RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Who wants a return to colonialism?

The question, "Who wants a return to colonialism?" presupposes that *colonialism* had ended at a certain stage of human history. The purpose of slavery (and its hybrids, colonialism, imperialism, neo-colonialism and globalisation) was neither intended to be philanthropic nor an act of good Samaritans by the perpetrators. Listen to Sir Humphrey Gilbert whose proposal in 1576 to mass poverty in Britain was, "We might inhabit part of those countries, and settle there such needy people of our country (Britain) which now trouble the commonwealth, through want (poverty) here at home are forced to commit outrageous offences, whereby they were daily consumed with the gallows (quoted on p. 71 of The Crisis of Britain and the British Empire by R. Palme Dutt)." That was the beginning of sentencing British 'criminals' to deportation to America. In his *Imperial Commonwealth* Lord Elton wrote about the solution proffered against poverty in England by John Ruskin at his Oxford lecture in 1870 thus, "This is what England must do or perish. She must found colonies as fast as and as far as she is able, formed of the most energetic and worthiest of men; seizing any piece of fruitful ground she can set her foot on, and there teaching her colonists that their chief virtue is to be fidelity to their country, and that their first aim is to be to advance the power of England by land and sea (p. 416)." Further on p.417, Lord Elton referred to a letter written from Kimberly in 1877 by the founder of Rhodesia, the present day Zambia and Zimbabwe, Cecil Rhode, in which he said, "I contend that we (Britons) are the first race in the world, and that the more of the world we (Britons) inhabit, the better it is for the human race. I contend that every acre added to our territory provides for the birth of more of the English race who otherwise would not be brought into existence." Being a Darwinist and a staunch believer of the survival of the fittest, Cecil Rhode advocated colonialism and imperialism as means of solving the problem of hunger and starvation in Britain. Thus, Vladimir I. Lenin referred to Rhode's statements as reported by the English journalist, William Thomas Stead, at a public gathering in 1895, "I was at the East End of London yesterday and attended a meeting of the unemployed. I listened to the wild speeches which were just a cry for 'bread,' 'bread,' 'bread,' and on my way home I pondered over the scene and I became more than ever convinced of the importance of imperialism ... My cherished idea is a solution for the social problem, i. e. in order to save the 40, 000, 000 inhabitants of the United Kingdom from a bloody civil war, we, colonial statesmen, must acquire new lands to settle our surplus population.... If you want to avoid civil war (between the majority British haves-not and the minority British haves) you must become imperialists (Lenin's Selected Work, Vol. 1, p. 737 or collected works, vol. 22, p. 257)." Slavery, whether we choose to call it colonialism, imperialism, neo-colonialism or globalisation has always had as the primary objective of its perpetrators in Africa not only to reap the fruits of the labours of Africans but to steal the mineral and forest resources of the Continent. Internal conflict arose among the colonialists in 1914 and by the time the sound of guns were silent, Germany and Italy had been stripped of their colonies in Africa through the imposition of Treaty of Versailles in 1919.

