Why was Africa so backward?

[Verbose]

Back to the Zulu "tribe". Compared to her neighbors, she was certainly not backward. Able to field a large army for conquest campaigns, dominant for a time in a geographical region, economic hegemony... Next to the British, there was no competition, but next to every one else in the area...?

Well, the Swazi were perhaps even more successful. There's even a traditional Swazi saying which runs something like this:

"Let the Boer and the Zulu fight with clubs, while the British and the Swazi discuss politics."

 

[sydhe]

Some of the African countries seem pretty stable. Gabon, Cameroon, Botswana, Namibia (since independence), Mali (despite it's being extremely poor) and South Africa. Mozambique seems to be doing okay these days. For quite a while, they had an insurgency sponsored by the apartheid govenment of South Africa.