The effects of colonialism
past and present are visible all over Africa. It is not an overstatement when
Edem Kodjo, author of ‘Africa Tomorrow’ describes the condition of African as
“torn away from his past, propelled into a universe fashioned from outside that
suppresses his values, and dumbfounded by a cultural invasion that marginalises
him. The African,... is today the deformed image of others. ”
On this year’s anniversary
of Africa Liberation Day, African people all over Africa and wherever they may
be on this planet, must reflect deeply on their history as it relates to their
present life conditions and to their future. History is a clock that tells a
people their historical time of the day. History is the compass that wise
people use to locate themselves on the map of the world. A peoples’ history
tells them who they are. What they have been, where they have been, where they
are now, but most importantly, where they still must go. True African History
is a powerful weapon against colonial history that has been used for mental
enslavement and colonisation of the African people.
Africa is the Mother of
Humanity. Africa is the cradle of the first human civilisation. The First
Renaissance on this planet was the African Renaissance. Africa was “the first
world” economically and technologically NOT the “third world” of paupers robbed
of their lands and riches. Our ancestors built the pyramids which even in this
21st century no one can reproduce. Egyptian civilisation was a Black
civilisation. The pharaohs were Black people. That is why that great African
Egyptologist, Prof. Cheikh Anta Diop has written:
“The history of Black
Africa will remain suspended in the air and will not be written correctly until
African historians dare connect it with the history of Egypt. The African
historian, who evades this, is neither modest nor objective or unruffled; he is
ignorant, cowardly and neurotic.”
The Zimbabwe Buildings
that Africans built have been attributed to “foreigners” who vanished into thin
air and cannot be found! The stubborn historical fact, however, is that these
magnificent buildings were designed by Zimbabweans.
The Azanian civilisation
which stretched from Eastern Africa to our country is a historical fact. The
people of Azania whose country colonialists called “South Africa” through the
British imperialist Union of South Africa Act 1909; mined gold and copper in
Mapungubwe as early as the 9th century. That was centuries before Jan van
Riebeeck arrived in Azania on 6th April 1652. He and the other settlers brought
no land here on their ships. Our ancestors fed them and housed them. They knew
not the intentions of these pale strangers.
The Rev. J.H. Soga was a
contemporary of Enoch Sontonga, the composer of ‘Nkosi Sikelela iAfrika’. He
has made reference to how Africans in what is called South Africa today came to
be called “Bantu” instead of their old name Azanians. Soga explained in 1928
that the name Bantu was of modern application. It arose when Dr. Bleek a
scholar of Azanian languages used the word “Bantu” as a comprehensive term for
all the dialects of the inhabitants who formed a large section of the people of
Southern Africa. He had no intention of applying this term to the people
themselves. (The South Eastern Bantu pages 2, 6 and 11, Wits Univerity Press,
Kraus Reprint Millwood, New York, 1982).
The history of European
colonisation has been not only of land dispossession but of destroying African
knowledge. For instance, the “Atlantic” Ocean was called the Ethiopian Sea as
late as 1626 and the so-called “Indian” Ocean the Azanian Sea. George Murdock
has written that Azanians stimulated trade with the East. (‘Africa and Its
Peoples and Their Cultural History’, pages 204 and 206). See also ‘General
History Of Africa’ by J.KI Zerbo, pages 3O4, 3O6 AND 33O; Heinemann, California
UNESCO 1981).
The name Azania, or
Azanian civilisation, has a long history. (Look at the following literature and
history on this name: ‘Old Africa Rediscovered page 95, The Lost Cities Of
Africa pages 155-156 by Basil Davidson; Basutoland Records Volume 2,
Ethnography of Southern Africa the History Of The World’, J.M. Roberts pages
457-458 Pelican Books).
Azania like Kush, Mizraim,
Egypt, Kemet, Ethiopia means Blackman’s country or continent (Izwe labantu
abamnyama, lefatshe la batho ba bats’o). In 1930 excavations at Mapungubwe in
the area of Limpopo River revealed skeletal remains of people that became known
as “ancient Azanians.” These Africans were also referred to as Kushites or
descendants of Kush. Of course, the offspring of colonialists and their
neo-colonialist collaborators hate the name Azania because it is not their master’s
name.
