Do you think those Southies are really Africans
What, what is Southies?
I mean those South Africans.
You and your terms! Why did you ask if they are Africans?
Didn’t you hear that their President has resigned?
What is news in that, Presidents and Prime Ministers resign all the time?
In Africa, come on?
The Pakistan Maximum Leader resigned, so did the Israeli premier. I don’t know what’s agitating you.
You are being evasive, have you seen a leader resign in Africa?
Let me think…
You think, what? You cannot name a single Africa leader who has voluntarily resigned from office. That’s why I find the act of the Southies so blasphemous, so sacrilegious, so outrageous, so…
I get the drift. But the man had no choice, his party asked him to go?
Ah, why are you talking like this, my friend? Who owns political party in Africa, is it not the president? Je suis le partie, le partie cest moi!
Speak English.
I am the party, the party is me.
I did not know that you speak French.
I do not. I just made that one up. But it neatly sums up the essence of my argument. Who owns political parties in Africa if not Mr. President? Can you imagine, God forbid, the NPP asking President Kuffuor to resign!
Do you think that he would resist?
Ah, my friend, you are talking as if you are not living Africa. Who, on earth, would dare to ask him in the first place.
There must be people in his party who will summon the courage if they find his act egregious enough.
Egregious, what do you mean?
I mean like interfering with the judiciary the way Mbeki was accused of doing?
Ah, my friend, you are talking nonsense. Are you not living in this country? Didn’t our President pack the Supreme Court so that he can get sympathetic rulings?
Rubbish, he appointed Justices as he is constitutionally empowered to do?
But he did it after an unfavorable ruling.
Look, I am not a legal luminary so I cannot argue the fine points of law with you. Mbeki transgressed and his party asked him to go and he did the only honourable thing and left. What exactly is your beef with that?
Do you really think that he is an African?
Don’t be ridiculous, the man is as black as you and his father was one of giants of the Liberation struggle.
So it is claimed. But he was said to have grown up outside Africa, you see what I mean?
No, I don’t see what you mean!
You see, with plastic surgery and things the real son of Mbeki Senior might have been switched. Even the name Mbeki sounds suspicious. I will wager that it’s either Japanese or Indonesian.
I think that you are losing it?
No, consider my empirical evidence…
Evidence!
Yes, Plastic surgery, the suspicious name, the man very un-African aloofness, his supercilious intellectual detachment, the way and manner he chooses to resign instead of battling it out with his opponent and destroy both party and country in the process. I don’t understand a thing and I really do not know what makes the man ticks! What I know is that a true son or daughter of Africa would have elected to ‘dabaru’ everything as they say in Nigeria, instead of resigning meekly.
I still do not know what is agitating you?
Doesn’t the man love power? Doesn’t he love the prestige, the authority and all the good things that go with high office?
The man is an acclaimed intellectual, maybe he will find time to write his memoirs and give lectures?
What, you don’t mean that a sane man will choose to go and write when he can be President!
For some people, occupying high office is not the highest aspiration.
I think that you are just spewing arrant nonsense. Don’t you live in Africa? Don’t you see what people will do to get into position for which they are uniquely unqualified, and for which they have not got the foggiest idea about what to do? Do you not see how elections are rigged, manipulated and then arranged in ‘Power Sharing’ arrangements? Or do you think that they do not pay their President well enough in Southie?
I would not know that. All I know is that Mbeki does not feel himself justified by the material appurtenances of his office. I heard that he does not go around in convoys of expensive jeeps breaking all traffic rules.
What, you don’t mean that he stops for traffic light.
Yes, that is what I meant. He travels with his security detail but they obey all traffic rules and regulations.
You cannot be serious. Tell me you are not serious! Is it not true then that Southie is the richest country in Africa?
It certainly is, and by a very wide margin. But what has that got to do with anything?
If they are the richest and we are a HIPC country and their leader travels unceremoniously while ours travels around extravagantly, don’t you then agree with me that the Southies are really not Africans!
Perhaps they are the more decent Africans
Who is talking about decency? We are talking about showing off. Ours is a bankrupt economy wobbling on legs supported by donors’ generosity. Our leaders are junketing around the world with begging bowls, yet that has not stopped them from riding the most expensive cars money can buy. That hasn’t stopped a mere Deputy Minister from having traffic cleared for him. Maybe there are a few things we can teach our Southie cousins.
Maybe it is they who have some lessons for us.
Lesson, what lesson can we learn from them?
Maybe decency and modesty to begin with. We can also understudy them about how to live the life that we preach and about how to husband our scarce resources instead of wasting them on material aggrandizements. We can learn to be simple human beings who do not feel justified by our material possessions.
Saturday, October 4, 2008
Monday, July 7, 2008
On Aid and Looting
"They switched from the old openly colonial imperialistic approach to the benevolent approach. They came up with some benevolent colonialism, philanthropic colonialism, humanitarianism, or dollarism. Immediately everything was Peace Corps, Operation Crossroads." - Malcolm X.
I felt the need to explain why I have never been thrilled by Western charities. I have been telling whoever would listen that the so-called aids that the Western nations pretend to be giving to Africa are unnecessary.
Various reasons invited these opinions. First and foremost among these is historical: No nation, no society has ever been developed by outside aid however generous and, I believe, none shall ever be. We can make this into Femi's First Principle of Economic Development.
Secondly, foreign-aid presupposes that international relations (relations between nations) are conducted on altruistic or sentimental basis, this is wrong. As the Americans are wont to say, 'It is a jungle out there,' every nation for himself, and God for us all.
If the Albinos are salving their consciences by pretending to be do-gooders, it behoves Africans to stop disbelieving the nonsense. As I have said millions of times, the genius of the Western nations lies in their ability to cloak their selfish interests in humanitarian haloes. Their dogged pursuits of their selfish interests are always portrayed as great philanthropic enterprises for mankind.
Lets us take a short trip back into history.
When the hordes of European invaders descended on Africa with their Maxim guns and their Bibles, they committed unspeakable atrocities. They violated our land and desecrated our gods. They stole and took over one-hundred million of our brothers and sisters to their plantations in their 'New-World' in the Americas. They said it was a trade. Why do you need to come with guns and gun-boats if your intention is to engage in honourable TRADE?
Our brothers and sisters slaved for over four centuries building the wealth of America! They were not paid a dime for their labor. They were treated like the chattel properties of the people who are today the shakers and movers of 'God's own country.' They were whipped and branded like common cattle. The slave masters raped their women slaves and engaged in incestuous sex with their offspring. At the end of it all, when slavery became too odious to be tolerated, the slave owners were compensated for their great humanitarian work; the slaves got nothing! Even the promise of forty acres and a mule that was made to them remained unfulfilled unto this blessed day. It is impossible to read the accounts of their treatment without the blood running cold. How did the Europeans explain all these enormous crimes?
They were on a civilizing mission! The good-hearted, God-fearing European was bringing Christian light to the barbarians of the 'Dark-Continent.' European scholarship went into over-drive, churning out tons and tons of useless theses to justify this patently absurd claim. To anyone who knows history, the notion of Europeans going on civilizing mission to Africa draws laughter of derision, not anger. Even their so-called religion is a plagiarized form of an ancient African religion which their one-track, materialistic minds cannot comprehend.
One instance of history should suffice. England was among the leading European powers that despoiled Africa. Who are the English? Originally called Angle, the English were a sub-tribe of the Saxons. When these Anglos were roaming the forests and swamps of the Island that now bear their name, there were empires in Africa. When the Anglos were still living in caves, Africans were living in cities. We could say that the English did not see the light of civilization until the Normans conquest of 1066. So primitive were the English that one invading Roman general wondered if he could make successful slaves of them!
I do not write this to deride the English; this is simply an historical fact. The first emperor of a modern state in all of Europe was Charlemagne, who ruled most of Western Europe from 800-814. That gives us a history of less than two thousand years old. When we compare that with Ethiopian, Nubian and Egyptian civilisations, we see how hollow Europeans claim as bearers of civilisation really is. After those ancient civilizations were destroyed Africans continue to build: We had the old Ghana Empire that flourished until the 13th century! Ghana is by no means the oldest of African empires. We still have the Malian Empire which lasted until the 16th century. The Songhai Empire was bigger than anything Europeans have been able to forge in terms of empire.
Why did European scholars refused to teach this history? Why are Africans compelled to read about European vain-glories, and not the glories of their own past? Why are student in Africa continue to be taught about Holy Roman Empire, when the Malian, the Ghanaian and Songhaian empires remain untaught. We are Africans, and those were genuine African achievements, why are they denying us knowledge of them. And more importantly why are we denying ourselves the knowledge about how own history?
It is for one single purpose: To lead credence to the Europeans monstrous lies about their 'civilizing' mission in African. If the Ghanaian knows these things, he would be asking of the English, "If my fathers and mothers were building houses, cities and empires when your parents were still living nomadic lives, how come you are here to civilize me?" The Senegalese, the Malian will ask the same of the French.
Dapper was a Dutch traveller in Africa in the 15th century. In his writings, he gave accounts of the type of political and social organizations and institutions he found in the places he travelled. He favorably compared Benin-City in Nigeria with the city of Amsterdam. The British invaded the ancient city, looted the treasures (they are still in the British Museum), what they could not cart away they set on fire. When their mythorians (myth-creators masquerading as historians) came, they wrote about the destructed buildings and wondered why Africans live in such wretchedness! Their works become classics - compulsory study at their universities.
When Europeans (Americans were present too) sat at Berlin and carved up Africa, how did they rationalized it! The White man was carrying the Black Man's burden. The white man was trying, in the spirit of Christian brotherhood to lift the Black man's to the level of the European. Europeans are never motivated by anything except altruistic considerations for mankind.
When colonialism became too odious, the Europeans quickly switched gear. They foisted neo-colonialism on Africa. Instead of European colonial administrators ruling over the colonies, stooges are put in place to carry out the dirty works. We had Mobutu in Zaire whose principal jobs was to guarantee the interests of Euro-American multi-nationals. Who can still remember how many times Belgian and French troops, supported by American logistics, have rescued him from the ire of his people?
The Albinos can therefore beat their chests and say, 'We did our best. The natives are now managing their affairs, and look what a mess they are making of things!'
They will never say that the natives are still being teleguided by the IMF and World Bank Consultants and Strategists. They will never say that there are in Africa at the moment more European administrators (call them, NGOs, 'aid-workers,' 'missionaries,' or whatever have you) in Africa today than at the height of the colonial period. They will never tell you that most of what they call aids were military hardware, given to dictators in Africa to repress their people in the interest of Western multi-nationals. Nigerian police and soldiers continue to wipe out whole villages in order to make the places save for SHELL exploitation. Mobutus forces are routinely pacifying Zaireans for the benefit of Western MNCs. And who give a fig how many African lives are being wasted so long as Western multinationals can continue to steal the resources of the DRC?
It is never bannered that even the so-called economic aid are tied to buying produce from the host country. And the most insulting of all, they do not tell us that the so-called aid is what got us in trouble in the first place. Aids are no charity; they are not gifts, and they are certainly not grants. They are loans, pure and simple. When Westerners make a song-and-dance about aids, they fail to say that under normal circumstances, it is a straight-forward proposition. The economic-aid has to be repaid back. How do you think Africa got into such huge indebtedness?
We are indebted to the West for their 'aid.' If I give you one Euro, and you have to pay me back ten, I am insulting you by claiming to be aiding you. The best you got was a bad deal and, if we have to be fair, I took you for a clean ride.
Then there is the question of self-pride. The notion of aid suggests a giver-taker, master-servant relationship. As people who receive the so-called social-security easily attest, aid dehumanizes the receiver - perhaps that was the original intention. It turns the receiver into a beggar. Little wonder the adage says that “It is better to teach a man how to catch fish and give him the means to do so, rather than giving him fishes.”
The fact of the matter is that the Europeans are lying when they say that they are giving aid to Africa. It is an obnoxious lie to anyone who knows anything about international affairs. Aside from our resources which these historical thieves continue to steal, Africa is yearly remitting to Euro-America more than ten billion US dollars. If anyone is giving aid to anything, it is Africa. This monstrous lies has been so often repeated that even Africans tend to take it as gospel truth. The Europeans claim is like the robbers who make a living by robbing people and, giving back a part of their loot to their victims, claim to be engage in humanitarian affair.
We can also use another analogy: Imagine for a minute a group of fire-fighters who go around setting fire to houses and, putting it out, claiming that their act is benevolent humanitarianism.
This is exactly what the Albinos are doing in Africa and all over the world. Take a part of Africa where there is conflict, any part. What do they do? They take sides, and rushed 'military- assistance' to their stooges. Lives are wantonly destroyed, so are infrastructures. A decade or so later when the combatants are too weak to feed themselves, we see the white people making appeal for donations – ‘We are the World’, ‘Een Voor Afrika,’ ‘Red nose day,’ and other useless jamborees organized to salve the conscience of a conscienceless people
“It might sometime be necessary to cut off the hand that feeds you it is stopping you from feeding yourself.” - Malcolm X
Decolonising the Mind
“Every time I hear the crack of a whip, my blood runs cold. I remember on the slave ships how they brutalized our very souls. Today they say that we are free, only to be chained in poverty.” – Bob Marley, ‘Slave Driver.’
In the articles, ‘The Philosophy of White Supremacy’ and ‘White Power Structures,’ I examined the Eurocentric world we are forced to live in by the White minority of the world, and the structures they have consciously constructed to maintain their unjust stranglehold on us. In this piece, I intend to suggest the strategies we can adopt to counter and overthrow Global White Power.
