OH, CZAMANI! OH, AFRICA!

Czamani - 9:53 PM ET June 25, 2005 (#3421 of 3425)

Chichi,
Phew... that was something. I do not agree with the way in which your assessment of the ills of Africa was so absolute. I agree that many Africans in power rushed to be like their formal colonial rulers, turning their brethren into their servants, schooling their kids in the west and hiding money in foreign accounts. I do not agree that things are worse then they were during colonialism.

The facts just do not add up. Take Zimbabwe for example, at UDI in 1965 and now 40 years later. Look at indicators such as literacy, hospitals and clinics built, primary schools and universities, Black business ownership, Black political participation, universal suffrage, freedom of movement, and social mobility for Blacks. In all of these indicators the situation has vastly improved in Zimbabwe, look it up if you need confirmation of this truth. I think it is an insult that you should assert that things were better during colonialism. When was the last time the ANC government in South Africa rolled up on a group of school-children and opened fire, as did the racist apartheid government in Sharpsville and Soweto? The African nation-state by design is designed to fail as the borders and boundaries are artificial, dividing people that should be together and bringing together peoples that have been separate for many thousands of years. This in and of itself is problematic and leads to conflict. Make no mistake I am not an apologist for corruption in Africa or any other part of the world. But nothing is as absolute as you present it. Where is your analysis of African leadership successes, where is your consideration of external interventions, coups, and laboratory created epidemics?


When the Belgians dropped paratroopers over the Democratic Republic of Congo was this result of Patrice Lumumba's failure as a leader... or was it because the Belgians coveted the rich Katanga area? Did not the UK default on its Lancaster House agreement to finance land reform in Zimbabwe? Was it fellow Africans who dissolved Lumumba's body in acid... or was it two Belgian men? Was it another African-led nation that sabotaged the air traffic control signal that sent Samora Michel’s presidential plane crashing into a mountain or was that the apartheid government of South Africa. Was an African organizer and financier found to be behind the coup plot in equatorial guinea or was it Simon Mann, Nick Du Toit and Mark Thatcher?

You are absolutely correct in your analysis of much of the African elite... many just wanted to sip on gin and tonic by the poolside of their former "baas". But to point to a small band of African elitists that choose to mimic the cultural backwardness of Indo-Europeans as evidence of all that is wrong with the continent and African leadership is to over-simplify the situation and to ignore the very real element of neo-colonialism. Africa is the most diverse human group on the planet, so it disserves your argument to make such sweeping generalizations homogenizing so many different experiences and cultures. If the entire human family were a tree then people of African decent would be the roots, the trunk and the canopy, and the entirety of every single other race and culture on earth (all of those that left Africa: i.e. Indo-Europeans, Asians, native Americans, pacific islanders) would be represented by a single twig on one of the limbs of this tree.

Genetically, linguistically and culturally there is far more diversity within Africa then there is in the rest of the entire world. To site example: A Scottish person and a Pakistani are far more similar genetically than an Ibo person is to a Xhosa. Do not romanticize Africans as all similar in our beliefs and actions... good or bad. The Nigerian elite may have sold out their less fortunate compatriots, but this is not the reality everywhere, in every country and with every ruling-class on the continent. I'm afraid it is you now my friend who could benefit from some objectivity.


Czamani - 10:19 PM ET June 25, 2005 (#3422 of 3425)

Nigeria is not Africa

In my opinion Nigeria is one of the more corrupt African nation states on the continent. Citing Nigeria as an example of African leadership would inevitably lead one to conclude that Africa has no hope. And if all African leadership resembled that which resides in Nigeria I would probably throw myself from a tall building. This dialogue is actually very interesting to me because in my experience most Nigerians with whom I have discussions about Africa are exceedingly cynical about African leadership... and many trumpet the same notion as you do that things were better under colonialism.... well my friend perhaps you should invite the racists back if that is how you feel, so long as the white supremacists are content to just have Nigeria, who am I to say that you are wrong to want to be dominated by Indo-Europeans again... to each his own right? Just remind me never to travel to Nigeria, as the idea of being sold into slavery again does not particularly appeal to me. Nigeria has been lobbying the west for a seat on the UN security council while ignoring the opinions of other African states. Nigeria was the ONLY African state to side with the white commonwealth over the continued suspension of Zimbabwe. Nigeria RUSHED to invite the white farmers that were kicked out of Zimbabwe to their lands to set up shop. Many (not all) Nigerians that I meet here in the U.S. are staunch elitists who have no sense of solidarity with other Nigerians, other Africans, and defiantly show no love to us Africans that were born here in North America descendant of those stolen generations that were enslaved in the South.