In fact, in 1990, Dr. Gert
Viljoen who was F.W. de Klerk’s Minister of Constitutional Affairs gave reasons
why his apartheid colonialist regime would not negotiate with those African
revolutionaries who subscribed to the Azanian school of thought.
He said, “We want to
change our approach. But we would be negotiating even the name. Many Blacks
call it Azania....The name sounds a warning note of a break in history. In our
thinking, a complete break in history would be unacceptable. We will have to
provide some continuation of the past.” Indeed, this has happened. The colonial
minority has entrenched 87% of the land for itself. It has given the “moderate
leaders” with whom it negotiated the same 13% of land allocated to the 80%
African indigenous majority in 1913.
AFRICA BEFORE SHE WAS
COLONISED
Let me now move on to
North East Africa - ancient Egypt, and to other issues about Africa. Africans
built the city of Memphis in ancient Egypt in 31OO B.C. Greeks built Athens in
12OO B.C. The Romans built Rome in 1OOO B.C. Africans invented writing. It was
Hieroglyphics before 3OOO B.C. and Hieratic alphabet shortly after this.
Demotic writing was developed about 6OO B.C., while a Kushite script was used
in 3OO B.C. Other African scripts were Merotic, Coptic, Amharic, Sabean, G’eez,
Nsibidi of Nigeria and Mende of Mali. There were many others such as the Twi
alphabet of the Twi people of Ghana.
In November 1999, some
scholars at Yale University such as Prof. John Damell speculated about the
origin of writing going back to 19OO B.C. These scholars could not dispute
that, whatever date was, the location was Africa – Alkebu Lan, “the Mother of
Nations.”
The well-known
archaeologist in Kenya, Dr. L.S.B. Leakey long wrote, “The critics of Africa
forget that men of science today are without exception, satisfied that Africa
was the place of birth of man himself, and that for thousands of years...Africa
was in the forefront of all world progress.”
Affirming this fact, Edem
Kodjo, the author of Africa Tomorrow who is also a great researcher on Africa
has written, “It is here in Africa that history began. Far from being a
gratuitous assertion, this statement is undeniable scientific fact for which one
finds corroboration when one roves the world in search of the remains of the
ancient civilisations. According to the present state of research on the
origins of the progress of human kind and civilisation, the Mother of Mankind;
Africa remains the privileged source of the manifestations of intense human
creativity.”
DESTRUCTION OF AFRICA BY
IMPERIALISM
Africa was destroyed by
imperialist Europe and is still being destroyed by Europe. Up to the 14th
century A.D. Africa was ahead of Europe or on par with Europe militarily. The
Romans used spears and we used spears in war. That famous Roman Emperor, Julius
Caesar in adoration and admiration of the advanced Africa exclaimed, “ex Africa
semper aliquid novi!” (Out of Africa always something new!)
Earlier educated Greeks
received their education in Africa, to be precise in Mizraim (ancient Egypt).
This is corroborated by “the father of European history,” Herodotus himself. He
is supported by other ancient historians such as Diodorus.
Prof. Walter Rodney shows
how Europe destroyed Africa. This is in his book ‘How Europe Underdeveloped
Africa’. This is a mentally decolonising book every African must read because
Africans tend to treat Europe and its satellites as demigods. Indeed, when an
African fears a creature like him just because he has a different skin colour,
he or she offends God. He or she indulges in idolatry which is the worship of a
false god.
Africa has suffered the
worst genocide and holocaust at the hands of the architects of slavery and
colonialism. What is called “European Renaissance” was the worst darkness for
Africa’s people. Armed with the technology of the gun and the compass it copied
from China, Europe became a menace for Africa against her spears. So-called
“civilised” Europe also claiming to be “Christian” came up with the
Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. There was massive loss of African population and
skills. Some historians have estimated that the Gold Coast (today’s Ghana)
alone, lost 5OOO to 6OOO of its people to slavery every year for four hundred
years.