EDUCATION
“History is not everything, but it is a starting point. History is a clock that people use to tell their political and cultural time of day. It is a compass they use to find themselves on the map of human geography. It tells them where they are, but more importantly, what they must be.” Dr. Henrike Clarke
I put education at the top of my list because the sad truth is that our low esteem stemmed primarily from the fact that we refused to study our own history. Many (or is it most?) of us suffer greatly from historical\cultural ignorance.
I made it my duty to study my Yoruba and my African heritage. The odyssey was gratifying in more way than one. My education not only enables me to develop my deep sense of consciousness, it enables me to hold my head up very high anywhere in the world. It also made me aware of my enormous responsibility as an inheritor of a very, very rich heritage. My education made me aware that I am the inheritor of the great Egyptian, Nubian, Meroe, Axum, Ethiopian, Ghanaian, Malian, Songhaian civilisations. Through my education, I came to realize that I am the offspring of Khufu (the builder of the great pyramid of Giza), Imhotep (the world’s first physician and whose story became the Joseph story of the Bible), Sundiata Keita, Mansa Kankan Musa, Menelek II, Hannibal, Chaka, Samory, Osei Tutu, Nandi, Nzigha, Moshoeshoe and other great figures of history.
Thanks to efforts by scholars such as Yosef ben-Jochannan, John Henrik Clarke, John G. Jackson, Cheikh Anta Diop, Jacob Carruthers, Chancellor Williams, Adu Boahen, Lao Hansberry, Jacob Carruthers, Lao Hansberry and many others, African history has largely been reconstructed. It behooves us all to honour these pioneers and study their work.
We should bear it in mind that these Africanists relied on materials written by white scholars before racism took over European scholarship. In the words of Professor Clarke, “Most of the old and new Black scholars asking for a total reconsideration of African history, in particular, and world history, in general, are using neglected documents by radical White Scholars who are generally neglected by the White academic community. In African history I am referring to scholars like Gerald Massey and his work, Egypt, Light of the World, (two volumes), The Book of the Beginnings, (two volumes) and Natural Genesis, (two volumes). I am also referring to Gerald Massey's greatest English disciple, Albert Churchward, whose book, The Signs and Symbols of Primordial Man, asks for a reconsideration of the role of people outside of Europe and their role in human development. Your attention should also be called to the work, Anacalypsis, two volumes by Godfrey Higgins, published in 1837. These books deal with the dispersions of African people throughout the world.”
African, do yourself a great favour and read up on your history and you will discover that contrary to what the Arab or the European is telling you, your ancestors were not hopping trees and waiting to be discovered or civilized. My Yoruba people were living urbanized lives in cities long before the British invaded what they now called Nigeria. I have been exposed to many European cultures and in no way do I consider Yoruba inferior to any of them.
Language I always believe hold a key to a people’s civilisation and the Yoruba language is simply outstanding in the depth of its richness. I speak two European languages (English and Dutch) fairly well and in no way is my Yoruba second-rate to either. In one of his books, Professor Ivan Sertima dealt with the complexity and the elegance of the Yoruba counting system, and it clearly shows it could never have been produced by inferior minds.
African languages are rich in proverbs and Yoruba is no exception. African cosmogony thrives on deep sense of not only humanity and spirituality but also a deep sense of justice. I give as an example an incident that happened during the 1983 elections in Nigeria. The federal government made the mistake of awarding the Ondo state gubernatorial to their Ekiti candidate; The Ekitis rose in protest. They had voted for a candidate who came from another part of the state, and they would not have anything to do with their own. I was brought up to (1) consider injustice anywhere as injustice everywhere and (2) that cheating, in any manifestation, is abhorrent.
It is indeed sad that today Africans have been bamboozled into running away from themselves and their rich cultural heritage. An Akan now proudly goes about answering to European names which they tell him is Christian name, and a Yoruba now takes enormous pride in speaking English with his family as this writer (shockingly) witnessed in Lagos. And many brothers and sisters are spending fortunes to bleach their melanin-rich skin.
We need to rediscover our old ways and mesh it with our aspirations for modernity. The tragedy would be to allow ourselves to be consumed by pessimism. Each and every one of us should do her ablest best to help out. In Ghana there’s a movement call ‘Sankofa’ which is trying to teach people to look into their past. Sankofa is an Akan word that means, "We must go back and reclaim our past so we can move forward; so we understand why and how we came to be who we are today."
NO FRIEND OR FOE, ONLY INTERESTS
Any honest observer will attest to the fact we Africans are the most humane and the most accommodating people on earth. Our people would rather starve than let a stranger go hungry. Alas, our generosity and humanity have been used against us again and again. It’s time we start to reappraise how we deal with the ‘others.’
When our people in what is now called South Africa gave accommodation to the Dutch pirate, Riebeeck, and his gang, they thought they were extending a hand of help to fellow humans (even if an albino) in distress. Little did they know that the Dutch had a different concept of humanity, which includes the annihilation of the local folks in order to steal their land. It took over three hundred years of hard struggle before Africans were able to reclaim their lands from the hands of the Dutch conquerors, albeit in a mangled form.
It’s time we learned that (1) the Europeans do not share our definition of humanity and (2) that almost everyone has used our generosity against us. We ought to learn and preach this lesson. We welcomed the Arabs and we welcomed the Europeans, they set out to do us in and today we remain a sad caricature of these strangers we welcomed into our land. Our generosity has led to our being virtually wiped out culturally. The strangers mangled our history and made us into a non-historical people. They mangled our religion and made us worship their furious desert gods and taught us to laugh at the gods of our ancestors.
This has been our history and it is time we learn from the historic mistakes of our ancestors.
RACIAL SOLIDARITY
Everywhere we look in the world every other race safe for the African is practicing racial solidarity. I totally agree that race is a sociological and not a biological term. But the reality is that we operate in worlds of words and symbols. The Albinos we call Europeans (whether they live in Europe, Australia or North America) always present a united front against the rest of us. The Arabs and the Asians are doing the same thing. Or would someone tell me the last time he saw an Indian or a Chinese or even an Egyptian in an African shop?
Cheikh Anta Diop very ably demonstrated in his book, “The Cultural Unity of Black Africa,” that black Africa is culturally homogenous. Sadly, Europeans intruders have succeeded in destroying what should be a natural solidarity of a people who are, in essence, one people. I get irritated when I am asked in Ghana why I choose to live there. For those who might not know it, two of Ghana’s largest national groups, the Ewes and the Gas are of Yoruba descent. I’m still astounded by the sheer number of Yoruba words still found in the Ewe language (ku, enu, agbo just to mention a few). The Akans are the largest national groups in both Ghana and Ivory Coast. The Mossi straddles both Burkina Faso and Ghana. The Fulani (Pula or Peul) and the Hausas are found throughout West Africa, while the Mande (Mandigo) are to be found in large numbers in at least nine West African countries. Zulus are found in South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique. The Kongo people are found in both Congo and Angola whilst Maasai are to be found in both Kenya and Tanzania
ALLOW NO STRANGER TO MEDIATE IN OUR FAMILY DISPUTE
Even in the most harmonious of families disputes do arise, but it’s courting disaster to invite outsiders to settle your family dispute. This again has been our tragedy in Africa. Ancient Africa was in rupture when European intruders came and took sides in our disputes. The clever European end up suppressing both parties and he became the ultimate winner. He ends up owning our very land.
Even in modern times whichever warfare in Africa we take a look at, the most ferocious and prolonged are those where outsiders (principally Arabs and Europeans) took sides.
Europeans do not allow any outsider to interfere in their affairs; Africa has no business inviting foreigners in to settle their wahala.
KEEP YOUR CULTURE
One only has to travel around to witness the immense beauty and diversity of the African culture, yet I do not know any other people on earth who had such low estimation of their cultural heritage as Africans.
Culture is manifested in music, painting, sculpture and in religion. The more we study our history the more we realize that our ancestors bequeathed to us a very rich cultural heritage. It then beholds upon us to become passionate even animated in enriching and protecting our own culture. Musically we are on top of the world. Our paintings have been plagiarized like no man’s business; example is cubism which made both Picasso and Matisse famous. African religion still continues to awe me with its deep reverence for life and its central humanness. The more I studied the Yoruba Ifa Religion, the more I’m astounded by its depth of its knowledge.
Religion is essentially ancestors worshipping and Africans remain the only people who do not pay homage to their ancestors. Could this lack of reverence for our ancestors be responsible for our current sad state? How ridiculous to see Africans bowing heads in prayer to the ‘god of Jacob or Abraham or a god of Israel?” Space will not permit an exhaustive examination of the Christian religion here, but Africans will do well to know that it owes its origins to the religion of their forebears in Egypt. One needs only to examine the Osirian drama, where the Egyptian redeemer-god sacrifices himself, dies, and is resurrected to save mankind, and see its close resemblance to the Jesus tale. Moses was brought up in the palace of the Pharaoh and the laws he claimed to have received from Mount Sinai was part of the Egyptian legal system. And we shouldn’t forget that Jesus spoke Aramaic, an African language, nor should we lose sight of the fact that the most potent symbol of Christianity, the cross was a copy of the ancient African Ankh.
SETTING UP OUR OWN INDEPENDENT MEDIA
It is absurd to expect oppressors to come and teach us how to free ourselves. I find incongruous the current situation where Western governments and their agencies are sponsoring ‘free media’ practices in Africa – a commodity sorely lacking in the West. African journalists, whatever their political, ideological or other orientations owe it to the motherland to be pro African first and last. We have no reason anymore to be giddy about imperialists and the cheap laurels they keep throwing at us.
CREATING OURSELVES IN OUR OWN IMAGE
The God’s truth is that Africa is stupendously beautiful and Africans can hold their own against the best in sheer beauty, why then do we allow ourselves to be stymied by the negative vibes of the CNN, the BBC World and other White Supremacist media? If I say ‘Black is Beautiful,’ I’m merely making a statement of fact. So why do we abandon the 1960’s slogan and start to view ourselves from the prisms of our historic oppressors.
There is no society created by man that hasn’t got its own earthly problems, why should Africa be different? Of course we face tremendously developmental challenges in Africa, so do Europeans and their American cousins. I have seen pictures of ghettos in the US that would make Ajegunle (a slum in Lagos) looks like paradise. Of course, you will not see such on the CNN.
I say it’s time we start singing our own praises. As Achebe said in ‘Things fall apart,’ “The Lizard that fell from the Iroko tree said if it does not praise itself no one else will.”
If they sing their crap and start awarding themselves ‘Academy’ and other awards, why are we not creating our own laurels for our pool of hugely talented artistes? Gladly, the Nigerians have invented Nollywood and are creating their own images of themselves; other African countries should follow this example.
It is time we stop being apologetic. As Professor Karenga rightly said, we are a non-obligated people. We have done nothing to be ashamed of. If they throw idi Amin at you, throw Stalin and Mussolini and Hitler right back at them.
In order to do this, however, you need to begin the journey in self-discovery. Read up on your history and more importantly teach it to your children.
In the articles, ‘The Philosophy of White Supremacy’ and ‘White Power Structures,’ I examined the Eurocentric world we are forced to live in by the White minority of the world, and the structures they have consciously constructed to maintain their unjust stranglehold on us. In this piece, I intend to suggest the strategies we can adopt to counter and overthrow Global White Power.
EDUCATION
“History is not everything, but it is a starting point. History is a clock that people use to tell their political and cultural time of day. It is a compass they use to find themselves on the map of human geography. It tells them where they are, but more importantly, what they must be.” Dr. Henrike Clarke
I put education at the top of my list because the sad truth is that our low esteem stemmed primarily from the fact that we refused to study our own history. Many (or is it most?) of us suffer greatly from historical\cultural ignorance.
I made it my duty to study my Yoruba and my African heritage. The odyssey was gratifying in more way than one. My education not only enables me to develop my deep sense of consciousness, it enables me to hold my head up very high anywhere in the world. It also made me aware of my enormous responsibility as an inheritor of a very, very rich heritage. My education made me aware that I am the inheritor of the great Egyptian, Nubian, Meroe, Axum, Ethiopian, Ghanaian, Malian, Songhaian civilisations. Through my education, I came to realize that I am the offspring of Khufu (the builder of the great pyramid of Giza), Imhotep (the world’s first physician and whose story became the Joseph story of the Bible), Sundiata Keita, Mansa Kankan Musa, Menelek II, Hannibal, Chaka, Samory, Osei Tutu, Nandi, Nzigha, Moshoeshoe and other great figures of history.
Thanks to efforts by scholars such as Yosef ben-Jochannan, John Henrik Clarke, John G. Jackson, Cheikh Anta Diop, Jacob Carruthers, Chancellor Williams, Adu Boahen, Lao Hansberry, Jacob Carruthers, Lao Hansberry and many others, African history has largely been reconstructed. It behooves us all to honour these pioneers and study their work.
We should bear it in mind that these Africanists relied on materials written by white scholars before racism took over European scholarship. In the words of Professor Clarke, “Most of the old and new Black scholars asking for a total reconsideration of African history, in particular, and world history, in general, are using neglected documents by radical White Scholars who are generally neglected by the White academic community. In African history I am referring to scholars like Gerald Massey and his work, Egypt, Light of the World, (two volumes), The Book of the Beginnings, (two volumes) and Natural Genesis, (two volumes). I am also referring to Gerald Massey's greatest English disciple, Albert Churchward, whose book, The Signs and Symbols of Primordial Man, asks for a reconsideration of the role of people outside of Europe and their role in human development. Your attention should also be called to the work, Anacalypsis, two volumes by Godfrey Higgins, published in 1837. These books deal with the dispersions of African people throughout the world.”
African, do yourself a great favour and read up on your history and you will discover that contrary to what the Arab or the European is telling you, your ancestors were not hopping trees and waiting to be discovered or civilized. My Yoruba people were living urbanized lives in cities long before the British invaded what they now called Nigeria. I have been exposed to many European cultures and in no way do I consider Yoruba inferior to any of them.
