So far almost 12,000 people dead after Storm Daniel struck Eastern Libya on the weekend which caused two dams to crash and unleash torrents of water into surrounding neighborhoods.
Muammar Gaddafi (late)
On the tiny idyllic island we are fortunate to live, too many Barbadians are happy to navel gaze as the sand fills the hourglass. We have become so entitled by a manufactured lifestyle as we continue to live in our tiny cocoon, unconcerned with the many natural AND man made challenges being visited on our fellowman elsewhere on the planet.
We seem emotionally blinded about the big amounts of victims in Libya after the natural disaster . Let us not forget the victims and there families . No geopolitics and no ressentiments just humanity and solidarity when there is pain that strikes against humans #Lybia#Marochttps://t.co/FBnGp6G5d0
It challenges the accepted belief that although one race; a human race, we struggle to live up to the label as being the most intelligent and civilized specie of life occupying the earth.
India landed a successful moon expedition that has sparked racist commentary from England and Niger is standing up to France – in both cases, former colonies standing up to former colonial masters.
The biggest concern is that as a Caribbean people we are able to unshackle our minds to appreciate for change to occur, we must look in the mirror.
In recent weeks two African development banks took root in the Caribbean with a goal to nurture economic links and fuel growth opportunities. It will be interesting to observe the extent the Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean (CAF) and the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) are able to build a model for success that addresses ” the financial needs of stakeholders and improve the quality of life for Caribbean citizens“.
Already CAF has committed USD50 million to support the the Blue Green Bank initiative that focuses on the blue economy AND Afreximbank USD1.5 billion to finance trade and investment ties between Africa and the Caribbean by stimulating the “economic sectors, enhance trade infrastructure, and empower small to medium enterprises across the Caribbean“.
On the surface the blogmaster is happy to observe initiatives with the Motherland recognizing our cultural moorings and common challenges. Both the Caribbean and Africa currently have similar issues, we are countries struggling to unleash our potential on the world. We continue to allow our physical and mental spaces to be exploited by Western interests. The only way to break the shackles of dependency on the West – a legacy of our colonial past – is to transform how we think in order to discover new opportunities.
Too many African countries under performing. Professor Lumumba exposes the Trojan horses operating in Africa.
PLO LUMUMBA: CONFLICTS IN AFRICA IS A MULTI-BILLIONAIRE BUSINESS Credit Bentley
The blogmaster found the presentation posted by Professor Lumumba enlightening. The similarities between the struggles of many African countries and the Caribbean are striking.
The ongoing pandemic has given impetus finally to governments in the region assigning additional resources to improving food security. Barbados in the period has been developing a closer relationship with Guyana and we have seen cooperation to increase black belly sheep production to satisfy local and some regional demand for lamb. There are additional initiatives we hope to see bear fruit in the coming weeks and months mentioned in a previous blog – Government Initiatives to Address Food Supply – The St. Barnabas Accord. Last week Minister of Agriculture reported there is a plan to slash food import bill by 20% when a food terminal is established in Barbados with the help of Guyana. It is a reminder the founders of CARIFTA envisioned Guyana to be the bread basket of the Caribbean almost 50 years ago.
Yesterday a direct flight – a first from Nigeria – to bring delegates to attend a 3-day investment forum one may argue is the result of the effort of the government to forge close ties with some African countries to create business of opportunities. The AfriCaribbean Trade and Investment Forum will take place in Barbados from September 1-3. The forum represents an opportunity for the Caribbean and African private sectors to explore opportunities for trade and address challenges that have historically prevented deeper collaboration. The forum is being hosted by the African Export-Import Bank. The blogmaster is hopeful there is meaningful collaboration coming out of the engagement.
In a previous BU blog – Barbados based Fintechs on the MOVE the entry of Barbadian Fintech companies was highlighted and from reports have been reaping success on the African continent. It bears no reminder that 95 percent of Barbadian are of African descent, we therefore share a historical bond.
The video was sent by Ras Jahaziel of https://rastafarivisions.com/. He is a long time contributor to Barbados Underground. The more middleclass and upwardly mobile we become as a Black people we seem to be receptive to allowing our history to fade by retreating to a eurocentric form of existence – David, BU blogmaster
Prime Minister of Barbados Mia Mottley was invited to participate in Ghana’s 65th Independence anniversary. To be expected she delivered a speech that has provoked discussion.