 
By 1923, Adolf Hitler wrote on page 3 of his book, MEIN KAMPF, thus, "Only when the Reich borders include the very last German, but can no longer guarantee his daily bread, will the moral right to acquire foreign soil arise from the distress of our own people. Their sword will become our plough,  and from the tears of war the daily bread of future generations will grow."  What the moral right to acquire foreign soil implied by Hitler was the repudiation of the Treaty of Versailles, 1919. The need of Italy to acquire foreign soil to feed her population was noted by Sir Arthur Willert  on page 206 of his book, The Frontiers of England, thus, "Italy must expand. She came late into the world as a Great Power and found that the good parts of the earth had already been apportioned between luckier countries. She cannot with her rapidly growing population, now in the neighbourhood of 45,000,000, remain forever cooped up in her peninsula WITH HIS LARGE TRACTS OF BARREN MOUNTAINS AND LACK OF ENSSENTIAL RAW MATERIALS." And where was Italy going to get raw materials and food to feed her rapidly growing population? Sir Arthur Willert answered the question on page 211 of his book thus, "Italy, in going for Abyssinians (the present day Ethiopia), is fighting on behalf of Europe. Europe is losing Asia; the Western Hemisphere is full up. So, of the great spaces of the world from which a short time ago her countries (European countries) could draw cheap supplies of food and raw material, ONLY AFRICA REMAINS. If Europe loses THIS LAST RESERVOIR (AFRICA), IT IS DONE, IT WILL SHRINK TO NOTHING. HENCE AFRICA MUST BE KEPT DOWN." WHAT SIR ARTHUR WILLERT MEANT BY ITALY GOING FOR ABYSSINIAN WAS THE MILITARY INVASION OF ABYSSINIAN (ETHIOPIA) IN 1935 UNDER THE FASCIST LEADER, SIGNOR BENITO MUSSOLINI. By the middle of 1935 the Third Reich had formed *active colonial policy*in Berlin and General Von Epp became the mouthpiece of the new colonial demands. The German Colonial Society and the Reich Colonial League were set up under the supervision of Adolf Hitler simultaneously as a school for Colonial Officials was established. Then on October 30, 1936, the German Prime Minister, Herman Goering, declared at a public rally thus, "IN THESE FOUR YEARS WE GERMANS HAVE TRIED TO WORK TO FEED OUR PEOPLE, ALTHOUGH WE HAVE NO COLONIES. ALTHOUGH RAW MATERIALS ARE LACKING, IN SPITE OF EVERYTHING, GERMANY HAS BECOME A LAND OF PEACE.... YOU KNOW MY DEAR FELLOW-COUNTRY-MEN, ...THAT IN SPITE OF ALL THE INCREASED SECURITY OF OUR FOOD SUPPLIES NOT ALL OUR FOOD REQUIREMENTS CAN BE MET IN GERMANY, WHATEVER EFFORTS WE MAKE. IN GERMANY THERE ARE 136 PEOPLE TO THE SQUARE KILOMETRE. IN ENGLAND THERE ARE 137 PEOPLE TO THE SQUARE KILOMETRE. FOR THESE 137 PEOPLE TO THE SQUARE KILOMETRE, ENGLAND OWNS A THIRD OF THE WORLD AS COLONIES, AND WE OWN NOTHING! IF WE HAD A FRACTION OF THESE COLONIES, THEN WE SHOULD HAVE NO NEED TO TALK OF SHORTAGE OF RAW MATERIALS AND LACK OF FOODSTUFFS. WE HAVE NO COLONIES, BECAUSE THEY HAVE BEEN STOLEN FROM US (p. 16-17 in 'The Nazi Conspiracy by Emile Burns)." Speaking in the German Reichtag on 20 February 1938, the German Chancellor, Adolf Hitler said, "Our economic position is a difficult one, not because National-Socialism is at the helm, but because 140 people must live on a square kilometre; BECAUSE WE ARE NOT IN POSSESSION OF THOSE GREAT NATURAL RESOURCES ENJOYED BY OTHER PEOPLE; BECAUSE, ABOVE ALL, WE HAVE A SCARCITY OF FERTILE SOIL. IF GREAT BRITAIN SHOULD SUDDENLY DISSOLVE TODAY AND ENGLAND BECOME DEPENDENT SOLELY ON HER OWN TERRITORY, THEN THE PEOPLE THERE WOULD PERHAPS HAVE MORE UNDERSTANDING OF THE SERIOUSNESS OF ECONOMIC TASKS WHICH CONFRONT US. ... NO MATTER WHAT WE MAY ACHIEVE BY INCREASING THE GERMAN PRODUCTION, ALL THIS CANNOT REMOVE THE IMPOSSIBLE NATURE OF THE SPACE ALLOTTED TO GERMANY. THE CLAIM FOR GERMAN COLONIAL POSSESSIONS WILL, THEREFORE, BE VOICED FROM YEAR TO YEAR WITH INCREASING VIGOUR, POSSESSIONS WHICH GERMANY DID NOT TAKE AWAY FROM OTHER COUNTRIES AND WHICH TODAY ARE VIRTUALLY OF NO VALUE TO THESE POWERS BUT APPEAR INDISPENSABLE FOR OUR OWN PEOPLE ( P. 63, Peace With The Dictators? by Sir Normal Angel)." The colonial possessions in Africa which Hitler was reclaiming were, Southwest Africa (nowadays Namibia) with land area of 823,328 square kilometres; Tanganyika (now Tanzania) with land area of 943,203 square kilometres; Cameroon with land area of 475,500 square kilometres and Togo with land area of 56,700 square kilometres. These countries together have a land area of 2,298,731 square kilometres which is almost seven times bigger in size than Germany whose land area is 357,041 square kilometres.

