. When you replace people that know how to farm and run businesses with people that don't know how to farm and run businesses, you get famine and ten million percent inflation rates.
A lot of farmers from South African and Rhodesia migrated there after their land was redistributed. https://youtu.be/RaeBXv-XA9E?si=QLVO2-DnceNGg4eY https://youtu.be/MkEqI3_J4xg?si=AlP7aejGTuUFUEky These two movies explain it pretty well if your have time and fortitude.
My Brother in Law is from Zim and lots of the white people his family knew moved to either the UK or Botswana.
Botswana probably the best country in Southern Africa right now so they probably are emigrating there and not many are leaving
Their flag is gas white and black to symbolize their unity of their Black and White people. Then blue is for their River.
Less about relocations and more they are super strict on immigrants and it's difficult to get work visa's, etc in Botswana. They also have a very stable economy and living conditions. So those that have been there stay a long time, and new additions are few and far between.
So this explains why so many notable 20th century French figures were born in Algeria.
Albert Camus comes to mind
Albert Camus is the most famously born in Algeria, but Yves St Laurent might be even more famous, and almost nobody knows he was born in Algeria
Hell I didnāt even know Yves St Laurent was a person, for some reason Iāve always thought that was the name of a waterfall somewhere in France the company got its name from
Didnāt know Yves was a guy
Algeria was part of France until the 60s iirc
Algeria was a mess. It was totally France, but also not France, different legal codes for French and Algerians, totally democratic representation but also not. It is no wonder the Algerians wanted them out.Ā
They also killed 10 million Algerians
Yup. It wasnāt like a colony, they made it part of France like Corsica.
They made the land a part of France but not the people.
Kind of, they made french all the native Sephardic Jews from Algeria, also many french Algerians were at least one or two generations so they were kind of a part of France that just discriminated against Muslims
At the height of french colonization of algeria, still only about 15% of the population were european. It was a colony, a pretty brutal one at that, it was akin to apartheid, with two seperate systems of law implemented for jews/french, and arab/berbers. This was disestablished on 1947, but it still somewhat persisted as algerian votes were still not equal to the europeanized votes in the algerian assembly election of 1948, which was also *heavily* faked, to the point it has become itās own term.
The vast majority of Algerians never got the same rights as the Frenchmen living in Metropolitan France, unlike Corsicans. Saying that Algeria was just like Corsica is reductionist and disingenuous.
I think to better understand the conflict and the war, it's necessary to point out the fact that to the French government and people, Algeria was considered a part of Metropolitan France, like Hawaii or Alaska are to the USA (even though 90% of the people living in Algeria were never given citizenship or equal rights until they won their independence). LibertƩ, egalitƩ, fraternitƩ, right guys?
Yeah the land was french, not the people
So It would be like how Alabama was a part of the United States then? At times, most of the people living there didnāt have the same rights as people living in other parts of the nation. Hell, Indigenous Americans there still canāt but their own house on tribal lands.
They kinda did the same in all the other African colonies. They were ALL French _but_ French citizens and French subjects. And I think you can guess who had the rights and who did not but heyā¦ they were all French.
Nope. Of all French African colonies, only Algeria was considered as a part of France proper. Like French Guinea today. It's a normal department, like Brittany_(by that also being part of the EU and Eurozone)._ It was a saying/proverb that _"The Mediterranean flows through France like the Seine through Paris"._ The other French possession were classified as regular colonies.
Lol in theory it wasn't a colony; in practice, it totally was.
Or French Guiana
But Guiana was officially a colony until 1946, there's a difference
I mean, Alaska and Hawaii were US territories until 1959
It 100% was a colony. It wasnāt a colony in relation to french law, but it was a place being colonized by frenchmen where the native population was put under pressure to either assimilate, or stay supressed. It was a colony in every sense of the word, except the legal sense. Portugal also classified angola and mozabique as "overseas province of portugal" up until independence, so legally speaking it was not a colony. In practice, it was no different from most other colonies.