Prime Minister Mottley at Ghana’s 65th anniversary of Independence celebrations
One encouraging approach of this Mottley government is the obvious policy to forge closer links with the Mother Country. Many are smiling at the news an MOU was signed to pursue trade, investment and knowledge sharing opportunities with the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank). Also the alliance between Kenya and Barbados which saw a two day conference which brought together business people across different sectors in both countries.
The detractors will continue to moan that improving alliance with Africa countries is being being pursued because traditional source markets have dried up, so what!
Quite apart from the fact that “Black” and “White” are artificial constructs based on bogus premises and stupid stereotypes (which distort our existential authenticity as much as it does theirs) the simple truth is: all we have to do is respect ourselves. REPEAT: ALL WE HAVE TO DO IS RESPECT OURSELVES!
Respecting ourselves, truly respecting ourselves (not a stand-alone phenomenon, but one that is accompanied by self-esteem, self-belief, self-validation, self-actualization and, most importantly, self-love) is a mammoth undertaking for any people who have had a comparable history to ours. This turn of phrase is laughable for its emptiness, since no others have; not by a long shot. In short, nothing to compare! The task at hand is uniquely ours. The task at hand is two-fold. One. Demand & collect trillions of dollars in reparations from Arabia & the West for 14 centuries of material enslavement. Two. Regain our rightful minds. This task is to effect our own rebirth and cease to be what Professor Thomas has aptly termed natally alienated and morally imbecilic. Admittedly, this is no easy task. One generation of enslavement is bad enough. Fourteen centuries of inter-generational dehumanization is deadly. But rise from the dead, we must!
To every poison there is an antidote. Ours likely exists in our midst, hiding in plain sight. In fact our problem is not one of discovery but legitimization. Legit # 1: recognizing that we have a problem in the first place. Legit # 2: desiring its resolution. Legit # 3: actually taking the medicine. This is what we owe ourselves, our Ancestors and our children’s children. Yes, we owe it to ourselves! (What they owe us is trillions in reparations). It is entirely likely that a handful among us have undergone this process and effected our rebirth. Speaking personally, we know of only a few; a precious few. And, at the very top of this very short list stands such luminaries as Mirambo, Nzinga, Sandy, Rodney, Azikiwe, Kaunda, L’overture, Hypatia, Nkrumah, Lumumba, Imhotep, Toure, Shaka, Diop, Nyerere, Garvey, Zumbi dos Palmares, Jomo Kenyatta, av gbhnd, hiding in plain sight from most of our blinkered plant-African brothers and sisters, Molefe Kete Asante. Thank you Molefe and your illustrious associates for swelling our Ancestors’ chests with pride! Thank you, thank you, thank you!So, let’s not pick on the Chinese or any other group. Let us simply respect ourselves, truly respect ourselves and be the self-validating people God intended us to be. This must be the basis upon which we relate to ourselves. And this, in turn, is the only basis upon which we should countenance transactions with others; be they large or small, friendly or hostile, material or spiritual.
I am wondering why the USA Black Lives Matter Movement has remained silent on the killing in Uganda. During your recent riots the whole world stood and solidarity including many on the African continent. Why the silence? Are the lifes of Africans on the continent of any lesser value?
– Kammie Holder
The deafening silence coming from Comrades David Denny and David Commissiong and other local pan-Africanists advocates who rode the #blacklivesmatter protests for all the popularity it benefited a narrow agenda are now silent about events unfolding in Uganda. The loud dissenting voice in the person of Bobi Wine real name Robert Kyagulany and his house arrest after the recent election in that country should have triggered an immediate outcry from so-called local and regional Pan Africanists based in democracies like Barbados with a strong African ancestry. Sadly one must conclude that unless the US and UK have reason to protest injustice there is little traction to be had.
Barbados Underground quotes the indefatigable social and environmental commentator Kammie Holder on the silence of our people to what is unfolding in Uganda:
Unfortunately, it would appear the fake protestors are either just not interested or do not understand what they marched for.
It is deliberate the blogmaster decided to focus on political events unfolding in Uganda at this time and not the inauguration of Joe Biden in the US. There is the hope that although our geopolitical influence is limited, we should protest in the loudest way possible given our lineage and the fact we must always try to live vicariously through Africans.
Prime Minister Mia Mottley should not hesitate to use her global platform to lend a voice to the injustice being meted out to Bobi Wine. The irony for Blacks everywhere should be that an attempt by US Ambassador Natalie E. Brown to check on the well-being of Bobi Vine was refused by the Ugandan military.
