i wonder if it makes much sense to go back to the past to evaluate where
a country is now.
think of japan just 70 years ago, compared with now?
and which china, in the past, are we to celebrate? the ming dynasty, the
long long feudal periods, the rise of chang kai shek and incipient
modernism, the communist revolution, the american collusion and mao's
great march, the cultural revolution, the great leap forward, and the
repression, the backward anti-intellectualism that killed a generation
of artists and thinkers, or what, the globalization pragmatists, with
their soft repressive authoritarian state now? is there anything left
for us to embrace?
where is the china we want to love and celebrate in this? now???
and as for myself, having seen the great brotherly b.s. of chinese 3d
worldism in cameroon in the 70s, the chinese maybe the most racist of
any foreigners on the continent at that time...
ok, now it's different; they are richer. but also, from what we have
seen in senegal, again almost completely indifferent to african culture,
indifferent to learning african languages, being with african people,
unless those are people working for them. there for the money, short
term pain, long term profits
what is there to love?
i really wonder what others experience of the chinese on the continent
in our times has been. can others on the list give us something to hang
onto, to have hope for a positive result? i mean from personal
experience, not more propaganda
ken
On 9/7/11 4:34 PM, Cornelius Hamelberg wrote:
> Dear Ken,
>
> Thanks for the details. Hopefully the Chinese weapons if they ever
> arrive on Libyan soil will be delivered unto the hands of the NTC and
> stay with them and not be passed on and find their way into the hands
> of eager terrorists ,be they affiliates of Palestinian Jihadists, al-
> Qaeda or the ambitious elements cloaked as Boko Haram.
>
> About your concerns about China's future in Africa/Africa's future in
> China I'm afraid that what you'll get from some of the powerless
> AfriKanists of the Gaddafi's hue is more toothless ideology (mostly
> theoretical building of castles in the air about e.g. " The
> Constitution of the United States of Africa" which they say will be
> implemented , latest 2017) ) and about liking China more than
> America which has given them everything, because China turns a blind
> eye on Human Rights Transgressions being committed by many of the
> African leaders with whom they do business whereas the US and the best
> of the West at least would like respect for human rights as a
> condition for doing business or giving development aid.
>
> The Chinese civilisation has been around for a very long time and
> the Chinese are said to be thinking and planning for the next five
> hundred years. Like,
>
> "Well, I don't know, but I've been told
> The streets in heaven are lined with gold
> I ask you how things could get much worse
> If the Russians happen to get up there first
> Wowee! pretty scary! "
>
> For some people, the idea of China/ the Chinese taking over in Africa
> within 150 years of the Berlin Conference, that too is pretty scary,
> especially since the Chinese have the advantage in the eyes of all
> those who look at the past and chime, "The Chinese never colonised
> us" ; China doe not have that back-load, so today the Chinese don't
> use "big grammar" - they can speak the same Broken Palm Wine
> Drinkard metaphorical English as Amos Tutuola : all the Chinaman has
> to do is to take Mugabe by the left or right arm , hook up with him
> arm in arm and ask him this question :
> " We make friendship? - we make friendship and we do business" and the
> deal is done.
>
> Indeed, Chinese weapons could be very big business in Africa.
>
> This news flashed from the Tripoli to the cape and I' sure that it
> must have resonated a worrisome chord in you too: David Cameron warns
> Africa about China:
>
> http://www.google.co.uk/#hl=sv&sugexp=gsis%2Ci18n%3Dtrue&cp=38&gs_id=3&xhr=t&q=David+Cameron+warns+Africa+about+China&pf=p&sclient=psy&site=&source=hp&pbx=1&oq=
>
> Stretching my imagination a little further ahead and should China
> want to take it all....I suppose that Africom could come in useful if
> the West and China will be battling it out on mainland Africa in the
> not too distant future not for the souls ( Human Rights) but mostly
> for gold in Ghana and South Africa and it will not be an ideological
> or religious battle.
