Stability in leadership and independence matters a great deal wherever on the dictatorial to democratic scale. France should have left all its former colonies to govern themselves without coercion but Charles de Gaulle was racist imperialist bastard so he set the tone to keep trying to reassert French colonial power. The US should have let France drown out in Vietnam like it did Britain in Suez but the US had to continue being bastards too

Regardless stability provides space for people to build communities generationally. Afghanistan pretty much lost that in the 1800s when the British arrived. Afghanistan was not an out of the ordinary place in terms of stability and violence like people make it out to be. They were par the course for the ~1700/1800s. Durrani Empire.

I bring them up to bring them up in comparison to Iran. Iran had periods of outside domination but were large enough and maintained a national identity that stretched thousands of years so for how regressive they are relative to the colonial powers, compared to countries like Afghanistan or Libya or Syria which have not had the ability to stave off foreign aggression, Iran is well developed. Large college educated population. Fairly developed industrial base. All that while sanctioned to hell

India and Pakistan have been at times sanctioned to hell and back by the former colonial powers, they’ve both managed something far better than the countries that get invaded all the time. Vietnam under siege for a century and then sanctioned to hell for overthrowing Pol Pot. China fits there too. They all had long periods in modern times of not being under siege and self determination. All progressing well in spite out sanctions, debt traps from former colonial nations, and threats of violence from our nations

Latin American countries are glimpsing an emergence from European and American violence. Brazil has potential to someday make what the US is doing with Venezuela too risky

Here we are 24 years since Afghanistan was invaded and 4 years since the Taliban returned to power. They’re bastards but I bet if they weren’t toppled in 2001, Afghanistan would be a lot better developed and progressing towards what people in our colonialist countries would prefer. We mostly all live in countries that were the evils of the world for centuries

So to Africa that’s the present of numerous proxy wars between the western aligned nations and Russia. France, Russia, the US are walking themselves into another southeast Asia where millions will be slaughtered and people out here will scoff at these countries because they’re so regressive and backwards regardless over the centuries of violence we bring them.

Someday there will be a nation in Africa that can keep Europeans and Americans from treating it like a video game. It may be authoritarian or it may be democratic. Either is better than letting Americans and Europeans play war games in their homes and make movies about how sad they are. I write all this because even in this hyper leftist Lemmy world, you really get that white savior sour grapes nonsense from probably European/American/Australian/New _Zealand/… users that I am certain would be great at building a road to hell paved with good intentions. The people are ignorant and self-righteous. The leaders are usually just evil overtly or benignly