Prof. Walter Rodney asks a
pertinent question: “What would have been Britain’s level of development had
millions of her people been put to work as slaves out of their country over a
period of four centuries?”
As if slavery had not
already done enough damage to Africa’s people, European leaders met in Germany
from December 1884 to February 1885 at the imperialist Berlin Conference. The
Belgian King Leopold stated the purpose of the Berlin Conference as “How we
should divide among ourselves this magnificent African cake.”
Africa was thus plunged
into another human tragedy. Through the Berlin Treaty of 26 February 1885, the
European imperialists sliced Africa into “Portuguese Africa”, “British Africa”,
“German Africa”, “Italian Africa,” “Spanish Africa”, “French Africa” and
“Belgian Africa.” There was no Africa left for Africans except Ethiopia,
encircled by paupers of land dispossessed people who were now the reservoir of
cheap native labour for their dispossessors.
Somalia, a tiny African
country, had the misfortune of becoming “British Somaliland”, “Italian
Somaliland”, and “French Somaliland.” Colonial brutality on the colonised
Africans knew no bounds. Here are a few examples of atrocities committed
against Africans by colonialists. A British philosopher, Betrand Russell wrote
about some of these colonial atrocities perpetrated by Belgium in the Congo in
the name of “Western Christian Civilisation.” Russell wrote, “Each village was
ordered by the authorities to collect and bring in a certain amount of rubber –
as much as the men could bring in by neglecting all work for their own
maintenance.
If they failed to bring
the required amount, their women were taken away and kept as hostages...in the
harems of colonial government employees. If this method failed...troops were
sent to the village to spread terror, if necessary by killing some of the men...they
were ordered to bring one right hand amputated from an African victim for every
cartridge used.” (Introduction To African Civilisations, John G. Jackson
31O-311)
The result of these
atrocities according to Sir H.H. Johnston was the reduction of the African
population in the Congo from twenty million to nine million people in fifteen
years.
The worst genocide also
occurred in Namibia in 19O4. Namibia was then a German colony. The Herero
people resisted German colonialism. A well armed army under General Lothar von
Trotha defeated the Hereros at the Battle of Waterberg. The German colonial
aggressors drove these Africans from their land to the desert where there was
no water. Seventy percent of the Herero population died of dehydration in that
desert. In South Africa the Khoisan people were exterminated by colonialists
after being hunted like animals and dispossessed of their land.
COLONIALIST BARBARIANS
HONOURED BY THEIR IMPERIALIST COUNTRIES
Colonised Africans were
treated not only as sub-humans, they were denied basic rights such as education
and the right to land for decent housing, farming, mining and fishing. Colonial
functionaries were honoured for barbaric actions and atrocities. The British
government honoured its colonial officials such as “Sir Andries Stockkenstrom”.
He had earlier said:
“The question of robbing
natives of their land is not whether it is right or wrong to plunder their
land, massacre and exterminate the Hottentots, the Kaffirs...the simple
question is will it PAY? But if the Bible and the missionary stands in the way
of this one thousand per cent profit...If in short, they cannot promote the
great work of converting a nation of shop-keepers into a nation of
millionaires,...gun powder will produce a more efficient gospel for the purpose
of our system of civilisation.” (R.U. Kenny, Piet Retief, Cape Town and
Pretoria: Human & Reason, 1976 page 77)
When introducing inferior
education for African mental enslavement in South Africa, Hendrik F. Verwoerd
that arch implementer of apartheid colonialism said, “There is no place for him
(the African) in the European community above the level of certain forms of
labour. Until now, he (the African) has been subjected to a school system which
drew him away from his community and misled him by showing him the green
pastures of the European society where he is not allowed to graze.”
(‘Apartheid: The Story Of A Dispossessed People, Motsoko Pheko page 15O Marram
Books London 1984)
Slavery and colonialism
enriched Europe and reduced Africa to abject poverty. The riches of Africa and
her raw materials fuelled the economies of imperialist countries. The British
Prime Minister, Sir Winston Churchill bore testimony to this fact when he said:
“Our possession of the
West Indies gave us the strength, the support, but especially the capital, the
wealth, at the time when no other European nations possessed such reserve,
which enabled us to come through the great struggles of the Napoleonic Wars.
