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From: sylvester idehen <idehen559@hotmail.com>
Date: 30 October 2011 14:42
Subject: ||NaijaObserver|| GANDHI AND RACISM !!!
To: olakassimmd@aol.com, naijaobserver@yahoogroups.com, naijapolitics@yahoogroups.com, nigerianworldforum@yahoogroups.com, nidoa@yahoogroups.com, omoodua@yahoogroups.com, nigerianid@yahoogroups.com, nigeriansncanada@yahoogroups.com
SUMMARY: To understand Gandhi's role towards the blacks, one requires a knowledge of Hinduism. Within the constraints, a few words on Hinduism will suffice: The caste is the bedrock of Hinduism. The Hindu term for caste is varna; which means arranging the society on a four-level hierarchy based on the skin color: The darker-skinned relegated to the lowest level, the lighter-skinned to the top three levels of the apartheid scale called the Caste System. The race factor underlies the intricate workings of Hinduism, not to mention the countless evil practices embedded within. Have no doubt, Gandhi loved the Caste system.
Gandhi lived in South Africa for roughly twenty one years from 1893 to 1914. In 1906, he joined the military with a rank of Sergeant-Major and actively participated in the war against the blacks. Gandhi's racist ideas are also evident in his writings of these periods. One should ask a question : Were our American Black leaders including Dr. King aware of Gandhi's anti-black activities? Painfully, we have researched the literature and the answer is, no. For this lapse, the blame lies on the Afro-American newspapers which portrayed Gandhi in ever glowing terms, setting the stage for African-American leaders Howard Thurman, Sue Baily Thurman, Reverend Edward Carroll, Benjamin E. Mays, Channing H. Tobias, and William Stuart Nelson to visit India at different time periods to meet Gandhi in person. None of these leaders had any deeper understanding of Hinduism, British India, or the complexities of Gandhi's convoluted multi-layered Hindu mind. Frankly speaking, these leaders were no match to Gandhi's deceit; Gandhi hoodwinked them all, and that too, with great ease. Understanding of Hindu India with our black leaders never really improved even considering years later in March 1959, much after Gandhi's death, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., his wife, and Professor Lawrence D. Reddick visited India and to our way of analysis, they fared no better than their predecessors. We are certain, had Dr. King known Gandhi's anti-black and other criminal activities, he would have distanced his civil-rights movement away from the name of Gandhi. We recommend the following:
1. Grenier, Richard. The Gandhi Nobody Knows published in Commentary March 1983; pages 59 to 72. This is the best article on Gandhi briefly outlining his war activities against the blacks.
2. Kapur, Sudarshan. Raising up a Prophet: The African-American Encounter with Gandhi; Boston: Beacon Press, 1992
Excellent research book into the perspective of distant American blacks with respect to their new hero, Gandhi. However, this book has one major flaw: The author seems to be unaware of Gandhi's anti-black activities in South Africa.
3. Huq, Fazlul. Gandhi: Saint or Sinner? Bangalore: Dalit Sahitya Akademy, 1992.
Superb book. Really gets into the Gandhi's anti-black ideology with a sense of history setting intact. This book can be purchased from the International Dalit Support Group, P.O Box 842066, Houston, Tx 77284-2066.
This book's second chapter "Gandhi's Anti-African Racism" is a superb analysis of Gandhi's anti-black thinking. We bring to you the whole chapter for your review:
Gandhi was not a whit less racist than the white racists of South Africa. When Gandhi formed the Natal Indian Congress on August 22, 1894, the no. 1 objective he declared was: "To promote concord and harmony among the Indians and Europeans in the Colony." [Collected Works (CW)1 pp. 132-33]
He launched his Indian Opinion on June 4 1904: "The object of Indian Opinion was to bring the European and the Indian subjects of the King Edward closer together." (CW. IV P. 320)
What was the harm in making an effort to bring understanding among all people, irrespective of colour, creed or religion? Did not Gandhi know that a huge population of blacks and coloured lived there? Perhaps to Gandhi they were less than human beings.
Addressing a public meeting in Bombay on Sept. 26 1896 (CW II p. 74), Gandhi said:
Ours is one continued struggle against degradation sought to be inflicted upon us by the European, who desire to degrade us to the level of the raw Kaffir, whose occupation is hunting and whose sole ambition is to collect a certain number of cattle to buy a wife with, and then pass his life in indolence and nakedness.
In 1904, he wrote (CW. IV p. 193):
It is one thing to register natives who would not work, and whom it is very difficult to find out if they absent themselves, but it is another thing -and most insulting -to expect decent, hard-working, and respectable Indians, whose only fault is that they work too much, to have themselves registered and carry with them registration badges.
In its editorial on the Natal Municipal Corporation Bill, the Indian Opinion of March 18 1905 wrote:
Clause 200 makes provision for registration of persons belonging to uncivilized races (meaning the local Africans), resident and employed within the Borough. One can understand the necessity of registration of Kaffirs who will not work, but why should registration be required for indentured Indians who have become free, and for their descendants about whom the general complaint is that they work too much? (Italic portion is added)
The Indian Opinion published an editorial on September 9 1905 under the heading, "The relative Value of the Natives and the Indians in Natal". In it Gandhi referred to a speech made by Rev. Dube, a most accomplished African, who said that an African had the capacity for improvement, if only the Colonials would look upon him as better than dirt, and give him a chance to develop self-respect. Gandhi suggested that "A little judicious extra taxation would do no harm; in the majority of cases it compels the native to work for at least a few days a year." Then he added:
Now let us turn our attention to another and entirely unrepresented community-the Indian. He is in striking contrast with the native. While the native has been of little benefit to the State, it owes its prosperity largely to the Indians. While native loafers abound on every side, that species of humanity is almost unknown among Indians here.
Nothing could be further from the truth, that Gandhi fought against Apartheid, which many propagandists in later years wanted people to believe. He was all in favour of continuation of white domination and oppression of the blacks in South Africa.
In the Government Gazette of Natal for Feb. 28 1905, a Bill was published regulating the use of fire-arms by the natives and Asiatics. Commenting on the Bill, the Indian Opinion of March 25 1905 stated:
In this instance of the fire-arms, the Asiatic has been most improperly bracketed with the natives. The British Indian does not need any such restrictions as are imposed by the Bill on the natives regarding the carrying of fire-arms. The prominent race can remain so by preventing the native from arming himself. Is there a slightest vestige of justification for so preventing the British Indian?
Here is the budding Mahatma telling the white racists how they can perpetuate their Nazi domination over the vast majority of Africans.
In the British imperialist scheme, one important strategy was to divide and rule. Gandhi advised Indians not to align with other political groups in either coloured or African communities. In 1906 the coloured people in the colonies of Good Hope, the Transvaal and the Orange River colony, addressed a petition to the King Emperor demanding franchise rights. The petitioners showed clearly that, in one part of South Africa, namely the Cape of Good Hope, they had enjoyed the franchise ever since the introduction of representative institutions.
Commenting on the petition, the Indian Opinion of March 24 1906, declaring that "British Indians have, in order that they may never be misunderstood, made it clear that they do not aspire to any political power," added:
It seems that the petition is being widely circulated, and signatures are being taken of all coloured people in the three colonies named. The petition is non-Indian in character, although British Indians, being coloured people, are very largely affected by it. We consider that it was a wise policy on the part of the British Indians throughout South Africa, to have kept themselves apart and distinct from the other coloured communities in this country.
In a statement made in 1906 to the Constitution Committee, the British Indian Association led by Gandhi (CW. V p.335) said:
The British Indian Association has always admitted the principle of white domination and has, therefore, no desire, on behalf of the community it represents, for any political rights just for the sake of them.
Commenting on a court case, the Indian Opinion of June 2 1906, in its Gujrati section, stated:
You say that the magistrate's decision is unsatisfactory because it would enable a person, however unclean, to travel by a tram, and that even the Kaffirs would be able to do so. But the magistrate's decision is quite different. The Court declared that the Kaffirs have no legal right to travel by tram. And according to tram regulations, those in an unclean dress or in a drunken state are prohibited from boarding a tram. Thanks to the Court's decision, only clean Indians (meaning upper caste Hindu Indians) or coloured people other than Kaffirs, can now travel in the trams. (Italic portion is added)
Apartheid defended: Gandhi accepted racial segregation, not only because it was politically expedient as his Imperial masters had already drawn such a blueprint, it also conformed with his own attitude to the caste system. In his own mind he fitted Apartheid into the caste system: whites in the position of Brahmins, Indian merchants and professionals as Sudras, and all other non-whites as Untouchables.
Though Gandhi was strongly opposed to the comingling of races, the working-class Indians did not share his distaste. There were many areas where Indians, Chinese, Coloured, Africans and poor whites lived together. On February 15 1905, Gandhi wrote to Dr. Porter, the Medical Officer of Health, Johannesburg (CW. IV p.244, and "Indian Opinion" 9 April 1904):
Why, of all places in Johannesburg, the Indian location should be chosen for dumping down all kaffirs of the town, passes my comprehension.
Of course, under my suggestion, the Town Council must withdraw the Kaffirs from the Location. About this mixing of the Kaffirs with the Indians I must confess I feel most strongly. I think it is very unfair to the Indian population, and it is an undue tax on even the proverbial patience of my countrymen.
Dr. Porter replied that it was the Indians who sub-let to Africans.
Commenting on the White League's agitation, Gandhi wrote in his Indian Opinion of September 24 1903:
We believe as much in the purity of race as we think they do, only we believe that they would best serve these interests, which are as dear to us as to them, by advocating the purity of all races, and not one alone. We believe also that the white race of South Africa should be the predominating race.
Again, on December 24 1903, Indian Opinion stated:
The petition dwells upon `the comingling of the coloured and white races'. May we inform the members of the Conference that so far as British Indians are concerned, such a thing is particularly unknown. If there is one thing which the Indian cherishes more than any other, it is the purity of type.
In his farewell speech at a meeting held in the house of Dr. Gool in Capetown, which was reported in the Indian Opinion of July 1 1914, Gandhi said:
The Indians knew perfectly well which was the dominant and governing race. They aspired to no social equality with Europeans. They felt that the path of their development was separate. They did not even aspire to the franchise, or, if the aspiration exists, it was with no idea of its having a present effect.
Gandhi joined in the orgy of Zulu slaughter when the Bambata Rebellion broke out. It is essential to discuss the background of the Bambata Rebellion, to place Gandhi's Nazi war crime in its proper perspective.
The Bambatta Rebellion--Background
The spiritual foundation of Nazism was the superiority of the Aryan race or its modern version, the Anglo-Saxon race. When Disraeli was Prime Minister, Britain enunciated a doctrine, like the Monroe Doctrine, warning other European powers that Africa would be a British preserve, and that from the Cape to the Limpopo, if not to Cairo, only white people would have local political power. Successive British Governments pursued this policy.
In the 1870s, the Zulu Kingdom was by far the most powerful African State of the Limpopo. Cetewayo, who succeeded his father in 1872, was an able and popular ruler. He united the kingdom and built up a most efficient army. He followed a policy of alliance with the British Colony of Natal. The Zulu Kingdom and the Boer Republic of the Transvaal had been feuding for a long time. The Zulus were defeated twice by the Boers, in 1838 and 1840. By 1877 Cetewayo was ready to invade the Transvaal. But the British stepped in and annexed the Transvaal in 1877, only to prevent Cetewayo from doing it first and becoming powerful and a challenge to white supremacy.
