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While Essentially Optimistic This Is Not To Be Confused With Thinking That ...

While essentially optimistic this is not to be confused with thinking that believing that human nature is always good. Humanists believe in the potential for goodness. The goal for humanists is to make life better for all humans. One of the most important parts of humanist discourse is that it acknowledges human rights as derived from the natural law and based upon the nature of man. One of the main tenets is that human rights are universal and applied to all men because all men have the same human nature. Therefore it can be taken that humanist development is development that centres upon the rights of the individual to self-determination. This form of development also helps with the acceptance and the healing of wounds from warfare particularly intra-state conflict that has been based upon ethnicity for example the conflict in Rwanda between the Hutu's and the Tutsi's. As Bauman states ‘the dominant ethos of humanist philosophy, however, seems to be the belief in a cultivable human subjectivity and the ability of an autonomous human consciousness to do the cultivating.'
Through humanist development the identity of the indigenous populations of the post-colonial states can be brought together, wounds healed and the rebuilding and re-development can commence.‘Humanism has been able to account for the base importance of human life and identity and the consequent necessity of national and cultural freedom and independence as a precondition to a (theoretically) unrepressed expansion and development of that human life and identity.' While the humanist principles and ideals are to be applauded unfortunately there is a great difference between these ideals and the reality for many of those living in conflict torn impoverished states in Africa. The following section examines the realities of post-colonial Africa.

The reality of post-colonial development in Africa
Looking at a map of contemporary Africa the borders between states still very much reflect the borders drawn up under European colonial rule. Since their independence the short history of post-colonial Africa is one marred with instability, conflict, bloodshed, and outbreaks of disease, authoritarian rule and corruption. The legacy of colonialism is certainly a dark one Africa stripped of her wealth and left in poverty, struggling to contain diseases, regular outbreaks of fighting, civil unrest and civil war further eroding any chance of development. Surely the former coloniser is indebted to their former host country (albeit hosts by force rather than will). For they came, reaped and then left. The human rights abuses None of the former coloniser states are experiencing the difficulties as their former colonies are.
The nature of warfare has changed; war is more likely now to occur within states rather than between states.


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