The keen competition of commerce in the 18th and 19th centuries enabled us not
only to acquire this appendage of possessions which we have, but also to lay
the foundations of that commercial and financial leadership which when the
world was young,...enabled us to make our great position in the world.” (‘The Long
Road To Humanity’, by Stanton A. Coblentz page 325 and Introduction To African
Civilisations John G. Jackson page 3O6)
It was against this
background of genocide in the name of “European civilisation” that Africans in
the Diaspora who had been shipped from Africa and enslaved in the West Indies
and in the Americas realised that the solution to Africa’s people both at home
and abroad was Pan-Africanism. Pan-Africanism is a political philosophy that
was conceived in the womb of Africa. Pan-Africanism was formally organised in
19OO by Selvester Henry Williams.
It’s relevance to Africa’s
people as a solution to their problems is indisputable. Its effectiveness and
prowess were demonstrated at the 5th Pan African Congress in Manchester in
1945. It is Pan Africanism that won present political freedom for Africa and
reversed the African tragedy and humiliation that was orchestrated at the
Berlin Conference. It is Pan Africanism that brought about the Organisation of
African Unity, the African Union, the Pan African Parliament and Africa
Liberation Day that Africa’s people throughout the world are commemorating each
year. It is Africa’s Pan Africanist spirit that led to assisting African
Liberation Movements of Southern Africa against colonialism.
THE CHALLENGE OF AFRICA
LIBERATION DAY
The challenge of Africa
Liberation Day in 2O12 is for this generation to reflect on their commitment to
the vision of Pan Africanist pioneers that worked so hard to bring Africans to
where they are today. Among these pioneers of Pan Africanism, allow me to
mention and honour a few in the Diaspora such as Henry Sylvester Williams,
Marcus Garvey, W.E. B. Du Bois, George Padmore, C.L.R. James, Frantz Fanon,
Yosef Makonen, Malcom X, John Hendrik Clarke, Edward Wilmot Blyden, Binito
Sylvania and Martin Delany. In fact, Marcus Garvey was the first to organise
Africans globally on the principles of Black Consciousness and Pan Africanism.
The pioneers of liberation
in Africa such as Nkrumah, Patrce Lumumba, Julius Nyerere, Ahmed Ben Bella,
Abdel Nasser, Modibo Keita, Ahmed Sekou Toure fought, the first stage of
African liberation with distinction. That is political freedom. But they are
now reminding this generation that there is much to be done. True sons and
daughters of Africa must tighten their belts for a more fierce war. That is a
war against neo-colonialism – the last stage of imperialism. The battle cry is
now for economic liberation of Africa and her technological advancement.
AFRICA’S ECONOMIC
POTENTIAL CAPACITY AND HER RICHES
Africa is 11.3 million
square miles. Africa is almost four times the size of the United States of
America in land size and in all kinds of riches, especially in raw materials
such as platinum, cobalt, uranium, tantalum, gold, diamonds and oil. There is
hardly an agricultural product that cannot be grown in Africa. Africa’s arable
land for food security is reported to be the largest in the world. But Africa’s
riches including her human resources have been brutally looted by imperialist
countries for centuries and still are, even under supposedly liberated Africa.
A glaring example of the
riches of Africa is the Democratic Republic of Congo, the country of Patrice
Lumumba. Economic experts have pronounced that, when developed Congo alone can
feed and provide electricity for the whole of Africa. During the Second World
War, the Nazi forces of Hitler over-ran Belgium. The Belgians established their
government-in-exile in London. How did Belgium manage financially? Well, Congo
was their colony. Let this come from the horse’s mouth. Godding was the
Colonial Secretary of the Belgian Government-in- exile. He boasted:
“During the War, the Congo
was able to finance expenditure of the Belgian Government-in-exile in London,
including the diplomatic service as well as the cost of armed forces in Europe
and America. The Belgian gold reserve could be left intact.”
