Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - FW: WILL NAMIBIAN BONES HAUNT GERMANS FOREVER?

Brother Moses: 

Excellent analysis. It is noteworthy for me to recall that until independence in 1961, 99.99 percent of the primary and secondary schools in the UN Trust Territories of Northern and Southern Cameroons under British Administration were owned and operated by Christian missions--primarily the Basel Mission, the Catholic Mission, and the Baptists. The Basel Mission College (later, the Cameroon Protestant College-- CPC) and St. Joseph's College are Anglopne Cameroon's oldest and most celebrated secondary schools. Alumni of these two mission schools have dominated and continue to dominate the professions and other parts of the country's political economy--it is rare to find a former student of either institution who does not have fun and positive memories of their experiences at these fine schools. I attended and graduated from CPC, at a time when the Principal, Vice Principal and many of the teachers (tutors) were missionaries from Switzerland. My religious studies teacher, a milddle-aged Swiss missionary woman was extremely radical and spoke convincingly of the evils of oppression, including that perpetuated by people purporting to be representing God. I still remember her lessons, as if they were delivered yesterday.

On Friday, January 3, 2014, kwame zulu shabazz wrote:

Peace, Brother Ken.

You said:

i am trying to understand asymmetrical power in terms that go beyond direct force, and that change over time. and i certainly agree that despite my attempt to see a modification of the initial conquest that the asymmetry is very much still in place, while at the same time, nothing is the same as it was before.

I have similar questions about indirect force. I am especially interested in precisely how it compels people to do things. Much of your approach in the classroom on these questions is close to mine. I would add that I put lots of emphasis on the papal bulls which sanctioned the colonial project and provides irrefutable proof that the Portuguese and the Spaniards set sail from Europe with the aim of subjugating the planet. Its a really important point given that I frequently hear scholars claim that the earliest impulse of Europeans was to trade (not take).

kzs


On Thursday, January 2, 2014 10:58:20 PM UTC-5, Kenneth Harrow wrote:

dear kwame
what i agree wholeheartedly with, in what you say here, is the expression "asymmetrical relations." everything flows from that. but as i consider the ills of colonialism, it seems to me that it might be viewed differently from earlier forms of conquest. i've always (in past years) tried to teach the colonial enterprise to my students as one based on a fundamental deception, that is, where the europeans used as their justification for the conquest the argument that they were bringing civilization. then i'd cite all those phrases, white man's burden, kulturarbeit, la mission civilisatrice, etc, and state, actually, it was a conquest that disguised itself as a civilizing mission.
but to use your term, it was a mission in which the power was always asymmetrical.
so, to nuance the thing again, can we imagine situations in which the deployment of power was direct and brutal, lacking any pretense of civilizing, and another where schools and churches were conceived as a positive contribution.
i am thinking of the difference between the congo free state, under leopold, and the colony that followed.
in reading King Leopold's Ghost and other texts around that period i came to understand that the horrors leopold visited on the congolese were not anomalies, but were simply variants of what was practiced in the neighboring states. nonetheless, the brutalities he imposed became a reason for removing him from power and instituting a regime that saw itself as more humane.
20th century colonialism came to want to see itself as a humane endeavor more than a brutal conquest and expropriation of african gold and blood. hypocritical though the colonialists might have been, were there not changes that came, for whatever reason, that denoted a shift away from naked power and toward a more collaborative exercise of power grounded in eurocentric notions of humanism?
so the first universities, with ibadan, makerere, and later dakar; the high schools that carried enormous prestige; the entry of african politicians into the french national assembly, before wwII; the collaboration of intellectuals like sartre with negritude.
asymmetrical though all these features were, centered in european notions of universal values and higher civilization, nonetheless the blatant racism of the early century began to yield to changes. (sartre was not� a racist, and would have supported robeson, for instance)

power was handed over to flunkies like ahidjo; to collaborators like senghor; and it was wrenched by opponents like sekou toure. it was taken/received in a mutual act of transmission with nkrumah and kenyatta.
it seems to me that brutal conquest began to change fairly quickly, certainly between the wars, and it ended fairly quickly after that--only 11 years with sudan.
it is in trying to understand this picture of europeans weakening, yielding, being urged, at times compelled, but also facing opposition to brutal power at home that has to be brought into the picture. when de gaulle agreed to end the rule over algeria, there was an attempted coup by his own army.
i feel that all of this is the understanding of a non-specialist, non-historian, who is guided by impressions more than detailed study. so i am open to correction by those who have actually made the study of history theirs, and can provide a more nuanced view. i am trying to understand asymmetrical power in terms that go beyond direct force, and that change over time. and i certainly agree that despite my attempt to see a modification of the initial conquest that the asymmetry is very much still in place, while at the same time, nothing is the same as it was before.
ken
�

On 1/2/14 8:03 PM, kwame zulu shabazz wrote:

Ken, I didn't say Africans were powerless. We are not. I said that African� progress, at home and abroad, has been hampered by the internalization of eurocentric thought and behavior.�

I also noted that it would be more productive to discern ambiguity within the constrained actions of African agents as opposed to colonial institutions that are only superficially "ambiguous."

