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I prefer to criticize claims rather than insult people who make incorrect claims, cause if you insult the person that doesn't give them any room to correct themselves and just encourages them to double down.

Interesting that you would comment this on a video that never makes the argument that Africa is poor due to colonialism. Almost like you didn't watch the video before deciding what to comment. Anyway, the majority of SEA was decolonized between 1945 and 1957. The majority of Sub-Saharan Africa was decolonized between 1957 and 1975. This means that both Southeast Asia and Africa have had time to experience numerous other events that impacted their economic development since decolonization, and that Southeast Asia has had more of it. The fact that you would completely ignore historical political and sociological factors in favor of treating "biology or geography" as the only two possibilities is baffling. It's like if you looked at North and South Korea and were like, "Ah, the South is doing far better than the North, even though both suffered under Japanese colonialism. Clearly this must indicate some intrinsic quality of the North, either biology or geography." PS. In terms of nominal GDP, the poorest of the 11 Southeast Asian countries ranks below 51 out of 54 African countries, the second and third poorest rank below 31 of 54, the fourth ranks below 15 (including 11 Sub-Saharan countries), and the 5th ranks below 12 (including 9 Sub-Saharan). In terms of per capita GDP, the 6 highest ranking countries in Africa (all Sub-Saharan) rank above 7 out of 11 Southeast Asian countries, and the 4 lowest ranking Southeast Asian countries rank below 23 African countries. So, the gap between Southeast Asia as a whole and Africa as a whole may not be as wide as you imagine.

Thank you! If you haven't already, I'd recommend checking out "The Benin Plaques: A 16th Century Imperial Monument" by Kathryn Gunsch, I'm sure it will be a useful source for your paper. Good luck!

@@SomasAcademy I will have to check that out, thanks! I'm studying anthropology and history, and reading a book about repatriation that discussed the Benin Bronzes is one reason I decided to get my degree so I'm excited to learn more about them :)

@ Cool! I studied history and anthropology in college too, and Benin was one of my main research interests when I was doing my MA lol I'm gonna send you an invite to a Discord server with a lot of history nerds in it, if you ever want some more suggestions for sources about Benin it's a great place to ask because we've got one member with an entire Google Drive folder full of them lol: discord.gg/TBs2xRea

@ Joined, thanks! Always cool to see the work of other anthro/history folks

Thanks for the amazingly detailed and constructive feedback lmao

I can't even tell what this comment is supposed to be implying

Your example doesn't actually demonstrate what you think. While firearms had been around in Eurasia for quite a bit longer, muskets were a recent innovation; in the 11th century gunpowder was developed, the first hand guns were invented in the 12th and spread to Europe in the 14th (note that it took a full 2 centuries for that technology to spread from one end of Eurasia to the other), the arquebus was invented in Western Eurasia in the mid- to late-15th century, and the musket (a variation of the arquebus) was developed in Europe in the late-15th or early-16th century. This is the same century those Saadi Moroccans you mentioned brought musketeers across the Sahara to fight against Songhai - note that I said musketeers, not muskets, as while Morocco had seen some adoption of firearms including both cannon (staring in the 15th century, over a century after cannon had been introduced to Europe) and arquebus, their rate of adoption was still far lower than in Europe; Morocco had, in fact, only developed their first foundry in the 1530s, with the majority of firearms in their possession being traded or captured from European enemies. While you could certainly make a strong case that the use of muskets and other firearms by the Moroccans and not the Songhai played a decisive role in the Saadi victory, this is not representative of a slower transfer of technology over the Sahara, as this exact same technology was still only trickling into North Africa from Europe. This makes it pretty evident that a technology taking a while to spread from one region to another isn't inherently the result of geographic barriers, unless you're also going to make the argument that the Mediterranean was a major barrier to the spread of technology. Meanwhile, to the east of Songhai, the Bornu Empire adopted firearms from the Ottomans in the 1570s... around 14 years before the Moroccan conquest of Songhai. So, within a century of their invention, muskets had spread from Western Asia to North Africa and across the Sahara. This does not illustrate that the Sahara slowed down the spread of technologies, quite the opposite; in fact, muskets had crossed the Sahara before they spread across Eurasia. Japan's first muskets arrived by ship from Portugal, not through trade routes across Eurasia. It's true that Africans never adopted gunpowder weapons to the same extent as other parts of the world, but this statement is somewhat misleading; if you exclude the rockets, grenades, and cannons invented in Asia early in the history of gunpowder and only focus on more efficient hand-held firearms developed by Europeans and West Asians, the penetration of these weapons into Eastern Asia and Africa began at roughly the same time, and was comparable in many ways. There were limitations in both cases, as European powers limited how many guns they would sell, and in some cases would only hire out gunmen rather than selling the equipment. In both Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, we also have examples of local gun manufacturing attempts in the 17th century, namely in Japan and the Kingdom of Benin. However, in Africa firearms were significantly more popular in some regions than in others; for example, firearms were significantly more popular in areas with more savannah than areas with more forests. This is because the advantages of early firearms were largely cancelled out by dense forests; one of the main advantages of firearms over other weapons like bows was range, but early firearms were slow to load and not super accurate at distance, both of which were compensated for through use of volley tactics. These tactics became ineffective in forests, as it would be harder to line up a bunch of men, and dense trees made it hard to get an unobstructed shot over a long distance, negating one of the key advantages of the weapon. In the 19th century firearms got more accurate and repeating guns were developed, but in these later periods European traders were prevented from selling up-to-date equipment to Africans, instead only selling older (usually muzzle-loading) pieces (no maxim guns were ever sold to Africans, hence the famous rhyme). Hence, lower adoption of firearms in Africa was not contingient on slow transfer of information and technology due to the Sahara, it related to environmental factors limiting the effectiveness of firearms in some regions early on, and trading restrictions in all periods but especially later.