In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.
Dr. Martin Luther King
The blogmaster extends gratitude to Kammie Holder for highlighting this matter and for calling out the Dennys and Commisiongs charged with showing leadership in matters related to Pan African affairs.
MARIJUANA LAWS AND THE LEGAL BANDITRY that maintains The Old Slavery Status Quo of White Wealth and Black Poverty.
The Old Slavery Status Quo of White Wealth and Black Poverty long after Emancipation. Their purpose? to keep Rastas and the majority of the Black population ECONOMICALLY DESTITUTE, so that they would be forced to keep on begging for jobs
Whenever there is a harvest on the slave plantation it is the slave-master who will be going to the bank to continue his process of wealth accumulation.
So how come it is the slave that has always been the leader in Harvest celebration?
The landless X-Slaves were brainwashed to celebrate Crop Over
Demand for travel determines the servicing of routes by airlines.
The pandemic has triggered economic hardship worldwide, failures and or downsizing of some airlines, and in the absence of a definitive end to the effects of the pandemic, an on-going contraction in the demand for travel. This is bad news for Barbados whose economy is tourist dependent.
Whilst the country is in a wait and see position, it might well be beneficial if it looks at establishing a connection with Western Africa via air travel. As the most easterly Caribbean country, Barbados is nearest to West Africa, 6,406 km from Ghana and 7,431 km from Nigeria. There are seventeen (17) West African countries of which Nigeria and Ghana have a population of 100 million and 30 million respectively. Ghana is defined as a third world country but with the world fastest growing economy in 2019 and Nigeria, a rich 4th world country. Both Ghana and Nigeria have controlled the spread of Covid-19 and could be the main routes.
Demand for travel between Barbados and Ghana and Nigeria would have to be assessed by the Government of Barbados. In the absence of information, Barbados could benefit from promoting its educational institutions from primary to tertiary level. Parents who can afford tuition plus boarding and all the incidental costs might for a variety of reasons, prefer their children being schooled outside of the country. It might also be possible for Chefette to expand into West Africa. How Barbados can benefit from other aspects of oil rich Nigeria and agricultural based Ghana will also require research.
This suggestion is not new; both Jamaica and Guyana tooted flights to Africa but they failed to materialize. However, the present economic climate might just be right to follow through with these West African airline routes. Though flying to Barbados, most of Virgin Atlantic airplanes have been grounded by the pandemic. Dire warnings about the continued spread of Covid-19 in the USA, UK and even Europe do not indicate this airline will return to full flight in the short term. With assets grounded and the airline bleeding money, Sir Branson might well be receptive to a route from Barbados to West African countries. His planes would be back in the air earning money. There’s no direct competition. Ticket prices can be relatively cheap because the airline would be flying to an oil rich country, Nigeria. However, the viability of each route is incumbent on Barbados justifying demand.
Wouldn’t it be ironic if the former slaves in the Caribbean reverse the slave triangle to carve out trade between West Africa and the Caribbean and even North and South America.
This challenge is not outside the Prime Minister of Barbados’ orbit. The PM has resource people who can pull together a comprehensive Business Proposal. Her several interviews at the international level has raised her profile which should lead to contact and persuasion of the key international asset providers, Sir Branson or the alternative British Airways and though not discussed herein, the governments of Ghana and Nigeria.
This is not a start-up business where projected minimum start-up capital would be around $22 million in the first year as per a Business Plan done for a proposed new airline in 2010. The airport hubs, planes, personnel, etc., already exists. It would be interesting to know the flaw(s) in my idea.
Thus, when others impose the image of their deity upon you while you abandon your Gods, and accept theirs, you inevitably become their spiritual prisoner —
Dr. John Henrik Clarke
In every culture, there is a belief in a supernational being (Almighty), and the relationship between humans and God requires worship and sacrifice. And, in any recorded human history, humans practiced some form of cultural religion — spirituality, so, culture cannot occur without education, while education is impossible without some form of societal culture.
From the time in antiquity, religion comprised of regular ceremonies centered on a belief in a higher supernatural power (God — the unknown) that created and maintained the order of things in the universe. Over a period, religions focus on the spiritual aspect of God, creation, human, life after death, eternity, and how to escape suffering or to be adjudicated afterlife. That is the reason why every culture made Gods in its image, similarity, and representation in their cultural space.
There is nothing more important in any culture or life than the worship of something. The only question is whether the worship is the right One, done in the right way. However, every religion believes that they are the right One, worship the right way, and their God is best in their cultural space.