Language I always believe hold a key to a people’s civilisation and the Yoruba language is simply outstanding in the depth of its richness. I speak two European languages (English and Dutch) fairly well and in no way is my Yoruba second-rate to either. In one of his books, Professor Ivan Sertima dealt with the complexity and the elegance of the Yoruba counting system, and it clearly shows it could never have been produced by inferior minds.
African languages are rich in proverbs and Yoruba is no exception. African cosmogony thrives on deep sense of not only humanity and spirituality but also a deep sense of justice. I give as an example an incident that happened during the 1983 elections in Nigeria. The federal government made the mistake of awarding the Ondo state gubernatorial to their Ekiti candidate; The Ekitis rose in protest. They had voted for a candidate who came from another part of the state, and they would not have anything to do with their own. I was brought up to (1) consider injustice anywhere as injustice everywhere and (2) that cheating, in any manifestation, is abhorrent.
It is indeed sad that today Africans have been bamboozled into running away from themselves and their rich cultural heritage. An Akan now proudly goes about answering to European names which they tell him is Christian name, and a Yoruba now takes enormous pride in speaking English with his family as this writer (shockingly) witnessed in Lagos. And many brothers and sisters are spending fortunes to bleach their melanin-rich skin.
We need to rediscover our old ways and mesh it with our aspirations for modernity. The tragedy would be to allow ourselves to be consumed by pessimism. Each and every one of us should do her ablest best to help out. In Ghana there’s a movement call ‘Sankofa’ which is trying to teach people to look into their past. Sankofa is an Akan word that means, "We must go back and reclaim our past so we can move forward; so we understand why and how we came to be who we are today."
NO FRIEND OR FOE, ONLY INTERESTS
Any honest observer will attest to the fact we Africans are the most humane and the most accommodating people on earth. Our people would rather starve than let a stranger go hungry. Alas, our generosity and humanity have been used against us again and again. It’s time we start to reappraise how we deal with the ‘others.’
When our people in what is now called South Africa gave accommodation to the Dutch pirate, Riebeeck, and his gang, they thought they were extending a hand of help to fellow humans (even if an albino) in distress. Little did they know that the Dutch had a different concept of humanity, which includes the annihilation of the local folks in order to steal their land. It took over three hundred years of hard struggle before Africans were able to reclaim their lands from the hands of the Dutch conquerors, albeit in a mangled form.
It’s time we learned that (1) the Europeans do not share our definition of humanity and (2) that almost everyone has used our generosity against us. We ought to learn and preach this lesson. We welcomed the Arabs and we welcomed the Europeans, they set out to do us in and today we remain a sad caricature of these strangers we welcomed into our land. Our generosity has led to our being virtually wiped out culturally. The strangers mangled our history and made us into a non-historical people. They mangled our religion and made us worship their furious desert gods and taught us to laugh at the gods of our ancestors.
This has been our history and it is time we learn from the historic mistakes of our ancestors.
RACIAL SOLIDARITY
Everywhere we look in the world every other race safe for the African is practicing racial solidarity. I totally agree that race is a sociological and not a biological term. But the reality is that we operate in worlds of words and symbols. The Albinos we call Europeans (whether they live in Europe, Australia or North America) always present a united front against the rest of us. The Arabs and the Asians are doing the same thing. Or would someone tell me the last time he saw an Indian or a Chinese or even an Egyptian in an African shop?
Cheikh Anta Diop very ably demonstrated in his book, “The Cultural Unity of Black Africa,” that black Africa is culturally homogenous. Sadly, Europeans intruders have succeeded in destroying what should be a natural solidarity of a people who are, in essence, one people. I get irritated when I am asked in Ghana why I choose to live there. For those who might not know it, two of Ghana’s largest national groups, the Ewes and the Gas are of Yoruba descent. I’m still astounded by the sheer number of Yoruba words still found in the Ewe language (ku, enu, agbo just to mention a few). The Akans are the largest national groups in both Ghana and Ivory Coast. The Mossi straddles both Burkina Faso and Ghana. The Fulani (Pula or Peul) and the Hausas are found throughout West Africa, while the Mande (Mandigo) are to be found in large numbers in at least nine West African countries. Zulus are found in South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique. The Kongo people are found in both Congo and Angola whilst Maasai are to be found in both Kenya and Tanzania
ALLOW NO STRANGER TO MEDIATE IN OUR FAMILY DISPUTE
Even in the most harmonious of families disputes do arise, but it’s courting disaster to invite outsiders to settle your family dispute. This again has been our tragedy in Africa. Ancient Africa was in rupture when European intruders came and took sides in our disputes. The clever European end up suppressing both parties and he became the ultimate winner. He ends up owning our very land.
Even in modern times whichever warfare in Africa we take a look at, the most ferocious and prolonged are those where outsiders (principally Arabs and Europeans) took sides.
Europeans do not allow any outsider to interfere in their affairs; Africa has no business inviting foreigners in to settle their wahala.
KEEP YOUR CULTURE
One only has to travel around to witness the immense beauty and diversity of the African culture, yet I do not know any other people on earth who had such low estimation of their cultural heritage as Africans.
Culture is manifested in music, painting, sculpture and in religion. The more we study our history the more we realize that our ancestors bequeathed to us a very rich cultural heritage. It then beholds upon us to become passionate even animated in enriching and protecting our own culture. Musically we are on top of the world. Our paintings have been plagiarized like no man’s business; example is cubism which made both Picasso and Matisse famous. African religion still continues to awe me with its deep reverence for life and its central humanness. The more I studied the Yoruba Ifa Religion, the more I’m astounded by its depth of its knowledge.
Religion is essentially ancestors worshipping and Africans remain the only people who do not pay homage to their ancestors. Could this lack of reverence for our ancestors be responsible for our current sad state? How ridiculous to see Africans bowing heads in prayer to the ‘god of Jacob or Abraham or a god of Israel?” Space will not permit an exhaustive examination of the Christian religion here, but Africans will do well to know that it owes its origins to the religion of their forebears in Egypt. One needs only to examine the Osirian drama, where the Egyptian redeemer-god sacrifices himself, dies, and is resurrected to save mankind, and see its close resemblance to the Jesus tale. Moses was brought up in the palace of the Pharaoh and the laws he claimed to have received from Mount Sinai was part of the Egyptian legal system. And we shouldn’t forget that Jesus spoke Aramaic, an African language, nor should we lose sight of the fact that the most potent symbol of Christianity, the cross was a copy of the ancient African Ankh.
SETTING UP OUR OWN INDEPENDENT MEDIA
It is absurd to expect oppressors to come and teach us how to free ourselves. I find incongruous the current situation where Western governments and their agencies are sponsoring ‘free media’ practices in Africa – a commodity sorely lacking in the West. African journalists, whatever their political, ideological or other orientations owe it to the motherland to be pro African first and last. We have no reason anymore to be giddy about imperialists and the cheap laurels they keep throwing at us.
CREATING OURSELVES IN OUR OWN IMAGE
The God’s truth is that Africa is stupendously beautiful and Africans can hold their own against the best in sheer beauty, why then do we allow ourselves to be stymied by the negative vibes of the CNN, the BBC World and other White Supremacist media? If I say ‘Black is Beautiful,’ I’m merely making a statement of fact. So why do we abandon the 1960’s slogan and start to view ourselves from the prisms of our historic oppressors.
There is no society created by man that hasn’t got its own earthly problems, why should Africa be different? Of course we face tremendously developmental challenges in Africa, so do Europeans and their American cousins. I have seen pictures of ghettos in the US that would make Ajegunle (a slum in Lagos) looks like paradise. Of course, you will not see such on the CNN.
I say it’s time we start singing our own praises. As Achebe said in ‘Things fall apart,’ “The Lizard that fell from the Iroko tree said if it does not praise itself no one else will.”
If they sing their crap and start awarding themselves ‘Academy’ and other awards, why are we not creating our own laurels for our pool of hugely talented artistes? Gladly, the Nigerians have invented Nollywood and are creating their own images of themselves; other African countries should follow this example.
It is time we stop being apologetic. As Professor Karenga rightly said, we are a non-obligated people. We have done nothing to be ashamed of. If they throw idi Amin at you, throw Stalin and Mussolini and Hitler right back at them.
In order to do this, however, you need to begin the journey in self-discovery. Read up on your history and more importantly teach it to your children.
ET TU Republic of South Africa?
“It takes a million people to build up a reputationLucky Dube
But it takes one stupid fool to destroy everything you have done.”
The past few weeks were terrible times for Africans everywhere. And every true Pan-Africanist who watched the events in the Republic of South Africa (RSA) must have seriously belly-ached. That the RSA, a 'Rainbow nation,' the land of the acclaimed Patron Saint of reconciliation, Nelson Mandela, should descend into orgy of mayhem and violence with black Africans as victims is the stuff of the worst nightmares.
The sad truth is that Africa and by extension Africans gave so much to the RSA that it borders on the worst gratuitous ingratitude to see black South Africans armed with cudgels, stone and guns descending on their brothers and sisters from other parts of the motherland with lynching and looting intentions.
Fifty Africans, whose only crime was the colour of their skin, were violently murdered with several thousand more dislocated seeking shelters at Police Stations, churches, mosques and what have you. Many more have returned to their home countries tearfully narrating their ordeals at the hands of people who were previously looked upon as friends and neighbours. A Mozambican was burned alive!
Cry the beloved country! This is the same South Africa that less than two decades ago Africans made tremendous efforts to free from the clutches of the mindless and merciless Albinos from Europe hell-bent on maintaining the last White bastion on African soil?
It appears that the criminals in South Africa failed to heed the sage Mandela's warning that amnesty could not and should not be equated with amnesia. How otherwise could they have so soon and so easily forget that wretchedly poor African countries gave generously to ‘their‘ country’s liberation!
Do those poor and wretched souls unaware of the tremendous battering they are giving to their country's image? This is a country set to hold what its leaders have termed the 'African World Cup,' in two years. And it is towards the republic that many Africans are looking upon to enable Africa takes its rightful place among the comity of nations!
It was Nigerian author, Chinua Achebe, who opined that the problem of Africa is that of leadership. It's difficult to argue with that. Why did most post-colonial African leaders believe that their people would be satisfied with token independence? Why did they assume that their people would be appeased with a sham sovereignty totally bereft of any economic empowerment? Cote d'Ivoire, Kenya, Senegal, Nigeria, Cameroon, Gabon, Namibia, Zimbabwe (until recently and South Africa were among African countries that attained nominal independence whilst the economy maintain its rigid colonial structures. The same is true of our beloved Ghana!
Afro-Pessimists and professional African bashers are having a field day. Their call: "Look at what they are doing to themselves! We told you so: black people are simply incapable of self-governing with the guiding hands of we Albinos."
Of course, lost in all the self-satisfied smirks of the racist Albinos is the simple fact they bear some responsibility for screwing up the minds of the blacks of that unfortunate land and elsewhere on the continent. What Afro-Pessimists also signally failed to configure into their inebriated analyses is that the Zulus (they formed the majority of the looters) are also targeting non-Zulu South Africans like the Vendas and Shangaans. Do we define that also as Xenophobic?
There is no hiding from the fact that the riots has given powerful ammunition to those dead set against African unity. The question is asked what hope is there for an African unity when in these times and days Africans are still killing other Africans living amongst them?
My own position is that contrary to what these analysts are saying, the South African incident offers cogent arguments for African leaders to expedite action on forming the African Union Government. I offer the following reasons which have been posited by better minds than mine.
1. A Union government will put an end to the pettiness that is the driving force behind most of African politics. When Africans learn to think continentally, they will stop being exploited by politicians who are forever pandering to primordial tribal sentiments.
2. A Union government will be powerful enough to demand and ensure that Africa gets better prices for her resources. I have argued elsewhere that setting the prices for African resources is a powerful tool at the hands of the Albinos. A united Africa, setting the prices for her products will have more financial resources to cater to her people than the present situation where we remain the world’s beggar despite our huge mineral resources. Ghana and her neighbor Cote D’Ivoire accounts for over half of the world’s cocoa production. The question is what’s stopping the leaders of these two countries from forming and OPEC-like cartel to jerk up the prices?
3. A Union government will ensure a more rapid industrialization pace for the continent. The Late Cheikh Anta Diop (of Senegal) discusses this at length in his book entitled, ‘Black Africa: An Economic Basis for a Federated State.’ Among Diop’s idea was the building of a huge dam on the mighty Congo River that would supply all of Africa’s energy needs. The idea has recently been taken up. We pray that it shall see a successful fruition. Industrialization will create better employment opportunities and ensure that, for once, Africans start to enjoy the fruits of their god-given natural resources
4. A Union Government will take it as a priority the total re-education of Africans with strong emphasis on the cultural, linguistic and history links that binds all Africans. Couple with this will be the decolonization of the African mind that will create the New African Personality that will see himself as a total being instead of as an appendage of the historic oppressors of his race.
5. Many African nations have suffered rebel incursions launched from neighbouring states. A good example is Chad and Sudan which are perennially at each other’s throat. A continental government with a standing army will, for once, ensure that African lives are stopped being wasted like no man’s business. You doubt this, go and read more about how Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe (mandated by SADC) put a stop to the imperialists designs on DRC and how Ghana and Nigeria (mandated by ECOWAS) stopped the carnage in both Liberia and Sierra Leone. The million of African lives wastes in senseless wars would not have happened had African leaders listened to Kwame Nkrumah’s call for an African High Command.