@@SomasAcademy Haha well I definitely concede. That was an interesting read, thank you. But I still have that issue of not trying to lump North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa together because they are still completely different regions with one being a distinct cultural region while the other being part of another. There has been a recent push (mostly by North Africans and some Pan Africanists) to be more inclusive of North Africa when talking about "Africa" (even though the term "Africa" had been first used to refer to Tunisia which is funnily ironic), and people tend to use the arguments you've used here to support that, not accounting for the fact that cultural exchange is a human thing done across cultures not just within them. I also noticed you also make that distinction exactly as I believe should be done, but the recent narrative is to not do that, and I disagree with that narrative. Or what do you think about this, am I wrong? And why do you think it merits that North Africa should be included in conversations surrounding Africa as a cultural region as opposed to being included in the Mediterranean region or be referred to as its own cultural region? And to preface, while yes, Sub Saharan Africa is a vast region with immense cultural and genetic diversity, I do believe as someone from that region, that all those cultures have the same few core cultural values and traits that makes them related and in addition to that, there are things that are universal across our cultures not found outside, for example the concept of Ubuntu is nearly universal across Sub Saharan Africa, which there are many different translations in different languages, for my culture the Damara/Nama or Khoekhoe, there is the concept of Kare which is more or less the same thing as Ubuntu with an additional focus on pride and humility.

I think any very large groupings will inevitably be misleading; when we talk about "Africa" as a single unit, we're glossing over a lot of significant distinctions, not just those between "North" and "Sub-Saharan" Africa. I would also say the same of the term "Sub-Saharan Africa" - the Sahel has historically had significantly stronger cultural and trade connections to North Africa than to Southern Africa (by which I mean the region called "Southern Africa," i.e. South Africa, Zimbabwe, Namibia, etc., not just the areas south of the Sahel), but the term "Sub-Saharan Africa" separates the former two while lumping the latter together. In fact, I'd argue that the Forest Kingdoms of West Africa were comparably culturally distinct from the Sahel to how distinct the Sahel was from North Africa (maybe even moreso since we have significantly stronger records of people travelling to the Sahel from the Mediterranean than from the Forest Belt, though this may just be due to limitations in the written record). And I would argue that North Africa is equally part of a "Mediterranean world" and a "Saharan world"; it's in the center of a Venn Diagram between the two. Now, we can absolutely draw a line between North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa, but only in the same sense we can draw a line between North Africa and Southern Europe despite both being integrated into a common Mediterranean World. So, I do absolutely try to include North Africa when speaking about "Africa" in general, because to do otherwise I think misleadingly splits closely connected cultures while lumping more distinct ones; I just also speak of "North Africa" and "Sub-Saharan Africa" where doing so is useful. I would also argue that it would in some regards be more accurate to speak of "Sub-Sahelian Africa" than "Sub-Saharan Africa" in terms of cultural distinctions, since the Sahel was to such a great extent integrated into the Islamicate world, but I use the term "Sub-Saharan" more frequently because it's a more widely known term. But yeah, the reality is more a matter of a series of overlapping cultural areas or a gradient between different cultural areas; hard lines should be understood as simplifications we make for ease of communication, not accurate reflections of tangible historical distinctions.