Some contemporary reports throw light on the relative strength of the Zulus and their Boer enemies. Colonel A.W. Durnford wrote in a memorandum on July 5 ("The Secret History of South Africa" by Abercrombe. The Central News Agency Ltd., Johannesburg South Africa. 1951 p.6):
About this time (April 10th) Cetewayo had massed his forces in three corps on the borders, and would undoubtedly have swept the Transvaal, at least up to the Vaal River if not to Pretoria itself, had the country not been taken over by the English. In my opinion he would have cleared the country to Pretoria.
Shepstone, the British Administrator, himself wrote concerning the reality of the danger on Dec. 25 1877:
The Boers are still flying, and I think by this time there must be a belt of more than a hundred miles long and thirty broad in which, with three insignificant exceptions, there is nothing but absolute desolation. This will give some idea of the mischief which Cetewayo's conduct has caused.(Ibid p.7).
The above facts explode the myth that the British protected the Zulus from the Boers.
British barbarity on Blacks: After annexing the Transvaal, Shepstone turned his attention to destroying all the independent African states in that region, particularly the Zulu Kingdom. Before annexation of the Transvaal, Shepstone sided with the Zulus in their border disputes with the Transvaal. After annexation he made a volte-face and used those disputes as excuses to invade Zululand. The British public was told that the Zulu War was to liberate the Zulu people from a tyrannical ruler, and South Africa from a menace to "christianity and civilisation".
In 1879, the British invaded the Zulu Kingdom and defeated Cetawayo. Then they started their complete subjugation. First the army was broken, thus destroying their ability to defend themselves. The country was then split into thirteen separate units under the nominal control of the chiefs, salaried by the Government. The white magistrates supplanted the chiefs as the most powerful men in their districts. Most important of all, the land was partitioned. Before the war, Shepstone had expressed the hope that Cetewayo's warriors would be "changed to labourers working for wages". It makes a sad story, how this was accomplished. In 1902-4, the Land Commission delineated a number of locations for the Zulus, and threw open the rest of the country to white settlement. Out of a total acreage of more than 12 million acres, the Africans held some 2 million acres. They numbered, at the lowest reckoning, over three hundred thousand. The Europeans, who were less than 20,000, owned most of the best land. A large proportion of the African population was forced to live upon land to which it had no legal claim. Where the Africans lived upon private or crown lands, they lived there entirely upon sufferance and without legal title. By this time, other independent African states in that region were also destroyed by the British army. Wheresoever, they marched, in Basutoland, Zululand or Bechuanaland, the Queen's horses and the Queen's men were like unto a "Salvation Army" ministering to the welfare of the colonists. The sufferers were the Africans.
Gandhi wrote in his Satyagraha in South Africa (p.15):
The Boers are simple, frank and religious. They settle in the midst of extensive farms. We can have no idea of the extent of these farms. A farm with us means generally an acre or two, and sometimes even less. In South Africa, a single farmer has hundreds or thousands of acres of land in his possession. He is not anxious to put all this under cultivation at once, and if any one argues with him he will say, `Let it lie fallow; lands which are now fallow will be cultivated by our children'.
Also in his Indian Opinion (March 15 1913), he wrote:
General Botha has thousands of acres of land ... (there is) a big company in Natal which has hundreds of thousands of acres of land.
Thou shalt not steal but rob.
It did not seem to occur to Gandhi how these people came into possession of thousands of acres of land, whereas Africans were cooped in locations like chicken in pens.
Grabbing the land was not enough: it needed manpower to cultivate that land. The cry of the farmers was for labour. Naturally it found a favourite response from Shepstone, whose dream it was to convert Cetewayo's warriors into labourers for white men. His native policy was to meet the demands of the European farmers. He agreed that Europeans could not expand or grow in wealth unless they could draw more fully upon the reservoirs of labour in the African reserves.
In the process of European colonisation, the swiftly expanding land-hungry Europeans turned the bulk of the African population into a proletariat. Due to the congestion and landlessness in the reserves, created deliberately by the white rulers, their agricultural return was not sufficient for bare existence. Then there were the taxes on huts, cattle and what not. On the other hand, working for white men did not provide them with adequate sustenance. In Natal, the sugar farmers of the coast relied upon the Indian indentured labour, whereas the stock farmers of the interior relied exclusively on Africans, and regarded the failure of Africans to work for them as a criminal offence. In a report to the Chief Commissioner of Police in 1903, the Police Inspector W.F. Fairley wrote: "With regard to crime, the principal complaints made by Dutch farmers to patrols was of the refusal to work on the part of the natives." (Department Reports 1903 p.67 cited "Reluctant Rebellion" by Marks p.17. Clarendon Press, Oxford 1970). Complaints about the shortage of African labour were voiced in all parts of the country. The farmers were later joined by the mining industries. The most obvious change was the broadening of the economic base from being entirely agricultural to one in which mining played a more and more important part. Diamond, gold, coal became major industries, and with this development, the deeper involvement of the big finance houses, particularly Rothschilds. So the fate of the Africans as the source of cheap labour, and the fat dividends derived from mining by the British ruling class, became interlinked. This still continues in a modified form. Now it is Anglo-American corporations.
Cheap labour from India: Europeans assumed that Africans lived only to meet their requirements of cheap labour, and as such they had no right to establish themselves as self-sufficient and independent farmers because this conflicted with European interests. Famines in India facilitates the recruitment of indentured Indian labourers for white employers in the Colonies. It was no different in relation to Africans. In a Report of the Native Affairs Commission, (Native Affairs Commission Report 1939-40 cited "Oxford History of South Africa" p.182. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1969) it was admitted that "African reserves were regarded by whites as reservoirs of labour, and congestion, landlessness and crop failure were welcomed as stimulants to the labour supply". Similar situations among whites were viewed as national calamities. The Government lent millions of pounds to white farmers, gave them tax relief in times of famine, paid subsidies, facilitated the export of their produce, and wrote off their debts. But what about Africans? Famine would be rampant, crops ruined, food exhausted, thousands of Africans and their cattle would starve to death, but the government would not raise a finger.
The whites not only stole the land from the Africans, and used them as cheap labour, but also looked to them for revenue. They drew a relatively large and growing income from the Africans. "The Native population of Natal", Shepstone admitted ("Imperial Factor" by De Kieweit p.193. Clarendon Press, Oxford 1970), "contribute to the revenue annually a sum equal, at least, to that necessary to maintain the whole fixed establishment of the Colony for the government of the whites as well as themselves." Taxation is a financial measure to gather revenue to meet the expenditure of the state. But in South Africa it was used to reduce Africans to slavery. The sole motive behind the extra taxation imposed on Africans was to force the Africans to work on terms dictated by the whites.
Always there was resentment against any measure which would allow the Africans to settle in locations instead of keeping them as labourers. It was not only the farmers' conferences, the press owned by the mining magnates joined the outcry of the farmers to enact special laws to compel the Africans to come out of their locations and work for the whites. The press was in the forefront to arouse the sentiments that Africans not in European service were necessarily living in idleness. Gandhi's Indian Opinion played second fiddle to the white press in this respect. To Gandhi, the imposition of taxes upon the Africans to compel them to work for the white employers was "gentle persuasion".
By a stroke of the pen, the major part of the available land was taken away from the Zulus and given to Europeans. Some of the dispossessed Zulus were allotted locations and others remained on the land of European landlords on sufferance. Bambata was one of these unfortunate chiefs. He became Chief in 1890 and he and his people were placed in private locations on very high rents. The land was useless for any agricultural purpose. To make things worse, the Boer farmers suspected Bambata of informing the British about their pro-Boer activities, and naturally they tried to victimise him and his people. But after the war, the British rulers leaned backwards and went out of their way to kiss and hug the Boers. So Bambata was caught in a cleft stick. By 1905 the tension between Bambata and his white landlords reached crisis point. The Assistant Magistrate of Greytown, H. Von Gerard, wrote to the Under Secretary of Native Affairs recommending the allocation of a location for his people. Gerard described how people were being oppressed and squeezed by the landlords, what useless land it was for agricultural purposes, and how summons after summons was being issued against people who were unable to pay high rents. Finally he remarked ("Reluctant Rebellion" by Marks. P.201):
A most desperate state of affairs, the more so as there seems no remedy for it....My sympathies with Bambata's people...but I see no way out of the difficulty.
The military and civilian leaders of Natal were consciously developing a picture as if an uprising was imminent. Not that they could foresee one, but they wanted to foresee one because that would give them a golden opportunity to inflict severe punishments on Zulus who, according to the colonists, were growing insolent. They drew up a plan to deal with this imaginary uprising swiftly, and all agreed that was the way they could save not only Natal but North Africa from the "barbarities which only the savage mind can conceive." (Ibid p. Xvii)
Zulu Revolt: But outside Natal, people were not so sure. Styne, President of the Orange Free State, called it "hysteria". Smuts, Botha and Merriman expressed concern as to whether the whites of Natal would spur a rebellion. Some churchmen and many radical humanitarians in Natal, as well as England, produced volumes of irrefutable evidence proving that it was a conspiracy to goad the Zulus into rebellion and then massacre them. In this, Hariette Colenso, the famous daughter of a famous father, Bishop Colenso, made the most outstanding contribution. There was a cry of imminent native revolt in the press long before active rebellion broke out.
As far back as 1902, Lieu. G.A. Mills in his report (GH18/02. Cited "Reluctant Rebellion" p.158) to the Chief of Staff, Natal, on July 1 informed him:
Every Boer expresses the most bitter hatred of the Zulus. They all express a wish that the Zulus would rise now while the British troops are in the country so that they may be practically wiped out. The Boers all say that in the event of the rising, every one of them would join the British troops in order to have a chance of paying off old scores against the Zulus. When I first came here, I visited farms and asked the Boers what they thought of the advisability of keeping troops here. They all said it was most necessary, as they were afraid of the Kaffirs and it would not be safe to stay on their farms if the troops withdrew.... Taking everything into consideration, I cannot help being forced to the opinion that many Boers intend to provoke a Zulu rising if they can do so.
It was Colonel Mackenzie, the military supremo before the rebellion, who was prophesying a native uprising and cleaning the barrels of his guns to use the "golden opportunity" to inflict "the most drastic punishment" on leading natives he found guilty of treason, and to "instill a proper respect for the white man". (C.O. 179/233/12460. Dispatch 9.3.06 cited "Reluctant Rebellion" p. 188).
On June 14, Charles Saunders, Chief Magistrate and Civil Commissioner in Zululand (1899-1909) wrote to C.J. Hignet, the magistrate of Nqutu ("Reluctant Rebellion" p.241):
I quite agree with your conclusions as to our men trying to goad the whole population into rebellion, and you have no idea of the difficulties we had in Nkandha in trying to protect people one knew perfectly well were faithful to us.
In his communication of July 10 1906 to the Prime Minister, (PM 61/15/66 Governor to PM 10.7.06) the Governor described the "sweeping actions and the mopping-up operations as continued slaughter. Fred Graham, a permanent civil servant in the Colonial Office, in his Minute of July 10, described it as "massacre".
Nazism & racism: The most revealing was the long letter of July 24 1906 (CO 179/236/24787 minute 10-7-06) sent by the Anglican Archdeacon, Charles Johnson, from St. Augustine's in Nqutu division, to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospels in London. He was a man of the British establishment and not known to have excessive zeal for standing up for the rights of the Africans. He wrote (cited "Reluctant Rebellion" p. 241):
Many thinking people have been asking themselves, what are we going to do with his teeming population? Some strong-handed men have thought the time was ripe for solving the great question. They knew that there was a general widespread spirit of disaffection among the natives of Natal, the Free State and the Transvaal, but specially in Natal, and they commenced the suppression of the rebellion in the fierce hope that the rebellion might so spread throughout the land and engender a war of practical extermination. I fully believe that they were imbued with the conviction that this was the only safe way of dealing with the native question, and they are greatly disappointed that the spirit of rebellion was not strong enough to bring more than a moiety of the native peoples under the influence of the rifle. Over and over again it was said, `They are only sitting on the fence, it shall be our endeavour to bring them over'; and again, speaking of the big chiefs, `We must endeavour to bring them in if possible! Yes, they have been honest and outspoken enough-the wish being father to the thought-they prophesied the rebellion would spread throughout South Africa; had they been true prophets, no doubt the necessity of solving the native question would have been solved for this generation at least.