>
> "he comes for your gold,
> watch out for your soul.":
>
> http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/Rock-%27N%27-Roll-Is-Music-Now-lyrics-James-Taylor/86AABB4E7F2721C6482578300014EF81
>
>
> The war mongers among the AfricKanists who want a unified African
> continental army of their own mostly speak English and have still not
> got around to adding Chinese to their secret language
> repertoire.....who knows, one day every Chinese will be a professor of
> English - but not every colonial subject is yet ambitious to be a
> professor of Chinese – hieroglyphics yes, but not Chinese to write
> competent linguistic analyses, not even those who would like to be
> somewhere in the chain along the Chinese military chain of command at
> a time that they could want to be fighting side by side with China for
> possession / mastership of their own homelands
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQXqgk_GPxc
>
> Others are a little more cautious and say, " Better the devil you know
> than the devil you don't know..."
> Me? No more hide and speak, I'm going to get that Skype; I'll
> continue to be me but like Leonard Cohen, " I'm staying home tonight"
>
> http://www.google.com/search?q=Leonard+Cohen%2C+Democracy&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:sv-SE:official&client=firefox-a
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Sep 7, 4:49 pm, kenneth harrow<har...@msu.edu> wrote:
>> dear cornelius
>> just reading the bloomberg account of this issue, on the site you
>> provided. it does make it seem that private companies in china made
>> deals; it isn't clear if they were carried out, or if a variant of the
>> deal was consummated by the flow of chinese arms previously stocked in
>> algeria. further, the ntc alluded to weapons used against them that they
>> thought were chinese.
>> it seems to me that if the chinese govt says they are now going to make
>> sure that arms are not shipped without their approval they are conceding
>> that this might have occurred beforehand.
>> the globe and mail reporter, whom i heard discuss this on the radio,
>> alluded to papers he saw that indicated a deal had been struck.
>> if that is true, it seems less relevant whether they were able to
>> actually ship them over in time to meet their contract.
>> this is part of our larger question, still a question open for
>> discussion, of the role of china in africa. i hear pros and cons, and
>> remain interested in knowing ultimately whether this will benefit
>> african states or not.
>> china built a great road in mauretania. what did they get in exchange?
>> who will benefit from it? i want concrete answers to concrete questions,
>> not ideological posing, in this debate. i am truly curious about what
>> the chinese money means for africa.
>> ken
>>
>> On 9/7/11 9:40 AM, Cornelius Hamelberg wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>> There's no good reason for this drawn out debate about whether or not
>>> China has recently been selling arms to Gaddafi when China has made
>>> it clear that they have not.
>>> First of all we must make a distinction between private firms and the
>>> government of China which in the end is the authority that grants or
>>> denies permission to do business - even a potentially lucrative
>>> business possibility such as taking over Sweden's SAAB - not to
>>> mention a major foreign policy affair such as selling arms to Gaddafi
>>> in the middle of an arms embargo against Gaddafi which they
>>> themselves supported when the UN voted.
>>> What actually happened is that in desperation some of Gaddafi's big
>>> guns went over to China and tried to make some arms deals there with
>>> the firms that they contacted, and they did not succeed .
>>> The media is replete with these denials and explanations about what
>>> actually happened : Gaddafi's unsuccessful attempts to buy more
>>> weapons:
>>> http://www.google.com/search?q=China+%3A+we+did+not+sell+arms+to+Gadd...
>>> There are a number of other issues here that have been erroneously
>>> reported along with spurious claims that will be vengaged most
>>> vigorously if those erroneous reports persist
>>> On Sep 7, 10:35 am, Olayinka Agbetuyi<yagbet...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>>> Thanks for the clarifications on the specific issue of voting on the arms embargo, but the jury is still out on the veracity of its violations by China. Whichever way that eventually unravels, my point is that Gaddafis and Chinese models of governance (given the American issues with human rights violations in the latter) should leave no one in surprise if the latter goes to any length to prop up the erstwhile regime in Tripoli. This was my connection with the proxy wars. We know how much surreptitious support the French gave the Continentals in the American War of Independence from England even though a large section of American historigraphy represented that as the sole victory of the colonies against England.
>>>> Olayinka Agbetuyi
>>>> Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2011 19:02:57 -0400
>>>> From: har...@msu.edu
>>>> To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
>>>> Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - chinese arms for ghaddafi
>>>> china voted to accept the arms embargo which it itself violated
>>>> ken
>>>> On 9/6/11 7:00 AM, Olayinka Agbetuyi wrote:
>>>> Ken:
>>>> Having read some of Abdul Bangura's opinions and the view of Friedman in the article supplied by Cornelius Hamelberg I do not know whether the comparison between China and Walcotts poem is entirely justified. You see, China indeed took sides but was voted down. It does not pretend to have fallen head over heels in love with western-style democratic configurations which motivated the NATO intervention, hence its determination to subvert them through alliances with figures such as Gaddafi... Indeed when the leading historians of our time begin to write the true history of the current Libyan conflict, it will undoubtedly be seen as the classic case of the proxy war, the like of which was witnessed in the anals of American history: XYZ war etc...
