PBS series on "Guns, Germs and Steel", part
three (conclusion)
Posted to www.marxmail.org on
The concluding episode of the PBS production of “Guns, Germs
and Steel” focuses on the colonization of the African continent, expanding on a
number of the themes introduced in episode 2, which dealt with the Spanish
conquest of
It focuses on the efforts of the Dutch settlers to expand from their base at the southern tip of the continent northwards into more tropical areas, where the colonization efforts fall victim to climate and disease.
Diamond believes that the settlers underestimated the
difficulties facing them since the southern tip of
Diamond makes the case that indigenous peoples and their
animals had developed a resistance to malaria over generations, just as
Europeans had strengthened their immune systems against smallpox, measles, etc.
African cattle had adapted as well. Both native people and their domesticated
animals had also benefited from geography. They had learned to live in higher
elevations where mosquitoes were less prevalent. Also, in the absence of
intense agriculture as practiced in
The other major threat to the colonizers was the fierce
Zulus who ruled over an extensive kingdom like the Incas. Unlike in
This is not the first time that Diamond, the pious anti-racist, has succumbed to stereotyping. If he had taken the trouble to look a little further into the Zulu history, he would have discovered that the violence was completely understandable since the nation had been driven from their former homes by Portuguese slave traders.
Recent scholarship, discussed by John Reader in “Africa: a Biography of the Continent” reveals that Shaka, king of the Zulus, and his people fled Delagoa Bayon the Southern coast of Mozambique--in the 1820s after more than 60,000 natives had been kidnapped and sent to pick cotton, tobacco or sugar in the Americas. A missionary by the name of Stephen Kay noted in his August 1828 journal:
“He [Shaka] was originally
established near
Other peoples fleeing the slavers naturally became part of
the Zulu kingdom, which was organized around Spartan military discipline for
good reasons obviously. When Dutch and British settlers began to make their
presence felt in
Shaka, who had the reputation of
being ruthlessly hostile toward other black Africans, was actually blamed for
slave-raids carried out by whites. In one such incident, white businessmen and
a missionary, whose daughter would marry colonizer David Livingstone, presented
a false picture of fending off a supposedly fierce group of Mantatees.
Traditionally, white accounts represent the Mantatees
as a menacing force of 100,000 but more recent scholarship puts their numbers
at around 2000. In reality, the whites had organized a massacre of the Mantatees and sold the survivors as slaves for the export
trade or as indentured servants for the local economy. In the 1820s, labor was
as in short supply in white-controlled
The show ends with about as much of a political prescription from Diamond as can be found anywhere. Until the publication of “Collapse,” he has studiously stayed above the fray when it comes to the question of how the victims of colonialism can finally enjoy equality with those who colonized them.
This would appear to revolve around the question of
overcoming malaria, which is diminishing
He interviews an obviously concerned female physician in the
children’s ward of a
In reality, poverty is the cause and disease is the effectnot the other way around. This is especially the
case with malaria. Fortunately, we didn’t get a lecture from Diamond about the
need to bombard
For an analysis rooted in economics, one must turn to Paul
Farmer, the Harvard physician who maintains an AIDS clinic in
When we think of
"tropical diseases," for instance, malaria comes quickly to mind. But
not too long ago, malaria was a significant problem far from the tropics.
Although there is imperfect overlap between malaria as currently defined and
the malaria of the mid-nineteenth century, some medical historians agree with
contemporary assessments that this illness "was the most important disease
in the
One responsible factor
that is clear enough, if little discussed in the literature, is the reduction
of poverty, including the development of improved housing, land drainage,
mosquito repellents, nets, and electric fans--all of which have been (and
remain) beyond the reach of those most at risk for malaria. In fact, many
"tropical" diseases predominantly afflict the poor; the groups at risk
for these diseases are often bounded more by socioeconomic status than by
latitude. In