John Merriman was a veteran Cape politician. He was one of those so-called liberals who accepted Nazism as a doctrine, or in other words Anglo-Saxon superiority, but regretted its consequent atrocities and thus fumigated their consciences. He wrote to Goldwin Smith (Merriman papers NHo. 202, 16.9.06 cited "Reluctant Rebellion" p.246) in September 1906:
We have had a horrible business in Natal with the natives. I suppose the whole truth will never be known, but enough comes out to make us see how thin the crust is that keeps our christian civilisation from the old-fashioned savagery machine-guns and modern rifles against knobsticks and assagais are heavy odds and do not add much to the glory of the superior race.
In the letter of the Archdeacon the expression "practical extermination", and in a letter of Lieutenant Mills "practically wiped out", have been used. This was what the German Nazis wanted to do to the Jews: to exterminate them. Does it make any difference whether the victims of racial slaughter are Jews or blacks?
Conspiracy to massacre Blacks: Gandhi was well aware of the conspiracy to massacre the Africans. When there was war hysteria in the colonial press, this prophet of non-violence did not apply his mind as to how to stop such a conflict. On the contrary, he did not want Indians to be left behind, but wanted them to take a full part in this genocide.
In his editorial in the Indian Opinion of Nov. 18 1905, long before the actual rebellion broke out, Gandhi complained that the Government simply did not wish to give Indians an opportunity of showing that they were as capable as any other community of taking their share in the defence of the colony. He suggested that a volunteer corps should be formed from colonial-born Indians, which would be useful in actual service.
Indentured Indians lived in conditions worse than slavery. Gandhi during his 20 years' stay in South Africa, did not raise a finger to ease their sufferings. But he was quick to suggest using them as cannon fodder for racists against Africans.
In his Indian Opinion in Dec. 2 1905 he referred to Law 25 of 1875 which was specially passed to increase "the maximum strength of the volunteer force in the colony adding thereto a force of Indian immigrant volunteer infantry". To assure the Europeans that such Indians would only kill Africans, he pointed out that "section 83 of the Militia Act states that no ordinary member of the coloured contingent shall be armed with weapons of precision, unless such contingent is called to operate against other than Europeans".
Gandhi defends massacre: Many years later, he wrote (p.233) in his autobiography:
The Boer War had not brought home to me the horrors of war with anything like the vividness that the `rebellion' did. This was no war but a man-hunt, not only in my opinion but also in that of many Englishmen with whom I had occasion to talk. To hear every morning reports of the soldiers' rifles exploding like crackers in innocent hamlets, and to live in the midst of them, was a trial.
Then to justify his participation in this massacre, he went on (Autobiography p. 231):
I bore no grudge against the Zulus, they had harmed no Indian. I had doubts about the `rebellion' itself, but I then believed that the British Empire existed for the welfare of the world. A genuine sense of loyalty prevented me from even wishing ill to the Empire. The righteness or otherwise of the `rebellion' was therefore not likely to affect my decision.
What about the Nazi war criminals? Did they not have a genuine sense of loyalty to Hitler and Nazism?
In Great Britain another storm of protest was raised against the atrocities perpetrated in Natal. The only time Gandhi mentioned the Zulu suppression was on August 4 1906, when he wrote in his Indian Opinion:
A controversy is going on in England about what the Natal Army did during the Kaffir rebellion. The people here believe that the whites of Natal perpetrated great atrocities on the Kaffirs. In reply to such critics, the Star has pointed to the doings of the Imperial Army in Egypt. Those among the Egyptian rebels who had been captured were ordered to be flogged. The flogging was continued to the limits of the victim's endurance; it took place in public and was watched by thousands of people. Those sentenced to death were also hanged at the same time. While those sentenced to death were hanging, the flogging of others was taken up. While the sentences were being executed, the relatives of the victims cried and wept until many of them swooned. If this is true, there is no reason why there should be such an outcry in England against Natal outrages.
One may notice that the article was very cleverly written. First Gandhi stated that people in England believed that the whites of Natal perpetrated great atrocities on Africans, as if he himself did not know what happened, and also gave the impression that it was the local Natal Army and not the Imperial Army which was involved in the atrocities, which is not true. Even at this stage, he was not willing to tell the simple truth, that atrocities were committed. Then he borrowed the description of hanging and flogging in Egypt from the Star as if he did not know about that either. Did or did not Gandhi know that those Egyptians were not common criminals to be flogged and hanged that they were the patriots, the flowers of the Egyptian nation?
If Gandhi unequivocally accepted or found out that the Imperial Army committed those atrocities, then he could not claim that he believed the British Empire existed for the welfare of mankind. The last and the vilest of all was the subtle suggestion that if the Imperial Army did what they were accused of doing, then there was no reason why there should be such an outcry in England against the Natal outrage. Why could this Imperialist-manufactured Mahatma not say clearly that both were crimes against humanity?
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From: OlaKassimMD@aol.com
Date: Sun, 30 Oct 2011 09:48:22 -0400
Subject: NigeriansnCanada | Worth Repeating: Commentary On Prof Anya's Interview on the Igbo in Nigeria and the Prospects for an Igbo President of Nigeria
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From: sylvester idehen <idehen559@hotmail.com>
Date: 30 October 2011 14:42
Subject: ||NaijaObserver|| GANDHI AND RACISM !!!
To: olakassimmd@aol.com, naijaobserver@yahoogroups.com, naijapolitics@yahoogroups.com, nigerianworldforum@yahoogroups.com, nidoa@yahoogroups.com, omoodua@yahoogroups.com, nigerianid@yahoogroups.com, nigeriansncanada@yahoogroups.com
It burn's my heart when I read Black people expecially Nigerians quoting Gandhi,not knowing the views of this man towards Africans,just read on.
Nosa Idehen
GANDHI & RACISM
Here you will see Gandhi's racist views towards the blacks.SUMMARY: To understand Gandhi's role towards the blacks, one requires a knowledge of Hinduism. Within the constraints, a few words on Hinduism will suffice: The caste is the bedrock of Hinduism. The Hindu term for caste is varna; which means arranging the society on a four-level hierarchy based on the skin color: The darker-skinned relegated to the lowest level, the lighter-skinned to the top three levels of the apartheid scale called the Caste System. The race factor underlies the intricate workings of Hinduism, not to mention the countless evil practices embedded within. Have no doubt, Gandhi loved the Caste system.
Gandhi lived in South Africa for roughly twenty one years from 1893 to 1914. In 1906, he joined the military with a rank of Sergeant-Major and actively participated in the war against the blacks. Gandhi's racist ideas are also evident in his writings of these periods. One should ask a question : Were our American Black leaders including Dr. King aware of Gandhi's anti-black activities? Painfully, we have researched the literature and the answer is, no. For this lapse, the blame lies on the Afro-American newspapers which portrayed Gandhi in ever glowing terms, setting the stage for African-American leaders Howard Thurman, Sue Baily Thurman, Reverend Edward Carroll, Benjamin E. Mays, Channing H. Tobias, and William Stuart Nelson to visit India at different time periods to meet Gandhi in person. None of these leaders had any deeper understanding of Hinduism, British India, or the complexities of Gandhi's convoluted multi-layered Hindu mind. Frankly speaking, these leaders were no match to Gandhi's deceit; Gandhi hoodwinked them all, and that too, with great ease. Understanding of Hindu India with our black leaders never really improved even considering years later in March 1959, much after Gandhi's death, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., his wife, and Professor Lawrence D. Reddick visited India and to our way of analysis, they fared no better than their predecessors. We are certain, had Dr. King known Gandhi's anti-black and other criminal activities, he would have distanced his civil-rights movement away from the name of Gandhi. We recommend the following:
1. Grenier, Richard. The Gandhi Nobody Knows published in Commentary March 1983; pages 59 to 72. This is the best article on Gandhi briefly outlining his war activities against the blacks.
2. Kapur, Sudarshan. Raising up a Prophet: The African-American Encounter with Gandhi; Boston: Beacon Press, 1992
Excellent research book into the perspective of distant American blacks with respect to their new hero, Gandhi. However, this book has one major flaw: The author seems to be unaware of Gandhi's anti-black activities in South Africa.
3. Huq, Fazlul. Gandhi: Saint or Sinner? Bangalore: Dalit Sahitya Akademy, 1992.
Superb book. Really gets into the Gandhi's anti-black ideology with a sense of history setting intact. This book can be purchased from the International Dalit Support Group, P.O Box 842066, Houston, Tx 77284-2066.
This book's second chapter "Gandhi's Anti-African Racism" is a superb analysis of Gandhi's anti-black thinking. We bring to you the whole chapter for your review:
Gandhi was not a whit less racist than the white racists of South Africa. When Gandhi formed the Natal Indian Congress on August 22, 1894, the no. 1 objective he declared was: "To promote concord and harmony among the Indians and Europeans in the Colony." [Collected Works (CW)1 pp. 132-33]
He launched his Indian Opinion on June 4 1904: "The object of Indian Opinion was to bring the European and the Indian subjects of the King Edward closer together." (CW. IV P. 320)
What was the harm in making an effort to bring understanding among all people, irrespective of colour, creed or religion? Did not Gandhi know that a huge population of blacks and coloured lived there? Perhaps to Gandhi they were less than human beings.
Addressing a public meeting in Bombay on Sept. 26 1896 (CW II p. 74), Gandhi said:
Ours is one continued struggle against degradation sought to be inflicted upon us by the European, who desire to degrade us to the level of the raw Kaffir, whose occupation is hunting and whose sole ambition is to collect a certain number of cattle to buy a wife with, and then pass his life in indolence and nakedness.
In 1904, he wrote (CW. IV p. 193):
It is one thing to register natives who would not work, and whom it is very difficult to find out if they absent themselves, but it is another thing -and most insulting -to expect decent, hard-working, and respectable Indians, whose only fault is that they work too much, to have themselves registered and carry with them registration badges.
In its editorial on the Natal Municipal Corporation Bill, the Indian Opinion of March 18 1905 wrote:
Clause 200 makes provision for registration of persons belonging to uncivilized races (meaning the local Africans), resident and employed within the Borough. One can understand the necessity of registration of Kaffirs who will not work, but why should registration be required for indentured Indians who have become free, and for their descendants about whom the general complaint is that they work too much? (Italic portion is added)
The Indian Opinion published an editorial on September 9 1905 under the heading, "The relative Value of the Natives and the Indians in Natal". In it Gandhi referred to a speech made by Rev. Dube, a most accomplished African, who said that an African had the capacity for improvement, if only the Colonials would look upon him as better than dirt, and give him a chance to develop self-respect. Gandhi suggested that "A little judicious extra taxation would do no harm; in the majority of cases it compels the native to work for at least a few days a year." Then he added:
Now let us turn our attention to another and entirely unrepresented community-the Indian. He is in striking contrast with the native. While the native has been of little benefit to the State, it owes its prosperity largely to the Indians. While native loafers abound on every side, that species of humanity is almost unknown among Indians here.
Nothing could be further from the truth, that Gandhi fought against Apartheid, which many propagandists in later years wanted people to believe. He was all in favour of continuation of white domination and oppression of the blacks in South Africa.