Hence, the essence of worship is to establish and maintain a relationship between human beings and their God within their cultural space. Thus, worship can be defined as an extreme form of love, unthinking devotion and adulation for a God. When God is an exaggerated worship of the cultural self. And, God is as the wind, which touches anything and everything. For that reason, religion can be restrictive, repetitious, show regard for something sacred within an organized system of beliefs and practices, leading to a supernatural spiritual experience.
Therefore, the concept of God is an attempt to forge an identity in confrontation with a limited understanding of the unknown universe. That is why Leeming, David Adams attested that the existence of God fulfills a significant human needs. While Gods are symbols of ultimate reality, and their existence provides a sense of significance in an otherwise random universe. So, religion or worshipping is not a European invention introduced to Africa.
Are human traditions and practiceshypothesis or scientific, and how can one discover the reality of religion instead of the true religion?
LOCKED IN A MENTAL STATE that was purposefully designed by white Slave-Breakers.
AFRICA has been painted with such a negative brush that for a very long time, the knowledge that you came from Africa was not a source of great pride. This shame has long plagued the mind of the African who became a Negro during the slave-breaking process. It caused the search for origins outside of Africa, because very few Negroes wanted to be linked with a place that had been covered with such shame.
Lest we forget Chinua Achebe’s things fall apart, the center cannot hold, and no longer at ease. It is no longer at ease for the west to sustain the fallacies that Africa did not contribute to world civilization and or history.
The internet was described as a disruptive technology, so it is the idea of redefining and repackaging Africa. And, as Omoyele Sowore vividly described Nigeria as a construction site and that the leaders can no longer operate with an analog mindset for the 21st century.
Thus, redefining and repackaging Africa requires a disruptive delicate balancing creative act that must challenge the colonial contradictions and dismantle the old colonial indoctrination. Therefore, just as the internet was a disruptive technology, Africa needs a disruptive awakening, for the new dawn. Africa can no longer operate with the colonial mindset and contradictions in the 21st century. Consequently, Africa needs a shock therapy, a rude awakening for the 21st century, and must challenge the future.
And, until Africa tells her stories from her perspectives, her stories will always be told from other’s cloudy lenses. Africa must develop her storylines and make it appealing, if not, Africa will not be respected anywhere in the world.
However, according to Dorothy Blake Farden, Africa’s first contribution to human progress, then, was the evolution of man himself. And, as George G.M. James revealed in his book, Stolen Legacy; how Greek philosophy was stolen Egyptian philosophy. James also stated that ancient Egyptian were the first to develop a complex religious system called the Mysteries, the first system of salvation in the world, yet, the west argued that Africa did not contribute to world civilization.
All the countries with colonial imposed names should change their names to reflect the new Africa. According to Jim Rhon, whatever happens to you from age zero to eighteen, we blame your parents, however from eighteen up, we blame you. Africa is long due for redefining herself with new names and attitudes that reflect her for the 21st century.
Consequently, Chukwudi Okeke Maduno (White Magic: The Origins and Ideas of Black Mental and Cultural Colonialism) emphasized that the role Africa played in the evolution of human civilization has not been enthusiastically acknowledged, but falsified and understated by the west. Thus, we must understand the destruction of black civilization by Chancellor Williams, which led to the delimitations of Africa, her current state of despair.
Conversely, the basic factor for Africa regeneration is the awakened race-consciousness, which means that a new, and unique civilization to be added to world history, as posited by Pixley Ka Isaka Seme.
And W. E. B. DuBois prophetically stated that the problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line, and Africa has long been the clown of history, the football of anthropology, and the slave industry.
We must be attentive to the alarm of Carter Godwin Woodson, the mis-education of the Negros and Fela Anikulapo warnings, teacher don’t teach me nonsense, an education without interrogation.
We should remember the writings of Yosef Ben-Jochannan’s Africa the mother of western civilization, and Cheikh Anta Diop’s Africa Origin of Civilization.
And Dr. John Henrik Clarke’s famous quote on religion, anytime someone says your God is ugly and you release your God and join their god, there is no hope for your freedom until you once more believe in your own concept of God. However, Africa spirituality forms the fundamental pillars of all aspects of our societies, as Joshua Maponga III also contended.