 

The greediness among the Western European powers over colonial possessions in Africa was actually the main cause of the World War II. Although Hitler and Mussolini lost the war, Western colonial powers were weakened by the emergence of Communist Soviet Union and USA as super powers. The threat to the Western European colonies, especially, in Africa and Asia was not so much from the communist Soviet Union but from United States of America who demanded influence that was proportional to her military might after the war. Already in 1940, when the war was still raging in Europe and France was militarily occupied by Hitler's Germany, the USA had begun to draw up plans for a post-war world through which she would displace and replace the colonialists in their colonies. Therefore, speaking to the Investment Bankers' Association on 10 December 1940, the President of the National Industrial Conference Board of the USA, Virgil Jordan said, "Whatever the outcome of the war, America has embarked on a career of imperialism in the world affairs and in every other aspect of her life... At best, England will become junior partner in a new Anglo-Saxon imperialism, in which the ECONOMIC RESOURCES AND MILITARY AND NAVAL STRENGTH OF THE UNITED STATES WILL BE THE CENTRE OF GRAVITY... THE SCEPTRE PASSES TO THE UNITED STATES (p.117, Crises of Britain and the British Empire by Palme Dutt)." Further on page 120, Palme Dutt recorded the statement of the British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, to the American President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, at the Atlantic Charter Meeting in 1941, thus, "Mr President, I believe you are trying to do away with our Empire (Colonies). Every idea you entertain about the post-war world demonstrates it. But, in spite of that, we know that you constitute our only hope. And you know that we know it. You know that without America the Empire won't stand." And President Roosevelt responded, "When we've won the war I will work with all my might and main to see to it that the United States is not wheedled into the position of accepting any plan that will further France's imperialistic ambitions or that will aid and abet the British Empire in its imperial ambition." However, with the Communist Soviet Union in the rear willing to support liberation forces in the colonies after the war, Britain, France and USA reached an accord to grant fake independence to the colonies whereby indigenous rulers were made to preside over the economic exploitation of their own people on behalf of Euro-American powers. In reality, the independence granted to African countries is nothing but self-managed slavery and the role of government leaders is that of slave overseers approved and sanctioned by the slave masters in Europe and America.

 

During the visit of President Barack Hussein Obama to Ghana on 11 July 2009, he admonished African leaders to take the destiny of their countries in their own hands and stop blaming their plights on their colonial past. Yet, Patrice Lumumba wanted to take the destiny of Congo in his hands but he was murdered by the Euro-American slave masters who regarded his action as insubordination to their assigned role of a slave overseer in Congo to him. The Euro-American slave masters installed Joseph Mobutu and supported him for decades against the wish of the Congolese people. When he was finally discarded like a paper handkerchief, Laurent Kabila became president of Congo but when he refused to be a slave overseer over the Congolese people, the slave masters murdered him and installed his son, Joseph Kabila, as the President. When Thomas Sankara wanted to take the destination of Burkina Faso in his hands and refused to play the role of a slave overseers over his people, his murder was sponsored by usual slave masters from abroad. Towards the end of 1975 the Angola crisis surfaced, and the then US foreign Secretary, Henry Kissinger, commanded Nigeria to support the enthronement of UNITA/FNLA as the government of Angola instead of the MPLA which Kissinger branded a Communist. On January 6, 1976, Nigeria's Head of State, General Murtala Mohammed made the following public statements, "Africa has come of age. Africa is no longer under the orbit of any extra-continental power. It should no longer take orders from any country, however powerful. The fortunes of Africa are ours to make or mar. For too long have we been kicked around; for too long have we been treated like adolescents who cannot discern their interests and act accordingly; for too long has it been presumed that the African needs outside experts to tell him who, are his friends and who are the enemies. The time has come when we should make it clear that we can decide ourselves; that we know our own interests and how to protect those interests; that we are capable of resolving African problems without presumptuous lessons in ideological dangers which often than not, have no relevance for us, nor for the problem at hand." On Friday, 13 February 1976 General Mohammed was murdered and his murderer, Lieutenant Colonel Bukar Sukar Dimka announced in a radio broadcast that the murdered General was introducing Communism into Nigeria. The economic reasons that gave birth to the colonization of Africa by Western Europe still persist today. The unfertile and natural resources wretched countries of Europe are rich and industrialised while the natural resources rich countries of Africa from where Western Europe extract natural resources feed their industries are poor. The type of independence African countries have is best described by R.E. Robinson and J. Gallagher when they wrote in Volume xi of New Cambridge Modern History, p.640, that "nationalism (as encouraged in indigenous African rulers by the colonialists) is a continuation of imperialism (colonialism) by other means. With the aforesaid it is funny to ask, who wants a return to colonialism when we have never at any time left colonialism politically and economically.

