On this day in 1884, the "Berlin Conference" began when delegations from nearly every Western European country and the U.S. met in Germany to develop a set of protocols for the seizure and control of African resources.
The conference, which had no African representatives, was the first international conference ever on the subject of Africa, and dealt almost soley with the matter of its exploitation.
At the time, approximately 80% of African land and resources were under domestic control; the influence of Europeans was most strongly exerted on the coast. Following it, colonial powers began seizing resources further inland.
As a result of the conference, which continued into 1885, a "General Act" was signed and ratified by all but one of the 14 nations at the table, the U.S. being the sole exception. The Act's main features were the establishment of a regime of free trade stretching across the middle of Africa, the development of which became the rationale for the recognition of the short-lived "Congo Free State", the abolition of the overland slave trade, and the principle of "effective occupation".
The Conference's rapacious intentions for Africa were noted by outsiders: socialist journalist Daniel De Leon described the conference as "an event unique in the history of political science...Diplomatic in form, it was economic in fact."
Before the Conference ended, the Lagos Observer declared that "the world had, perhaps, never witnessed a robbery on so large a scale." Theodore Holly, the first black Protestant Episcopal Bishop in the U.S., condemned the delegates as having "come together to enact into law, national rapine, robbery and murder".
Berlin 1884: Remembering the conference that divided Africa
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Do Americans actually get bullied over having Android and "green text"? Jesus. Surprised you all haven't adopted Whatsapp yet.
Yes, I'm 25 years old and I more often than not, get shit for having both an Android and a 300 dollar Chinese phone from other tech workers
Funny thing is whenever I meet another European here, they love talking about Chinese phones lol
Makes sense, in the EU (or at least in
) tech workers usually shit on apple.
The fuck? What are you supposed to have? Certainly not an Apple?
Yeah I wasn't able to join a group chat with some people because one of them was super up in arms about that while I was in high school
Green text ? I assume you don't mean the 4chan thing ?
It's the green text that shows up when you're texting a phone through imessage that isn't an iphone. I've heard people get ostracized and bullied over it, especially teens.
Thanks
And also yikes
Man that sucks. No the bullying, like that sucks too, but hte part where somehow society decided that having an apple is prestigious or even acceptable to admit to in public.
iPhone users are a minority, so it's more common to see tribalistic slap fights where people rep their preferred corporate overlord. Like, there's a power imbalance one way where iPhones are a status symbol, but imbalance the other way where Androids are more normal.
Depends on age group, iphones have about 90% market share amongst Zoomers in USA
Shit, really? That's awful. Fuck.
I know it's hellworld but why does the shittiest, worst capitalist product have to winh every time?
I blame the parents
And the status it symbolizes is the "I am a huge dork who paid way too much money for a toy" status debuff.
I don't even know what this means. My phone is five years old, hasn't had a security update since trump was president, and can do things no modern phone could hope to achieve (type comfortably at an acceptable words per minute)
No, I've never heard of that. I have an android, but what's green text?
I don't get the point of whatsapp, tbh