In the Government Gazette of Natal for Feb. 28 1905, a Bill was published regulating the use of fire-arms by the natives and Asiatics. Commenting on the Bill, the Indian Opinion of March 25 1905 stated:
In this instance of the fire-arms, the Asiatic has been most improperly bracketed with the natives. The British Indian does not need any such restrictions as are imposed by the Bill on the natives regarding the carrying of fire-arms. The prominent race can remain so by preventing the native from arming himself. Is there a slightest vestige of justification for so preventing the British Indian?
Here is the budding Mahatma telling the white racists how they can perpetuate their Nazi domination over the vast majority of Africans.
In the British imperialist scheme, one important strategy was to divide and rule. Gandhi advised Indians not to align with other political groups in either coloured or African communities. In 1906 the coloured people in the colonies of Good Hope, the Transvaal and the Orange River colony, addressed a petition to the King Emperor demanding franchise rights. The petitioners showed clearly that, in one part of South Africa, namely the Cape of Good Hope, they had enjoyed the franchise ever since the introduction of representative institutions.
Commenting on the petition, the Indian Opinion of March 24 1906, declaring that "British Indians have, in order that they may never be misunderstood, made it clear that they do not aspire to any political power," added:
It seems that the petition is being widely circulated, and signatures are being taken of all coloured people in the three colonies named. The petition is non-Indian in character, although British Indians, being coloured people, are very largely affected by it. We consider that it was a wise policy on the part of the British Indians throughout South Africa, to have kept themselves apart and distinct from the other coloured communities in this country.
In a statement made in 1906 to the Constitution Committee, the British Indian Association led by Gandhi (CW. V p.335) said:
The British Indian Association has always admitted the principle of white domination and has, therefore, no desire, on behalf of the community it represents, for any political rights just for the sake of them.
Commenting on a court case, the Indian Opinion of June 2 1906, in its Gujrati section, stated:
You say that the magistrate's decision is unsatisfactory because it would enable a person, however unclean, to travel by a tram, and that even the Kaffirs would be able to do so. But the magistrate's decision is quite different. The Court declared that the Kaffirs have no legal right to travel by tram. And according to tram regulations, those in an unclean dress or in a drunken state are prohibited from boarding a tram. Thanks to the Court's decision, only clean Indians (meaning upper caste Hindu Indians) or coloured people other than Kaffirs, can now travel in the trams. (Italic portion is added)
Apartheid defended: Gandhi accepted racial segregation, not only because it was politically expedient as his Imperial masters had already drawn such a blueprint, it also conformed with his own attitude to the caste system. In his own mind he fitted Apartheid into the caste system: whites in the position of Brahmins, Indian merchants and professionals as Sudras, and all other non-whites as Untouchables.
Though Gandhi was strongly opposed to the comingling of races, the working-class Indians did not share his distaste. There were many areas where Indians, Chinese, Coloured, Africans and poor whites lived together. On February 15 1905, Gandhi wrote to Dr. Porter, the Medical Officer of Health, Johannesburg (CW. IV p.244, and "Indian Opinion" 9 April 1904):
Why, of all places in Johannesburg, the Indian location should be chosen for dumping down all kaffirs of the town, passes my comprehension.
Of course, under my suggestion, the Town Council must withdraw the Kaffirs from the Location. About this mixing of the Kaffirs with the Indians I must confess I feel most strongly. I think it is very unfair to the Indian population, and it is an undue tax on even the proverbial patience of my countrymen.
Dr. Porter replied that it was the Indians who sub-let to Africans.
Commenting on the White League's agitation, Gandhi wrote in his Indian Opinion of September 24 1903:
We believe as much in the purity of race as we think they do, only we believe that they would best serve these interests, which are as dear to us as to them, by advocating the purity of all races, and not one alone. We believe also that the white race of South Africa should be the predominating race.
Again, on December 24 1903, Indian Opinion stated:
The petition dwells upon `the comingling of the coloured and white races'. May we inform the members of the Conference that so far as British Indians are concerned, such a thing is particularly unknown. If there is one thing which the Indian cherishes more than any other, it is the purity of type.
In his farewell speech at a meeting held in the house of Dr. Gool in Capetown, which was reported in the Indian Opinion of July 1 1914, Gandhi said:
The Indians knew perfectly well which was the dominant and governing race. They aspired to no social equality with Europeans. They felt that the path of their development was separate. They did not even aspire to the franchise, or, if the aspiration exists, it was with no idea of its having a present effect.
Gandhi joined in the orgy of Zulu slaughter when the Bambata Rebellion broke out. It is essential to discuss the background of the Bambata Rebellion, to place Gandhi's Nazi war crime in its proper perspective.
The Bambatta Rebellion--Background
The spiritual foundation of Nazism was the superiority of the Aryan race or its modern version, the Anglo-Saxon race. When Disraeli was Prime Minister, Britain enunciated a doctrine, like the Monroe Doctrine, warning other European powers that Africa would be a British preserve, and that from the Cape to the Limpopo, if not to Cairo, only white people would have local political power. Successive British Governments pursued this policy.
In the 1870s, the Zulu Kingdom was by far the most powerful African State of the Limpopo. Cetewayo, who succeeded his father in 1872, was an able and popular ruler. He united the kingdom and built up a most efficient army. He followed a policy of alliance with the British Colony of Natal. The Zulu Kingdom and the Boer Republic of the Transvaal had been feuding for a long time. The Zulus were defeated twice by the Boers, in 1838 and 1840. By 1877 Cetewayo was ready to invade the Transvaal. But the British stepped in and annexed the Transvaal in 1877, only to prevent Cetewayo from doing it first and becoming powerful and a challenge to white supremacy.
Some contemporary reports throw light on the relative strength of the Zulus and their Boer enemies. Colonel A.W. Durnford wrote in a memorandum on July 5 ("The Secret History of South Africa" by Abercrombe. The Central News Agency Ltd., Johannesburg South Africa. 1951 p.6):
About this time (April 10th) Cetewayo had massed his forces in three corps on the borders, and would undoubtedly have swept the Transvaal, at least up to the Vaal River if not to Pretoria itself, had the country not been taken over by the English. In my opinion he would have cleared the country to Pretoria.
Shepstone, the British Administrator, himself wrote concerning the reality of the danger on Dec. 25 1877:
The Boers are still flying, and I think by this time there must be a belt of more than a hundred miles long and thirty broad in which, with three insignificant exceptions, there is nothing but absolute desolation. This will give some idea of the mischief which Cetewayo's conduct has caused.(Ibid p.7).
The above facts explode the myth that the British protected the Zulus from the Boers.
British barbarity on Blacks: After annexing the Transvaal, Shepstone turned his attention to destroying all the independent African states in that region, particularly the Zulu Kingdom. Before annexation of the Transvaal, Shepstone sided with the Zulus in their border disputes with the Transvaal. After annexation he made a volte-face and used those disputes as excuses to invade Zululand. The British public was told that the Zulu War was to liberate the Zulu people from a tyrannical ruler, and South Africa from a menace to "christianity and civilisation".
In 1879, the British invaded the Zulu Kingdom and defeated Cetawayo. Then they started their complete subjugation. First the army was broken, thus destroying their ability to defend themselves. The country was then split into thirteen separate units under the nominal control of the chiefs, salaried by the Government. The white magistrates supplanted the chiefs as the most powerful men in their districts. Most important of all, the land was partitioned. Before the war, Shepstone had expressed the hope that Cetewayo's warriors would be "changed to labourers working for wages". It makes a sad story, how this was accomplished. In 1902-4, the Land Commission delineated a number of locations for the Zulus, and threw open the rest of the country to white settlement. Out of a total acreage of more than 12 million acres, the Africans held some 2 million acres. They numbered, at the lowest reckoning, over three hundred thousand. The Europeans, who were less than 20,000, owned most of the best land. A large proportion of the African population was forced to live upon land to which it had no legal claim. Where the Africans lived upon private or crown lands, they lived there entirely upon sufferance and without legal title. By this time, other independent African states in that region were also destroyed by the British army. Wheresoever, they marched, in Basutoland, Zululand or Bechuanaland, the Queen's horses and the Queen's men were like unto a "Salvation Army" ministering to the welfare of the colonists. The sufferers were the Africans.
Gandhi wrote in his Satyagraha in South Africa (p.15):
The Boers are simple, frank and religious. They settle in the midst of extensive farms. We can have no idea of the extent of these farms. A farm with us means generally an acre or two, and sometimes even less. In South Africa, a single farmer has hundreds or thousands of acres of land in his possession. He is not anxious to put all this under cultivation at once, and if any one argues with him he will say, `Let it lie fallow; lands which are now fallow will be cultivated by our children'.
Also in his Indian Opinion (March 15 1913), he wrote:
General Botha has thousands of acres of land ... (there is) a big company in Natal which has hundreds of thousands of acres of land.
Thou shalt not steal but rob.
It did not seem to occur to Gandhi how these people came into possession of thousands of acres of land, whereas Africans were cooped in locations like chicken in pens.
Grabbing the land was not enough: it needed manpower to cultivate that land. The cry of the farmers was for labour. Naturally it found a favourite response from Shepstone, whose dream it was to convert Cetewayo's warriors into labourers for white men. His native policy was to meet the demands of the European farmers. He agreed that Europeans could not expand or grow in wealth unless they could draw more fully upon the reservoirs of labour in the African reserves.
In the process of European colonisation, the swiftly expanding land-hungry Europeans turned the bulk of the African population into a proletariat. Due to the congestion and landlessness in the reserves, created deliberately by the white rulers, their agricultural return was not sufficient for bare existence. Then there were the taxes on huts, cattle and what not. On the other hand, working for white men did not provide them with adequate sustenance. In Natal, the sugar farmers of the coast relied upon the Indian indentured labour, whereas the stock farmers of the interior relied exclusively on Africans, and regarded the failure of Africans to work for them as a criminal offence. In a report to the Chief Commissioner of Police in 1903, the Police Inspector W.F. Fairley wrote: "With regard to crime, the principal complaints made by Dutch farmers to patrols was of the refusal to work on the part of the natives." (Department Reports 1903 p.67 cited "Reluctant Rebellion" by Marks p.17. Clarendon Press, Oxford 1970). Complaints about the shortage of African labour were voiced in all parts of the country. The farmers were later joined by the mining industries. The most obvious change was the broadening of the economic base from being entirely agricultural to one in which mining played a more and more important part. Diamond, gold, coal became major industries, and with this development, the deeper involvement of the big finance houses, particularly Rothschilds. So the fate of the Africans as the source of cheap labour, and the fat dividends derived from mining by the British ruling class, became interlinked. This still continues in a modified form. Now it is Anglo-American corporations.
Cheap labour from India: Europeans assumed that Africans lived only to meet their requirements of cheap labour, and as such they had no right to establish themselves as self-sufficient and independent farmers because this conflicted with European interests. Famines in India facilitates the recruitment of indentured Indian labourers for white employers in the Colonies. It was no different in relation to Africans. In a Report of the Native Affairs Commission, (Native Affairs Commission Report 1939-40 cited "Oxford History of South Africa" p.182. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1969) it was admitted that "African reserves were regarded by whites as reservoirs of labour, and congestion, landlessness and crop failure were welcomed as stimulants to the labour supply". Similar situations among whites were viewed as national calamities. The Government lent millions of pounds to white farmers, gave them tax relief in times of famine, paid subsidies, facilitated the export of their produce, and wrote off their debts. But what about Africans? Famine would be rampant, crops ruined, food exhausted, thousands of Africans and their cattle would starve to death, but the government would not raise a finger.