Yes, African Pentecostal churches are financially independent, but their theology tends to slide toward anti-African culture and pro-western values , e.g., hyper materialism. And, yes, funds controlled by white elites don't determine what Africans think and do, but it clearly limits us in significant ways.

As it stands now progressive Africans pursue funds with a sort of trickster approach which is fine, I suppose, but it is still as sort of dependency and doesn't do much to challenge asymmetrical relations of power that date back to the colonial encounter.

kzs

On Jan 2, 2014 7:26 PM, "kenneth harrow" <har...@msu.edu> wrote:

dear kwame
you frustrate me because as much as i want to walk the walk with you, you push a logic with which i agree past the point where it seems reasonable. i mostly agree with your first paragraph below: but there were pretty wide divergences in the churches and people in them. and the more you want to ascribe this to eurocentrism and the west, the more you are distancing yourself from the preponderance of pentacostal churches of today, and the millions of people who have turned to them.
maybe that is your place to begin. if you tell them all,� you are being brainwashed by white people, that won't make any sense to them whatsoever.
the other point where i can't go all the way is when you keep removing agency from african scholars, as if they/we can't think for ourselves, can't discern what you claim the privilege of discerning, which is who is brainwashing whom and why. i can't throw away soyinka for writing an adaptation of a greek play; mudimbe, for building so much on foucault's logic and said's approach; or let's say, achebe for writing in english, for responding to graham greene and joseph conrad.
that's where we are today.
i agree with the issue of who funds what, but it isn't just determinism. that old notion of economic determinism was denied by engels himself in the famous response after marx died.
so, let's say we agree that there are interests and forces at play in african history and affairs; that some of those have worked to the detriment of africans; that we are committed to righting the situation; that we can be humble about this, and not claim to be the owners of the truth, but rather people who struggle in what we believe is a just cause.
i just don't like telling fellow activists that i know what they don't. it works better for me if we can actually discuss the issues and try to make our case.
thanks for pushing the buttons all the same, and for your willingness to put these issues out there for discussion. i think we are much more in agreement over what really matters, even if we don't always read the situation in exactly the same manner.
ken

On 1/2/14 11:32 AM, kwame zulu shabazz wrote:

Brothers John and Ken,�

Thanks for the correction on the Brits. It has been some years, about 2002, so that error is likely mine. She probably did say France and Germany. Whatever the case, the Brits weren't in Cameroon for altruistic reasons, they were in Cameroon to protect and promote their own selfish interests at the expense of local populations as was the case with any European colonial govt in Africa. And what you read as the "complexity" of missionaries is only superficially complex. Scratch the surface and you will that missionaries at all times, like all other colonial institutions, had the same racist "civilizing" mission which was itself a cover for exploiting Africa's material resources.�

Africans scholars are severely mistaken in looking for "complexity" and "ambiguity" in colonialism. Comparatively, I challenge you to find Jewish scholars going on and on about the gestapo "complexity." Our problem, I believe, is that our thinking has been colonized. The scholarly questions we ask are shaped by white liberal thought as opposed to African-centered thought. Unsurprising given that we are mostly educated in Eurocentric institutions (within and outside Africa). We are also shackled by western funding which shapes are inquiries and conclusions in subtle and not so subtle ways.�

kzs

On Thursday, January 2, 2014 10:52:41 AM UTC-5, John Mbaku wrote:

KZS:

The Cameroonian that�talked to you either does not know anything about Cameroon history--Kamerun (Germany); League of Nations Mandates (UK & France); UN Trust Territory of Cameroons under French administration; UN Trust Territory of Southern Cameroons & UN Trust Territory of Northern Cameroons under British administration; Republic of Cameroon (1960); Federal Republic of Cameroon (1961-1972); United Republic of Cameroon (1972-1984); Republic of Cameroon (1984-present)--or intentionally distorted it. The atrocities committed by the country's colonial governments are well-documented. None of that history, even that written by radical scholars, list any atrocities committed by the British in any of the two territories they controlled.�

Also, the history of the Christian Church in Cameroon and any part they may have played in colonialis

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JOHN MUKUM MBAKU, ESQ.
J.D. (Law), Ph.D. (Economics)
Graduate Certificate in Environmental and Natural Resources Law
Nonresident Senior Fellow, The Brookings Institution
Attorney & Counselor at Law (Licensed in Utah)
Presidential Distinguished Professor of Economics & Willard L. Eccles Professor of Economics and John S. Hinckley Fellow
Department of Economics
Weber State University
3807 University Circle
Ogden, UT 84408-3807, USA
(801) 626-7442 Phone
(801) 626-7423 Fax

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