6. A union Government will strive to put a stop to the despicable exploitation of our motherland by Multinationals. Take the case of telecommunication: how good and pleasant it would be if I can use my Ghana-registered mobile phone in Asmara or Casablanca. No, I am not asking for the moon; it’s done in Europe.
From slavery to colonialism to new-colonialism to the new term ‘globalisation,’ the Albinos are forever contriving to keep ahead. They keep stealing Africa’s resources while serving us useless verbiages like their so-called democracy and on-paper freedom (which never includes freedom from hunger and want). To them we should be satisfied with our sham independence while they collared our elite into a cozy arrangement that guarantee them the world’s best goodies whilst we remain solidly mired in our poverty.
The leaders of South Africa have history to guide them; but they refused to learn. I am terribly ashamed by the lack of leadership shown by President Thabo Mbeki during the violence in RSA. He is a man I have greatly admired, but sadly he was found wanting when his nation cried for positive leadership.
Without a doubt there have been tremendous changes in the fortunes of Africans in South Africa. But the intelligent leaders of the rainbow nation should have configured the Theory of Rising Expectations into their strategic planning. It is said that power concedes nothing without strong demand. The stiff-necked Rhodesians played judicial rigmaroles until Uncle Bob got thoroughly fed up with them. After over forty years of independence, the Albinos are still maintaining their rigid control of the Kenyan economy. The Albinos still own the largest tracts of land in Namibia. They are still in control of the South African economy with token handouts to a few blacks here and dare. And they still own over eighty percent of the African land!
The fiction has been maintained that Africa needs the Albino and his Capital. Another myth is that the Albinos in Africa are there for purely altruistic reasons. The truth is that Europeans in Africa enjoy a standard of living that they can never match in their home countries. And Europe certainly does not offer them the vast strategic minerals they are looting from Africa.
Prophets like Nkrumah cried for African leaders to shed their pettiness and embrace a continental government which would have allow Africa to become a global force to be reckoned with. The Albinos conspired and killed the great man. Because Africa remains fragmented, the Albinos can continue to pick us one by one and emasculate us.
Those smirking Albinos should note that today, it is black visiting mayhem on blacks, tomorrow the blacks might decide to once and for all confront their common foe: the Albino sitting on African resources and still unwilling to share. Let see what chorus they would be singing when the oppressed blacks decided that enough is enough.
*To those who would like to know more about why oppressed people everywhere turns against themselves first, I recommend the anti-colonial classic by Albert Memmi, ‘The Colonized and the colonizers.’
Has Nigeria become a MALLAMoCRATIC State?
Government 101 teaches that a government has three branches: Legislature (to make laws); Executive (to implement laws) and Judiciary (to interpret laws).
In modern states with complex socio-ethnic settings, the political elite try to let political offices enjoy as much geographical spread as possible.
That's why when, say in Ghana, the President comes from the Southern part, the Vice President is invariably from the North. And whenever the President is a Christian, you can safely bet that the vice would be a Moslem.
No one says that the world is perfect, but one would be courting serious trouble were one to refuse to balance these delicate socio cum religious cum ethnic settings.
How then do we explain the situation in Nigeria where the heads of all the three branches of government are from the geographic North of the country?
People from the southern half of the geographic hocus-pocus called Nigeria do not find anything funny that the President, Umar Yar'adua; the President of the Senate, Senator David Mark and the Chief justice of the Federation, Justice Idris Legbo Kutigi, are all from the North.
In addition to these powerful positions the awesomely powerful Secretary to the Federal Government is also a Northerner. Ditto the National Security Adviser who wields enormous power in any government. As though that were not enough, the president’s Chief of Staff is also a northerner! And we have not begin to count the Ministers, Special Advisers, Heads of parastatals yet!!!
Nigerians are simply world champions when it comes to word-smithing. The latest coinage from our Alata brothers is Mallamocracy*. It is the word Nigerians coined to describe their form of government whereby almost every important official of state is a Northern Mallam. Democracy is said to be government of the people by the people and for the people (however inane that may look upon close scrutiny). We can thus define ‘mallamocracy’ as the government of the mallams by the mallams and for the mallams.
Southern Nigerians are not miffed for the fun of it. It happened during the madness of Abacha when power-intoxicated Northern Nigerian officials posted to the South start behaving like army of occupation and start treating Southern Nigerians like vassals.
This writer was not at all amused when at the Seme (between Nigeria and the Republic of Benin) border an Immigration officer of Northern extract started asking me questions in Hausas.
He, of course, took offense when I replied him in Yoruba. His colleagues had to take him away when I told him in a very loud voice that as far as I am concern the Caliphate hasn’t extended to Yorubaland.
For those not versed in the history of our giant neighbor, Nigeria, like Ghana, is an amalgamation of diverse and different ethnic and national groupings grouped together to serve British colonial interests. The three biggest of these national groups are the Hausa\Fulanis who formed the majority in the Northern half of the country; the Yorubas occupy the Western half of Southern Nigeria whilst the Igbos are the major group in Eastern Nigeria.
By an act of God or nature or both the rivers Niger and Benue carved the country into three neat parts. However, but by some curious colonial logic, the British decided that what God and nature had put asunder, they are going to put together. In 1914, British Colonial Governor Lugard decided that the colonial interests of her Majesty’s government would be best served by uniting the three parts and his wife, Lady Flora, coined the name: Nigeria (from Niger area; why she forgot the Benue remained a mystery!).
Since that colonial fiat in 1914, the various tribes of Nigeria have been struggling to build a viable nation state. Also by some mystifying logic of colonialism, the British found an ally in the feudal rulers of Northern Nigeria. Recently released Secret British papers informed us about how British colonial officials falsified both census figures and election results to ensure that Northern feudal elite emerge as the rulers of post-colonial Nigeria.
Nigeria gained political independence in 1960 but it has since been battling with gigantic attempt to rectify the anomalies created by British colonial shenanigans. To date, the country has been unable to conduct a credible census. And apart from the annulled 1996 elections, every election in Nigeria has been hotly disputed. Demographers studying Nigeria must be scratching their heads in bafflement: it remains the only place on earth where more people are said to reside in arid, Sahel regions than in savannah and tropical environments
It so happen that in all her forty eight years of nationhood, Nigeria has been ruled by leaders of Northern extraction for about thirty six years. So firm is the Northern grip of the governance of the country that a Northern state, Sokoto, has as its state’s motto: ‘BORN TO RULE.’
Sokoto is the capital of the powerful Usman dan Fodio Caliphate. Usman Dan Fodio was the Islamic warrior who believed that it is the divine call of Muslims to dip the Koran in the Atlantic. The expansionistic drive of the Mohameddans collided head on with British colonial ambitions. The rest, as they say, is history.
General Olusegun Obasanjo, a Yoruba, is the only non-Northerner to have ruled Nigeria for any length of time. His tenure (two of them) were purely accidents of history and has nothing to do with his or the Yorubas calculations.
The Hausa\Fulani who have now come to think of the Nigerian Presidency as their birthright couldn’t wait until Obasanjo’s tenure ended before foisting on the unfortunate nation another northern ruler.
What peeved Southern Nigerians most is that it appears that the Northern rulers are interested in dragging the nation backward. Few Nigerians will complain if the rulers are seen to be making efforts to build progressive, modern technological state. But the country is regressing at a rate that is truly alarming. 1970’s Nigeria boasts of super highways to rival the best in Europe and the USA. Today, due to negligence and mis-management those highways have become death traps daily claiming the lives of Nigerians. The latest casualties were 46 troops of the Nigerian army.
The 1970s Nigeria was an upwardly mobile nation with regional, continental even global ambitions. With collapsed infrastructures, Nigeria is today a sad shell of a dream gone awry.
As mentioned above, Northern Nigeria is still, essentially, a feudal society where armies of beggars are daily singing praises to a few otiose elite in order to earn their daily nourishment. Southern Nigerians, assertive and supremely self-confident believe that their country has no business being in the category of ‘Third World’ or any other negative moniker. Sadly, they are saddled with the albatross of an archaic political system that allows a few elite to steal national patrimony and firmly esconded their nation in the bracket of the world’s wretched.
General Obasanjo first ruled Nigeria in the late 70s (1976-1979). He handed power to Northern Shehu Shagari. On handing over, Obasanjo boasted among other things a sizable foreign reserves, a national airline boasting of some thirty six planes, a national shipping line with some ships. Shehu Shagari five years rule was characterized by colossal corruption. He was followed by General Buhari (a Northerner) who in turn was followed by General Babangida (another Northerner). It was Babangida who annulled the 1992 elections believed to have been won by Moshood Abiola (a Yoruba). To appease the Yorubas, Shonekan (a Yoruba) was installed as Nigerian leader for six month until he was pushed aside by that muscular dictator, General Abacha. Nigeria was thrown into limbo when powerful forces conspired to off both Abiola and Abacha. A Northern General, Abdulsalam, was selected to organize a smooth transition which saw the emergence of Olusegun Obasanjo as Nigeria president in 1999.
During his tenure a visibly irked Obasanjo queried those who criticized the pace of his administration to tell him what happened to all the viable projects he left behind in 1979. When Obasanjo came back to power twenty odd years after he handed over to Shagari, Nigeria Airways with its 36 planes had been ran aground. The Nigerian National Shipping Line was bankrupt and the nation was a pariah state tottering under a 46 billion dollars foreign debt. No one could answer Obasanjo.
Obasanjo’s tenure ended in May 2007 and he handed over to a Northerner Musa Yar’Adua. It is almost one year since ‘Baba Go glow,’ was elected President and Nigerians are asking if they have not got another Shagari on their hand. It was well-meaning but supremely mediocre Shagari who ran Nigeria aground and it was under his rule that Ghanaians (and other Africans) were expelled from Nigeria.
Nigerians have got another alias for their President: ‘President No Motion.’ So pedestrian is Yar’Adua administration that the rule of the former Chemistry Lecturer is virtually inertia. There is absolutely so sense of purpose or direction. From Economic to Financial to Foreign Policies, it has been a succession of flip flops.
Examples: When the Governor of Nigeria’s Central Bank announced plans to emulate Ghana and change the currency (the Naira), his idea was swiftly shot down. When Uncle Sam announced plans to create an African Command, Africans roundly condemned it. Nigerians were badly embarrassed when their President was summoned to the White House where he enthusiastically supported the US plans. On returning home, Yar’dua did another somersault; announcing Nigeria’s opposition. It was the same lack of consistency that characterizes the government’s treatment of the sale of the NITEL (Nigeria’s telecommunication company). Whatever their disagreement with Obasanjo, Nigerians generally agree that his creation of the Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) was the best legacy he left the country. Headed by the fearless Ribadu, a scion of the famous Ribadu family, the EFCC put the fear of God into the mindless rulers who believed that state’s funds are bounties to be looted with the utmost dispatch. Yar’dua managed to pick quarrel with Ribadu and forced his removal under the pretense of sending him on study leave.
Few months after he relinquished power, Nigerians seem to have forgotten what Obasanjo accomplished. Some commentators even went as far as saying that his was the worst government. This prompted yours truly to write ‘Obasanjo Agonistes,’ a piece that provoked much ire on the Nigerian Cyberspace. I did nothing but listed some of Obasanjo accomplishments which included (setting up the EFCC, total re-payment of Nigeria’s external debt, a 40+ billion dollars foreign reserves, the reintegration of Nigeria into the world’s community etc, etc) and prompted his critic to tell us which other Nigerian leader has accomplished as much. Many replied with verbal jibes but none was able to counter the facts I presented. It might be true that the one-eyed is the king in the land of the blinds, but the truth remains that Obasanjo is the most accomplished Nigerian leader.
In the piece, ‘Nigeria: a curse of reluctant leaders,’ I posited that Nigeria’s woes stemmed primarily from having the bad luck of never having a leader fully prepared for the presidency. Alas, the same is true of President Yar’dua. He was a governor of a backward sate in the North before he was plucked by Obasanjo and foisted on the nation. Yar’dua never had the ambition to rule Nigeria. It shouldn’t therefore be surprising that he hasn’t got the faintest clue about what to do once there.
Aside from systematically dismantling all that Obasanjo managed to build, Yar’dua does not appear to have accomplished much. Aside from his health which remains worrisomely comatose, Yar’dua’s economic, political and foreign policy thrust remains enigmatically opaque.
Another word that has just entered into the Nigerian political lexicon is: ‘Mallamadministration,’ a surely negative moniker that neatly sums up what Nigerians think of their current leader’s style of governance.
*Actually, I made the word up.
In modern states with complex socio-ethnic settings, the political elite try to let political offices enjoy as much geographical spread as possible.
That's why when, say in Ghana, the President comes from the Southern part, the Vice President is invariably from the North. And whenever the President is a Christian, you can safely bet that the vice would be a Moslem.
No one says that the world is perfect, but one would be courting serious trouble were one to refuse to balance these delicate socio cum religious cum ethnic settings.
How then do we explain the situation in Nigeria where the heads of all the three branches of government are from the geographic North of the country?
People from the southern half of the geographic hocus-pocus called Nigeria do not find anything funny that the President, Umar Yar'adua; the President of the Senate, Senator David Mark and the Chief justice of the Federation, Justice Idris Legbo Kutigi, are all from the North.
In addition to these powerful positions the awesomely powerful Secretary to the Federal Government is also a Northerner. Ditto the National Security Adviser who wields enormous power in any government. As though that were not enough, the president’s Chief of Staff is also a northerner! And we have not begin to count the Ministers, Special Advisers, Heads of parastatals yet!!!
Nigerians are simply world champions when it comes to word-smithing. The latest coinage from our Alata brothers is Mallamocracy*. It is the word Nigerians coined to describe their form of government whereby almost every important official of state is a Northern Mallam. Democracy is said to be government of the people by the people and for the people (however inane that may look upon close scrutiny). We can thus define ‘mallamocracy’ as the government of the mallams by the mallams and for the mallams.
