adminThe Northern world has greatly mastered the skill of manipulation and exploitation. Developing world countries in general and Africa in particular face a mammoth task in disentangling themselves from the Western web of mental slavery.
Many African men and women of repute and high academic standing have been turned into whitewashed assimilators who parrot and mimic the white world’s ways. These “black skins in white masks” as Frantz Fanon liked to call them are a great hazard to Africa’s vision.
They have been used, and are still being used by the Western world to derail and retard the continent’s growth and development.
These white-washed stooges are prepared to give away Africa’s wealth to Northern countries provided the Westerners are prepared to assist them in toppling or removing legitimate African governments from power. Africa should have learnt by now from some of its brilliant, illustrious and visionary founding fathers the likes of Amilcar Cabral that treachery and betrayal won’t get the continent anywhere. Paying tribute to Nkrumah, Cabral said: “Nobody can tell us that Nkrumah died of a cancer of the throat or some other illness. No, Nkrumah was killed by the cancer of betrayal which we must uproot from Africa if we really want to bring about the final liquidation of imperialist domination from this continent…As an African adage says,’ those who dare to spit at the sky only dirty their own faces’…We, the liberation movements, will not forgive those who betrayed Nkrumah. The people of Ghana will not forgive. Africa will not forgive. Progressive mankind will not forgive. Let those who still have to rehabilitate themselves in the eyes of Africa make haste to do so. It is not yet too late.” Few of the new breed of African leaders have actually taken heed of what this visionary nationalist said 39 years ago. Africa seems to be too deaf to hear the voices of its visionary sons and too blind to see the path it should follow to free itself from naked Western imperialism.
Africans live as if Nkrumah, Cabral, Fanon, Machel, Rodney, Biko, Sithole, Garvey, Malcolm X, Kimathi, Nyerere and many other visionary nationalists, pan-African academics and freedom fighters never existed. Africans tend to be ashamed of their past as they are more comfortable in other people’s histories.
This ignorance of where we have actually come from is actually baffling. Africa has a very rich history of resistance to white rule.
It is a history based on men and women who have boldly stood against white oppression. It is through this history of resistance coupled with the political thoughts of that time, that as an African people we should stand up tall and challenge neo-colonialism in its totality.
We therefore dedicate 2012 to the rich, visionary and informative work which has been written by various pan-African and nationalist academics/scholars on various issues which are still haunting the continent in the 21st century.
It should be a year devoted to black consciousness. We cannot bury our past which can guide us in the present and the future. Quite a lot of helpful and enlightening literature on how Africa should disentangle itself from imperialist chains and chart its own path has been written by various nationalist and pan-African scholars and academics. Most of these scholars/ academics wrote from what they were experiencing first hand within their different political systems.
Young African scholars need to be made aware that the Western democratisation process which is being propagated by a plethora of Northern donor funded civil society groups is pregnant with hypocrisy and double standards. It attempts to rubbish, obliterate, whitewash, erase, rub and sweep under the carpet what various pan-African scholars and nationalist movements fought hard to achieve.
These pseudo-democratic civil society groups and human rights defenders were nowhere in sight as many Africans were subjected to inhuman and degrading conditions by white colonialists.
This was a period of brutal oppression were the black man was treated as an inferior being who was only useful at supplying cheap labour to boost white capital. No Western country should ever claim that it is fighting for the rights of Africans after what they have done to the Black man in the past 400 years as well as what they are still doing in this 21st century. Ours is a history of slavery, imperialism, colonialism, neo-imperialism and regime change.
The true African story on human rights and democracy can only come from what various nationalist and pan-African academics witnessed and wrote depicting the dirty and evil ways of the Western world. It is from these men’s written and documented works and experiences that every African should understand how treacherous the white man has been, is, and will continue to be as long as the African continues to be blinkered and myopic. History cannot be the story of how another race subjected another but it should be of how a people refused to be oppressed by another race. This true African history can only come from those who fought against the evil white oppressive system from Cape to Cairo.
