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The Magnitude Of The Death Toll Remains Unknown, But It Has Been Estimated ...

The magnitude of the death toll remains unknown, but it has been estimated that the number of African civilian casualties in the 1980swas between two and three million In the following decade, the continuation of conflict and ethnic wars in Sudan and the atrocities committed in Liberia, Eritrea, Ethiopia, in addition to the massacres between Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda, has added millions to these dismal figures of violent death in Africa'. This intra rather than inter state conflict is often ethnically motivated, such as the genocide in Rwanda between the Hutu's and the Tutsi's an ethnic divide that did not exist before colonialism and one which cause one of the bloodiest battles in post-colonial African history. This is a particularly tragic example of how colonial rule had drastic after effect. Prior to the scramble for Africa these two groups had become integrated and merged into one culture. In the scramble for Africa the Belgians took control of the region and introduced a system of racial segregation along very weak lines and issued passports to both groups. Those who were better off economically were classed as Hutu, those less well off Tutsi's. The conflict in 1994 was a Tutsi uprising against the Hutus. These wars are being fought because of socio-economic reason, ethnic conflicts, conflicts over the distribution of scare resource. The reasons they are being fought are a direct result of the post-colonial legacy.
It could be argued that humanist discourse in relation to the previously colonised states as a reaction in the opposite direction from how they had treated the indigenous people. From enslaving them, treating them as nothing more than cattle, this has brought shame and so by way of reparation, making up for the past, development focused on humanist principles, that it acknowledging the rationality and the right of self determination of the individual to decide their own future. This is still to be realised in Africa, where many are dependent on international aid for daily survival. Even though Apartheid in South Africa has been legally abolished the legacy of apartheid, segregation at every level, very much remains in South Africa. It will take decades before the economic and social divides that were set up under the apartheid system to become equal, if they ever truly will. The legacy of colonialism has left Africa crippled, the impact of colonisation on Africa can clearly be seen regularly reported on the news and hitting newspaper headlines: disease, famine, not the means to cope with drought and then there is the conflict the destabilising aftermath of colonialism is still very much being felt in Africa. Humanist discourse or not what is needed is support through international means, fair trading deals and the means to equip Africa to help itself develop from being a developing country to being a developed one.


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