Southern Nigerians are not miffed for the fun of it. It happened during the madness of Abacha when power-intoxicated Northern Nigerian officials posted to the South start behaving like army of occupation and start treating Southern Nigerians like vassals.
This writer was not at all amused when at the Seme (between Nigeria and the Republic of Benin) border an Immigration officer of Northern extract started asking me questions in Hausas.
He, of course, took offense when I replied him in Yoruba. His colleagues had to take him away when I told him in a very loud voice that as far as I am concern the Caliphate hasn’t extended to Yorubaland.
For those not versed in the history of our giant neighbor, Nigeria, like Ghana, is an amalgamation of diverse and different ethnic and national groupings grouped together to serve British colonial interests. The three biggest of these national groups are the Hausa\Fulanis who formed the majority in the Northern half of the country; the Yorubas occupy the Western half of Southern Nigeria whilst the Igbos are the major group in Eastern Nigeria.
By an act of God or nature or both the rivers Niger and Benue carved the country into three neat parts. However, but by some curious colonial logic, the British decided that what God and nature had put asunder, they are going to put together. In 1914, British Colonial Governor Lugard decided that the colonial interests of her Majesty’s government would be best served by uniting the three parts and his wife, Lady Flora, coined the name: Nigeria (from Niger area; why she forgot the Benue remained a mystery!).
Since that colonial fiat in 1914, the various tribes of Nigeria have been struggling to build a viable nation state. Also by some mystifying logic of colonialism, the British found an ally in the feudal rulers of Northern Nigeria. Recently released Secret British papers informed us about how British colonial officials falsified both census figures and election results to ensure that Northern feudal elite emerge as the rulers of post-colonial Nigeria.
Nigeria gained political independence in 1960 but it has since been battling with gigantic attempt to rectify the anomalies created by British colonial shenanigans. To date, the country has been unable to conduct a credible census. And apart from the annulled 1996 elections, every election in Nigeria has been hotly disputed. Demographers studying Nigeria must be scratching their heads in bafflement: it remains the only place on earth where more people are said to reside in arid, Sahel regions than in savannah and tropical environments
It so happen that in all her forty eight years of nationhood, Nigeria has been ruled by leaders of Northern extraction for about thirty six years. So firm is the Northern grip of the governance of the country that a Northern state, Sokoto, has as its state’s motto: ‘BORN TO RULE.’
Sokoto is the capital of the powerful Usman dan Fodio Caliphate. Usman Dan Fodio was the Islamic warrior who believed that it is the divine call of Muslims to dip the Koran in the Atlantic. The expansionistic drive of the Mohameddans collided head on with British colonial ambitions. The rest, as they say, is history.
General Olusegun Obasanjo, a Yoruba, is the only non-Northerner to have ruled Nigeria for any length of time. His tenure (two of them) were purely accidents of history and has nothing to do with his or the Yorubas calculations.
The Hausa\Fulani who have now come to think of the Nigerian Presidency as their birthright couldn’t wait until Obasanjo’s tenure ended before foisting on the unfortunate nation another northern ruler.
What peeved Southern Nigerians most is that it appears that the Northern rulers are interested in dragging the nation backward. Few Nigerians will complain if the rulers are seen to be making efforts to build progressive, modern technological state. But the country is regressing at a rate that is truly alarming. 1970’s Nigeria boasts of super highways to rival the best in Europe and the USA. Today, due to negligence and mis-management those highways have become death traps daily claiming the lives of Nigerians. The latest casualties were 46 troops of the Nigerian army.
The 1970s Nigeria was an upwardly mobile nation with regional, continental even global ambitions. With collapsed infrastructures, Nigeria is today a sad shell of a dream gone awry.
As mentioned above, Northern Nigeria is still, essentially, a feudal society where armies of beggars are daily singing praises to a few otiose elite in order to earn their daily nourishment. Southern Nigerians, assertive and supremely self-confident believe that their country has no business being in the category of ‘Third World’ or any other negative moniker. Sadly, they are saddled with the albatross of an archaic political system that allows a few elite to steal national patrimony and firmly esconded their nation in the bracket of the world’s wretched.
General Obasanjo first ruled Nigeria in the late 70s (1976-1979). He handed power to Northern Shehu Shagari. On handing over, Obasanjo boasted among other things a sizable foreign reserves, a national airline boasting of some thirty six planes, a national shipping line with some ships. Shehu Shagari five years rule was characterized by colossal corruption. He was followed by General Buhari (a Northerner) who in turn was followed by General Babangida (another Northerner). It was Babangida who annulled the 1992 elections believed to have been won by Moshood Abiola (a Yoruba). To appease the Yorubas, Shonekan (a Yoruba) was installed as Nigerian leader for six month until he was pushed aside by that muscular dictator, General Abacha. Nigeria was thrown into limbo when powerful forces conspired to off both Abiola and Abacha. A Northern General, Abdulsalam, was selected to organize a smooth transition which saw the emergence of Olusegun Obasanjo as Nigeria president in 1999.
During his tenure a visibly irked Obasanjo queried those who criticized the pace of his administration to tell him what happened to all the viable projects he left behind in 1979. When Obasanjo came back to power twenty odd years after he handed over to Shagari, Nigeria Airways with its 36 planes had been ran aground. The Nigerian National Shipping Line was bankrupt and the nation was a pariah state tottering under a 46 billion dollars foreign debt. No one could answer Obasanjo.
Obasanjo’s tenure ended in May 2007 and he handed over to a Northerner Musa Yar’Adua. It is almost one year since ‘Baba Go glow,’ was elected President and Nigerians are asking if they have not got another Shagari on their hand. It was well-meaning but supremely mediocre Shagari who ran Nigeria aground and it was under his rule that Ghanaians (and other Africans) were expelled from Nigeria.
Nigerians have got another alias for their President: ‘President No Motion.’ So pedestrian is Yar’Adua administration that the rule of the former Chemistry Lecturer is virtually inertia. There is absolutely so sense of purpose or direction. From Economic to Financial to Foreign Policies, it has been a succession of flip flops.
Examples: When the Governor of Nigeria’s Central Bank announced plans to emulate Ghana and change the currency (the Naira), his idea was swiftly shot down. When Uncle Sam announced plans to create an African Command, Africans roundly condemned it. Nigerians were badly embarrassed when their President was summoned to the White House where he enthusiastically supported the US plans. On returning home, Yar’dua did another somersault; announcing Nigeria’s opposition. It was the same lack of consistency that characterizes the government’s treatment of the sale of the NITEL (Nigeria’s telecommunication company). Whatever their disagreement with Obasanjo, Nigerians generally agree that his creation of the Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) was the best legacy he left the country. Headed by the fearless Ribadu, a scion of the famous Ribadu family, the EFCC put the fear of God into the mindless rulers who believed that state’s funds are bounties to be looted with the utmost dispatch. Yar’dua managed to pick quarrel with Ribadu and forced his removal under the pretense of sending him on study leave.
Few months after he relinquished power, Nigerians seem to have forgotten what Obasanjo accomplished. Some commentators even went as far as saying that his was the worst government. This prompted yours truly to write ‘Obasanjo Agonistes,’ a piece that provoked much ire on the Nigerian Cyberspace. I did nothing but listed some of Obasanjo accomplishments which included (setting up the EFCC, total re-payment of Nigeria’s external debt, a 40+ billion dollars foreign reserves, the reintegration of Nigeria into the world’s community etc, etc) and prompted his critic to tell us which other Nigerian leader has accomplished as much. Many replied with verbal jibes but none was able to counter the facts I presented. It might be true that the one-eyed is the king in the land of the blinds, but the truth remains that Obasanjo is the most accomplished Nigerian leader.
In the piece, ‘Nigeria: a curse of reluctant leaders,’ I posited that Nigeria’s woes stemmed primarily from having the bad luck of never having a leader fully prepared for the presidency. Alas, the same is true of President Yar’dua. He was a governor of a backward sate in the North before he was plucked by Obasanjo and foisted on the nation. Yar’dua never had the ambition to rule Nigeria. It shouldn’t therefore be surprising that he hasn’t got the faintest clue about what to do once there.
Aside from systematically dismantling all that Obasanjo managed to build, Yar’dua does not appear to have accomplished much. Aside from his health which remains worrisomely comatose, Yar’dua’s economic, political and foreign policy thrust remains enigmatically opaque.
Another word that has just entered into the Nigerian political lexicon is: ‘Mallamadministration,’ a surely negative moniker that neatly sums up what Nigerians think of their current leader’s style of governance.
*Actually, I made the word up.
Saturday, July 5, 2008
White Power Structures
O'REILLY (Fox News host): …what The New York Times wants and the far-left want? They want to breakdown the white Christian male power structure of which you are a part, and so am I. And they want to bring in millions of foreign nationals to basically breakdown the structure that we have. In that regard, Pat Buchanan is right. So I say that you've got to cap it with a number.” Bill O’reilly, The O'Reilly Factor, May 30, 2007.
In this essay I intend to examine the structures of the Global White Power (GWP). In, ‘The Philosophy of White Supremacy,’ I defined and examined the ideology that made the minority white people of the world believe in their manifest destiny to rule and control the world, its people and, especially, its resources for the benefit of white people.
Except for the seriously purblind, it is crystal clear that the world’s Albinos (so-called White people), a minority of the world’s people, exercise tremendous power quite disproportionate to their minority status.
Here I intend to examine the structures the Albinos have erected to uphold and maintain the ideology of white supremacy.
Let me begin by first taking care of the so-called white liberals who like to whine that we Africans do not show much ‘appreciation’ for the work that they (liberals) are doing in our behalf. They mention their donating monies to charities and their sponsoring of orphans in their so-called third world, as some of these great works.
To them I say that they are totally missing the point: Africa is too well endowed to need anyone’s charity.
The only reason Africans remain poor is that we are yet to figure out how to rescue ourselves from the predatory clutches of White Global Power. It is all well and jolly for White Liberals to engage in charities, but while they are interested in cosmetic lessening of the Black man’s burden (caused, in main part, by the ideology of white supremacy), I am committed to its total eradication. While they advocate the maintenance of the current white-supremacy global power structure, albeit with minor adjustments here and there; I’m committed to its complete overthrow.
My position is an uncompromising end to the unjust global system whereby an Albino minority is ruling the majority melanin-rich people of the world. In this struggle, compromise or cosmetic alterations do not exist in my arsenal.
Let me also make it clear that in my writings against racism or GWP, I’m not all concerned by individual pathologies. What I am concerned with are the institutions the Albinos have erected to maintain their ideology of white supremacy. Let it be noted that while it is true that not every white person is racist; every white person is a beneficial of these institutions irrespective of social, political or even ideological persuasion. Except for the liar, everyone else knows that in our world today white skin automatically confers advantages, especially in non-white societies.
Now, let’s look at some of the structures that GWP have built to maintain its stranglehold on the world.
THE MEDIA
The most effective weapon in the arsenal of GWP is the media. Of all the crimes Europe committed against non-Europeans, the most serious and the most egregious is the colonization of information. Europeans not only raped, murdered and plundered but they took it upon themselves to build a complete scholarship based on lies. This was a deliberate and a very conscious effort needed to build a Eurocentric world whereby ancient civilizations will start to look up to the upstart (Europeans) for leadership and direction. The so-called ‘free press’ of the West function always act as a virtual adjunct of Western governments, and about the only thing they do is parrot the lies of western leadership and scholarship. I advice those still deluding themselves about the western media being free to get and read late David Halberstam (may his soul rest in peace) book: “The Powers That Be.” ISBN 0-252-06941-2.
By media, we are not talking not only about the print and electronic journalism but also about the films, theatres and other productions that GWP produces to sell itself. For example, I grew up watching John Wayne movies shown by the information department of the government of Western Nigeria on giant screen projectors in our village square. It goes without saying that we were rooting for the Albino bandits massacring the Indians whose lands they have stolen.
A good example of how GWP uses its vast media power is the speed with which it, almost overnight, transformed the perception of communism being the ultimate menace to Islamphobia being the critical peril. We can also cite the example of Saddam Hussein who was a dependable ally until he was suddenly morphed (by Western media) into a bloodthirsty, world-security threatening ogre, to be stamped out by every means necessary. Zimbabwe’s President Mugabe’s transformation from a darling to an Anti-Christ is also a good example.
THE ACADEMIA:
In “The Mis-education of the Negro, Dr. Carter G. Woodson, wrote: “When you control a man’s thinking you do not have to worry about his actions. You do not have to tell him not to stand here or go yonder. He will find his “proper place” and will stay in it. You do not need to send him to the back door. He will go without being told. In fact, if there is no back door, he will cut one for his special benefit. His questions of education makes it necessary.” In this ever-green classic, Dr. Woodson correctly opined that: “because the mind has been subjected to control, the ideal of inferiority has become a permanent resident, accepting of discrimination to the point where it seems natural.”
Dr. Woodson was of the opinion that GWP deliberately set out as a matter of conscious policy to screw-up the minds and the brains of Black people of the US of A. The same pattern was established in the colonies in Africa. One of the insults White scholarship likes to spew on us was that ‘education’ was among the glories of colonization.
Methinks that if the purpose of education was to create a literate who will contribute to the development of his\her society, then the education they gave the colonial was an utter failure. The fact of the matter is that the type of education we got was one that produced an ‘educated elite’ completely and totally alienated from his society. This was true not only in the colonies but sadly, with few exceptions; it is still so in much of Africa where the so-called education only produces educated elite completely alienated from their cultural base.