Most Nigerians I know are cunning capitalists who make no apology for their belief in the accumulation of wealth at the expense of the greater economic security of the masses. So my friend, I hear you... and I validate your frustration with the Nigerian elite, because they have disappointed me time and time again with respect to their priorities. The Nigerian elite, to me represents the group in Africa that most closely resembles the cultural pathology of the average Indo-European. I am glad that I can dialogue with a Nigerian who is as disgusted with such behavior as I am. But alas Nigeria is not Africa. I feel very differently about the ruling classes of places like Tanzania, Mozambique, Angola, Zimbabwe, Ghana and Namibia. Perhaps you should relocate there so as to regain faith in our continent. Because without hope for our future where do we stand? I'll tell you... we stand on the edge of a tall building contemplating the jump.



Czamani,

Of course, Nigeria is not Africa.
My favourite African countries are Ghana, Botswana, Namibia and three other countries I am still evaluating.

Nigeria is the worst disappointment among African countries.

What you stated about Nigerians in the US and even in the UK is a fact.

But there is a new leadership coming up that will change all that. The year 2007 will determine the future of Nigeria.

I am not saying we should return to colonial rule. I am saying that we ought to have fared better.

Neo-Colonialism is not an excuse and the Western economic and political powers are not to blame for our failures and I can affirm this, because I have been a principal partner in the local and international agencies for human development. And it would be a horrible and terrible embarrassment to say we could be fooled by the Western powers for over 45 years since our independence to date.
Are we zombies?

I don't wish for even my worst enemies to be admitted in any public hospital in Nigeria or to study at any of the local government schools in Nigeria. The children of the greedy and wicked Nigerian oligarchy don't attend any of these state-run schools and they don't go to the public hospitals, because they are in horrible and terrible conditions. The have abandoned them for the millions of poor masses in order to condemn the poor masses to the state of despair, miserable and humiliated into a perpetual state of inferiority complex to make them educationally and politically disabled and handicapped, so that they will not be able to challenge their status quo and their ruling oligarchy. They now give their own children the best form of Western Education and medical services to give them undue advantage over the deprived children of the poor majority in order to perpetuate the state of poverty. So, their own generations will continue to control and dominate the public and private sectors of the state of Nigeria. In fact, only very few African countries are different from Nigeria. Since one in every five Africans is a Nigerian, Czamani, you can see the ratio of the catastrophic proportions of the debacle of the oracle of Africa and the tragedy of the African malady?

Africans must stop being the zombies of America and the rest of the members of the G-8.

Africans must also stop the deprivations and exploitations of their fellow Africans like what is happening in Zimbabwe now and similar horrible and terrible violations of human rights have been going on for decades in other countries in Africa.

It is bad enough for the White man to cheat and exploit me. But it is worse if my own fellow African or black also cheats and exploits me too.

I REPEAT AGAIN THAT THE EVILS OF WHAT GREEDY AND WICKED AFRICAN RULERS AND EMPLOYERS ARE DOING TO THEIR FELLOW AFRICANS IN AFRICA ARE WORSE THAN ALL THE EVILS THAT AFRICANS SUFFERED DURING THE WESTERN COLONIZATION OF AFRICA.

What is happening in Zimbabwe today and in the majority of African countries is the worst case of MAN'S INHUMANITY TO MAN SINCE THE HOLOCAUST OF THE WORLD WAR TWO.

I hereby rest my case in the hands of God who will judge us all.