USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Jeffrey Goldberg: "A Small Not on Teju Cole's White Savior Industrial Complex"

Kwame,

 

I dunno about all that. My priorities are to turn my rage productively inwards, staring at those who have promised to lift Nigeria up from the mess she is in to a new and desirable level. The intellectual and political elite running today's Nigeria are running her to the ground. If we say we know everything about the white man's ways (and yes we do) it stands to reason that we should be wise to his ways and use that wisdom productively. Fifty years after independence from colonialism, in many ways, it is hard to make a compelling argument that we are better off.

 

The first thing we need to do is to divest ourselves of orthodox thought. That would be immensely liberating. African intellectuals must drive the white man out of their heads. It is so unproductive; actually it is the new security blanket, we will not take responsibility. If Westerners are raping Nigeria today, what does it say about our intellectual and political elite ruling the country? What is "governance" in today's Nigeria and much of black Africa is Black-on-Black crime. And so I must be forgiven for cackling like a jackal when the same characters start writing me pretty essays about what else the white man has not done for them. We should all get off our lazy butts and do the work instead of just lolling around, stealing the place blind and employing what a friend calls the "fire brigade" approach of defense when somebody tries to do something we can't or won't do for ourselves. It is disgraceful really that we are having this conversation still. 

 

Labels and ideology are not helpful either. I suspect that if the Invisible Children folks had been anything other than of the religious right and pro US militarism, we would not be hearing all this carping from white liberals and their African intellectual sidekicks. I am an agnostic, but that does not stop me from appreciating a good thing when I see one. The KONY 2012 video is an important watershed for Africa, mark my words. The people that watched that video do not read us. The people that made the video do not care about us. The change is going to go on and it would be relentless - without us. We are going to be irrelevant to the future of Africa if we do not re-think the implications of the powerful changes taking place in our world today.

 

Finally, you said this: "The other problem is that western-style "development" is not sustainable. That is to say if the rest of the planet used resources at rates similar to, say, the US, the world's finite resources would be exhausted. Americans and Africans and the Rest need to rethink the meaning and practice of "development." "

 

I agree 100 percent. I could not have said it better, if I tried. Mimicry is going to be the end of us in Africa, mimicry. African intellectual and poloitical elite are trying to build Western systems from the roof down. Who does that? 

 

- Ikhide

 

Stalk my blog at www.xokigbo.com

Follow me on Twitter: @ikhide

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From: kwame zulu shabazz <kwameshabazz@gmail.com>
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Cc: "USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com" <USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com>; "Ederi@yahoogroups.com" <Ederi@yahoogroups.com>; Ikhide <xokigbo@yahoo.com>
Sent: Sunday, March 25, 2012 3:53 AM
Subject: Re: Jeffrey Goldberg: "A Small Not on Teju Cole's White Savior Industrial Complex"

"Blaming the white man" is a red-herring. Many of the NGOs are white-controlled. They aren't all bad--I think we all agree on that. But many our predatory. That seems to be the point. Blaming specific entities is very different from what you trivialize as "blaming the white man." And how is blaming the black man a superior position? Moreover, is blaming the black man any different from what has been done since at least the 1400s?

"Africans (or African Americans) are uncivilized."
"Africans (or African Americans) can't govern themselves."
"Africans (or African Americans) are like children." 

Blah, blah, blah.

Most of Africa's resource wealth winds up in the Western world. Further, Euros had a direct hand in creating instability in Africa--from slavery to colonialism to the current neo-colonial order. WHITE PEOPLE undermined and/or killed selfless leaders like Sankara, Nkrumah, Lumumba, etc. American American leaders have met similar fates--some of whom have been in prison since the 60s. Yes, there is African/American American complicity. So it seems to me that we should hold all parties accountable.

I will just highlight two additional problems.

White people will kill if necessary to secure African resources. That history is clear. If Africans woke up tomorrow on one accord and decided to use African resources for African development, that would lead to World War 3 (see Du Bois analysis of how a previous world war was centrally about Africa's resources). Are we willing to fight and die for self-determination? 

The other problem is that western-style "development" is not sustainable. That is to say if the rest of the planet used resources at rates similar to, say, the US, the world's finite resources would be exhausted. Americans and Africans and the Rest need to rethink the meaning and practice of "development." kzs

On Saturday, March 24, 2012 1:47:02 PM UTC-4, Ikhide wrote:

"A second, small observation: When Mrs. Goldblog and I were living in Liberia, one of the best jobs to be found in Monrovia for actual Liberians was at a makeshift car-washing center near UN headquarters, where, every day, dozens of brilliant-white SUVs -- Toyota Landcruisers, mainly - belonging to the dozens of NGOs in town were scrubbed clean of mud. It was a bizarre thing to see, these $50,000 vehicles belonging to "non-profits," flyspecked by Liberians the NGOs were ostensibly there to help.  

There are brilliant people working in development all over the world, of course, but the system of incentives is worth examining, and so too are the assumptions about the utlity of many aid programs. More on this when I return from my travels."

- Jeffrey Goldberg

Read the rest of this too-short piece here. 

The Empire continues to talk back, albeit sheepishly and timidly. But they are in on our game... Jeffrey Goldberg tries to remind us here that The White-Savior Industrial Complex=The African-Victim Industrial Complex is real and symbiotic. They all feed off of each other. There is no excuse, we don't have to be beggars, scrambling for crumbs at the white man's table. But we are there. And blaming the white man for dragging us there! What chutzpah!

 

- Ikhide

 

Stalk my blog at www.xokigbo.com

Follow me on Twitter: @ikhide

Join me on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ikhide