Since the colonial curriculum only set out to train Africans to function in capacities that would ensure the smooth running of the colonial superstructure we can safely assume that this is no accident. Sadly, it is still the same curriculum that is still being followed in much of Africa. That could be the only explanation while Ghanaian children are still being taught today about the achievements of colonial governors, and while Nigerian children are still being told that Mungo Park discovered the Niger.
THE ‘MULTI-NATIONAL’ INSTITUTIONS (IMF, WORLD BANK, IFC, THE UN AND ITS ORGANS ETC, ETC.)
According to article (i) of its charter, the World Bank was set up: “To assist in the reconstruction and development of territories of members by facilitating the investment of capital for productive purposes, including the restoration of economies destroyed or disrupted by war, the reconversion of productive facilities to peacetime needs and the encouragement of the development of productive facilities and resources in less developed countries.”
Article 1 of the IMF charter reads: “To promote international monetary cooperation through a permanent institution which provides the machinery for consultation and collaboration on international monetary problems.”
From its charter, we glean that the: “IFC's purpose is to foster economic growth by promoting private sector investment in its developing member countries. It accomplishes this by providing venture capital for productive private enterprises in association with local investors and management, by encouraging the development of local capital markets, and by stimulating the flow of private capital. The Corporation is designed to supplement, rather than replace, private capital.”
These are noble ideas and ideals indeed and, if implemented, they would have made the world a better place for all its inhabitants to live. This, however, would have run counter to the agenda and the ideology of GWP. So they simply hijacked these institutions and turn them into the instruments of maintaining their ideology of white supremacy whereby non-white would continue to be the hewer of woods, while white people keep going obese by feeding fats on the labour and resources of non-white people.
Firmly in its hand, GWP use the IMF and the World Bank to launch its genocidal policies of Structural Adjustment Policy. Against the advice of African economists led by Professor Adebayo Adedeji, the Bretton Woods institutions imposed this policy which swept through African economies like a hurricane and left in its wake destroyed economies and crippled infrastructures. When the agonizing cries of Africans prickled what is left of their conscience, they changed SAP to ESAP (Enhanced SAP) and this, in turn metamorphosed into Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) which, in turn, transmuted into the insulting Heavily Indebted and Poor Country (HIPC), and later turn to Millennium Development Goals. Whatever name is given to these policies, the agenda remains the same: GWP must be in control of the world’s resources.
THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION:
Poser: what is the most effective way to set about destroying a people without militarily wiping them out? Answer: You can do that by annihilating them culturally.
A human being without a culture is simply a non-being. The world would be better off without a person who is not conscious of her own existence. What point is there in living if you do not even know who you are? That is the central problem of the Black man today.
Another poser: who inflicted the worst violence on Africa, is it the European warrior who, armed with his gun, raped, killed and pillaged to his lustful satisfaction or is it the white missionary who, armed with his Bible (a collection of fables, I might add here) set about to systematically strip the African of his history and culture and, in turn, his humanity?
I could be wrong but methinks that the missionary did Africa more violence than his warrior brother. The warrior undoubtedly wrought his fair share of destruction, but it was the missionary who wrecked the African and turn him into a cultural and historical cripple. The White missionary one-track, materialistic mind couldn’t grasp the deep spirituality of the African, so he taught the African to start laughing at the gods of his ancestors. He taught us to poke fun at our gods and our rituals and our traditions and our culture. He taught us to laugh at our history. In this the European succeeded so much so that those Africans that considered themselves educated would rather die than pray to the gods of their ancestors; they would rather perish than answer to their native names or speak their native language, or to partake in the customs and traditions of their own folks! In the name of education, the African has been rendered into a non-person. He is but a caricature of the European; and a sad one at that!
THE MILITARY
There is no debate whatever that GWP is the most heavily armed member of the human race. Yet, White people, with all the awesome weapons of mass annihilation at their disposal, are the most insecure people on earth. This fear of the white people could have its origin in two sources:
i.The fear that should they lose guard the rest of the world would decide to give White People a dose of the medicine they have been dishing to the rest of us since they woke up from their alpine caves, and start to inflict unmitigated and unremitting violence on the rest of humanity.
ii.Since they cannot wipe us out genetically, they should always maintain their military superiority just in case we decide to step out of line. Just as their father’s used to say: “Whatever happens, we have got the Maxim guns.”
This goes only to show that you can buy as much war toys as you will, but you can never buy security. Concomitant to arming themselves to the hilt, GWP tries to deny non-white the means to arm themselves. That explains why they were against their client Saddam Hussein acquiring nuclear weapons and why they have to kill him. It is only explanation why they are using all the tricks in the books (and outside it) to deny Iran the nuclear knowledge.”
“I perceived in this moment that when the white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom that he destroys. He becomes a sort of hollow, posing dummy, the conventionalized figure of a sahib. For it is the condition of his rule that he shall spend his life in trying to impress the “natives,” and so in every crisis he has got to do what the “natives” expect of him. He wears a mask, and his face grows to fit it. I had got to shoot the elephant. I had committed myself to doing it when I sent for the rifle. A sahib has got to act like a sahib; he has got to appear resolute, to know his own mind and do definite things. To come all that way, rifle in hand, with two thousand people marching at my heels, and then to trail feebly away, having done nothing--no, that was impossible. The crowd would laugh at me. And my whole life, every white man’s life in the East, was one long struggle not to be laughed at.” George Orwell, ‘Shooting an Elephant.’
In this essay I intend to examine the structures of the Global White Power (GWP). In, ‘The Philosophy of White Supremacy,’ I defined and examined the ideology that made the minority white people of the world believe in their manifest destiny to rule and control the world, its people and, especially, its resources for the benefit of white people.
Except for the seriously purblind, it is crystal clear that the world’s Albinos (so-called White people), a minority of the world’s people, exercise tremendous power quite disproportionate to their minority status.
Here I intend to examine the structures the Albinos have erected to uphold and maintain the ideology of white supremacy.
Let me begin by first taking care of the so-called white liberals who like to whine that we Africans do not show much ‘appreciation’ for the work that they (liberals) are doing in our behalf. They mention their donating monies to charities and their sponsoring of orphans in their so-called third world, as some of these great works.
To them I say that they are totally missing the point: Africa is too well endowed to need anyone’s charity.
The only reason Africans remain poor is that we are yet to figure out how to rescue ourselves from the predatory clutches of White Global Power. It is all well and jolly for White Liberals to engage in charities, but while they are interested in cosmetic lessening of the Black man’s burden (caused, in main part, by the ideology of white supremacy), I am committed to its total eradication. While they advocate the maintenance of the current white-supremacy global power structure, albeit with minor adjustments here and there; I’m committed to its complete overthrow.
My position is an uncompromising end to the unjust global system whereby an Albino minority is ruling the majority melanin-rich people of the world. In this struggle, compromise or cosmetic alterations do not exist in my arsenal.
Let me also make it clear that in my writings against racism or GWP, I’m not all concerned by individual pathologies. What I am concerned with are the institutions the Albinos have erected to maintain their ideology of white supremacy. Let it be noted that while it is true that not every white person is racist; every white person is a beneficial of these institutions irrespective of social, political or even ideological persuasion. Except for the liar, everyone else knows that in our world today white skin automatically confers advantages, especially in non-white societies.
Now, let’s look at some of the structures that GWP have built to maintain its stranglehold on the world.
THE MEDIA
The most effective weapon in the arsenal of GWP is the media. Of all the crimes Europe committed against non-Europeans, the most serious and the most egregious is the colonization of information. Europeans not only raped, murdered and plundered but they took it upon themselves to build a complete scholarship based on lies. This was a deliberate and a very conscious effort needed to build a Eurocentric world whereby ancient civilizations will start to look up to the upstart (Europeans) for leadership and direction. The so-called ‘free press’ of the West function always act as a virtual adjunct of Western governments, and about the only thing they do is parrot the lies of western leadership and scholarship. I advice those still deluding themselves about the western media being free to get and read late David Halberstam (may his soul rest in peace) book: “The Powers That Be.” ISBN 0-252-06941-2.
By media, we are not talking not only about the print and electronic journalism but also about the films, theatres and other productions that GWP produces to sell itself. For example, I grew up watching John Wayne movies shown by the information department of the government of Western Nigeria on giant screen projectors in our village square. It goes without saying that we were rooting for the Albino bandits massacring the Indians whose lands they have stolen.
A good example of how GWP uses its vast media power is the speed with which it, almost overnight, transformed the perception of communism being the ultimate menace to Islamphobia being the critical peril. We can also cite the example of Saddam Hussein who was a dependable ally until he was suddenly morphed (by Western media) into a bloodthirsty, world-security threatening ogre, to be stamped out by every means necessary. Zimbabwe’s President Mugabe’s transformation from a darling to an Anti-Christ is also a good example.
THE ACADEMIA:
In “The Mis-education of the Negro, Dr. Carter G. Woodson, wrote: “When you control a man’s thinking you do not have to worry about his actions. You do not have to tell him not to stand here or go yonder. He will find his “proper place” and will stay in it. You do not need to send him to the back door. He will go without being told. In fact, if there is no back door, he will cut one for his special benefit. His questions of education makes it necessary.” In this ever-green classic, Dr. Woodson correctly opined that: “because the mind has been subjected to control, the ideal of inferiority has become a permanent resident, accepting of discrimination to the point where it seems natural.”
Dr. Woodson was of the opinion that GWP deliberately set out as a matter of conscious policy to screw-up the minds and the brains of Black people of the US of A. The same pattern was established in the colonies in Africa. One of the insults White scholarship likes to spew on us was that ‘education’ was among the glories of colonization.
Methinks that if the purpose of education was to create a literate who will contribute to the development of his\her society, then the education they gave the colonial was an utter failure. The fact of the matter is that the type of education we got was one that produced an ‘educated elite’ completely and totally alienated from his society. This was true not only in the colonies but sadly, with few exceptions; it is still so in much of Africa where the so-called education only produces educated elite completely alienated from their cultural base.
Since the colonial curriculum only set out to train Africans to function in capacities that would ensure the smooth running of the colonial superstructure we can safely assume that this is no accident. Sadly, it is still the same curriculum that is still being followed in much of Africa. That could be the only explanation while Ghanaian children are still being taught today about the achievements of colonial governors, and while Nigerian children are still being told that Mungo Park discovered the Niger.
THE ‘MULTI-NATIONAL’ INSTITUTIONS (IMF, WORLD BANK, IFC, THE UN AND ITS ORGANS ETC, ETC.)
According to article (i) of its charter, the World Bank was set up: “To assist in the reconstruction and development of territories of members by facilitating the investment of capital for productive purposes, including the restoration of economies destroyed or disrupted by war, the reconversion of productive facilities to peacetime needs and the encouragement of the development of productive facilities and resources in less developed countries.”
Article 1 of the IMF charter reads: “To promote international monetary cooperation through a permanent institution which provides the machinery for consultation and collaboration on international monetary problems.”
From its charter, we glean that the: “IFC's purpose is to foster economic growth by promoting private sector investment in its developing member countries. It accomplishes this by providing venture capital for productive private enterprises in association with local investors and management, by encouraging the development of local capital markets, and by stimulating the flow of private capital. The Corporation is designed to supplement, rather than replace, private capital.”
These are noble ideas and ideals indeed and, if implemented, they would have made the world a better place for all its inhabitants to live. This, however, would have run counter to the agenda and the ideology of GWP. So they simply hijacked these institutions and turn them into the instruments of maintaining their ideology of white supremacy whereby non-white would continue to be the hewer of woods, while white people keep going obese by feeding fats on the labour and resources of non-white people.
Firmly in its hand, GWP use the IMF and the World Bank to launch its genocidal policies of Structural Adjustment Policy. Against the advice of African economists led by Professor Adebayo Adedeji, the Bretton Woods institutions imposed this policy which swept through African economies like a hurricane and left in its wake destroyed economies and crippled infrastructures. When the agonizing cries of Africans prickled what is left of their conscience, they changed SAP to ESAP (Enhanced SAP) and this, in turn metamorphosed into Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) which, in turn, transmuted into the insulting Heavily Indebted and Poor Country (HIPC), and later turn to Millennium Development Goals. Whatever name is given to these policies, the agenda remains the same: GWP must be in control of the world’s resources.
THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION:
Poser: what is the most effective way to set about destroying a people without militarily wiping them out? Answer: You can do that by annihilating them culturally.
A human being without a culture is simply a non-being. The world would be better off without a person who is not conscious of her own existence. What point is there in living if you do not even know who you are? That is the central problem of the Black man today.
Another poser: who inflicted the worst violence on Africa, is it the European warrior who, armed with his gun, raped, killed and pillaged to his lustful satisfaction or is it the white missionary who, armed with his Bible (a collection of fables, I might add here) set about to systematically strip the African of his history and culture and, in turn, his humanity?
I could be wrong but methinks that the missionary did Africa more violence than his warrior brother. The warrior undoubtedly wrought his fair share of destruction, but it was the missionary who wrecked the African and turn him into a cultural and historical cripple. The White missionary one-track, materialistic mind couldn’t grasp the deep spirituality of the African, so he taught the African to start laughing at the gods of his ancestors. He taught us to poke fun at our gods and our rituals and our traditions and our culture. He taught us to laugh at our history. In this the European succeeded so much so that those Africans that considered themselves educated would rather die than pray to the gods of their ancestors; they would rather perish than answer to their native names or speak their native language, or to partake in the customs and traditions of their own folks! In the name of education, the African has been rendered into a non-person. He is but a caricature of the European; and a sad one at that!