The whites not only stole the land from the Africans, and used them as cheap labour, but also looked to them for revenue. They drew a relatively large and growing income from the Africans. "The Native population of Natal", Shepstone admitted ("Imperial Factor" by De Kieweit p.193. Clarendon Press, Oxford 1970), "contribute to the revenue annually a sum equal, at least, to that necessary to maintain the whole fixed establishment of the Colony for the government of the whites as well as themselves." Taxation is a financial measure to gather revenue to meet the expenditure of the state. But in South Africa it was used to reduce Africans to slavery. The sole motive behind the extra taxation imposed on Africans was to force the Africans to work on terms dictated by the whites.
Always there was resentment against any measure which would allow the Africans to settle in locations instead of keeping them as labourers. It was not only the farmers' conferences, the press owned by the mining magnates joined the outcry of the farmers to enact special laws to compel the Africans to come out of their locations and work for the whites. The press was in the forefront to arouse the sentiments that Africans not in European service were necessarily living in idleness. Gandhi's Indian Opinion played second fiddle to the white press in this respect. To Gandhi, the imposition of taxes upon the Africans to compel them to work for the white employers was "gentle persuasion".
By a stroke of the pen, the major part of the available land was taken away from the Zulus and given to Europeans. Some of the dispossessed Zulus were allotted locations and others remained on the land of European landlords on sufferance. Bambata was one of these unfortunate chiefs. He became Chief in 1890 and he and his people were placed in private locations on very high rents. The land was useless for any agricultural purpose. To make things worse, the Boer farmers suspected Bambata of informing the British about their pro-Boer activities, and naturally they tried to victimise him and his people. But after the war, the British rulers leaned backwards and went out of their way to kiss and hug the Boers. So Bambata was caught in a cleft stick. By 1905 the tension between Bambata and his white landlords reached crisis point. The Assistant Magistrate of Greytown, H. Von Gerard, wrote to the Under Secretary of Native Affairs recommending the allocation of a location for his people. Gerard described how people were being oppressed and squeezed by the landlords, what useless land it was for agricultural purposes, and how summons after summons was being issued against people who were unable to pay high rents. Finally he remarked ("Reluctant Rebellion" by Marks. P.201):
A most desperate state of affairs, the more so as there seems no remedy for it....My sympathies with Bambata's people...but I see no way out of the difficulty.
The military and civilian leaders of Natal were consciously developing a picture as if an uprising was imminent. Not that they could foresee one, but they wanted to foresee one because that would give them a golden opportunity to inflict severe punishments on Zulus who, according to the colonists, were growing insolent. They drew up a plan to deal with this imaginary uprising swiftly, and all agreed that was the way they could save not only Natal but North Africa from the "barbarities which only the savage mind can conceive." (Ibid p. Xvii)
Zulu Revolt: But outside Natal, people were not so sure. Styne, President of the Orange Free State, called it "hysteria". Smuts, Botha and Merriman expressed concern as to whether the whites of Natal would spur a rebellion. Some churchmen and many radical humanitarians in Natal, as well as England, produced volumes of irrefutable evidence proving that it was a conspiracy to goad the Zulus into rebellion and then massacre them. In this, Hariette Colenso, the famous daughter of a famous father, Bishop Colenso, made the most outstanding contribution. There was a cry of imminent native revolt in the press long before active rebellion broke out.
As far back as 1902, Lieu. G.A. Mills in his report (GH18/02. Cited "Reluctant Rebellion" p.158) to the Chief of Staff, Natal, on July 1 informed him:
Every Boer expresses the most bitter hatred of the Zulus. They all express a wish that the Zulus would rise now while the British troops are in the country so that they may be practically wiped out. The Boers all say that in the event of the rising, every one of them would join the British troops in order to have a chance of paying off old scores against the Zulus. When I first came here, I visited farms and asked the Boers what they thought of the advisability of keeping troops here. They all said it was most necessary, as they were afraid of the Kaffirs and it would not be safe to stay on their farms if the troops withdrew.... Taking everything into consideration, I cannot help being forced to the opinion that many Boers intend to provoke a Zulu rising if they can do so.
It was Colonel Mackenzie, the military supremo before the rebellion, who was prophesying a native uprising and cleaning the barrels of his guns to use the "golden opportunity" to inflict "the most drastic punishment" on leading natives he found guilty of treason, and to "instill a proper respect for the white man". (C.O. 179/233/12460. Dispatch 9.3.06 cited "Reluctant Rebellion" p. 188).
On June 14, Charles Saunders, Chief Magistrate and Civil Commissioner in Zululand (1899-1909) wrote to C.J. Hignet, the magistrate of Nqutu ("Reluctant Rebellion" p.241):
I quite agree with your conclusions as to our men trying to goad the whole population into rebellion, and you have no idea of the difficulties we had in Nkandha in trying to protect people one knew perfectly well were faithful to us.
In his communication of July 10 1906 to the Prime Minister, (PM 61/15/66 Governor to PM 10.7.06) the Governor described the "sweeping actions and the mopping-up operations as continued slaughter. Fred Graham, a permanent civil servant in the Colonial Office, in his Minute of July 10, described it as "massacre".
Nazism & racism: The most revealing was the long letter of July 24 1906 (CO 179/236/24787 minute 10-7-06) sent by the Anglican Archdeacon, Charles Johnson, from St. Augustine's in Nqutu division, to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospels in London. He was a man of the British establishment and not known to have excessive zeal for standing up for the rights of the Africans. He wrote (cited "Reluctant Rebellion" p. 241):
Many thinking people have been asking themselves, what are we going to do with his teeming population? Some strong-handed men have thought the time was ripe for solving the great question. They knew that there was a general widespread spirit of disaffection among the natives of Natal, the Free State and the Transvaal, but specially in Natal, and they commenced the suppression of the rebellion in the fierce hope that the rebellion might so spread throughout the land and engender a war of practical extermination. I fully believe that they were imbued with the conviction that this was the only safe way of dealing with the native question, and they are greatly disappointed that the spirit of rebellion was not strong enough to bring more than a moiety of the native peoples under the influence of the rifle. Over and over again it was said, `They are only sitting on the fence, it shall be our endeavour to bring them over'; and again, speaking of the big chiefs, `We must endeavour to bring them in if possible! Yes, they have been honest and outspoken enough-the wish being father to the thought-they prophesied the rebellion would spread throughout South Africa; had they been true prophets, no doubt the necessity of solving the native question would have been solved for this generation at least.
John Merriman was a veteran Cape politician. He was one of those so-called liberals who accepted Nazism as a doctrine, or in other words Anglo-Saxon superiority, but regretted its consequent atrocities and thus fumigated their consciences. He wrote to Goldwin Smith (Merriman papers NHo. 202, 16.9.06 cited "Reluctant Rebellion" p.246) in September 1906:
We have had a horrible business in Natal with the natives. I suppose the whole truth will never be known, but enough comes out to make us see how thin the crust is that keeps our christian civilisation from the old-fashioned savagery machine-guns and modern rifles against knobsticks and assagais are heavy odds and do not add much to the glory of the superior race.
In the letter of the Archdeacon the expression "practical extermination", and in a letter of Lieutenant Mills "practically wiped out", have been used. This was what the German Nazis wanted to do to the Jews: to exterminate them. Does it make any difference whether the victims of racial slaughter are Jews or blacks?
Conspiracy to massacre Blacks: Gandhi was well aware of the conspiracy to massacre the Africans. When there was war hysteria in the colonial press, this prophet of non-violence did not apply his mind as to how to stop such a conflict. On the contrary, he did not want Indians to be left behind, but wanted them to take a full part in this genocide.
In his editorial in the Indian Opinion of Nov. 18 1905, long before the actual rebellion broke out, Gandhi complained that the Government simply did not wish to give Indians an opportunity of showing that they were as capable as any other community of taking their share in the defence of the colony. He suggested that a volunteer corps should be formed from colonial-born Indians, which would be useful in actual service.
Indentured Indians lived in conditions worse than slavery. Gandhi during his 20 years' stay in South Africa, did not raise a finger to ease their sufferings. But he was quick to suggest using them as cannon fodder for racists against Africans.
In his Indian Opinion in Dec. 2 1905 he referred to Law 25 of 1875 which was specially passed to increase "the maximum strength of the volunteer force in the colony adding thereto a force of Indian immigrant volunteer infantry". To assure the Europeans that such Indians would only kill Africans, he pointed out that "section 83 of the Militia Act states that no ordinary member of the coloured contingent shall be armed with weapons of precision, unless such contingent is called to operate against other than Europeans".
Gandhi defends massacre: Many years later, he wrote (p.233) in his autobiography:
The Boer War had not brought home to me the horrors of war with anything like the vividness that the `rebellion' did. This was no war but a man-hunt, not only in my opinion but also in that of many Englishmen with whom I had occasion to talk. To hear every morning reports of the soldiers' rifles exploding like crackers in innocent hamlets, and to live in the midst of them, was a trial.
Then to justify his participation in this massacre, he went on (Autobiography p. 231):
I bore no grudge against the Zulus, they had harmed no Indian. I had doubts about the `rebellion' itself, but I then believed that the British Empire existed for the welfare of the world. A genuine sense of loyalty prevented me from even wishing ill to the Empire. The righteness or otherwise of the `rebellion' was therefore not likely to affect my decision.
What about the Nazi war criminals? Did they not have a genuine sense of loyalty to Hitler and Nazism?
In Great Britain another storm of protest was raised against the atrocities perpetrated in Natal. The only time Gandhi mentioned the Zulu suppression was on August 4 1906, when he wrote in his Indian Opinion:
A controversy is going on in England about what the Natal Army did during the Kaffir rebellion. The people here believe that the whites of Natal perpetrated great atrocities on the Kaffirs. In reply to such critics, the Star has pointed to the doings of the Imperial Army in Egypt. Those among the Egyptian rebels who had been captured were ordered to be flogged. The flogging was continued to the limits of the victim's endurance; it took place in public and was watched by thousands of people. Those sentenced to death were also hanged at the same time. While those sentenced to death were hanging, the flogging of others was taken up. While the sentences were being executed, the relatives of the victims cried and wept until many of them swooned. If this is true, there is no reason why there should be such an outcry in England against Natal outrages.
One may notice that the article was very cleverly written. First Gandhi stated that people in England believed that the whites of Natal perpetrated great atrocities on Africans, as if he himself did not know what happened, and also gave the impression that it was the local Natal Army and not the Imperial Army which was involved in the atrocities, which is not true. Even at this stage, he was not willing to tell the simple truth, that atrocities were committed. Then he borrowed the description of hanging and flogging in Egypt from the Star as if he did not know about that either. Did or did not Gandhi know that those Egyptians were not common criminals to be flogged and hanged that they were the patriots, the flowers of the Egyptian nation?
If Gandhi unequivocally accepted or found out that the Imperial Army committed those atrocities, then he could not claim that he believed the British Empire existed for the welfare of mankind. The last and the vilest of all was the subtle suggestion that if the Imperial Army did what they were accused of doing, then there was no reason why there should be such an outcry in England against the Natal outrage. Why could this Imperialist-manufactured Mahatma not say clearly that both were crimes against humanity?
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From: OlaKassimMD@aol.com
Date: Sun, 30 Oct 2011 09:48:22 -0400
Subject: NigeriansnCanada | Worth Repeating: Commentary On Prof Anya's Interview on the Igbo in Nigeria and the Prospects for an Igbo President of Nigeria
""What I am telling my Igbo brothers is to make themselves so relevant to the Nigerian system that people will say, 'look, at this point in time, the Igbo candidate is the best we have and it is in Nigeria's interest to have him.'
Then, we will have a Nigerian president, who accidentally is an Igbo.---Prof Anya
From: OlaKassimMD@aol.com <OlaKassimMD@aol.com>
Subject: NIDOA | Prof. Anya: When great minds speak...