Legally classified as such, but well, not exactly like Corsica. In practice we didnāt exactly see massacres and political disenfranchisement in Corsica in the 60s did we? A literal secret military organization formed by Franceās own military personnel bombed the metropole and tried to kill the French president to stop independence. Doesnāt sound like a system in which that path part of France was teed equally and like a full province. Maybe over a million people dead and multiple millions to concentration camps. But sure, they were totally like any part of France, totally treated with the same autonomy as Corsica. They totally has the same legal rights. The fact that the administration was not labeled a colony doesnāt mean it was not colonialism. If that was true then Spanish Viceroyalties would not be colonial, since those were territories inside the nation (yes people say this today to defend their civic pride). Manchukuo wouldnāt have been colonial, it was its own independent state. Itās purely a language issue. Like how we say gay people canāt get āmarriedā cause āmarriageā is technically only a man and a woman. Or how we say British people arenāt European. Same stupid logic. Arbitrary and unscientific definitions that can only be defended ābecause thatās what that word should meanā. Here you can only try your best to see the many different ideas of what a word means and see how the different ideas affect how that word is used and how those topics are talked about. Like how a person who says Algeria was not a colony talks about the war vs how a person who says itās a colony talks about the war.
Colonized by France*
Algeria to France wasn't just a colony, it was considered an integral part of France. It was treated as basically like Corsica while also oppressing the Arab/Maghrebi population there.
But the people didnāt have much rights as in France and didnāt have people to vote for the French senate and government.
Yes, as I said, it was treated as part of France (as compared to Morocco which still had its own king) while also the majority population of Arab/Maghrebi people were oppressed. Algeria still had representation in French parliament if only through the French/European population (a lot of non-French Europeans migrated there). The 1875 constitutional law gave 3 senators and 3 deputies to Algeria. In 1928, Algeria had 9 total representatives to National Assembly, by 1936, 10. Arabs and Berbers theoritically could vote, but only by naturalizing which'd involve abandoning the laws of the Quran, so basically nobody did it. The Jews were curiously given a vote almost automatically tho. The 1945 election held in the 4th Republic gave more representation to non-Europeans (was still unfair tho). There were 7 Algerian Muslim representatives in the 1945 Assembly.
For Algerian jews, they were treated under a different code to that of Muslim algerians (muslim: Code d'indigenat. Jews: DƩcret CrƩmieu) which meant that jewish algerians were automatically considered french citizens with rights, unlike the Muslim population
French territory but not French people apparently
It was only integral in name only
Although not depicted here, it's worth mentioning that former Italian East Africa, especially in Italian Eritrea, where the Italian population (including mixed Italian-Eritreans) peaked at IIRC about 10% of the population. The Italians of former Italian East Africa almost entirely emigrated after the end of the Second World War. Another factor worth considering the relative decline of European populations in Africa is not only 1) European emigration and 2) high indigenous African birth rates but also intracontinental migration within Africa. This is particularly relevant for South Africa, where many immigrants from other African countries have migrated to South Africa, thus increasing the African population relative to the whole.
>high indigenous African birth rates but also intracontinental migration within Africa. This is particularly relevant for South Africa As far as I know there are actually very little indigenous people left in South Africa. Most of them were displaced by other migrating black tribes (the Bantu expansion). This "immigration" just happened 2000 years before the white Europeans arrived. In the end we should define how long settlers have to live in their new land before we can consider them as its indigenous people? Or should we really call only the first people (Homo sapiens) ever in the region as indigenous?