The white man’s system of governance was a diabolical scheme which denied the indigenous people a right to chart their own destiny. Books written by African revolutionaries and nationalist scholars/academics are rarely and hardly sold in book shops. An African reader is usually subjected to literature on neo-liberal thought which undermines what Africa’s gallant sons and daughters did to bring about independence to the continent. Work by Kwame Nkrumah, Amilcar Cabral, Stephen Bantu Biko, Walter Rodney, and Frantz Fanon just to mention a few pan-African scholars is swept under the carpet and replaced by very biased and divisive work written by various neo-liberal apologists working in various civil society groups.
It is in 2012 that we will analyse the works of various pan-African scholars who actually fought for genuine rights of the black man inside and outside the continent. We will share the works, experiences and thoughts of these great men and women in order to make our African brothers and sisters appreciate what these men stood for. Such literature has been the preserve of a few lucky University students most of who are studying political science, peace and governance, history and media studies.
We strongly believe that this literature should be available and accessible to every African on the continent despite his/her educational background. Every African should not be denied such illuminating and edifying literature about the struggles of the true and genuine defenders of democracy and human rights on the African continent.
Too much credit on democracy and human rights has been given to the wrong people whilst ignoring those who dedicated their entire lives fighting for genuine democracy and human rights for every black man on the African continent.
We intend to link what these men wrote to what is happening in present day Africa. The continent is committing the same mistakes and falling in the similar Western trap which these various pan-African intellectuals clearly warned the African people and their leaders from plunging into. The problem might be emanating from sheer ignorance of what these scholars wrote or the African governments’ failure to provide such literature in schools and colleges.
The 21st century African struggle against neo-imperialism can only be overcome and defeated if we are to look at what those in the past did under similar circumstances.
It is not surprising that Western neo-liberals and their donor funded civil society acolytes in the higher education sector want African youths to forget this rich, enlightening and instructive revolutionary history of those brave nationalists who dared challenge the entire white oppressive system. Marcus Garvey, one great African intellectual actually pointed out that a people without the knowledge of their history is like a tree without roots. Manipulation through coercion is better than manipulation through the distortion of a people’s history.
Many African youths after being immersed in false and distorted history about the African people, written through Western lenses, by biased and subjective foreign intellectuals tend to think that democracy and human rights came about because of pressure put on African leaders by the Western countries.
This misconception and falsehood needs to be challenged in its entirety. Kwame Nkrumah at Ghana’s independence in 1957 would say: “Our independence is meaningless unless it is linked up with the total liberation of the African continent.” Kenyan freedom fighter, Dedan Kimathi, who was arrested by the colonial white government, is well known for saying: “It is better to die on our feet than to beg on our knees.” African nationalists have always been at the centre of challenging the colonial system of government that segregated citizens according to their skin colour as well as denying them rights accorded to all human beings.
White liberals want Africa to believe that they have always been behind Africans in their various struggles under the yoke of white colonialism but Stephen Bantu Biko clearly rejects such false brotherhood and philanthropism. It is quite interesting in this 21st century how these white liberals have not changed their threadbare tactics of deceiving many Africans to think that they are on their side.
If one is truly liberal as they want us to believe, why is it that they cry foul when white owned land is repossessed by poor and marginalised Africans? Why do they scream out loud when the means of production are to be indigenised? In the coming instalments we will look at what Stephen Biko thought about this group of white ‘philanthropists’.
African nationalists, academics/scholars and pan-Africanists of yester-year dedicated their entire lives in fighting against colonialism and also writing in contrast to the negative ideas which had been implanted in most Africans that the white man was superior, and that he had the duty to civilise the ignorant and backward black man. The late Mummar Gaddaffi warned the African continent that: “Colonialism did not only exist in the past, it exists today.
They want to dominate us. We waged liberation wars and they were forced to recognise us as independent states. And we must not fall into the trap again.” How Africa easily forgets is quite worrying. It is in 2012 that the Western mental war should be resisted as we will take a look at the political thoughts of the visionary nationalist writers and freedom fighters. We look forward to a peaceful 2012 and we wish all Progressive Africans a prosperous and happy New Year!
l Bowden Mbanje and Darlington Mahuku are lecturers in International Relations and Peace and Governance with Bindura University of Science Education.The Western world never sleeps. It never gets tired of coming up with various economic, social, technological and political strategies to keep itself at an advantage over other continents.