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Cc: summadom@gmail.com
Date: Saturday, September 11, 2010, 5:48 PMDominic:I agree.This is by far the best interview I have read about Nigeria, froma well respected and knowledgeable Nigerian regardless of age oroccupation this year.I believe that Prof. Anya is in a special rarefied class. He is in a special classfull of people of uncommon wisdom from all over Nigeria, that I hate to say the vastmajority of the best minds in Nigeria, can not even dare to applyfor membership.This is because most Nigerians are now totally confused--being thornbetween whether to put the ethnic interests first above or second topan-Nigerian interests.Prof. Anya has provided some opinions that all Nigerians, especiallythe Igbo in the Diaspora can learn one or two things from.However, unlike you Dominic, I refuse to get bogged with the statementattributed to Sir Ahmadu Bello in the Parrot column of October 12, 1960,in which he is quoted to have made the following statement in an interview.""Ahmadu Bello on October 12, 1960 as reported in The Parrot, which was a column in those days, said something along the lines that the new country called Nigeria was an estate of his great grand-father, Othman Dan Fodio. Therefore, they must on no account allow power to change hands. In the process of maintaining power, they would use the Northern minorities as willing tools and the Southern minorities as conquered territories."Even if the above is true, I am prepared just like Prof.Anya to move on--and view the statement as anachronisticone that was more in keeping with the the times--ofimmediate post independence Nigeria than now. Prof.Anya even testified that Sir Ahmadu Bellow subsequentlymoved away from this position to embrace the ideathat all Nigerian leaders must work for one purpose,the interest of all Nigerians regardless of their ethnicorigins or religious affiliations. If there are any northernNigerian leaders who still harbor the idea of Nigeriabeing a a colony of Othman Dan Fodio, we must likeProf. Anya suggested in the interview consign themto the category of relics of the past who are no longerrelevant to the present and futuredirection of Nigeria.I am most impressed with the following lengthy quoteamongst others that I could have also picked from Prof.Anya's interview:"What I am telling my Igbo brothers is to make themselves so relevant to the Nigerian system that people will say, 'look, at this point in time, the Igbo candidate is the best we have and it is in Nigeria's interest to have him.'Then, we will have a Nigerian president, who accidentally is an Igbo. That is the way it has to be and that is the way it will be.In any case, the Igbo thrive in a competitive environment. Indeed, the Igbo are the only ones who you can claim they are the original Nigerians. There is no part of the country where after the people who say 'this is my place', you don't have the Igbo as the second largest constituency. We are the ones who are found everywhere.So, we have, by our efforts, shown that we are Nigerians. Therefore, we should not be begging for office but show through what you do that you are so relevant that Nigeria cannot ignore you.I use Lagos State as an example. As we speak, the 2006 census that former Governor Bola Ahmed Tinubu conducted alongside the federal one suggest that less than 50% of the population of Lagos is Yoruba and not less than 40% of the population of Lagos is Igbo.What does that mean? It means that properly organised, the Igbo can be the alternative government in Lagos. But I will not be the one, having worked with the leadership of the Yoruba and knowing that it is possible to work towards a common purpose with them, to say, 'let Igbo organise.'It is possible for us to arrange a fair system where all the constituent parts that have a stake in Lagos are part of the governance of Lagos. We can repeat that in Abuja, Kano and elsewhere and that way you will find that the clamour for Igbo being allowed here and there will go.People will start returning to the original concept where every Nigerian was at home in any part
of the country. In the 50s, Umaru Altine, a Hausa/Fulani was the Mayor of Enugu. An Ajibade of the NCNC (National Council of Nigerian Citizens), was representing Port Harcourt at the Eastern House of Assembly in Enugu. And you know that Port Harcourt really is an Igbo City.The original Igbo name for Port Harcourt is Ugwuocha before it was changed to Port Harcourt by the colonialists. That was the kind of Nigeria we had. That was the time that Mbonu Ojike was active and important in the politics of Lagos. And that was the time that Nigeria had a dream and future that was promising and encouraged my generation. We have to try and get back to that and we can only do that when you have a governance that enjoys acceptance by all Nigerians across the board. You can't do it when you are clamouring for rotation, federal character, zoning and things like that.This is the right time to go back because the younger generation of Nigerians are better educated than my generation, they have a broader view and among them, it is irrelevant where you come from. I have seen first class people from the North, East, West and South of the younger generation."---Prof AnyaWhy did I pick the above passage from Prof. Anya's interview?It is because the wisdom embedded in the interview reflectsalmost everything I wish Nigeria to become, not only now butalso in the future.It is a waste of time debating details or veracity of certain statementsin Prof. Anya's interview that we may or not agree with.The old man has said his piece. It is the embedded wisdomin his words, call them parables if you wish that are more importantthan the facts.May the Almighty God grant Prof. Anya a long life so they wouldstill be around to guide us as Nigeria moves on--along herdivined journey as a nation state.Bye,Ola
-----Original Message-----
From: Dominic Ogbonna <summadom@gmail.com>
To: NaijaPolitics@yahoogroups.com; NigerianWorldForum <NIgerianWorldForum@yahoogroups.com>; Bring your baseball bat <NaijaObserver@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Sat, Sep 11, 2010 9:09 am
Subject: [NaijaObserver] Re: [NaijaPolitics] When great minds speak...
Woow,what a wide-ranging interview!By the way, did anyone notice the little bombshell accidentally tucked inside the interview? I would like to draw the attention of Ola Kassim, Bolaji Aluko, Joseph Igietseme, Yinka Odumakin, Pius Adesanmi, Bobson Arigbe, Odafi Emma, Franklyne Ogbunezeh, etc etc to a small side-item in the interview, to wit:"Ahmadu Bello on October 12, 1960 as reported in The Parrot, which was a column in those days, said something along the lines that the new country called Nigeria was an estate of his great grand-father, Othman Dan Fodio. Therefore, they must on no account allow power to change hands. In the process of maintaining power, they would use the Northern minorities as willing tools and the Southern minorities as conquered territories."Did anybody notice the above? We fought a bitter online war over this very issue in August last year, and Adebola Ogutuga and some other people went as far as contacting the Library of Congress to ascertain if Bello made such a statement, and if the Parrot even existed! Do you guys remember?The key word there is THE PARROT. Ahmadu Bello was reported to have said that stuff in a NewsPaper called "The Parrot". Bolaji and his people called people liars and propagandists, above all because the "Parrot", the referenced NewsPaper, was apparently fictional.With professor Anya's take above, it should now be clear that the truth may be more nuanced. It appears there was indeed no "Parrot" Newspaper. But it appears that there was a column called "The Parrot", in some existing Newspaper of the era, and that Ahmadu Bello DID make the statement attributed to him indeed!Woow!People with access to Dr Anya, and the journalists in this forum, should perhaps follow up and find out which Independence-era Newspaper ran the "Parrot" column. Once we know the Newspaper, tracking down exactly what Bello said should be a cake-walk, because we already know the date of publication, October 13, 1960. That is, assuming a copy still exists!Please, nobody, least of all the ever-cantekerous professor Aluko, should use this as an excuse for another pointless roforofo. I am just trying to bring some light to an issue that has been extremely divisive in the past!Dominic
On Sat, Sep 11, 2010 at 6:56 AM, topcrest topcrest <topcrestt@yahoo.com> wrote:
'Dangers in stopping Jonathan'
PoliticsSep 10, 2010By Clifford NDUJIHE
Prof Anya O. Anya, 73, is primarily a scientist but he is at ease with politics, governance, law, economics and administration among others.The pioneer chairman of the Nigerian Economic Summit Group and a key player in the Vision 2010 and Vision 20-2020 roadmaps, was literarily shooting from his heaps in an interview with Saturday Vanguard last Saturday in his Lekki, Lagos home.In no holds barred fashion, he gave reasons President Goodluck Jonathan should be allowed to continue as president. He also spoke on how to tackle graft, ensure credible polls in 2011, why older presidential aspirants should step aside and why the Igbo should oppose zoning among others. Excerpts:At 73, you look so healthy and could be taken to be 60. What is the secret?The secret is God; His grace. None of us can really say what he wants to do or what he doesn't want to do. As He told us in the Bible, He knew us before we were born. So, there is a plan to each life. Our duty is to try and fulfil it, the rest is left to Him.How do you see the issues surrounding preparations for the 2011 polls, especially the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC's N87.7 billion budget for voters' registration?When you look at it, most people will agree that it is a heavy bill, perhaps, a bit on the high side. But where we are, to get credible elections, no price is too high. Given the credibility and integrity of the man, who is in-charge (Prof. Attahiru Jega), whatever he says, give it to him so that he will not have excuses.Let's take them on their words, give them what they want but let them deliver a credible and dependable election in which every voters' vote will count.Aside INEC, how can we handle the ever-ready-to-rig politicians?You remember that Donald Duke, the former Governor of Cross River State, gave details, a blow-by-blow account of how rigging is planned and effected. If that is what it is, nobody should be taken by surprise because we know what to expect. The thing now is to checkmate it.First of all, the politicians can checkmate each other. Second, we the voters can checkmate the politicians and people who want to do funny things, including the security agencies because in the past, security agencies had been part of the mishandling of elections. And if everybody is on his toes ready to play his part, then, at least, the principle of countervailing forces should act as deterrence and the outcome should be a credible election.How do you see the INEC's election timetable, especially the two weeks fixed for voters' compilation?Two weeks should not be enough but it is still better to have a voters' register that more people trust than one that has a history of manipulation. I say it is not enough because if I am travelling out of the country on business, I still want to be able to register. If the window for registration is too narrow then some of the people who ought to register might not be able to register and you cannot have a free and fair election, the type we are talking, if any part of the electorate is disenfranchised for whatever reason.So, I think that the two weeks is too short. I would expect at least one month. Anything less than one month is a bit tight.What do you make of the issue of zoning as regards the presidency?To understand zoning, you have to understand how it began. Zoning is a pragmatic attempt to solve a Nigerian problem but unfortunately, it has not been clearly thought out. And to that extent, because of the shallowness of the thinking that comes with it, it has elements or certain aspects that are unacceptable.First of all, as I have quoted elsewhere, zoning is un-Godly because God who created us gives us not only free will to effect our choices unencumbered but also, and more importantly, He allows us to choose in an atmosphere in which there is equal opportunity for everybody.Zoning means that you have decided that 'this one is excluded, that one is excluded; it can only be from this circle.' To that extent, it is not free and so it is not Godly.Second is the fact that zoning cannot allow merit to be the basis of choice because the best candidate may be from the excluded zone and you have excluded him for no reason – not his ability, not his rights but merely because it soothes some people to say 'it is our turn.' So, because you exclude merit, you also, in the process, encourage mediocrity.Third, it is undemocratic and unconstitutional. The Nigerian Constitution has no place for zoning. The directive principles of governance in Nigeria make it clear that every Nigerian has a right to present himself for office and to be voted for. We understand the reasons people prefer zoning. It is easier to manipulate. A smaller circle can take a decision that is binding on the rest of the nation. You cannot build a nation that way.Proponents of zoning argue that it would ensure power rotation even to the minorities. Without zoning, some fear that some groups, including your South-East geo-political zone might not be able to produce the president in the nearest future.Rotation is unnecessary if there was a society in which there was fairness, justice, equity and freedom, which are embedded in our first National Anthem, in the current one and in our Coat of Arms.Therefore, there is a mandatory responsibility in leadership to build a society directed by those values, in which case it does not really matter where the Nigerian leader comes from provided he is competent and has the right values – values that give encouragement to all citizens of the country no matter where they come from. Because there has been manipulation, the frustrated ones are saying 'we must rotate it.' Return justice to the system, rotation will be irrelevant.What about some Igbo support for zoning and their clamour to produce the president in 2015?