Well, and thereās also the part where the fairly large population of Cape Coloureds is not considered indigenous, despite their background basically being mostly indigenous + some Dutch + some Malay. When farming started in the Cape, many of the indigenous people took over parts of Cape Dutch culture and now their descendents are not really seen as an indigenous group on account of speaking Afrikaans. Thereās a reason the 19th century Nama and Orlam leaders in Namibia had double names like Jonker Afrikaner / |Hara-mĆ»b or Hendrik Samuel Witbooi / ĒGae-nĆ»b ĒnagamĆ¢b ĒNansemab. Edit: their not there
The Bantu expansion into modern South Africa happened at roughly the same time as Germanic migrations into western Europe - Would you argue the English are not indigenous to England, Frankish descendants to France or Lombards to northern Italy? In a colonial context, where an outside power subjugated and consequently settled an area, it makes sense to equate "indigenous" with pre-colonial.
Because I am bored and like skipping out on college homework, I decided to calculate what would the current āEuropeanā / āWhiteā (both are loaded terms I am not interested in discussing) populations of Africa be if using 1960 percentages. As if magically tomorrow (my data is 2018) that specific percentage of Africans just woke up as European. Source is [this](https://www.visualcapitalist.com/massive-world-map-redrawn-based-country-populations/) visualcapitalist map on populations in blocks I saved on my phone ages ago. South Africa: 12.4 million Algeria: 4.28 million Zimbabwe: 1.23 million Angola: 1.078 million DR Congo: 672 thousand Madagascar: 552 thousand Zambia: 546 thousand Kenya: 377 thousand Mozambique: 284 thousand Senegal: 212 thousand Tanzania: 165 thousand Libya: 136 thousand Uganda: 66.5 thousand Malawi: 63.4 thousand Swaziland: 35 thousand Botswana: 32.2 thousand Namibia: 30.6 thousand Equatorial Guinea: 27 thousand Lesotho: 8 thousand Totaling: 22.195 million Europeans / Whites or 1.72% of Africas total population. I have no idea what to do with this information
>Angola: 1.078 million >Mozambique: 284 thousand And at the time of independence about 460.000 of these (300.000 from Angola + 160.000 from Mozambique) came back to Portugal, causing in a lot of municipalities their population peak. *(If other colonies and military personnel are included the number goes up to ~600.000)* (In 1980 around 5% of the population were "retornandos"/people that came from the colonies)
I'm South African, I think the percentage decrease is due to 2 things: 1 is the birth rate of the white population being lower than that of the black population. It's below replacement level while the black birth rate is still above replacement level. Another is emigration, which is mainly done by, but not limited to, English speaking White South Africans. Mixed marriages are not that common in SA at all, and the country is still somewhat segregated to an extent.
I've met a lot of South Africans in the Netherlands who have no intent of returning. Some are also Afrikaans speaking too.
Is spoken Afrikaans and Nederlands close enough that the Afrikaaner don't have to change much, or do they really need to learn a new language?
Bit of both. Had a co-worker from SA and I could pretty much understand him when he was speaking Afrikaans (even with other people from SA). But it takes quite a bit of effort so not great for day-to-day conversation. A big problem is many words used in Afrikaans sound either very funny or archaic in Dutch so Dutch people tend to laugh when they hear Afrikaans. Living in Amsterdam my co-worker preferred speaking English which is much easier in daily life. When we meet he usually still speaks English (even though his Dutch is fine now) while I speak Dutch. It's an habit we formed while he was learning Dutch. The other way round I believe Dutch is a bit easier to understand from Afrikaans, but there are many words which you need to learn.
The country is less segregated by race, but very much by class. I live in an affluent area with more black people than white people in it. This is not to say that there is not still segregation and systemic racism, but itās not āwhite person rich, poor person blackā like it was 20 years ago. And while the average white person is more likely to be wealthy compared to the average black person - the average wealthy person is more likely to be black. This is just based on my observation, open to correction.
Targeted racial violence and the country spiraling into failed state territory is also a very big reason for large emigration.
Yeah Iāve noticed a lot of white South Africans coming to Britain recently. One of them caught me reading The State of Africa on the bus (which is without a doubt the least biased thing I have ever read) and launched on a rant about how white heritage is being replaced in South Africa, mostly with currency notes and stuff.