@@SomasAcademy Wouldn't the Sahel simply be an extension or peripheral region of Sub Saharan Africa than being closer to North Africa? The Sahel is islamic which is true and has had historical ties to North Africa, but that doesn't mean they were more closer to North Africa. I know that Sahel peoples blended islamic religion with indigenous traditions, which were closer to those of Guinean and forest peoples, for example that was one of Ibn Batutta's criticisms while visiting the Mali empire. In addition to that, the economy of that region was more closely linked to the surrounding lush regions in West Africa, I mean didn't they mine gold from the wet tropical regions of Mali and Burkina Faso even as far south as central Cote D'Ivoire? I also read that there was Ivory trade, nuts and timber etc as well as grains being traded back and forth. Of course, I'm not saying I would understand the culture of Senegal being from Southern Africa, like you said these distinctions are more like gradients than hard lines. And that also brings the question of why there has been a historical prejudice against Sub Saharan Africans, specifically those from Sahel, in North Africa? Wouldn't logic dictate that they would be more welcoming of those that share cultural values with them? Not just in both peoples being Muslim but due to their shared history and such, because it would be kind of inaccurate to lump the two together solely because of Islam and historical trade?

​@ Much as North Africa can be considered closely linked to both Southern Europe and the Sahel, the Sahel can be considered closely linked with both North Africa and the Sudanian grassland and savannah region to its south. The Sahel was economically tied both to the north and to the south, and the large Sahelian empires like Wagadu (which I have a video about), Mali, and Songhai all profited heavily by acting as middle-men in the trade of gold, most of which came from further south in the Sudanian grassland and forest belt, and salt, which mostly came from flats in the Sahara. Goods such as glasswork and textiles like silk also came from the north, while products like ivory and agricultural products also came from the south. Economically the Sahel was heavily tied to both the north and south, with its intermediate position playing a major role in the nature of the Sahelian economy; once again, it's a matter of overlapping bubbles and gradients. I say I think the Sahel may be more closely historically tied to North Africa than to other parts of Sub-Saharan Africa because of the additional continuous exchange of intellectual traditions through the regular movement of scholars across the Sahara, as opposed to the older cultural ties between, for example, the Mande speaking groups of the Sahel and other Niger-Congo speaking groups from further south in West Africa; while groups like the Mande had a fundamentally Niger-Congo cultural foundation, this was a very ancient connection to their southern neighbors (and that's ignoring the presence of Afroasiatic groups in the Sahel, who share common linguistic and connected cultural heritage with North Africans comparable to the connections between Sahellian and Sub-Sahelian Niger-Congo speaking groups). This is a valid connection to point out, but suggesting that it negates the idea of a common Saharan World would be a bit like suggesting that the concept of a Mediterranean World is invalid due to the majority of Southern Europeans sharing an Indo-European cultural foundation with their northern neighbors. The continuous exchange of culture between North Africa and the Sahel is present not only in the shared religion, but also in the shared written script, early scientific literature, poetic tradition, and similar scholarly pursuits. If religion were all that linked these regions, then lumping them together would be invalid, but a continuous exchange of goods and ideas is enough for us to lump North Africa and Southern Europe into a common group, so a similar exchange of goods and ideas paired with common cultural elements such as religion and written script should certainly be considered enough to group North Africa and the Sahel into a common category. As for why there was historical prejudice faced by Sub-Saharan Africans in North Africa, well, that's a complex topic, but to heavily simplify sometimes people just care more about differences in culture and appearance than common values and other connections. In the Islamicate world Arab chauvinism has long been a strong social force, which impacted groups such as Imazighen, Turks, Kurds, Iranians, and Indians as well as Sub-Saharan Africans, regardless of religion, but since Sub-Saharan Africans and Indians were more easily visually distinguished from Arabs than these other groups they at times faced harsher discrimination. Part of it is also the fact that many of the Sub-Saharan Africans in North Africa were not Sahelians, but were enslaved people forcefully brought to the region from further south, which resulted in conflations of Sub-Saharan features with certain traits used to demean and dehumanize the enslaved. But regardless of this prejudice, that cultural overlap still exists, and is far more significant than the cultural overlap between people in the Sahel and in Southern Africa; if cultural, religious, commercial, and diplomatic connections between North Africa and the Sahel aren't enough to consider them part of a common "world" of sorts, I struggle to see how we could consider it valid to lump North Africa and Southern Europe together without a shared religion, let alone how we could justify lumping the Sahel together instead with Southern Africa, which at most had some ancient linguistic and cultural connections largely severed by distance (and which contains some sub-regions where the majority of people historically didn't even share these connections, being Khoisan populations rather than Niger-Kongo speaking groups). I cannot see how, if religion and trade alone are not enough to group two regions together, that we could possibly argue that two regions without even these elements to unite them would be a more logical grouping.