Look closely at those who are supporting zoning, they are either people who have held office and are hopeful that they can hold another office at a higher level. They want the ground to be softened.They don't want to have to campaign throughout Nigeria to be accepted. They are not looking forward to becoming president of Igboland. They are president of Nigeria. So, they should be acceptable to the rest of Nigeria, which means they should present themselves and be ready to give what is in the best interest of Nigeria and of all sections.If you look at those who are clamouring for zoning, there is that element of selfish consideration. There is nobody who is thinking about what is best for Igboland and Nigeria that will tell you that zoning will be his preferred option. The reason is simple. By the nature of the Igbo, Igboland is a democratic society, in which everybody has a right and the society encourages everybody to compete on equal level.How can people, who believe in democratic principles now be thinking about a principle that excludes because that is what zoning is? History tells us that when you work for the best conditions to emerge with a level-playing field and proper acceptance of the right values for everybody, you will always find that the Igbo will thrive. The Igbo can compete under any circumstance if the ground is level.Indeed, why the Igbo have tended to lose out in Nigeria is because of zoning. Because we have often excluded the best in Igboland from offices, Nigeria loses and Igboland loses. When you say you want the Igbo turn, first, you are giving the right to decide on your leadership to outsiders rather than yourself. Second, you select us out on the basis of your interest versus my interest and I will like to protect my own.So, leadership in Igboland has been tended to be picking out the self-centred and selfish ones, do a deal with them, often against Igbo interest so that they become acceptable to Nigeria. When that happens, such people are often no longer Igbo leaders and they are not Nigerian leaders either.Former Vice President, Dr. Alex Ekwueme said recently that he hoped the South-East would produce the president in his life time and former Biafran leader, Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, said allowing the Igbo to produce the president would show that the Igbo were no longer being punished for the civil war. How do you view their views?Both are just slightly older than me. They are the leading edge of my generation. Their hope is also my hope but I think that at times we can be naive. Naive in the sense that we project our hopes outside the box of the reality on the ground.The reality on the ground is that nobody donates power to anybody. When the Nigerian cabal decided that after Chief M.K.O. Abiola, all the parties must have a Yoruba candidate, why did they do that? The Yoruba had fought with the assistance of other Nigerians including me.
You fought for the Yoruba?
People forget that I was the chairman of the Strategy Planning Committee of the CUU (Committee for Unity and Understanding) that gave rise to the National Democratic Coalition, NADECO. God willing, one day I will write my memoirs and people will know where these things started and what happened as different from what some claimed.The Chinese say that 'success is an orphan, everybody claims him, failure is a bastard, nobody claims him.' Because NADECO seemed to have become the symbol, all kinds of characters claim they played one active part or the other.And because the process at one stage became regionalised and ethnic different from the way it started, it became possible for all kinds of people from the Western part of the country to jump up and say they are NADECO chieftains. The only two people, may be three, who can tell you what happened and the role I played are Chief Ayo Adebanjo, Ayo Opadokun and the late Chief Abraham Adesanya.So, the point I am making is that because the South-West had fought a heroic battle,
everybody had no alternative than to say 'accommodate them so that we can have peace.' What I am telling my Igbo brothers is to make themselves so relevant to the Nigerian system that people will say, 'look, at this point in time, the Igbo candidate is the best we have and it is in Nigeria's interest to have him.'Then, we will have a Nigerian president, who accidentally is an Igbo. That is the way it has to be and that is the way it will be.In any case, the Igbo thrive in a competitive environment. Indeed, the Igbo are the only ones who you can claim they are the original Nigerians. There is no part of the country where after the people who say 'this is my place', you don't have the Igbo as the second largest constituency. We are the ones who are found everywhere.So, we have, by our efforts, shown that we are Nigerians. Therefore, we should not be begging for office but show through what you do that you are so relevant that Nigeria cannot ignore you.I use Lagos State as an example. As we speak, the 2006 census that former Governor Bola Ahmed Tinubu conducted alongside the federal one suggest that less than 50% of the population of Lagos is Yoruba and not less than 40% of the population of Lagos is Igbo.What does that mean? It means that properly organised, the Igbo can be the alternative government in Lagos. But I will not be the one, having worked with the leadership of the Yoruba and knowing that it is possible to work towards a common purpose with them, to say, 'let Igbo organise.'It is possible for us to arrange a fair system where all the constituent parts that have a stake in Lagos are part of the governance of Lagos. We can repeat that in Abuja, Kano and elsewhere and that way you will find that the clamour for Igbo being allowed here and there will go.People will start returning to the original concept where every Nigerian was at home in any part
of the country. In the 50s, Umaru Altine, a Hausa/Fulani was the Mayor of Enugu. An Ajibade of the NCNC (National Council of Nigerian Citizens), was representing Port Harcourt at the Eastern House of Assembly in Enugu. And you know that Port Harcourt really is an Igbo City.The original Igbo name for Port Harcourt is Ugwuocha before it was changed to Port Harcourt by the colonialists. That was the kind of Nigeria we had. That was the time that Mbonu Ojike was active and important in the politics of Lagos. And that was the time that Nigeria had a dream and future that was promising and encouraged my generation. We have to try and get back to that and we can only do that when you have a governance that enjoys acceptance by all Nigerians across the board. You can't do it when you are clamouring for rotation, federal character, zoning and things like that.This is the right time to go back because the younger generation of Nigerians are better educated than my generation, they have a broader view and among them, it is irrelevant where you come from. I have seen first class people from the North, East, West and South of the younger generation.Let's leave a system that allows them give leadership to this country and let my generation stop pretending that we are still relevant. We have had our time, we should encourage our successors to do better job than we have done. Those making the greatest noise are those frightened by what they might lose. But what they might lose is their relevance, which they lost a long time ago by their failure in performance in office.In other words, are you asking older presidential aspirants like Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and Gen. Muhammadu Buhari to step aside for the younger generation?There is no alternative ultimately. The yardstick suggests that in spite all the noise, the people who are saying 'Jonathan will not run, we want zoning to the North, etc,' are mostly from the older generation in the North. You know that 60% of the population of Nigeria is less than 30 years old, 75 % is less than 60 years.Those of us above 65 years form less than five per cent of the population . What does that suggest to you? Really, Babangida, Buhari, Atiku and the rest of them are already beyond the age where if there was democracy, demographic democracy will be against them.So, that is why they want zoning, as it were, to foreclose discussion, short-circuit giving Nigerians, especially younger Nigerians the opportunity to express their views. In the houses of most people of my generation, their children don't think the way we think.They know that a better Nigeria is possible and they know we made a mess of it. If I were their shoes, I will just respect and conserve my dignity because the shock that these elections will bring will be quite devastating. What people are projecting will not happen.I can give you an analysis why even in the North, all this noise is a lot of air. First of all, there are three tendencies in the North as we speak. There is the old generation, who are going back to the mind set of Sir Ahmadu Bello, which in fairness to Ahmadu Bello, he had turned away from that mind set before he died.Ahmadu Bello on October 12, 1960 as reported in The Parrot, which was a column in those days, said something along the lines that the new country called Nigeria was an estate of his great grand-father, Othman Dan Fodio. Therefore, they must on no account allow power to change hands. In the process of maintaining power, they would use the Northern minorities as willing tools and the Southern minorities as conquered territories.So, what is playing out now in the minds of people like Alhaji Adamu Ciroma, Tanko Yakassai, etc, is that old mind set. But Nigeria has gone away from that. Even Ahmadu Bello had gone away from that. The late Amb. Jolly Tanko Yusuf, the first chairman of the Alliance for Democracy, AD, told us a lot of stories. We worked closely in some of these political initiatives at certain stage.Ahmadu Bello was sincere enough that he worked closely with some Christians and minority Northerners and sincerely not to rebuild his great grand father estate but the nation. But the following generation – my generation, there are some, who still have that mind set and they are the proponents of zoning, etc. That is one tendency in the North and despite the noise, it is a minority tendency.The second tendency is the one represented by young, competent Northerners, who recognise that, 'yes, we may be northerners, we are Nigerians. Nigeria is the future and we will give our service to Nigeria.' They are well-educated, competent and have held offices, particularly in the private sector and have made their success stories. You speak to them privately, an
overwhelming majority of them, which is also the demographic majority, do not want zoning and are prepared to have Jonathan given a fair chance.You know where the younger Shagari stays on the issue? He wants people to vote for Jonathan. Nasir el-Rufai is the same. I can name more of such younger people. That is the future of Nigeria. That is the future of the North.The third group is represented by people like Buhari, who see the promise of Nigeria and want that better future to come. I think Buhari is sincere but he has a baggage of history. Even if the whole North votes for him, it will not make him the president of Nigeria. And there are political roles he played in the past that do not make it easy for all sections of the non-northern part of Nigeria to be comfortable with him. But I believe that a man like him still has a role to play in the emergence of that new Nigeria but with a younger leadership.President Jonathan has not declared he is running, no electoral promise of any kind to the electorate and yet you are backing him. Is his approach in order?Jonathan is doing what he ought to do at this point in time. He has been put in a place where the results he produces as president in a very short period may be an important factor for you and me deciding to give him a second chance.So, if his pre-occupation becomes to produce results whether in the power sector or wherever before he starts telling you what his future plans are, I think it shows a certain kind of basic wisdom. We must respect that because it means he is not taking us for granted.When you now come to the details, neither Jonathan nor Nigeria has any alternative but to allow him to continue. First of all, Jonathan does not know how he came to the position he is in.None of us can take credit for it. Even former President Olusegun Obasanjo that people say brought Jonathan cannot take credit for his emergence. Some will say it is providence. Some of us who believe that there is a higher power called God, will say it is God's intervention.Like most things, when God intervenes, there is a purpose for it. When humans start intervening in things God had more or less put the ground rules, you are being presumptuous.And that is why any human being now saying he wants to stop Jonathan is embarking on wishful thinking because we do not know yet what the inscrutable mind of God has in this purpose.All we can do is play our part as human beings, not in opposition to His will but let His will be done.There is also the moral dimension even though so many of my northern compatriots have tended to play it down. They have been shouting that there was an agreement, which if you don't keep is not moral. But there is even a longer-lasting agreement that imposes a greater moral burden on them.Since independence, no Northern political leader had emerged without the support of what we now call the South-South geo-political zone. In other words, people who had given you consistent support for 50 years, the only time that through accident of history it is their opportunity to have a chance at that which you have managed on your own for 38 years out of 50 years, there is something immoral in not recognising that you have a certain duty, an obligation in such circumstances.So, those opposed to Jonathan forgetting the geo-political implications of that are taking a risk on Nigeria and Nigeria could pay a very heavy price for it.The reason is simple. An important weapon that has been used in the predominantly Northern political equation in Nigeria has been the element of violence. It was violence that was used through military control, who are managers of violence. It was also violence that gave rise to the progroms and so that redrew the demographic boundaries of Nigeria. Easterners in the North and West streamed back to the East forcefully.It was also violence, whether ethnic or religious-related, that had been used as part of the instruments to maintain power over the last 50 years.There was no equivalent countervailing force in the South. The Biafran one was an incident, which you could not help under the circumstances that it developed but it was momentary. Now, you have the potential for a counter force as represented by the insurrection in the Niger Delta.Once you offend the Niger Delta by this riding of a high horse that only the North can pursue, those who do it must take full responsibility for the consequences for the greater Nigeria. That is why I have told people in religious circles, this is the time to pray for Nigeria.Jonathan's emergence has put Nigeria on a knife edge. When the right forces play out, we will see the birth of a new Nigeria in which where you come is not a deciding factor as to what you get out of Nigeria but what you can put into it.If you mishandle it and give the signal that 'it must be the way I want it at all cost' even when the evidence of history show that you have had more than your fair share, demography or no demography, you may see that the so-called minority can hold everybody to ransom.Could you comment on the decision of the South-East governors not contest the presidency or vice presidency position so as to chart a political course for the zone?It is a very wise approach, very unlike the usual Igbo politicians' gambit. What has kept the Igbo where they are is that our political leaders, without exception, up till now have tended to be people who negotiated their interests even at the risk of group interest. For the first time, we have political leaders in Igboland, who are saying, 'look, my interest is not the most important now but the interest of my people .To know what is in the best interest of my people, let's watch and see who will gives a better deal.' I think it was a very wise approach.As a member of the Imeobi (inner caucus) of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, why is the apex Igbo organisation not taking a stand on the issue of zoning and other burning political issues ahead the 2011 polls?People misunderstand what the role of Ohanaeze should be. Ohanaeze is a socio-cultural organisation of all Igbos whether in Delta, Rivers or South-East. Socio-cultural and socio-economic relations become important because they can shape socio-political relations.To that extent, the priority for Ohanaeze should not be to direct the Igbos on a political path but to watch everything, analyse it, encourage everybody to put their ideas on the table so that a consensus emerges. That consensus becomes the one that Ohanaeze spreads. It is not to make pronouncements. The day Ohanaeze starts making fire-written political statements that day it will lose its relevance and the moral authority it should have.How would assess Governor Babatunde Fashola of Lagos, three years after?Fashola, first and foremost is the discovery of this particular stage of Nigeria's political history. Without doubts, he is the best of the class of 2007 among the governors. Yes, he has advantages but there are others who have advantage but have not used it as well as Fashola has used his own.However, Fashola has a burden. Moving forward, you will find that he has to broaden the base of his acceptability. I have just related about the ethnic mix in Lagos. Lagos is no longer a Yoruba city, it is a cosmopolitan city in Nigeria. Indeed, to a certain extent, it is a global city. It is one of the emerging mega cities of the 21st century. ency that he should take into account.You live in Lekki. What is your take on the controversy surrounding the proposed tolling of the