Marcus Garvey believed that all Africans in the diaspora should return to their rightful homeland — Africa. And Dr. Kwame N’Krumah proclaimed resoundingly; that the survival of Africa can only be achieved by United Africa, in his 1963 OAU speech. Likewise, Amílcar Cabral, Patrice Lumumba, Samora Machel, and Frantz Fanon were strong advocates of African unity. On the other hand, Muammar Gaddafi played a significant role in the transformation of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) into the African Union (AU). And as the head of the African Union (AU), Muammar Gaddafi was resolute that Africa’s power lies in its unity — One Africa (United States of Africa).
Bob Marley reminded us to guard against mental slavery, and the liberation of the consciousness of our mind is a must, to change the course of Africa’s history.
Nevertheless, Dr. Arikana Chihombori-Quao opened the French pandora box, revealing the sustainability of the French economy by the francophone African countries. While Professor Patrick Loch Otieno Lumumba (PLO) eloquently urges us to seize this opportunity and make our mark as a people in this 21st Century. In essence, PLO was advising Africa not to miss this window of opportunity to make a change for the 21st century. And I preached that the way forward for the 21st century Africa is to re-define herself on the world stage and not by any foreign religious salvation.
Although most eastern and western world sees negative media depictions of Africa as a land of social, economic, and political failures, instabilities, and sufferings, Africa is a huge continent rich in natural mineral resources, human capital, and underdeveloped opportunities. Roughly 1.3 billion Africans reside on the continent, while an additional 400 million of her children live in the diaspora. What a resounding powerhouse of people!
Despite the negativities, Africa is the motherland of humanity, a continent of extraordinary beauty and endless fascination.
So far, Africa has not seen reasons to aggressively campaign to redefine, repackage herself, and sell herself to the world. These can be attributed to African leaders’ unfamiliarity with the power of imagery and public relations or the fear of retribution from the colonial interests in the status quo Africa.
However, I applaud new Africa’s consciousness and efforts in repackaging Africa. A strategy I called “Africa Re-Defined”, a new way forward for the 21st century.
And according to Professor Patrick Loch Otieno Lumumba (PLO), We must refuse to be known as the Continent that never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity.
In this new world order, Africa cannot afford to be waiting for handouts from the east or west, Africa must start promoting herself in earnest, a move that will undoubtedly create opportunities for her many children. I have religiously preached this reasoning to Africa for over 30 years, and it is time to challenge the contradictions of the colonial interventions in Africa. And I have been a strong advocate that the way out for Africa is to create her unique marketing strategies geared towards the new world order (a media house).
Nevertheless, it is Africa’s responsibility to promote her image in the new dawn. And who can best develop Africa’s image rather than her many children scattered all over the world? These are the people I called the “ambassadors” in your backyard. However, it is necessary to use these ambassadors to promote, redefine, and repackage Africa for the new dawn. The diaspora understanding of Africa, skills, cultural know-how, personal interest, and enthusiasm uniquely position them to help facilitate and promote Africa for the new dawn. They are dedicated and have the best interest of Africa in mind, and they understand the significances of the positive image of Africa on the world stage.
Their expertise and understanding of these countries’ perceptions of Africa will clear the paths to strategize a comprehensive redefining and repackaging for Africa. Beyond all else, they understand these perceptions, can anticipate, overcome culture, tradition, life, and business style, that can help elevate the image of Africa for the new dawn.
Although many African countries have begun opting for selective eastern and western styles for tackling political, economic, and social problems, lifestyle changes have created vast African market opportunities for anyone with quality products and services. Yet, African countries refused to use these ambassadors as tools to answer these pressing progenies.
New strategies must constantly be formulated, implemented to meet the needs and demands of tomorrow’s marketplace.
However, before Africa can successfully implement the repackaging strategy, and sell herself to the world, she must undo the effects of colonialism and eliminate the residue of the colonial brainwash. Hence, Africa must first make the necessary conscious internal efforts to change and sanitize her home, while simultaneously eradicating the ruminates of colonialism, when implementing the new media strategies.
Furthermore, James Baldwin made a passing reference, not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced. Africa is facing new dawn in world history, and must not miss the golden opportunity to change and make her mark for the 21st century.
It is better to follow even the shadow of the best than to remain content with the worst.
Here are some recommendations for the media strategy that requires some internal changes, which will help facilitate and affect the new image campaign. These suggested recommendations are not limited to only these ten: Beauty & Hair Care, Diaspora Relocation Assistance,Education,Governance,Health & Medicine,Judicial,Languages, Names,Religion and Technology — Internet Accessibility.