The Northern world has greatly mastered the skill of manipulation and exploitation. Developing world countries in general and Africa in particular face a mammoth task in disentangling themselves from the Western web of mental slavery.
Many African men and women of repute and high academic standing have been turned into whitewashed assimilators who parrot and mimic the white world’s ways. These “black skins in white masks” as Frantz Fanon liked to call them are a great hazard to Africa’s vision.
They have been used, and are still being used by the Western world to derail and retard the continent’s growth and development.
These white-washed stooges are prepared to give away Africa’s wealth to Northern countries provided the Westerners are prepared to assist them in toppling or removing legitimate African governments from power. Africa should have learnt by now from some of its brilliant, illustrious and visionary founding fathers the likes of Amilcar Cabral that treachery and betrayal won’t get the continent anywhere. Paying tribute to Nkrumah, Cabral said: “Nobody can tell us that Nkrumah died of a cancer of the throat or some other illness. No, Nkrumah was killed by the cancer of betrayal which we must uproot from Africa if we really want to bring about the final liquidation of imperialist domination from this continent…As an African adage says,’ those who dare to spit at the sky only dirty their own faces’…We, the liberation movements, will not forgive those who betrayed Nkrumah. The people of Ghana will not forgive. Africa will not forgive. Progressive mankind will not forgive. Let those who still have to rehabilitate themselves in the eyes of Africa make haste to do so. It is not yet too late.” Few of the new breed of African leaders have actually taken heed of what this visionary nationalist said 39 years ago. Africa seems to be too deaf to hear the voices of its visionary sons and too blind to see the path it should follow to free itself from naked Western imperialism.
Africans live as if Nkrumah, Cabral, Fanon, Machel, Rodney, Biko, Sithole, Garvey, Malcolm X, Kimathi, Nyerere and many other visionary nationalists, pan-African academics and freedom fighters never existed. Africans tend to be ashamed of their past as they are more comfortable in other people’s histories.
This ignorance of where we have actually come from is actually baffling. Africa has a very rich history of resistance to white rule.
It is a history based on men and women who have boldly stood against white oppression. It is through this history of resistance coupled with the political thoughts of that time, that as an African people we should stand up tall and challenge neo-colonialism in its totality.
We therefore dedicate 2012 to the rich, visionary and informative work which has been written by various pan-African and nationalist academics/scholars on various issues which are still haunting the continent in the 21st century.
It should be a year devoted to black consciousness. We cannot bury our past which can guide us in the present and the future. Quite a lot of helpful and enlightening literature on how Africa should disentangle itself from imperialist chains and chart its own path has been written by various nationalist and pan-African scholars and academics. Most of these scholars/ academics wrote from what they were experiencing first hand within their different political systems.
Young African scholars need to be made aware that the Western democratisation process which is being propagated by a plethora of Northern donor funded civil society groups is pregnant with hypocrisy and double standards. It attempts to rubbish, obliterate, whitewash, erase, rub and sweep under the carpet what various pan-African scholars and nationalist movements fought hard to achieve.
These pseudo-democratic civil society groups and human rights defenders were nowhere in sight as many Africans were subjected to inhuman and degrading conditions by white colonialists.
This was a period of brutal oppression were the black man was treated as an inferior being who was only useful at supplying cheap labour to boost white capital. No Western country should ever claim that it is fighting for the rights of Africans after what they have done to the Black man in the past 400 years as well as what they are still doing in this 21st century. Ours is a history of slavery, imperialism, colonialism, neo-imperialism and regime change.
The true African story on human rights and democracy can only come from what various nationalist and pan-African academics witnessed and wrote depicting the dirty and evil ways of the Western world. It is from these men’s written and documented works and experiences that every African should understand how treacherous the white man has been, is, and will continue to be as long as the African continues to be blinkered and myopic. History cannot be the story of how another race subjected another but it should be of how a people refused to be oppressed by another race. This true African history can only come from those who fought against the evil white oppressive system from Cape to Cairo.