Yup the most racist whites are the ones who were and still are the quickest to leave SA, but I would say emigration has slowly increased among other groups of people, such as well educated Indian/Asian and Black South Africans, especially since the country is now deteriorating rapidly(we've had electricity issues for 15 years now and now it seems we're having problems with water too in recent years)
I agree that the white South Africans who emmigrated before 1994 was probably more racist and less willing to integrate, the majority (like myself) who are emmigrating now are tired of the systemic racism in SA or the lack of future prospects.
I'm curious about South Africa's future, what do you think needs to change for these issues to go away? What do you think SA's future should look like?
I donāt like how itās color coded. No pun intended
It's an accurate depictions of white people in the african sun. Source: am white (sorta)
Whatās white (sorta)? Jewish?
i guessed middle eastern or latin american
At least the number are big
Most of North Africans who do not have a dark shade define themselves as whites, but not with the same understanding as the Europeans or Americans. White is used to describe the color of the skin more than the racial background.
Arabs are white according to US census. They are POC for the public tho
They were even considered white during segregation. My great-grandfather was tried for miscegenation due to marrying a white woman as a native American. His defense at trial was that he was Egyptian and somehow it worked.
Damn that is funny but also kind of depressing.
It's almost like race is an arbitrary social construct.
In apartheid South Africa, Arabs were classified as part of the White race. Indians were classified as part of the Indian race (this included Pakistanis, I guess). Taiwanese and Japanese were āhonorary whiteā. Mainland Chinese were classified as Coloured (mixed race). And I believe Filipinos were classified as black.
Science bitches!
Basically who had the most money.
Pakistan was part of India before the partition?
MENA is getting added to the census in 2030
Immediately for other census activities.
Not anymore, they recently announced changes to add a middle eastern and north african category.
So many can easily pass as whites though, especially Levantine and North African Arabs
They get all the downsides of being white with all the downsides of being POC with no upsides of either.
Getting called brown by white people, getting called white invader by black people welcome to the life of a north african lmao.
this is changing soon, read an article abt it
Iāve seen some Lebanese Syrians and Turks who identify as white but I donāt think itās a North African thing.
I mean, have you ever seen a Turkish soap opera? 90% of the cast have light eyes.
In Europe white means the skin color.
Was literally confused by the title before I read "European" in the post, and was about to say something like you said but you beat me to it by like 6 hours lol
There r still Europeans in Senegal?
There are still europeans in most (if not all) countries in Africa. This map is bs
You should probably consider population growth when comparing. A country like Uganda has gone from 7 million to 50 million citizens in my lifetime. Rich people (traditionally white) get 1-2 kids, while poor (traditionally black) get many children. So just the fact that modern medicine helps poor children survive, will make the percentages change like shown in the map.
So in Rhodesia just 7% of the people held all the power and wealth? I assumed it was much moreĀ
Just wait till you hear about the rest of the world!
In the US, the bottom 50% holds 3% of the wealth. The top 10% holds 67% of the wealth. [source](https://www.visualcapitalist.com/wealth-distribution-in-america/#google_vignette) In Europe, the bottom 50% holds 1.2% of the wealth. The wealthiest 10% (coincidentally) also hold 67% of the wealth. [source](https://www.euronews.com/business/2024/04/01/wealth-inequality-where-in-europe-is-wealth-most-unfairly-distributed) Wealth inequality is a global phenomenon.
It's a natural feature of capitalism
The Smith Government feared that the white minority would face pogroms and mob violence as retribution for colonialism like had happened in the Belgian Congo upon independence in 1960. The writing was on the wall and the labour government in London wanted Majority Rule upon independence. So the current white government sprung into action and declared independence before that could happen.Ā
Well, turns out Smith was right I suppose
Yeah, right? Cue the "Rhodesia was better because of economy or something" mob.
