Ken,
This is very illuminating. The Chinese were far more civilized than the Europeans by thousands of years. They wrote and kept fine records. Hieroglyphics was a kind of writing developed while Europeans were neanderthal cave dwellers. The ideas of Irele and Senghor that they needed to drop their own knowledge systems to gain the benefit of an alien one which Toyin sees as a benefit of colonialism are flawed.
One point you made clear at the beginning is that such ideas in the forum are like a cockroach and the majority here are famished hens who rather than listen, will peck and digest the cockroach for nutrition.
Cheers.
IBK
_________________________
Ibukunolu Alao Babajide (IBK)
(+2348061276622) / ibk2005@gmail.com
AN ENGLISH NURSERY RHYME
The law locks up the man or woman
Who steals the goose from off the common
But leaves the greater villain loose
Who steals the common from off the goose
The law demands that we atone
When we take things that we do not own
But leaves the lords and ladies fine
Who take things that are yours and mine
The poor and wretched don't escape
If they conspire the law to break
This must be so but they endure
Those who conspire to make the law
The law locks up the man or woman
Who steals the goose from off the common
And geese will still a common lack
Till they go and steal it back
- Anonymous (circa 1764)
On Thu, 13 Jan 2022 at 13:30, Harrow, Kenneth <harrow@msu.edu> wrote:
--hi toyin, i don't think you are going to get exactly the answers you want as the prevailing ideology of almost all, if not all of those on this list is anti-colonial.you are praising two things, crediting them to colonialism, and i respectfully disagree that colonialism's benefits were responsible.'the first is cultural exchanges; i'd say, cultural and technological.
i believe all people on earth derived a portion of their knowledge/culture from indigenous production, and another from contacts from which they are imported. i read a wonderful book on medieval technology by lynn white, many years ago, where he demonstrated how many of the major breakthroughs, like the heavy plow or stirrup or even gunpowder were imported into europe, with massive impacts, like ending the food production of the dark ages and bringing about an end to medieval serf-lord relations. these were not the result of one people conquering another, but inevitably conquest will also entail a measure of cultural exchange, as when the romans conquered the greeks and were, in turn, intellectually dominated by the greeks. the same when the turks conquered arab lands, and were dominated by arab thinkers and culture.more or less.
the europeans tried to limit and control this cultural contact so as to enable the conquest of africa and exploitation of its resources continue unabated, but they couldn't really succeed. they needed african help, africans educated in their languages and serving in their armies or services, and those africans inevitably had to rise within their systems and replace them.
remember how europeans barred africans from writing and publishing books or making films? the censorship was absolute. despite this, africans entered into the professions, learned the camerawork, went abroad, and made films published books collaborated with anticolonial presses and intellectuals.
this could be thought of as a benefit that accrued to africans despite the europeans and their policies.
we all experience alienation as we encounter others and especially enter into their worlds. irele's description of that entry into the european pleasures of education and opera was greeted with a great deal of dismay by almost all people i know. i was a good friend of irele, and i believe this set of values went with his acceptance of structuralism, levi-strauss, as seeing a higher value in these practices. he was willing to pay the price of alienation from home and home culture to enter into that new world. but we don't all quite see cultural exchanges as entailing such a reduction of Otherness. Fabian calls this allochronism or anti-coeval thought, based on the need for the Other to validate the same.
that's really the bottom line. All the elements you describe as benefits came at a price we are trying to assess. i agree it doesn;t help to put it in simple terms of yes or no, good or evil; but too much is lost when the alienation is viewed as a benefit without cost, and the losses discounted.
i can simplify what i said, too: you didn't need colonialism for african universities to have been created. when selassie fought off the colonialists, a university was established in addis without the need for italians.
i prefer thinking about this encounter as entailing collaborations with africans and europeans, often without choice entering in, and without europeans acknowledging their own debts to the africans they recruited or allied with.ken
kenneth harrow
professor emeritus
dept of english
michigan state university
517 803-8839
From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Oluwatoyin Adepoju <ovdepoju@gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, January 11, 2022 1:51 PM
To: usaafricadialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - pretty damning reportIf Africans were not colonised, what would have been the implications for scribal literacy, which was low on the continent?
If Africans were not colonised, what would have been the implications for the unquestioned dominance of classical African religions, as opposed to the greater pluralism, the range of choices, opened up by the current co-existence of these religions and Christianity?
Without passing through the colonial experience, would we be using an international language, English and chatting on the Internet?
All contemporary Africans are shaped by colonialism, particularly poignantly so those deeply invested in the globally dominant educational system, which has its origins in Europe and has little input in its methods and understanding of reality from learning systems from other cultures.