Yes, Ougadougou was most likely founded by people from Wagadu and is named for the empire.

He wasn't just said to come from "the east" in some general sense but specifically from Oke Ora, which is also in Yorubaland. Alternatively, he was sometimes said to have been sent directly down from the sky. Oral traditions aren't standardized and sometimes conflict.

It's on my list for a future video! Not sure when I'll get to it because that list is very long, but I definitely intend to cover the subject at some point!

@SomasAcademy will consider a QnA

Yes, he said "effectively," and later compared the degree of isolation to that of pre-colonial Australia. At no point do I suggest he said the Sahara "cut off all trade," I simply explain why Sub-Saharan Africa wasn't actually "effectively" cut off. All of my points are about the frequency of movement across or around the Sahara, not its mere existence; see my repeated use of terms like "regularly" and "extensive." The only strawman here is your comment's blatant misrepresentation of my argument.

Thank you! I plan to make a video on the real reasons for African poverty in the future, so those topics may come up in that and I could potentially make more videos focusing on those topics, but my area of expertise lies in pre-colonial times, so it will depend very much on how much relevant information I come across during my research.

Backshotting?

@ lol

How? Tell me

It's a 17 minute long video, I'm not gonna mention every facet of their society. Somehow I doubt you leave this same comment on every video you watch about Ancient Rome even though people rarely bring up their slaves, genocides, and ritual human sacrificing. Except the Romans at least actually conducted genocides; I've never heard of the Kingdom of Benin carrying out any. By all means, enlighten me; what genocides did the Kingdom of Benin commit? Send sources.

Technically even the concept of "Africa" is a European imposition - groups native to Africa had no concept of continents, let alone the arbitrary set created by the Ancient Greeks - but we still use the term for convenience. The same goes for "Sub-Saharan," it can at times be a useful geographic label. However, you're absolutely right that it can also be extremely misleading; the groups living immediately north and south of the Sahara were extremely heavily connected to each other for much of history, meanwhile those in the Sahel had virtually no cultural connections with many other groups lumped together with them under the label of "Sub-Saharan." It's way more valuable to think of a "Saharan World" in the same way historians talk about a "Mediterranean World" or, when talking about more recent history, an "Atlantic World." The term "Sub-Saharan" reinforces the myth of the Sahara as an impassible barrier, rather than the center point for a network of trading routes and interaction between the cultures surrounding it. Isaac Samuel has a great article about this, it's included in my citation list in the pinned comment.

@SomasAcademy Sub Saharan is a more insidious term that Africa.. Greeks were respectful. Generally speaking, the term Sub Sharan is meant to convey a certain type of African..