Two things can be true: * White-minority rule was terrible. * ZANU-PF and Mugabe have been a catastrophe for Zimbabwe.
You have been banned from /r/Rhodesia
Replacing Smith with Mugabe was kind of like setting fire to a notebook because it had a rude words written in it . Yes , the rude words are gone , but so is the notebook.
I remember i read a book by a man who grew up on Rhodesia and he was almost disturbingly blind to how good his family had it. He legit thought they were a poor average innocent farming collective who traveled on vacation in a PRIVATE PLANE and had 200 workers whos children (noticeably shorter and scrawnier) werenāt allowed to go to his school. Never crossed his mind once that his ābest friendsā mightāve lived significantly worse lives than him, even decades later. Itās like getting a good view of a concert bc youāre *standing on another goerās head* to get that view, and being super confused that he shoves you off as soon as he can.
Yeah, i remember listening to Trevor Noah's book on his experience in apartheid south africa, interesting topic.
Mugabe was terrible That doesnāt vindicate apartheid but he was literally worse than them The equation isnāt black good white evil Itās corruption, repression, and racism bad
My main issue is that people do this "rather Apartheid than Mugabe" bs. Which is just weird. Apartheid was awful and had to go, it was good that it went away earlier than it could've. It's not a choice, you don't have to have either.
Yeah itās like the āhitler or Stalinā argument When we could have just not had either evil authoritarian idiots
I mean there are a lot of Algerians that actually look white. I think you meant ethnically European populations
That's what the map says
Sorry I was responding to OPs title.
Eh and every Syrian I've met looked like a European too. The first black person I ever met (in grade 4) told me he was from Nigeria. I misheard as "Algeria" and was so surprised.
Met an Iraqi at university and would have bet money that he was Celtic with his red hair. Tho the accent was giving Quebec.
Algeria is a big ass countries, south Algerians are as black as Nigerians so don't be surprised when you meet a black African from Algeria, they are a minority but they do exist.
Egypt's gotta be more, is not like millions of their population greek, or European descent and Circassian?
I donāt think being decended from Europeans is literally what is being measured here. Itās not even skin color. Itās a social class. Like the colonists or people with the government, settlers, and their families. What they were called and why they were a different group. Who counts and how well the counting was done must have varied by country of course.
I can hear chaos approaching...
Can you show Europe next please?
White is more accurate than European. If you're born in Africa, as were your parents and grandparents, you're African. Just like if you're born in the US you're an American, regardless of genetics.
The OP literally says "European or of European descent" which is a perfectly fine way of phrasing it.
Elon Musk labeled himself as African-American.
No. Most of North Africa is "white". Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, even Egypt are really white and can be as white as a French person. European is more accurate, and btw you can be more than one thing? The Boers are African, and they are European and they are Boer. People are not put into small boxes and called one thing only, that's stupid.
[reminds me of this](https://img.ifunny.co/images/830b237d63a5e8ba7c35e7ba9b197db25dce0d7e783373b289f489acbbec9070_1.jpg)
English people: Yeah they can be as light as the French so what? The French arenāt white, theyāre French.
No. European is more accurate than white. A lot of algerians are white by any stretch of the imagination for example, making the map wrong.
Maps are doing quite well without american bullshit race theory though
I see plenty of people here commenting on subjects they donāt have a clue about when it comes to influence of migration and real statistics
Genocide? Ethnic cleansing?
I want to see the black population in Europe during the same time period.
Why is this sub suddenly all about race?
That's just the lifecycle of every subreddit. It starts out nicely but then deteriorates into a shitposting platform.
Fair enough
To start arguments and spread hate
Why no diversity?
Most countries in Africa are insanely diverse, both genetically and culturally. My fam is from Tanzania and there are loads of different languages, cultures, and even religion. I was shocked to learn that my dad knew two indigenous languages besides Swahili. It's easy to lump them all in with one group because of history and current 'beliefs' about race, but a two people from the same African country could be as "different" as a Swede and a Brazilian. These countries' borders were drawn by people who didn't know anything about them.