THE MILITARY
There is no debate whatever that GWP is the most heavily armed member of the human race. Yet, White people, with all the awesome weapons of mass annihilation at their disposal, are the most insecure people on earth. This fear of the white people could have its origin in two sources:
i.The fear that should they lose guard the rest of the world would decide to give White People a dose of the medicine they have been dishing to the rest of us since they woke up from their alpine caves, and start to inflict unmitigated and unremitting violence on the rest of humanity.
ii.Since they cannot wipe us out genetically, they should always maintain their military superiority just in case we decide to step out of line. Just as their father’s used to say: “Whatever happens, we have got the Maxim guns.”
This goes only to show that you can buy as much war toys as you will, but you can never buy security. Concomitant to arming themselves to the hilt, GWP tries to deny non-white the means to arm themselves. That explains why they were against their client Saddam Hussein acquiring nuclear weapons and why they have to kill him. It is only explanation why they are using all the tricks in the books (and outside it) to deny Iran the nuclear knowledge.”
“I perceived in this moment that when the white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom that he destroys. He becomes a sort of hollow, posing dummy, the conventionalized figure of a sahib. For it is the condition of his rule that he shall spend his life in trying to impress the “natives,” and so in every crisis he has got to do what the “natives” expect of him. He wears a mask, and his face grows to fit it. I had got to shoot the elephant. I had committed myself to doing it when I sent for the rifle. A sahib has got to act like a sahib; he has got to appear resolute, to know his own mind and do definite things. To come all that way, rifle in hand, with two thousand people marching at my heels, and then to trail feebly away, having done nothing--no, that was impossible. The crowd would laugh at me. And my whole life, every white man’s life in the East, was one long struggle not to be laughed at.” George Orwell, ‘Shooting an Elephant.’
Monday, May 5, 2008
The Philosophy of White Supremacy
“We [therefore] weighing all and singular the premises with due meditation, and noting that since we had formerly by other letters of ours granted among other things free and ample faculty to the aforesaid King Alfonso -- to invade, search out, capture, vanquish, and subdue all Saracens and pagans whatsoever, and other enemies of Christ wheresoever placed, and the kingdoms, dukedoms, principalities, dominions, possessions, and all movable and immovable goods whatsoever held and possessed by them and to reduce their persons to perpetual slavery…” - The Bull Romanus Pontifex (Nicholas V), January 8, 1455.
“Four hundred years, it’s still the same philosophy.” – Peter Tosh
What is ‘White Supremacy,’ and is it a philosophy? Some definitions are necessary for clarification.
My dictionary define Philosophy as: “the discipline concerned with questions of how one should live (ethic); what sorts of things exist and what are their essential natures (metaphysics); what counts as genuine knowledge (epistemology); and what are the correct principles of reasoning (logic).”
The same dictionary defines ‘White supremacy’ thus: “a racist ideology based on the assertion that white people are superior to other races. The term is sometimes used specifically to describe a political ideology that advocates social and political dominance for whites.”
I intend to show here that (1) ‘White Supremacy’ (aka racism) exists and that (2) it is a philosophy, if we accept that philosophy is a way of life.
I define White Supremacy as the arrogant belief inherent in the Whiteman (actually the term ‘Whiteman’ is a gross misnomer since no human being is actually white. The Albinos we call ‘Whites’ are pinkish in colour) that the world and its resources (especially its resources, including human) belong to him.
The domination and control of non-white people and their resources is at the centerpiece of this philosophy. No matter how much veneer Western scholarship and leadership try to put on their actions, this is the unvarnished truth. I will urge that we judge the Whiteman solely on the account of his actions, and not on the sanctimonious declarations of his leadership\scholarship.
There is no place in our wide world where the Whiteman is prepared to treat any non-white as an equal. This way of thinking is the philosophy underpinning the wiping out of whole societies where white people find resources that they craved. It was this same mentality that prompted Columbus and his bandits to virtually wipe the Indians off. It’s the same mindset that enabled Captain Cook and his brigands to kill off the aboriginals in Australia and it is the only reason why the British could, without compunction, killed off every man, woman and child they met on the Australian Island of Tasmania. And it is the reason the Boers tried to do us in South Africa.
To those who like to argue that we harp too much on the past, my response is that my polemics would have been pointless and even silly if there has been a change of heart on the part of the white people. Wherever you look, it is the same unabashed lust for other people’s resources using cunning and wholesale violence that they still carry around the world. The Whiteman continues to use every trick in their books to gain control of other people’s resources. They still have the same attitude of: ‘Why pay for it, if you can kill for it.’
No, we are not talking about the past. We are all witness to how the West brazenly stole a whole country, Iraq, right before our very eyes. They humiliated their former client, Saddam Hussein; stripped him of the wherewithal to defend himself, and yet they went ahead and crushed him nonetheless.
Again, the last time I checked, Afghanistan is a landlocked country in Central Asia. How then do we explain the presence of NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) troops in that unfortunate country? NATO was set up to defend the North Atlantic, yet the Whiteman was able to rationalize his presence in Afghanistan.
The most visible example of White Supremacy is the disproportionate power that white people wield in the world today. White people represent about ten percent of the world’s people. The question arises as to how and why this tiny minority is ruling the world.
Except for those who are still sleeping, we all know that we live a Eurocentric intellectual, cultural, economical, political and social universe. And this did not happen by chance or by accident; it was a conscious decision of Whiteman to rule and control the non-white world. I don’t know a single white person who has questioned this unjust and unnatural state of affairs. All white people simply accept it as a natural order and, as they have amply demonstrated, most of them certainly would be prepared to go war should there be any attempt to dislocate the unfair status quo.
The most effective weapon in the hand of the white people is the virtual monopoly they wield over global communication and information. This again is a conscious policy. Of all the crimes Europeans have committed against non-white (and God knows that they are vast), the greatest is the colonization of information. Armed with the total control of the means of information dissemination, Europeans were able to rewrite history. Since they cannot wipe Africans away militarily and genetically (not for lack of trying, I should add); they are trying to wipe us off historically. That explains why some of them suggested (with straight faces) that Africans have no history.
What is it if not implicit racism to suggest that Africa, the birthplace of modern man (as every scientist now accepts) is bereft of history? Concomitant to this erasure of Africa from history is the conscious promotion of a Eurocentric world. According to this gospel, every non-white was waiting in darkness until the Whiteman brought him the light of civilization. That the Whiteman has succeeded in making the rest of the world believe in this odious historical distortion is due in large measure to his dominating much of the world’s means of communication.
Contrary to what the Whiteman is forcing down our throats, history showed him a destroyer of civilizations. He didn’t bring civilization to the Mayans, the Aztecs, the Aboriginals and certainly not to the Africans; he destroyed those ancient civilizations.
However this historical fact hasn’t dented the enthusiasm of Western scholars and leaders from promoting the historical distortion of the Whiteman as a Civilizer. That explains why the new President of France, Nicholas Sarkozy, a loutish racist of the first degree, can go to Africa (of all places) and said that: “The tragedy of Africa is the African man has never really entered history.”
I do not know what type of education or mis-education Mr. Sarkozy had but he, and people like him, should look up on just two or three instances in history and tell us who hasn’t entered history, the European or the African.
“Mansa Musa was the grand-nephew of the founder of the Mali Empire, Sundiata Keita, and ruled over the Mali Empire, during which it was the source of almost half the world’s gold. Musa was a devoted Muslim, and Islamic scholarship flourished under his rule. With Musa as a benefactor, Sankore University in Timbuktu reached its height. Craftsmen and especially Islamic scholars came from all over the Muslim world to receive a free education at Sankore’s guild and madrasas. On the way to Mecca, when he passed through Cairo in July of 1324, he was reportedly accompanied by a caravan that included thousands of people and nearly a hundred camels, giving away so much gold that it took over a decade for the economy across North Africa to recover, due to the rapid inflation that it initiated. On the path to Mecca, Mansa Musa had around five or six slaves or apprentices walking in front of him, sprinkling gold dust before his feet, so that he could walk on gold. He had this done because the Mansa would apparently not take a step without stepping on gold. – (all quotations used here and hereunder are from Wikipedia and related sources).
“The Great Famine of 1315–1322 was the first of a series of large-scale crises that struck Europe early in the 14th century, causing millions of deaths over an extended number of years and marking a clear end to an earlier period of growth and prosperity during the 11th through 13th centuries. Starting with bad weather in the spring of 1315, universal crop failures lasted through 1316 until the summer of 1317; Europe did not fully recover until 1322. It was a period marked by extreme levels of criminal activity, disease and mass death, infanticide, and cannibalism. It had consequences for Church, State, European society and future calamities to follow in the 14th century.”
And before they start telling us that it happened only in medieval times, this is what history also tells us:
“The Great Irish Famine (known as The Great Hunger, An Gorta Mór in Irish, or A Drochshaol, the Bad Life), refers to a famine, and its aftermath, in Ireland between 1845 and 1851. The famine was caused initially by potato, which almost instantly destroyed the primary food source for the majority of the Irish people. The blight explains the crop failure but the dramatic and deadly effect of the famine was exacerbated by other factors of economic, political, and social origin. The impact of the Great Famine in Ireland remains unparalleled, in terms of the demographic decline, the Irish population falling by approximately 25 percent in just six years, due to a combination of “excess mortality and mass emigration.”
And before you start entertaining illusions that it was only famine that was plaguing Europeans in those times, read this:
“The Black Death, or The Black Plague, was one of the most deadly pandemic in human history. It probably began in Central Asia and spread to Europe by the late 1340s. The total number of deaths worldwide from the pandemic is estimated at 75 million people; there were an estimated 20 to 30 million deaths in Europe alone. The Black Death is estimated to have killed between a third and two-thirds of the population.
The same disease is thought to have returned to Europe every generation with varying virulence and mortalities until the 1700s. During this period, more than 100 plague epidemics swept across Europe. On its return in 1603, the plague killed 38,000 Londoners. Other notable 17th Century outbreaks were the Italian Plague of 1629-1631, the Great Plague of Seville (1647-1652), the Great Plague of London (1665–1666), the Great Plague of Vienna (1679). There is some controversy over the identity of the disease, but in its virulent form, after the Great Plague of Marseille in 1720–1722 and the 1771 plague of Moscow it seems to have disappeared from Europe in the 18th century.
The fourteenth-century eruption of the Black Death had a drastic effect on Europe's population, irrevocably changing Europe's social structure. It was a serious blow to the Roman Catholic Church and resulted in widespread persecution of minorities such as Jews, foreigners, beggars and lepers.” (Italicized to show that the Whiteman persecution of minorities is as old as his history).
When African emperor was dazzling the people of Arabia with gold, Europeans were dying of famine and plagues, today we are being told by the children of those whose parents were living in alpine caves when our king was making his pilgrimage to Mecca that we had no history!
Actually, our message is not directed to the European; leopards cannot change their skin. Our message is directed to the African who still remain unconscious of the realities he faces as a Blackman in a very hostile, white-dominated world.
Curiously, whenever Africans protest against the clannish behavior of the white people, we are labeled racists and we are accused of preaching racial hatred.
Nonsense. Except by some incomprehensible logic, I fail to see why asking Africans to start taking care of their own affairs is akin to preaching hatred. I believe that it is duty and the obligation of every liberated African to tell his less-conscious brothers and sisters what we have gone throughout history so that such calamities do not befall us again.
This is the message of liberated Africans and it is a message to which every African, irrespective of his philosophical or political leanings, should try to relate to. This is not different what the Jews are doing. European Jews were persecuted by their European brethren in Europe. Jews all over the world took up the noble cause of ensuring that their people never again face a holocaust. Strangely, no one come out to accuse the Jews of preaching hatred. No, the Jews are not preaching hatred. What they preach is Self-Love, Self-Respect and Racial Solidarity.
But when we black people, who have suffered more than any other racial group, preach the same things the Jews are preaching, we are tagged extremists, radicals, racists, hate-mongers. And then the so-called Western Liberals are swarming over us asking for understanding. Maybe some of us are just tired of understanding. As I tell any liberal who come to me that he should go and preach to his government, his NGOs and the white supremacist groups in his country. They are the problem; I’m not.
Another manifestation of White Supremacy philosophy is the conscious negation of non white people through media manipulation or should I say annihilation. A visitor from Mars who landed in a white society might be pardoned for thinking that the only inhabitants that matters are white folks who are always assisting their dark-hued co-earthlings dying of AIDS, famine and wars. Or what do the CNN and the BBC and the other media of the Whiteman show you? This gross distortion is what we are being fed day in day out. And we must not complain; just accept it because it came from the Master.
There is also this pervasive tendency for the Whiteman to arrogantly dismiss the institutions, cultures, including religions of non-white people. We saw how the White missionaries destroyed complex African traditional religions because their materialistic, one-track minds cannot grasp them.
They made bonfires of the African gods only to replace it with the image of a redeemer (?) nailed to a cross. We see this also in the glib dismissal by Western anthropologists of Africans who go semi-nude in their hot climate. Yet, when we go to any beach in Europe in the summer we are confronted by the sight of naked people. They are white, so they cannot be primitives: They are called NUDISTS.
By White Supremacy, we are talking about how white people gave themselves the right to determine what they pay for the labour, the resources and the produce of non-white people.
This is an awesome power which Western analysts never liked to talk about. They talk about a mirage they call ‘market forces.’ What magical forces gave a Whiteman sitting behind his computer in London the right to determine the prices he will pay for cocoa grown by the peasant farmer in Ghana or gold dug up in South Africa or diamond from the soil of Sierra Leone? And this state of unjustified theft the world has come to accept as a natural state of affairs. And they pretend not to know why Africans are still poor!
And what is not in contention is that white people always act as one unit against non-white people. We see ample demonstration of these during the wars in Africa. Wherever there is conflict, the priority of the West is the evacuation of Westerners irrespective of nationality.
Again, we see this in their interactions in the international front where the West always presents a solid front against non-westerners. The Whites always act in consort, be it in trade negotiations or in their slapping of criminal sanctions against the nation of Zimbabwe.