The cataracts prevent you from sailing along the full length of the Nile, however, it's very possible to sail for lengths in between the cataracts and move by land to get around the cataracts, which is not as efficient as continuous maritime travel but is more efficient than fully overland travel. Moreover, hugging the banks of the Nile allowed for overland travel without the same logistical difficulties of travelling across the desert. Ancient Egypt continuously traded and fought with their southern neighbors throughout history.

@@SomasAcademy Yes but they never were able to get past Al-Sudd to trade with people in the south, the Ottomans Greeks Romans weren't even able to do so. I would be happy to believe you if you had any source that backs your claim of the Nile being used for trading with other cultures, also nothing indicates they had knowledge of what happens to the Nile after Khartoum. It was their main transport inside the empire but as far as i know there's no evidence for travel on the nile outside their lands and as far as the 4th cataract

​@@inigo9000 At no point did I suggest or even imply that the Egyptians were travelling south of Khartoum, let alone the Sudd, via the Nile. What I stated was that trade up and down the Nile has been extensive throughout history, providing another avenue for contact between North and Sub-Saharan Africa. I did not specify trade by boat, nor did I say anything about this trade existing across the entire extent of the Nile; all I stated was that movement up and down the Nile passed between North and Sub-Saharan Africa. Sudan is frequently considered part of Sub-Saharan Africa, so this statement does not imply travel past the Sudd, which is all the way in modern South Sudan. All it implies is contact between Ancient Egypt and Nubia (which includes parts of Sudan), which I'm sure you're aware is very well documented. Even if we instead define "sub-Saharan" by the actual southern edge of the Sahara rather than by modern national boundaries, then the statement still holds true, as the kingdoms of Kush, Meroe, Alodia, and later states firmly included territory south of the Sahara, which ends much farther north than Khartoum. Moreover, I never stated anything about Egyptians specifically, so even if we were to consider Nubia firmly North African instead of Sub-Saharan, my statement would also apply to trade along the Nile between Nubians and their southern neighbors (though when I wrote the script I had trade between Egypt and Nubia and later Nile Valley states in mind, as I'm not as familiar with Nubia's trade relations with its southern neighbors). So, however you slice it, the fact that the Sudd acts as a barrier has no bearing whatsoever to the accuracy of my comment.

Not completely ignoring it at all, the tsetse fly is not present continuously throughout Sub-Saharan Africa, and some animals are more resistant than others. North of the tsetse belt there are obviously pack animals, including donkeys, cattle, and camels, as discussed. Further south in Africa, tsetse-resistant breeds of certain livestock have been cultivated, hence how there are cattle throughout the entire continent (though in low-lying and heavily forested areas even these more tsetse-resistant breeds have issues, so it's not geographically constant).

Africa's western coast is problematic, though more due to powerful waves and currents than depth, I'm not sure where you got this claim about shallow coasts from. As for rivers, you have it precisely backward, "modern ships" have significantly MORE of an issue with African rivers of various depths than local canoes that sit higher in the water, which were used for most of history.

The claim being refuted is that Africans never developed or practiced agriculture even "in lush areas where agriculture would've been possible" because they "had no real incentive to."

@@SomasAcademy this guy really wants some clout. Especially with the fake verification badge. History class worthy video btw

That timestamp links to one of several sections where I'm talking about trade that bypassed the Sahara. The point, as I explicitly describe in the video, is that going across the Sahara wasn't the only path for contact between Africa and Asia, and trade happened along these alternate paths, hence even if the Sahara was an absolute barrier, it didn't isolate Sub-Saharan Africa. These sections about trade between Africa and Asia that didn't go through the Sahara comes after the section where I discuss the constant movement of people and goods across the Sahara from 2:22-3:44.

I didn't say the river had "coasts" I said the river was LIKE a "coast." It's an analogy, following on from the analogy of the Sahara to a sea. This is the problem with skimming through a video looking for lines to quibble with, you don't pay enough attention to follow a train of thought that lasts more than a sentence.

@ You said “The Sahara has an equivalent coast in the form of the Nile Valley”. Analogy or comparison, it’s still as huge stretch Don’t make assumptions about me. I didn’t skim thru the video, I watched the whole thing. And for context, I don’t even the know the original video you’re responding to or the creator.