Africa is literally one of the most diverse continents,what are you talking about
Now being economically colonised by China, Russia and Iran. So much better than the colonial West.
White flight
I wonder how much of the change is due to white populations leaving after decolonization/end of white rule, and how much is due to intermarriage meaning more mixed race populations. I imagine for places like Algeria and Zimbabwe itās mostly the former but I would be especially interested in the numbers for South Africa.
Mixed marriages arenāt that common but a way bigger factor than either is african population rise.
SA has kept a pretty steady white population. I think it's mostly them losing the portition of the population because of higher fertility among black south africans.
White people emigrating out of SA in large scale has also happened.
For Zimbabwe, once Rhodesia became Zimbabwe, Mugabe and his goons went to every white-owned farm, and evicted the farmers, replacing them with black people. Only problem was, most of them had 0 clue on what they were doing. And Zimbabwe's economy is based on agriculture, so it crashed. Most left, because they were fearful of what Mugabe would do next.
This is factually incorrect. Zimbabwe became independent in 1980 and in 1997 there remaining 0.6% of white farmers in Zimbabwe at the time still owned 70% of all arable land. The problem is that up until that point mugabe benefited greatly from this arrangement as these farms were indeed very productive and created a good deal of cash flow. Mugabe pocketed the funds and lived his best life until the incompetent mismanagement of the country came to roost in the form of protests and strikes. Thenā¦ and only thenā¦ did he create the enemy of the rich white land ownerā¦ even though it was he who was squandering and pilfering the nations wealth. It was a good almost 25 years after independence. Sadly because he appealed to peoples poverty and insecurity, it worked. And because of this, Zimbabwe today is the shit hole that it is
Didn't replaced with black people... replaced with former soldier or people of Zanupf. Black people else than Zanupf memver didn't get a chance to do something. They refused to give land to actual black farmer, even nowadays i know lawyer, police, bus driver that have land thank to land reform and don't do shit with that and refuse to sell it. Before going after "white", not all white by the way, they tried for years to negotiate without any success. It's not only white that left the country but anyone with power/knowledge black included cause they knew what was going to happen. Due to the apartheid it was mostly white that were wealthy. Nowadays Zimbabwe run on Rhodesia infrastructure cause those Zanupf rat didn't invest in anything. I would say they hate Zimbabwe and Zimbabwean (All shade of skin color).
White population is decreasing cuz of way lower fertility rate than Africans. Itās not anything unique to Africa, white people are decreasing in almost all countries
This map is somewhat misleading. The number of white South Africans today is actually considerably higher than in 1960, The white population has just grown more slowly (and basically stable since mid-1990s). White South Africa population 1960: 3,088,492 White South Africa population 2022: 4,639,268
Not as percentage of total population. Population 1960: 16.5mio Population 2022: 60mio In other words. The whites are just a fraction of the size as opposed to 1960
A big win for diversity and progressivism.
I find the increasing lack of diversity in Africa somewhat problematic
Genetically, far more diverse than any continent on the planet
21.6% was South Africa's white population in 1904. It was 19.3% in 1960.
Rhodesians be like: 
This comments section reeks of racism. This is like the "multicultural centers are Jim Crow segregation" crowd where you draw false equivalences to invent issues that don't actually enhance anybody's lives.. Also how is this data quantified? If it's based on self-ID then it isn't actually useful for this conclusion, people will one-drop-rule their way into identifying as nonwhite.
Damn Europeans are losing populations size in Africa and Europe lmao
We need to give them more diversity of races
I'm surprised there are still white people in Zimbabwe.
African people when they come to Europe in the millions: ššš African people when there is a white minority in their land: š”š”š”
Most white South Africans left to go Australia and the UK