The white man’s system of governance was a diabolical scheme which denied the indigenous people a right to chart their own destiny. Books written by African revolutionaries and nationalist scholars/academics are rarely and hardly sold in book shops. An African reader is usually subjected to literature on neo-liberal thought which undermines what Africa’s gallant sons and daughters did to bring about independence to the continent. Work by Kwame Nkrumah, Amilcar Cabral, Stephen Bantu Biko, Walter Rodney, and Frantz Fanon just to mention a few pan-African scholars is swept under the carpet and replaced by very biased and divisive work written by various neo-liberal apologists working in various civil society groups.
It is in 2012 that we will analyse the works of various pan-African scholars who actually fought for genuine rights of the black man inside and outside the continent. We will share the works, experiences and thoughts of these great men and women in order to make our African brothers and sisters appreciate what these men stood for. Such literature has been the preserve of a few lucky University students most of who are studying political science, peace and governance, history and media studies.
We strongly believe that this literature should be available and accessible to every African on the continent despite his/her educational background. Every African should not be denied such illuminating and edifying literature about the struggles of the true and genuine defenders of democracy and human rights on the African continent.
Too much credit on democracy and human rights has been given to the wrong people whilst ignoring those who dedicated their entire lives fighting for genuine democracy and human rights for every black man on the African continent.
We intend to link what these men wrote to what is happening in present day Africa. The continent is committing the same mistakes and falling in the similar Western trap which these various pan-African intellectuals clearly warned the African people and their leaders from plunging into. The problem might be emanating from sheer ignorance of what these scholars wrote or the African governments’ failure to provide such literature in schools and colleges.
The 21st century African struggle against neo-imperialism can only be overcome and defeated if we are to look at what those in the past did under similar circumstances.
It is not surprising that Western neo-liberals and their donor funded civil society acolytes in the higher education sector want African youths to forget this rich, enlightening and instructive revolutionary history of those brave nationalists who dared challenge the entire white oppressive system. Marcus Garvey, one great African intellectual actually pointed out that a people without the knowledge of their history is like a tree without roots. Manipulation through coercion is better than manipulation through the distortion of a people’s history.
Many African youths after being immersed in false and distorted history about the African people, written through Western lenses, by biased and subjective foreign intellectuals tend to think that democracy and human rights came about because of pressure put on African leaders by the Western countries.
This misconception and falsehood needs to be challenged in its entirety. Kwame Nkrumah at Ghana’s independence in 1957 would say: “Our independence is meaningless unless it is linked up with the total liberation of the African continent.” Kenyan freedom fighter, Dedan Kimathi, who was arrested by the colonial white government, is well known for saying: “It is better to die on our feet than to beg on our knees.” African nationalists have always been at the centre of challenging the colonial system of government that segregated citizens according to their skin colour as well as denying them rights accorded to all human beings.
White liberals want Africa to believe that they have always been behind Africans in their various struggles under the yoke of white colonialism but Stephen Bantu Biko clearly rejects such false brotherhood and philanthropism. It is quite interesting in this 21st century how these white liberals have not changed their threadbare tactics of deceiving many Africans to think that they are on their side.
If one is truly liberal as they want us to believe, why is it that they cry foul when white owned land is repossessed by poor and marginalised Africans? Why do they scream out loud when the means of production are to be indigenised? In the coming instalments we will look at what Stephen Biko thought about this group of white ‘philanthropists’.
African nationalists, academics/scholars and pan-Africanists of yester-year dedicated their entire lives in fighting against colonialism and also writing in contrast to the negative ideas which had been implanted in most Africans that the white man was superior, and that he had the duty to civilise the ignorant and backward black man. The late Mummar Gaddaffi warned the African continent that: “Colonialism did not only exist in the past, it exists today.
They want to dominate us. We waged liberation wars and they were forced to recognise us as independent states. And we must not fall into the trap again.” How Africa easily forgets is quite worrying. It is in 2012 that the Western mental war should be resisted as we will take a look at the political thoughts of the visionary nationalist writers and freedom fighters. We look forward to a peaceful 2012 and we wish all Progressive Africans a prosperous and happy New Year!
l Bowden Mbanje and Darlington Mahuku are lecturers in International Relations and Peace and Governance with Bindura University of Science Education.
Online Reporter