To this minute, Africa’s
riches are fuelling the economies of imperialist countries. Africans remain the
poorest people in the world amidst their own riches in their own African
Continent. As the late President Kwame Nkrumah put it, “If Africa’s resources
were used in her own development they would place Africa among the most
modernised continents of the world. But Africa’s wealth is used for the
development of overseas interests.”
Mangaliso Robert Sobukwe
the Pan-Africanist giant that was banned “this side of eternity” as John B.
Vorster put it, declared, “The potential wealth of Africa in minerals, oil,
hydro-electric power, and so on, is immense.” Sobukwe envisioned that by the
end of the 2Oth century, “the standard of living of the African masses will
undoubtedly have arisen dramatically.” Lo! This has not happened.
Perhaps, our venerated
Martyr Steve Biko was being prophetic of the African condition, when he said,
“At the end of it all, the Blacks have nothing to lean on, nothing to cheer
them up at the present moment, and very much to be afraid of the future.”
DO “NEGOTIATIONS” WITH
COLONIALISTS DELIVER LIBERATION?
Whenever an African
country is about to be liberated, imperialists have always divided liberation
movements into radicals, extremists and militants and so-called moderates.
Colonialists have often called these so-called moderates to the “negotiating
table” and offered them the flag and parliament – things we never made the
fundamental objective of our liberation struggle.
Lest we forget, from day
one of the arrival of colonial invaders in our country, the primary objective
of our struggle was repossession of our land and its riches taken from Africans
at gunpoint. Anyone one who doubts this historic fact must consult Kings
Sekhukhene, Makado, Hintsa, Cetshwayo, Moshoeshoe, Makana and Bambatha, even
Mzilikazi for that matter. Land is what our people have died for, for over
three hundred years of their existence, in our case in Azania.
A Kenyan political
activist and former presidential candidate, Koigi Mamwere, captured this truism
accurately in April 2OOO when he proclaimed:
“Today, Europeans own
almost all the land in the Americas, almost all the good land in Australia, New
Zealand and Tasmania and most of the best land in African countries like South
Africa, Zimbabwe, Namibia and Kenya. To acquire this land outside Europe,
Europeans did not use law, justice or money. They took the land and its riches
with the gun....Europeans continue to own millions and millions of hectares of
the best land in Africa....Whatever Robert Mugabe’s past mistakes, we must
agree that on this one question of finally redistributing land to African
people, he is 1OO% right...”
“REGIME CHANGE”: A NEW
NAME TO PROTECT IMPERIALIST INTERESTS
“Regime change” is the new name coined by
imperialists to continue with colonialism in a new form. The political
situation in “post independent” Africa demonstrates that any true leaders, who
the imperialists perceive as a threat to their economic interests, are targeted
through aggressive campaigns such as “regime change.” Some of these leaders
were Kwame Nkrumah, Patrice Lumumba, Chief Moshodi Abiola and recently Maummar
Gaddafi.
So far, imperialists have
found President Robert Mugabe a hard nut to crack. Two British Prime Ministers,
Tony Blair and Gordon Brown and President George Bush of America have become
despicable casualties in the battle field of “regime change” in Zimbabwe
against President Robert Mugabe. The imperialist European leaders have gone down
the political drain, on the shores of Africa. President Nicolas Sarkozy of
France who enthusiastically created a “New Libya” in the imperialist war for
“regime change” seems headed for the political dustbin of history.
Mugabe is still standing.
He is still in command. Africa needs more African leaders like President
Mugabe. Otherwise, Africa’s authentic liberation will never arrive.
Under America’s Bill
Clinton’s government Chief Moshodi Abiola, a democratically elected
Presidential candidate was prevented from taking power in Nigeria. Abiola was a
staunch defender of Africa’s economic liberation. In 1993, he convened the
First Pan African Conference on Reparations. In his speech inter alia, he said:
“Our demand for
reparations is based on the tripod of moral, historical and legal
argument....Who knows what path Africa’s social development would have taken if
great centres of African civilisation had not been destroyed in search of human
cargo by Europeans? Who knows how our economics would have developed?”