>>>> Olayinka Agbetuyi
>>>> Date: Sun, 4 Sep 2011 22:06:40 -0400
>>>> From: har...@msu.edu
>>>> To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
>>>> Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - chinese arms for ghaddafi
>>>> so, say some, it doesn't really matter that china is in africa just for the money. whatever the regime it supports, whatever arms embargoes it violates, whatever deaths result, it is just money, just business, just the same as anyone else.here's walcott's great lines from "The Spoiler's Return."
>>>> "all you go bawl out, 'Spoils, things ain't so bad.'
>>>> This ain't the Dark Age, is just Trinidad,
>>>> is human nature, Spoiler, after all,
>>>> it ain't big genocide, is just bohbohl."
>>>> that's our china, just bohbohl.
>>>> walcott continues:
>>>> "safe and conservative, 'fraid to take side,
>>>> they say that Rodney commit suicide,
>>>> is the same voices that, in the slave ship,
>>>> smile at their brothers, "Boy, is just the whip,"
>>>> i free and easy, you see me have chain?
>>>> A little censorship can't cause no pain,
>>>> a little graft can't rot the human mind,
>>>> what sweet in goat-mouth sour in his behind."
>>>> china, bohbohl, sweet in goat-mouth, but tomorrow done come
>>>> ken
>>>> New York Times
>>>> By ANNE BARNARD
>>>> Published: September 4, 2011
>>>> TRIPOLI, Libya � In the final weeks of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi�s battle with Libyan rebels, Chinese state companies offered to sell his government large stockpiles of weapons and ammunition in apparent violation of United Nations sanctions, officials of Libya�s transitional government said Sunday. They cited Qaddafi government documents found by a Canadian journalist, which the officials said were authentic.
>>>> The documents, including a memo from Libyan security officials detailing a shopping trip to Beijing on July 16, appear to show that state-controlled Chinese arms companies offered to sell $200 million worth of rocket launchers, antitank missiles, portable surface-to-air missiles designed to bring down aircraft, and other weapons and munitions. The documents, in Arabic, were posted on Sunday on the Web site of The Globe and Mail, a Toronto newspaper.
>>>> The Chinese companies apparently suggested that the arms be delivered through third countries like Algeria or South Africa. Like China, those countries opposed the United Nations authorization of NATO military action against Qaddafi forces in Libya, but said they supported the arms embargo imposed by an earlier United Nations resolution.
>>>> A rebel military spokesman, Abdulrahman Busin, said in an interview on Sunday that the transitional government would seek accountability through appropriate international channels. Mr. Busin said that any country that had violated the sanctions would have poor prospects for business and other dealings with Libya, an oil-rich country.
>>>> �We have hard evidence of deals going on between China and Qaddafi, and we have all the documents to prove it,� he said, adding that the rebels have other evidence, including documents and weapons found on the battlefield, showing that arms were supplied illegally to Colonel Qaddafi�s forces by numerous other governments or companies. �I can think of at least 10 off the top of my head,� he said.
>>>> -- kenneth w. harrow professor of english michigan state university department of english east lansing, mi 48824-1036 ph. 517 803 8839 har...@msu.edu
>>>> --
>>>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin.
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>>>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin.
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>>>> --
>>>> kenneth w. harrow
>>>> professor of english
>>>> michigan state university
>>>> department of english
>>>> east lansing, mi 48824-1036
>>>> ph. 517 803 8839
>>>> har...@msu.edu
>>>> --
>>>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin.
>>>> For current archives, visithttp://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
>>>> For previous archives, visithttp://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
>>>> To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
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>> --
>> kenneth w. harrow
>> professor of english
>> michigan state university
>> department of english
>> east lansing, mi 48824-1036
>> ph. 517 803 8839
>> har...@msu.edu
--
kenneth w. harrow
professor of english
michigan state university
department of english
east lansing, mi 48824-1036
ph. 517 803 8839
harrow@msu.edu
--
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