Lekki-Epe Expressway?I was the founding director general of the Nigeria Economic Summit Group, NESG. We are the ones who pushed the idea that government resources cannot be enough to develop the society. To take it to the modern 21st century world, you must have a relationship with the private sector.We went on to talk about 'let the government create the enabling environment, create incentives and the private sector will be the engine of growth of the economy.' The Lekki thing is a good example of it and the need for partnership cannot be faulted. However, if you are going into a public, private sector partnership, it is not only between the partners, the population you will serve or the service will serve are important stakeholders and you should also consult them.What is happening obviously is maybe the consultation did not go down to the grassroots at the initiation stage as it ought to. Nevertheless, once it becomes necessary, you re-negotiate.In re-negotiating, you must remember two things: there has to be a balance between the investment made by the private sector and the returns they get out of it. If the return passes a certain threshold, it will become uncomfortable to the population and they will resist it.Now, if you translate that into practical terms; on a 50 kilometre stretch of road, to think you will have three toll gates within a distance of 23 kilometres, is too much. Perhaps, if you have one at the beginning and another at the end of the road, people may complain but they might live with it. I think that is the area they have to look at.How would you assess Jonathan's performance in office four months after?Given the efforts to distract him from his core impression to make a difference in less than a year, I think he has done very well. Also looking at the circumstances or the intrigues that went on before he ascended, he has also managed the forces well. Thirdly, the emphasis he is putting forward as the priorities, going forward, are the right priorities.Looking at everything, I believe in his continuing to unleash forces that can make a difference in the country. Let's not forget that of all Nigerian leaders, he is the best educated. He has been distracted by the nature of Nigerian politics so far but a trained mind makes a difference.And ultimately, Nigerians will see the difference between having a trained leader and people who stumble into leadership.You were a member of Vision 2010. How far did Nigeria pursue the vision?Vision 2010 was a stillbirth. When Obasanjo came on the scene, there was a blueprint that he could have taken and run but he didn't. He started taking elements of it later on when he discovered what it was. But it is not the same because a vision is a vision, it goes cohesively together.A vision is not a development plan so you can't take what you like. You either take it holistically or you avoid it. When he started picking instead of embracing it altogether there was a limit to what could be achieved.However, most people will agree that his first term was a disaster compared to his second term. The reason was that for his second term, there was a blueprint that guided what government was doing. I have the privilege to have been asked and it was sanctioned by Obasanjo himself, to chair a small committee of six people.I was the only man of my generation in that committee. All the others were brilliant young leaders. The masterstroke why that report was changing events for Obasanjo's administration was the fact that he had the good sense to take three members of that committee and made them members of his government in his second term.Two of those members became members of the Economic Management Team – El-Rufai and Bode Agusto. So by the time that Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and Prof Chukwuma Soludo, etc came into the team there was at least a guiding framework and it was easy for them to hit the ground and start running.Within the circle of economic managers there were people who could explain why a suggestion was made to go this way or that way. The lesson from that is that a government that has a clear view of where it is going and has minds that are prepared will always achieve more than people happening to situations by accident or politically-manipulated design.That takes us to Vision 20-2020. Do you see Nigeria recording any mileage?I am always hopeful. Some of my friends say that my problem is that I am incorrigibly optimistic whenever Nigeria is considered. Vision 20-2020 is within the reals of possibility but
the conditions for it are quite stringent.When they started the programme, I was invited to serve on it but I politely declined because I did not think they were serious and I said so to Shamsdeen Usman, who incidentally was in Vision 2010 and knew what my role in that first attempt was.He understood my position. I told him we had always failed at the point of implementation that until they convince me that they were serious with the implementation that I would not get involve and I did not get involved.When they finished, he got back to me and said. 'Please Prof, I am putting you forward to serve in the Central Working Committee, CWC for the Implementation Plan. Please don't say no.' So, I agreed. I was the chairman of the Regional Development of the Implementation Committee under the CWC chaired by Chief Philip Asiodu.We believe we did a good job. Jonathan has launched it, which means the government has accepted it. So, if Nigerians reaffirm their confidence in Jonathan and say 'go ahead!' it means just as I said about Obasanjo's second term, Jonathan will be coming into office hitting the ground and running straight away because there is a plan to guide what to do.People say it is just 10 years away. What we want to do is in many ways earth-shaking and our history does not give confidence that we had done things that way before. There is always a new beginning for any nation.China is a good example. After wandering for years from 1948 till probably 1978, they had all sorts of hiccups. But between 1978 and 1990, the framework of what we are seeing now, the huge economy that is driving China was set in those short 11 years. So, if China has done it in 11 years, who says Nigeria cannot do it in 10 years?That is also the reason I said my generation is out of it because the new ideas, new energies and technologies that are relevant to development neither Babangida norAtiku nor even myself even though I am a scientist, can be comfortable with them. Only the young generation can be comfortable with them.If we are there giving them the moral encouragement and social management skills and experience, if we are not among the first 20 economies in the world by year 2020 but are among the first 25, that is still a very good place from where we are.
Zero tolerance for corruption was a factor that favoured China's meteoric recovery. Can Nigeria make it in the face of high-wire graft?Until you deal with the ogre of corruption, you are not going anywhere. That is particularly pathetic.When you get to a situation where three successive heads of state of one country are named internationally, documented by name of money passing hands, you know it means that the world has already decided your case is beyond redemption. But you cannot say anybody is beyond redemption, only God can say who is beyond redemption. So, Nigeria is still redeemable. I am hopeful that a change will come.Now, some people are being charged for the Halliburton case. You may not always punish all the people who are guilty, the important thing is to serve notice that it is possible in a system that when you are caught you are punished. You serve notice to people that 'although in this society anything goes, there are still limits.There are things that if you do you have ruined your entire career.' That is what has been lacking in Nigeria and that is what is slowly creeping back. Among the political class, I don't think they are still as reckless and acting with impunity as they used to be.Bode George is there to remind people of what could happen if you are too forward. It is true that his case is not finished, the fact that a man like him could be where he is for 18 months is a lesson and because of it I am hopeful that slowly and surely corruption will start being fought perhaps selectively to begin with but later comprehensively as they get more confidence.Some Northern leaders last week urged President Jonathan not to use the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, to fight governors who are opposed to his presidential ambition. Doesn't that defeat the selective approach?It is not the type of selectivity I am talking about because their own selectivity including their own noise is also selective. They don't want corruption to be fought because if you go through history, most of them took part in the Leyland scandal in the 70s, Scania Bus, etc.They are already speaking from a position of self-interest and self-preservation. The truth of the matter is and the EFCC has answered them: when is it that you should investigate petitions on corruption and when is it that you should not?The truth of the matter is, where we are, whenever your case comes up expect no reprieve.The only reprieve is to do things right. We cannot tell an institution that has constitutional responsibilities when and how to do them so long as what they are doing is legal and constitutional.If the EFCC starts using extra-legal methods, I will be the first person to defend the victims because the Nigerian law presumes an accused innocent until proven guilty and if you allow injustice against one person that injustice could come to you.
What is the way forward for Nigeria ahead 2011 polls?Despite all the fears and concerns, I am hopeful. Even though I told you that we are on a knife edge, I think the odds are probably 55-60 % that we can manage it; certainly less than 50% that we will fail.It is still a knife edge because one unexpected blowout could still create a problem. However, I think the future is still bright. Like it happened in China, the transition may be so fast that when it starts moving, we won't believe that it is the same country. It will happen. Make sure that your vote counts and protect your votes.Be sure that you take interest in the political process so that at least you will educate yourself what the parties are promising and choose the candidates that will serve your interest. When we don't take interest in how the candidates emerge, the chances are that the wrong people can be there and that is where the wrong leadership begins from.Throughout the last 10 years, since 1999, in the National Assembly they have some 419 people, some are people accused of murders. We are luck things are not worse than what we have. Moving forward, we have to return integrity to service and politics by participating activelyWhat do you make of the high cost of governance in Nigeria and jumbo pay for lawmakers?As far back as March 2009, I said that each National Assembly man was costing nigeria N274 million a year.That is including their salaries, allowances and the money they use in running the National Assembly. I said in a country where 70 per cent of the population is living below the poverty line that is not a sustainable level of expenditure for your legislative arm.The truth is not just the National Assembly, the cost of governance in Nigeria is too high. And unless you deal with that you will never really be able to put your hands together in terms of the development priorities to now take us to 20-2020 the way we envisaged.Some have said one way of dealing with it is returning to the parliamentary system of government. It may be so but once you develop a system people develop vested interest in it and the battle you have to fight to change it is at times not worth it.So the issue now is not how to change the presidential system we are running but how to make it affordable. First is to reduce the length of time they have to be there. Nigeria cannot afford full-time members of the National Assembly. Second is, in the spirit of sacrifice for nation-building, they themselves must agree that what they earn must be tied to the average earning capacity of the country.There has to be a relationship between the GDP per capita and what the lawmakers or any other person in public office earns.There is something that economists call the GINI coefficient, which shows that when the gap between what the lowest paid people and highest paid people are earning is too wide, that society can never be stable. That is where Nigeria is because your wealthy people are so mind-bogglingly wealthy and the poor people are the poorest of the poor. No society with that kind of gap can survive.It comes back to the nature of our politics. Right now, because of the perquisites and the various benefits that being in political office affords, many people are rushing into politics as a way to make ends meet, no longer as an avenue for service. We have to change the entire value system.And you have to do it by creating incentives for good performance for those who are prepared to make sacrifices for the nation and at the same time have clearly what should be done to those who embark on self-aggrandisement.
Your take on Nigeria at 50?My prayer is that in this 50th year of our independence anniversary, God should give us a better opportunity to serve our country, give us peace, give us understanding and above all, give us leaders, who are prepared to serve.
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