I rest my case

S. Kadiri   

 
 

> From: emeagwali@mail.ccsu.edu
> To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
> Date: Sat, 4 Apr 2015 02:03:53 -0400
> Subject: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Who wants a return to colonialism?
>
> Ken,
> I hope you are not underestimating our intelligence.
>
> You can pivot in the direction you choose- when you
> choose to do so, and for whatever reason - but don't attempt to
> drag everyone along with you.
>
> I think one can tell the difference between Naipaul and Soyinka.
>
> GE
>
> Professor Gloria Emeagwali
> History Department
> CCSU. New Britain. CT 06050
> africahistory.net
> vimeo.com/user5946750/videos
> Gloria Emeagwali's Documentaries on
> Africa and the African Diaspora
>
> ________________________________
> From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com [usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of kenneth harrow [harrow@msu.edu]
> Sent: Friday, April 03, 2015 1:22 PM
> To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
> Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Who wants a return to colonialism?
>
> dear folks,
> it would be good to read bekolo's piece, and to rethink the attacks on ikhide
> both are being provocateurs. neither is actually praising colonialism or white rule, but critiquing the power structures and elite ruling classes of today. our responses of defensiveness-how bad colonialism really was--moves away from the point of the critique, which is the failures of current ruling classes and elites.
> in bekolo's piece, he alludes to the failures of national liberation, not only because of failed leadership and exploitative rulers, but also because of the larger world system within which the constraints on african states are cast. he writes:
> "JPBO: In this age of multinational corporations, what government can reasonably claim to run its economy? The concept of self-determination
> has become little more than a political weapon in the hands of a corrupt ruling elite claiming to face off with Western powers, while consigning its people to an ideological prison and robbing them blind."
>
> but at the same time, he excoriates the failures at home:
> " The white man may be gone, but the pillage and the oppression he brought are still there. That, we kept. The people in power now are proud of this government, this omnipotent blunderbuss of a thing they didn't even create, whose sole goal was to oppress and exploit. In the eyes of this elite of ours, the country is a cake there for the eating, not a common project, something we all work at together."
>
> the rest of it--the call for writes to come back, is jokingly presented as provocation. the serious call for help is not framed as a return to colonialism, but for an honest collaboration, under african rule, and not subordination. he writes, " that we need all the outside help we can get. And let's let the people decide how much of that help we want and if and when we want it to stop."
>
> in that context, the question of who decides, say, how much chinese business should be welcomed, is joined to the question of who should be ruling, and for the good of whom. when he writes, "let the people decide how much of that help we want," the question has to be, how does the people act to decide. and that's the rub.
> we can say the election that just took place is a start--but hardly the end, hardly the goal. will the new govt be an instrument of the people, or vice versa?
>
> anyway, anyone who's been reading ikhide, or who knows bekolo's work, understands their real position is one of radical critique. at times it is hard to hear it because the acrimony can be so acute. but that too we can understand, when disappointment is so strong.
> to defend ikhide, and my point here, i would ask, is there actually any stronger advocate of african writing around? not imitative, not eurocentric, not "world" literature, but african literature?
> ken
>
> On 4/3/15 10:44 AM, 'Ikhide' via USA Africa Dialogue Series wrote:
>
> Around here, I generally do not engage in "dialogue", I say my piece and move on. My time is precious, I find that people are holding on to ideologies, prejudices and opinions that have atrophied and calcified their minds. It is too late for them to learn new tricks. I am finding also that age does that to you.
>
> It is intellectual dishonesty or supreme deftness to suggest that anyone that says that Nigerians were better off during colonial times is calling for the return of the white man. That's silly. If you free me from a bad marriage, marry me, and you then proceed to treat me worse than the previous marriage, I have every right to tell you that I was better off in my previous marriage. That does not mean I want to go back to my old hell. There are other options and I should keep looking. The new black on black colonialism, apartheid, slavery that poor blacks are enduring in the hands of black rulers and their intellectual sidekicks is especially painful. From South Africa to Nigeria, some of the worst atrocities to happen to our people have been under black rule. The data is right there. I was born on the eve of our independence, come to my village, the only things standing outside of ugly mansions er country homes built by the new thieves are relics of colonialism, broken roads and wate