Chief Abiola added, “It is
international law which compels Nigeria to pay its debts to Western banks. It
is international law that must now demand Western nations to pay us what they
have owed us for nearly six centuries.”
TWO MAIN THINGS TO DO TO
ADVANCE AFRICA’S AUTHENTIC LIBERATION
There are two main things
that Africans must do to advance Africa’s authentic liberation. African rulers
must exercise sovereignty over African lands and riches and use them for the
benefit of their people. This is true national independence from colonialism
and imperialism. Secondly, education is the key to the development of Africa,
wise control of her raw materials and use of her human resources. Quality
education is the key to creating, owning and controlling Africa’s wealth and
mentally decolonising her people’s captured minds.
Africa needs a diverse
education that is tailored to the economic needs of her people. That education
must be free for the poor. No African child must be without education, merely
because of his or her condition of poverty. And these African children must be
taught the true history of Africa, not the colonial history of Africa’s
invaders that is full of perfidy to protect their colonial interests.
All African countries must
prioritise the study of science, technology, economics and finance and of
course International Law. Africa’s children must be equipped with skills and
professions that arm their countries with technological capacity to process
Africa’s raw materials and export them to the outside world as finished goods.
An African nation that exports its raw materials unprocessed will remain a
perpetual pauper.
Where there is urgent need
or desperate lack of high technology to process raw materials rapidly, African
countries must exchange Africa’s raw materials for high technology; not for
cash or foreign goods. Countries that enrich themselves from Africa’s raw
materials are secretive and refuse to transfer technology to Africa. Knowledge
is power. This is probably why Prophet Hosea told his people in 735 B.C. “My
people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.”
A WAR AFRICA MUST WIN FOR
HER SURVIVAL AND SECURITY
Africans both on the
continent and in the Diaspora must have the agenda for economic liberation of
Africa and technological advancement.
Pan-Africanism is more
relevant to the African world today than when it was formalised over one
hundred and twenty years ago. Yes, we may be Jamaicans, Tanzanians, Trinidadians,
Kenyans, Zimbabweans, Angolans, Nigerians, Ghanaians, Basotho, Zambians,
Namibians, South Africans, Azanians, African Americans, Afro- Brazilians etc.
But the train that will take all Africans to their destination and give them
power to take their destiny into their hands is the Pan African train.
It is not ethnicity,
regionalism, sectarian politics or flirtation with the forces of
neo-colonialism and imperialism. Forces that are determined to make us their
perpetual slaves work together against us. A divided Africa cannot defeat these
plunderers and thieves.
We need to ignite our Pan
African Nationalism. Pan African Nationalism is the privilege of all Africans
wherever they may be to love themselves and to give their way of life
preference. Pan African Nationalism views the personhood and humanity of the
African people and of the people of African descent as equal to any other human
beings on this planet. Pan African Nationalism rejects with contempt any
philosophy that holds that Africa’s people are destined to exist in servitude
to other human beings. Pan African Nationalism does not look down on other
members of the human race.
But it demands justice for
African people. Africa’s riches belong to Africans. They are there for the
benefit of the African people. They are not there to fuel foreign economies and
perpetuate economic exploitation and poverty of our people.
The commemoration of
Africa Liberation Day is not a ritual. It is a time to renew our vows, revisit
our strategies and tactics to fight neo-colonialism more effectively with
tangible results to control Africa’s riches for Africa’s people. The ultimate
goal of our political struggle was to regain our lands and economic power, and
rapidly advance Africa’s people technologically.
The question is not
whether economic liberation for Africa is winnable. The critical question is
whether we can afford not to win such a life and death struggle and therefore,
continue to be the wretched of the earth in our own country and continent. The
economic freedom of Africa is winnable. But it starts with the recognition that
the greatest damage colonialism did was on our minds. We must decolonise our
minds. Only mentally liberated Black people with a vision for our country and
continent can win Africa’s authentic liberation for themselves and their
children.
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