USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: [New post] Colonialism: What If?

Correction :

Aerial , not ariel , although I could have been thinking of Ariel Sharon, fondly nicknamed " the bulldozer"

  To wit , "Professor Porter's main obsession, namely, his relentless aerial bombardment of Boris Johnson..." 

Can't put any faith in the autocorrect , any more. Autocorrect sometimes replaces today with "toady" , barely , with "barley"

This too is pretty scary

On Friday, 14 January 2022 at 21:45:34 UTC+1 Cornelius Hamelberg wrote:

For one who has been following Porter's Pensées since its very inception, I thought that this blog piece was a radical departure by the radical professor , he being British by nature, an expert anti-imperialist by profession, a ferocious and often controversial left-wing journalist (controversial here meaning often in the hot, if not the boiling waters of controversy and debate with fellow members of the intellectual left, not to mention the right, the privileged Old Etonian & Harrow right-wing , the ultra-right, and some other lost souls who don't know what time it is and are doomed to never get it right) an authority on the history of British Colonialism which reached its apex during the reign of Queen Victoria and her British Empire on which the sun would never set.

"1,2,3, 4, 5, 6. 7,

all good children go to Heaven "

My first reaction on sighting the contents of the piece was " Well, Bernard must be in ecstasy right now, with the storm brewing against his dear friend Boris Johnson , some members of his own Conservative Party ganging up against him and demanding his immediate resignation and maybe even his expulsion from the Conservative Party for having had such a jolly good time hosting a Merry Christmas Party at his Prime Minister's residence to which over 100 people were invited and attended in the middle of the lockdown which made it obligatory for all British citizens to avoid gatherings of more than five people, such a transgression by Britain's Prime Minister, thereby giving some people the unsavoury impression that Boris Johnson probably thinks that as Prime Minister of Britain he is above the law and to hell with rules that common citizens have to follow about "lockdown" , and to add insult to injury, as we all know, Boris is not the type of fellow who sings, " I belong to Glasgow" after a Christmas pint or two.

So , from my point of view Adepoju's blip in which he seems to be looking the other way or bending over backwards to apologise over some of the sins of colonialism could have been a slight diversion from Professor Porter's main obsession, namely, his relentless ariel bombardment of Boris Johnson, and now waiting for Act 3 the denouement in which it's curtains for Mister Johnson as he is forced to say against his own will and against his better judgement, " I surrender " or " I resign " - which - hopefully , seems unlikely since unlike Amiri Baraka who said "I will not apologise, I will not resign ", Boris Johnson has done the right and decent thing: With a contrite hereat, he has apologised...

My second reaction, and it's quite a tantalizing thought even if you are British or as in Professor Porter's case , simultaneously a proud citizen of Sweden which had no colonies or Swedish Empire to boast of, a tantalizing thought nonetheless to have Adeopju, the offspring of the formerly colonised, not asking for reparations for colonialism, or for some posthumous trials for some of the miscreants, long dead and some of their descendants , the beneficiaries, for crimes against humanity, because from a purely legal point of view, some regard colonialism as a crime against humanity, but, it's interesting nonetheless that our Adepoju is asking "some of the questions about colonialism that ought to be asked."

Some of the answers to these questions can be found rehashed in the discussion " 10 reasons why reparations for slavery is a bad idea".

We've also heard about Keith B. Richburg praying, " Thank God for slavery" in his Out of America

Apart from lamenting that "When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said 'Let us pray.' We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land.", I suppose that the late Bishop Tutu must have been entertaining similar questions at the back of his head..

The immaculate Gloria's last paragraph talks about the transfer of technology that would take all day at time when we could be discussing the transfer of these kinds of beneficial medicinal raw materials , and here too, sadly, I'm thinking of what Malami Buba takes up in ""Look East" and Look Back: Lessons for Africa in the Changing Global Order ", noting that by the end of the Korea War , North Korea was more developed and more technologically advanced than their people in South Korea , and that just as he ( Malami Buba) takes up the imponderable fact that " Half a century ago, Nigeria and South Korea, for example, had similar GDP and the social structure of poor nations" - so too, it's true that circa 1958, Sierra Leone and Singapore were at the same level of development. When Sierra Leone became independent in 1961, everything was working well in the country, a good, well staffed education system , a top notch judiciary ( the rule of law) , a civil service that was a meritocracy ,peace and harmony ( even if beneath the surface, some tribal friction brewing) a £ Sterling going for a fixed rate of exchange £1 = 2 leones, 24hrs a day electricity and a clean , pure, potable water supply, salaries paid on time...

What happened to account for the differences between Nigeria and South Korea, Sierra Leone and Singapore today: apart from the Confucian work ethic in the East ( said to be akin to the Protestant Work Ethic) there was that awesome " transfer of technology to South Korea and Singapore - and in the case of the latter, also a visionary, effective, transformative leader such as Lee Kuan Yew

On Thursday, 13 January 2022 at 12:30:17 UTC+1 Cornelius Hamelberg wrote:

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Porter's Pensées <commen...@wordpress.com>
Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2022, 12:50
Subject: [New post] Colonialism: What If?
To: <cornelius...@gmail.com>

bernardporter2013 posted: " Colonialism and imperialism at the present time are usually discussed in very simplistic moral terms. Are you – and the books written about them – 'for' or 'against'? The fall-back position for most commentators is that imperialism was an unrelieved evil" Respond to this post by replying above this line New post on Porter's Pensées Colonialism: What If? by bernardporter2013 Colonialism and imperialism at the present time are usually discussed in very simplistic moral terms. Are you – and the books written about them – 'for' or 'against'? The fall-back position for most commentators is that imperialism was an unrelieved evil, responsible for many if not all of the evils in places like Africa today. Hence my interest in this contribution to a blogsite I subscribe to (USA Africa Dialogue), by an African scholar, Oluwatoyin Adepoju, dealing with some of the questions about it that ought to be asked. If 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. bernardporter2013 | January 12, 2022 at 11:50 am | Categories: Uncategorized | URL: https://wp.me/p49fOM-2yq Comment    See all comments    Like Unsubscribe to no longer receive posts from Porter's Pensées. Change your email settings at Manage Subscriptions. Trouble clicking? Copy and paste this URL into your browser: http://bernardjporter.com/2022/01/12/colonialism-what-if/ Thanks for flying with WordPress.com

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