> r taps that have been dry since the sixties. How is talking about that yearning for colonialism or apartheid? It is at the very least a stinging rebuke of our collective failure as thinkers and leaders. Let us just admit it from the comfort of the white institutions we live eat and breathe in- we have failed Africa. There is no need parsing my words. The truth stares us in the face.
>
> You sit here in the West and get defensive all day about your humanity; in the process you have elevated yourself beyond the limits of your competence. You are in bondage and even those back home are in bondage, everything is mimicry of the West, no ideological core, nothing. You don't believe me? Take your white plumber to Nigeria. The gates of Aso Rock will open for you as soon as they see his whiteness! Be there forming superior. Nonsense.
>
> And for the record, this is what I said earlier about all of us. We should accept responsibility for our mess. The white man is the least of our problems; we are the problem! It is time to star thinking and acting differently. Right now we are the caricature we dread.
>
> - Ikhide
> ------------------------------------------
> Visiting South Africa's Johannesburg in 2005 left me confused. I expected a joyful place, ringing with the bountiful fruits of freedom from the horror that was apartheid. Instead, I saw in the eyes of the poor, fear and despair and one wondered if they knew the difference between the past and the present - or if there indeed was any difference. At this conference, poor blacks served the participants with a certain deference and trepidation that stayed with me all through. The Black and White conference participants seemed fine with it. What seemed obvious was that the black ruling class had merely mounted the saddle of the former oppressors and were now using the same state-sanctioned instruments of oppression to oppress the poor - and amass power and wealth. I looked around me and it just seemed that white on black oppression had been replaced with black on black oppression. No compassion.
>
> This horrific dysfunction is repeated in virtually all black African nations. The poor in my village are blissfully unaware that they were freed from colonialism; huge swathes of the village look like a place time forgot. Take those nations freed from colonialism; not much in terms of the culture and structure has changed. All over the land, the intellectual and ruling elite swagger like drunks, armed with pie charts and PowerPoint slides, mouthing bullshit as the poor ferry them from broken hovel to broken hovel on their backs. No one holds them accountable because they own the bully pulpit.
>
> It is as if the warriors merely took over from the white man, shoved the poor into "boys' quarters" and ghettoes and continued the looting and brigandage. In the case of apartheid South Africa, the oppressors came to stay with their families and so they built robust structures and institutions for their enjoyment and use. The colonialists came, ruled as if from afar, built temporary structures - which was fine since their families were back home attending real schools and being taken care of by real hospitals. Each time they got sick, they would fly back home to have their rashes treated. Today's post colonial African ruler is exactly the same as his white ancestor. His families are abroad and each time he has a cough, he flies home to the West to be taken care of in real hospitals. There is no investment in his society - because he does not believe in his society.
>
> The dysfunction is now being aggravated by the uncritical adoption of a form of crippling governance, what I call democracy without accountability, an aping of what happens in the West. Outside of slavery and AIDS, nothing has hurt African nations more than decades of looting in the name of democracy. Why are things the way they are? Why are we like this? Until we confront our challenges with real honesty and rigor, African nations will continue to be the butt of jokes in the international community of nations.
>
> We are headed in the wrong direction. That much is obvious, let's not lie about things. Our intellectual elite must stop bleating inanities and admit that there has been a rank failure to lead from their end. Our intellectuals have become the problem; lazy and loud parrots of lies and obfuscation all so they can feed their mouths. All I see is mimicry, and loud parroting of stolen ideas. In the absence of a robust infrastructure; of home-grown accountability, in the absence of a real willingness to work, our nations will remain caricature nations. We must think about these things.
>
> And no, I do not agree with Jean-Pierre Bekolo Obama. A return to colonialism would be silly. But read his interview; he has thought hard about these things.
>
> http://chimurengachronic.co.za/in-over-our-heads/
>
> - Ikhide
>
>
>
>
> --
> kenneth w. harrow
> faculty excellence advocate
> professor of english
> michigan state university
> department of english
> 619 red cedar road
> room C-614 wells hall
> east lansing, mi 48824
> ph. 517 803 8839
> harrow@msu.edu<mailto:harrow@msu.edu>
>
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