Before I get to the article that brought this up, it’s worthwhile remembering that the entire area was part of the Spanish conquest. That for several centuries, no decisions about anything were made at the local level. The cost of a nail was determined by a fiat from the court in Madrid.
When Spain lost control, local governors or leading power brokers took over, quickly assuming dictatorial power.
Thus, we come to this:
When colonized countries ousted their Western overlords, progressives hoped the injustice within those countries would end. It didn’t. Local strongmen repurposed criminal justice systems to serve themselves. The abuse of state power turned out to be a human problem, not a colonial one. To this day, in many places, police have no idea how to investigate crimes. They’re trained to do what regimes want: crowd control, counterterrorism, and VIP security.
In other words, police don’t know how to uphold the laws because there aren’t any. At least not any laws that actually mean anything.
The only laws are what the local leaders say they are.
No wonder so many are fleeing there to come here.
And sadly, many of the gangsters are coming with them.
Initially, progressives thought they could drive out abuses by helping governments pass laws. But that didn’t work, because law, like food or medicine, requires an effective delivery system. Slavery has been outlawed everywhere. And yet, Haugen points out, millions of people around the world are still held in slavery.
You can’t just do good. You have to grapple with evil. “The World Bank now is doing these massive projects in countries where there’s no functioning justice system,” says Haugen. “They did a $400 million project, building a road that was going to have transformational effects in a part of Uganda that’s quite remote. What happens when you build a massive road? You send massive numbers of men to go build it. What do massive numbers of men do in an area where there’s no law enforcement? They sexually assault the women and children.” The crime wave resulting from that project became so horrific that the project had to be stopped.
This and very much more is @ The Root Cause of Global Poverty Isn’t a Lack of Food or Education