Would any such person prefer a classical African education to the Western one? Under what circumstances, outside the forceful coercion of colonialism, would an informed choice between them or to integrate them have been possible?
Colonisation birthed the Universities of Ibadan and Makere, for example, pioneers in post-classical African scholarship, more critically oriented, more international in range of reference and communicative scope, than the earlier classical African systems of Ifa, among others.
Is the current challenge not one of synergy between these systems?
The creative possibilities represented by these developments are possible without colonisation but colonisation is the historical trajectory through which they emerged.
Ursula le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness and Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover novels visualise encounters between a space faring Terran civilisation and non-technological cultures, in which the Terrans are scrupulous about not interfering in the local culture on the planets they find themselves.
Its also true, I think, that Africans were visiting Europe before colonisation.
How best could we have benefited from what Europe had to offer, without having to pass through the still reverberating agonies of colonisation?
Perhaps I need to understand the colonial experience better. While not justifying the self serving so called civilising missions of the colonisers, I think colonialism in Africa and perhaps Asia needs to be appreciated in more complex terms than that of binary good and evil.
A painful journey but one whose every segment is vital, in my view.
Abiola Irele seems to develop a similar view in ''In Praise of Alienation.'' Biodun Jeyifo correlates Irele's perspective with what he describes as Louise Althusser's concept of an epistemological break, a rupture in a society's modes of existence that enables a higher level of development, an approach to the disruptions and creativities of colonialism which seems the best way to make the most of what has happened to us.
thanks
toyin
--On Tue, 11 Jan 2022 at 07:54, <seguno2013@gmail.com> wrote:
Ken,--Colonialism anywhere and everywhere in Africa was exploitation of human and natural resources of Africans. If this proposition is true, which l believe to be true, therefore the experience is the same.Beyond this fact Ken, colonialism is a moral evil. There is no reason to subtly justify colonialism. It does not command any moral warrant, in my opinion.Ogungbemi.
Sent from my iPhone
On Jan 10, 2022, at 11:11 AM, Ibukunolu A Babajide <ibk2005@gmail.com> wrote:
Ken,
You agree with Ogungbemi in principle All colonialism is physical and mental conquest. Leave it at that. The degree of evil is not the issue at stake. All carnivores kill and eat their prey. Whether they swallow them, eat them raw, or boil, cook or roast the meat, the baseline is the killing. That is the bottom line. There are many ways to skin a cat.
Cheers.
IBK
_________________________Ibukunolu Alao Babajide (IBK)(+2348061276622) / ibk2005@gmail.com
AN ENGLISH NURSERY RHYME
The law locks up the man or woman
Who steals the goose from off the common
But leaves the greater villain loose
Who steals the common from off the goose
The law demands that we atone
When we take things that we do not own
But leaves the lords and ladies fine
Who take things that are yours and mine
The poor and wretched don't escape
If they conspire the law to break
This must be so but they endure
Those who conspire to make the law
The law locks up the man or woman
Who steals the goose from off the common
And geese will still a common lack
Till they go and steal it back
- Anonymous (circa 1764)
--On Sat, 8 Jan 2022 at 07:36, Harrow, Kenneth <harrow@msu.edu> wrote:
--ogungbemi,well, i suppose en principe you are right. however, not all experiences of colonialism were the same. what was the same, i believe, is that colonialism was mislabeled. it was a conquest, that rationalized itself in the late 19th century as a missionary act of bringing civilization.the work of african authors, i know, was to expose the lie.but that is different from blatantly ordering the murder of opposition political figures. i don't think a good historian would say every experience of colonialism was the same. the brutality of the belgians in the congo was pretty bad; was it worse under the french in congo brazzaville? depends on when we are talking about. same in all case: the regimes changed, the practices of some were worse than others.
in any event, this was pretty ugly. the belgians changed tactics in 1959 in rwanda, turning in favor of hutus (the hutu revolution) against their former allies, tutsis. but after independence, or even on the threshold as they were turning over power, an assassination would have been particularly repugnant.ken
kenneth harrow
professor emeritus
dept of english
michigan state university
517 803-8839
From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of seguno2013@gmail.com <seguno2013@gmail.com>
Sent: Friday, January 7, 2022 10:34 AM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - pretty damning reportKen, is there any amongst them that is not "truly ugly colonialists"? Please read, "CIA Dirty Works in Africa".Ogungbemi.--
Sent from my iPhone
On Jan 7, 2022, at 5:50 AM, Harrow, Kenneth <harrow@msu.edu> wrote:
if true, the belgians are revealed as truly ugly colonialists:ken
--
kenneth harrow
professor emeritus
dept of english
michigan state university
517 803-8839
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