While it’s true that it is not every Whiteman who is a racist, the indisputable fact remain that in the Eurocentric world in which we live today, every Whiteman is born with an advantage conferred solely by the colour of his skin.
As Albert Memmi wrote in his classic, ‘The Colonizer and the Colonized,’ “While it is true that it is not every white person who is a colonizer, but the Whiteman needs only to step into the colony to start enjoying the advantages of the colonizer.”
You can confirm this simply by observing how Europeans posted to Africa easily and automatically ease into the roles of colonizers. People who were yesterday struggling in their home countries immediately start to enjoy the paraphernalia of the colonizers: the big mansions, the servants, the security guards, the gardeners and the washing lady as though they were born with the privileges.
If tomorrow, as we hope, Africans take their affairs firmly in their hands and start dictating the prices of their commodities and produces and, more importantly setting their own agendas, we shall see whether or not every Whiteman is not wailing: “What a tribulation!”
Peace, Love, Respect and Solidarity!
“Four hundred years, it’s still the same philosophy.” – Peter Tosh
What is ‘White Supremacy,’ and is it a philosophy? Some definitions are necessary for clarification.
My dictionary define Philosophy as: “the discipline concerned with questions of how one should live (ethic); what sorts of things exist and what are their essential natures (metaphysics); what counts as genuine knowledge (epistemology); and what are the correct principles of reasoning (logic).”
The same dictionary defines ‘White supremacy’ thus: “a racist ideology based on the assertion that white people are superior to other races. The term is sometimes used specifically to describe a political ideology that advocates social and political dominance for whites.”
I intend to show here that (1) ‘White Supremacy’ (aka racism) exists and that (2) it is a philosophy, if we accept that philosophy is a way of life.
I define White Supremacy as the arrogant belief inherent in the Whiteman (actually the term ‘Whiteman’ is a gross misnomer since no human being is actually white. The Albinos we call ‘Whites’ are pinkish in colour) that the world and its resources (especially its resources, including human) belong to him.
The domination and control of non-white people and their resources is at the centerpiece of this philosophy. No matter how much veneer Western scholarship and leadership try to put on their actions, this is the unvarnished truth. I will urge that we judge the Whiteman solely on the account of his actions, and not on the sanctimonious declarations of his leadership\scholarship.
There is no place in our wide world where the Whiteman is prepared to treat any non-white as an equal. This way of thinking is the philosophy underpinning the wiping out of whole societies where white people find resources that they craved. It was this same mentality that prompted Columbus and his bandits to virtually wipe the Indians off. It’s the same mindset that enabled Captain Cook and his brigands to kill off the aboriginals in Australia and it is the only reason why the British could, without compunction, killed off every man, woman and child they met on the Australian Island of Tasmania. And it is the reason the Boers tried to do us in South Africa.
To those who like to argue that we harp too much on the past, my response is that my polemics would have been pointless and even silly if there has been a change of heart on the part of the white people. Wherever you look, it is the same unabashed lust for other people’s resources using cunning and wholesale violence that they still carry around the world. The Whiteman continues to use every trick in their books to gain control of other people’s resources. They still have the same attitude of: ‘Why pay for it, if you can kill for it.’
No, we are not talking about the past. We are all witness to how the West brazenly stole a whole country, Iraq, right before our very eyes. They humiliated their former client, Saddam Hussein; stripped him of the wherewithal to defend himself, and yet they went ahead and crushed him nonetheless.
Again, the last time I checked, Afghanistan is a landlocked country in Central Asia. How then do we explain the presence of NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) troops in that unfortunate country? NATO was set up to defend the North Atlantic, yet the Whiteman was able to rationalize his presence in Afghanistan.
The most visible example of White Supremacy is the disproportionate power that white people wield in the world today. White people represent about ten percent of the world’s people. The question arises as to how and why this tiny minority is ruling the world.
Except for those who are still sleeping, we all know that we live a Eurocentric intellectual, cultural, economical, political and social universe. And this did not happen by chance or by accident; it was a conscious decision of Whiteman to rule and control the non-white world. I don’t know a single white person who has questioned this unjust and unnatural state of affairs. All white people simply accept it as a natural order and, as they have amply demonstrated, most of them certainly would be prepared to go war should there be any attempt to dislocate the unfair status quo.
The most effective weapon in the hand of the white people is the virtual monopoly they wield over global communication and information. This again is a conscious policy. Of all the crimes Europeans have committed against non-white (and God knows that they are vast), the greatest is the colonization of information. Armed with the total control of the means of information dissemination, Europeans were able to rewrite history. Since they cannot wipe Africans away militarily and genetically (not for lack of trying, I should add); they are trying to wipe us off historically. That explains why some of them suggested (with straight faces) that Africans have no history.
What is it if not implicit racism to suggest that Africa, the birthplace of modern man (as every scientist now accepts) is bereft of history? Concomitant to this erasure of Africa from history is the conscious promotion of a Eurocentric world. According to this gospel, every non-white was waiting in darkness until the Whiteman brought him the light of civilization. That the Whiteman has succeeded in making the rest of the world believe in this odious historical distortion is due in large measure to his dominating much of the world’s means of communication.
Contrary to what the Whiteman is forcing down our throats, history showed him a destroyer of civilizations. He didn’t bring civilization to the Mayans, the Aztecs, the Aboriginals and certainly not to the Africans; he destroyed those ancient civilizations.
However this historical fact hasn’t dented the enthusiasm of Western scholars and leaders from promoting the historical distortion of the Whiteman as a Civilizer. That explains why the new President of France, Nicholas Sarkozy, a loutish racist of the first degree, can go to Africa (of all places) and said that: “The tragedy of Africa is the African man has never really entered history.”
I do not know what type of education or mis-education Mr. Sarkozy had but he, and people like him, should look up on just two or three instances in history and tell us who hasn’t entered history, the European or the African.
“Mansa Musa was the grand-nephew of the founder of the Mali Empire, Sundiata Keita, and ruled over the Mali Empire, during which it was the source of almost half the world’s gold. Musa was a devoted Muslim, and Islamic scholarship flourished under his rule. With Musa as a benefactor, Sankore University in Timbuktu reached its height. Craftsmen and especially Islamic scholars came from all over the Muslim world to receive a free education at Sankore’s guild and madrasas. On the way to Mecca, when he passed through Cairo in July of 1324, he was reportedly accompanied by a caravan that included thousands of people and nearly a hundred camels, giving away so much gold that it took over a decade for the economy across North Africa to recover, due to the rapid inflation that it initiated. On the path to Mecca, Mansa Musa had around five or six slaves or apprentices walking in front of him, sprinkling gold dust before his feet, so that he could walk on gold. He had this done because the Mansa would apparently not take a step without stepping on gold. – (all quotations used here and hereunder are from Wikipedia and related sources).
“The Great Famine of 1315–1322 was the first of a series of large-scale crises that struck Europe early in the 14th century, causing millions of deaths over an extended number of years and marking a clear end to an earlier period of growth and prosperity during the 11th through 13th centuries. Starting with bad weather in the spring of 1315, universal crop failures lasted through 1316 until the summer of 1317; Europe did not fully recover until 1322. It was a period marked by extreme levels of criminal activity, disease and mass death, infanticide, and cannibalism. It had consequences for Church, State, European society and future calamities to follow in the 14th century.”
And before they start telling us that it happened only in medieval times, this is what history also tells us:
“The Great Irish Famine (known as The Great Hunger, An Gorta Mór in Irish, or A Drochshaol, the Bad Life), refers to a famine, and its aftermath, in Ireland between 1845 and 1851. The famine was caused initially by potato, which almost instantly destroyed the primary food source for the majority of the Irish people. The blight explains the crop failure but the dramatic and deadly effect of the famine was exacerbated by other factors of economic, political, and social origin. The impact of the Great Famine in Ireland remains unparalleled, in terms of the demographic decline, the Irish population falling by approximately 25 percent in just six years, due to a combination of “excess mortality and mass emigration.”
And before you start entertaining illusions that it was only famine that was plaguing Europeans in those times, read this:
“The Black Death, or The Black Plague, was one of the most deadly pandemic in human history. It probably began in Central Asia and spread to Europe by the late 1340s. The total number of deaths worldwide from the pandemic is estimated at 75 million people; there were an estimated 20 to 30 million deaths in Europe alone. The Black Death is estimated to have killed between a third and two-thirds of the population.
The same disease is thought to have returned to Europe every generation with varying virulence and mortalities until the 1700s. During this period, more than 100 plague epidemics swept across Europe. On its return in 1603, the plague killed 38,000 Londoners. Other notable 17th Century outbreaks were the Italian Plague of 1629-1631, the Great Plague of Seville (1647-1652), the Great Plague of London (1665–1666), the Great Plague of Vienna (1679). There is some controversy over the identity of the disease, but in its virulent form, after the Great Plague of Marseille in 1720–1722 and the 1771 plague of Moscow it seems to have disappeared from Europe in the 18th century.
The fourteenth-century eruption of the Black Death had a drastic effect on Europe's population, irrevocably changing Europe's social structure. It was a serious blow to the Roman Catholic Church and resulted in widespread persecution of minorities such as Jews, foreigners, beggars and lepers.” (Italicized to show that the Whiteman persecution of minorities is as old as his history).
When African emperor was dazzling the people of Arabia with gold, Europeans were dying of famine and plagues, today we are being told by the children of those whose parents were living in alpine caves when our king was making his pilgrimage to Mecca that we had no history!
Actually, our message is not directed to the European; leopards cannot change their skin. Our message is directed to the African who still remain unconscious of the realities he faces as a Blackman in a very hostile, white-dominated world.
Curiously, whenever Africans protest against the clannish behavior of the white people, we are labeled racists and we are accused of preaching racial hatred.
Nonsense. Except by some incomprehensible logic, I fail to see why asking Africans to start taking care of their own affairs is akin to preaching hatred. I believe that it is duty and the obligation of every liberated African to tell his less-conscious brothers and sisters what we have gone throughout history so that such calamities do not befall us again.
This is the message of liberated Africans and it is a message to which every African, irrespective of his philosophical or political leanings, should try to relate to. This is not different what the Jews are doing. European Jews were persecuted by their European brethren in Europe. Jews all over the world took up the noble cause of ensuring that their people never again face a holocaust. Strangely, no one come out to accuse the Jews of preaching hatred. No, the Jews are not preaching hatred. What they preach is Self-Love, Self-Respect and Racial Solidarity.
But when we black people, who have suffered more than any other racial group, preach the same things the Jews are preaching, we are tagged extremists, radicals, racists, hate-mongers. And then the so-called Western Liberals are swarming over us asking for understanding. Maybe some of us are just tired of understanding. As I tell any liberal who come to me that he should go and preach to his government, his NGOs and the white supremacist groups in his country. They are the problem; I’m not.
Another manifestation of White Supremacy philosophy is the conscious negation of non white people through media manipulation or should I say annihilation. A visitor from Mars who landed in a white society might be pardoned for thinking that the only inhabitants that matters are white folks who are always assisting their dark-hued co-earthlings dying of AIDS, famine and wars. Or what do the CNN and the BBC and the other media of the Whiteman show you? This gross distortion is what we are being fed day in day out. And we must not complain; just accept it because it came from the Master.
There is also this pervasive tendency for the Whiteman to arrogantly dismiss the institutions, cultures, including religions of non-white people. We saw how the White missionaries destroyed complex African traditional religions because their materialistic, one-track minds cannot grasp them.
They made bonfires of the African gods only to replace it with the image of a redeemer (?) nailed to a cross. We see this also in the glib dismissal by Western anthropologists of Africans who go semi-nude in their hot climate. Yet, when we go to any beach in Europe in the summer we are confronted by the sight of naked people. They are white, so they cannot be primitives: They are called NUDISTS.
By White Supremacy, we are talking about how white people gave themselves the right to determine what they pay for the labour, the resources and the produce of non-white people.
This is an awesome power which Western analysts never liked to talk about. They talk about a mirage they call ‘market forces.’ What magical forces gave a Whiteman sitting behind his computer in London the right to determine the prices he will pay for cocoa grown by the peasant farmer in Ghana or gold dug up in South Africa or diamond from the soil of Sierra Leone? And this state of unjustified theft the world has come to accept as a natural state of affairs. And they pretend not to know why Africans are still poor!
And what is not in contention is that white people always act as one unit against non-white people. We see ample demonstration of these during the wars in Africa. Wherever there is conflict, the priority of the West is the evacuation of Westerners irrespective of nationality.
Again, we see this in their interactions in the international front where the West always presents a solid front against non-westerners. The Whites always act in consort, be it in trade negotiations or in their slapping of criminal sanctions against the nation of Zimbabwe.
While it’s true that it is not every Whiteman who is a racist, the indisputable fact remain that in the Eurocentric world in which we live today, every Whiteman is born with an advantage conferred solely by the colour of his skin.
As Albert Memmi wrote in his classic, ‘The Colonizer and the Colonized,’ “While it is true that it is not every white person who is a colonizer, but the Whiteman needs only to step into the colony to start enjoying the advantages of the colonizer.”
You can confirm this simply by observing how Europeans posted to Africa easily and automatically ease into the roles of colonizers. People who were yesterday struggling in their home countries immediately start to enjoy the paraphernalia of the colonizers: the big mansions, the servants, the security guards, the gardeners and the washing lady as though they were born with the privileges.
If tomorrow, as we hope, Africans take their affairs firmly in their hands and start dictating the prices of their commodities and produces and, more importantly setting their own agendas, we shall see whether or not every Whiteman is not wailing: “What a tribulation!”
Peace, Love, Respect and Solidarity!
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