I said the word "coast" in quotation marks, hence why I put emphasis on it. This came after a long analogy between the Sahara and the Mediterranean, but you still misinterpreted it to a sufficient degree that you thought pointing out that rivers have banks rather than coasts was a pertinent correction. Hence why I say you weren't paying attention. And when I say "skimming" I don't mean skipping through, I mean watching through with limited attention to cherry-pick things out of context to respond to, as you did here and in several other comments.

Limited evidence of trade demonstrates that "some degree" of trade occurred prior to the arrival of camels, as I said, while after the arrival of camels contact was extensive, as I said.

@ you must see the logical fallacy, right? It’s like saying Siberia has a good public transportation because it has the trans-Siberian railway. Just because there evidence of that a trade route(s) existed doesn’t mean that it wasn’t a huge barrier to trade (and therefore development) for sub Saharan Africa.

@ evidence of major trade routes are cities along the trade route. Where are the cities in the Sahara ?

The only logical fallacies here are your motte and bailey fallacy of ignoring the specific claims I was refuting in the video to instead present more defensible versions of the arguments, and your false equivalency between my point that the Sahara was regularly crossed and thus did not act as "a large ocean, rendering Sub-Saharan Africa an island" cut off from "the developments going on along the trade routes between Europe, the Middle East, and Asia," and a claim like "Siberia has good public transportation because it has the trans-Siberian railway." What I demonstrated in the video was that the Sahara was not an impassable barrier, as it was very frequently crossed once camels became available in the region, and could be bypassed through trade along the Nile, across the Red Sea, and via the Indian Ocean. As discussed in the video, the Sahara is more akin to a sea like the Mediterranean; it is difficult to cross, and obviously not subject to dense human settlements, but with the appropriate technology it can be crossed and has been constantly throughout history. Obviously there are also differences - boats can be improved, unlike camels, and have the potential to carry a lot more - but to imply the Sahara didn't have major trade routes because of a lack of cities is as absurd as saying the Mediterranean couldn't have had major trade routes because of its lack of cities. Moreover, the flow of ideas and technologies is not dependent solely on the exchange of large quantities of goods, but also the movement of people, and as discussed in the video, there was plenty of that; numerous scholars crossed the Sahara regularly. The Sahara isn't a hospitable environment for human settlements. That said, just as there are Island towns and cities across the Mediterranean, there are some oasis towns and cities across the Sahara, shown in several maps of historical trade routes I showed and verbally discussed in the video. In addition to the sea analogy, and analogy can also be drawn between the Sahara and the vast stretch of grassland, desert, and mountains that make up Central Asia, which was similarly difficult to cross and didn't foster many major population centers, instead being largely occupied by nomads. EE obviously doesn't think of as cutting off trade routes between "Europe, the Middle East, and Asia," considering it was the main region overland trade routes passed through, and I don't think you would either. The geographical features of this region absolutely are obstacles, just as the Sahara is; however, with appropriate pack animals (often camels in both cases, usually Bactrian in Central Asia rather than Dromedary as in the Sahara), these obstacles can be passed. Similarly, in both cases maritime trade could go around the geographic barriers. Therefore, it would be absurd to say that East Asia was cut off from "the developments occurring on the trade routes between the Middle East and Europe"; it's equally absurd to make similar statements about Sub-Saharan Africa being cut off. If you're not convinced by my video or my replies then consider consulting the sources cited in my pinned comment and book recommendations in the video description, many of which were written by professional scholars and present far more extensive evidence than the summary I presented in the video.

@@SomasAcademybut the original video didn’t say sub sahara was completely cut off, he said “most developments”, which might seem silly it being just one word, but “most” is different than the “all” context you were implying he was saying. On that point in particular you could say the original video could benefit from explaining more thoroughly his points, but it feels like you’re debating something that he didn’t say. Very good video presentation btw

Planned for this March!

Anyone who does say genetics is a fuckwit

You are mistaken. What exactly societies looked like varied across the world throughout history, but prior to the Early Modern Era (when Europe experienced a number of major developments over a relatively short period of time), it would not be reasonable to describe Africa as "underdeveloped" compared to Europe and Asia; John Thornton discusses this in his book, "Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World," which I would highly recommend. Please check out my two previous videos on West African history and the other channel and book recommendations linked in the description to learn more about African history.