Beauty & Hair Care
The African woman is the epitome of beauty, God’s best creation. However, African women need to redefine their concept of beauty in the context of Africa and self-esteem, and not from the Eurocentric perspectives. Huberta Jackson-Lowman posits that perhaps the most insidious effect of white supremacy racism has been its impact on how people of color view their physical appearance.
As a psychoanalyst, and in his book Black Skins White Masks to analyze the psychology of colonialism, Fantz Fanon examines how the colonizer internalizes colonialism and its attendant ideologies, and how colonized peoples, in turn, internalize the idea of their own inferiority and ultimately come to emulate their oppressors. Thus, racism functions as a controlling mechanism that maintains colonial relations as ‘natural’ occurrences.
After centuries of being brainwashed to believe the fairer-skinned are superior and should, therefore, be more favored, particularly if their facial features mimic Eurocentric ideals of beauty, has had a rippling effect — Fumi Fetto.
Most of the hair care products purchase and used in Africa are imported from countries such as India and China. According to Statista.com, the Asia Pacific region has the largest market for hair care in the world. And the global haircare market value amounted to about $85.5B in 2017 and is expected to grow to $102B by 2024.
Catherine Saint Louis noted that throughout the Caribbean, Africa, and in the United States, the devastating effects of skin bleaching, can be seen in the faces of women whose skin though lighter, exhibits thinning, and who are requiring dermatological treatment to deal with the destructive health effects of skin bleaching.
Diaspora Relocation Assistance Program
When reasonable basic infrastructures are in place, many Africans in the diaspora will be incentivized to come back home — Africa, which will undoubtedly lead to knowledge and technology transfer. The proposed five-year special relocation incentives or program should include but not limited to the followings:
Housing and personal effects
Education
Health
Special Business Funding
Tax Breaks (Business & Personal)
SMB/SBA New Business Support Programs
Other additional appealing incentives (country specifics)
Imagine how many Africans in the diaspora that would return with their entrepreneurial spirits, talents, know-how, to stimulate and rejuvenate the economies of the continent, coupled with the rich African cultures and people. These are the future architects of Africa’s developments, their diversities of knowledge from around the world, to be harnessed in Africa, imagine the possibilities? The improved infrastructure will also help reduce the brain drain from Africa.
Colonial Germany set a historical partner of racism and discrimination against dark-skinned people in Africa and the African diaspora, that some feel continues, unfortunately, down to this very day — Firpo W. Carr Ph.D.
Education
Education without interrogation and intelligence is an immense progeny in Africa. For example, roughly 4% to 6% of Nigerians in the US have PhDs/Doctorate degrees, higher than any groups, and South Africa leads the continent with the highest PhDs/Doctorates. Despite all these academicians, Africa has not seen any reason to reverse the colonial imposed academic systems that failed Africa.
Why should our literacy competencies be based on foreign languages? How many countries in Europe use other languages for their literacy standards, no matter how small the country? The West Africa Examination Council (WAEC), should be abolished, it has outlived its usefulness. Each country in that council should set its own standard high school examination, independent of other countries.
History of Africa should be taught from elementary to the university level, particularly the effects of slavery, colonialism, and corruption. Courses on corruption and its effects on the continent should be offered and emphasized from kindergarten to university levels. Why study the geography of North America, and not study the geography of North Africa in our school system? Unfortunately, and likewise, most Africans are not taught the history of their country or Africa. Instead, they study and glorify the history of Europe, while neglecting their history.
More degrees should be offered for African history and languages, instead of degrees in English, French, and other worthless languages without added impact or significance to the development of Africa. Practical vocational and technical institutions should be developed, rather than theoretical academics. Africa should be proud of her diversity of languages, and they can be harness for open source software and apps developments that will facilitate technology development within the continent.
Governance
Plato warned that the punishment suffered by the wise who refuse to take part in the government, is to live under the government of bad men. All political power is inherent in the people, and accountability is the core of any democratic system, which is based on elected officials working on behalf of the people — their constituents. Africans deserve better. Africa has enormous natural resources, and human capital unparalleled to other continents. Foreign forms of governance are not conducive for Africa, they do not put our cultural settings and values into consideration, likewise they are not sustainable. How can small countries like Malawi, The Gambia, Eritrea, Togo, Kingdom of Lethoso, Swaziland and Benin support a democratic or parliamentarian system of governance?
What Africa needs are officials, both elected and appointed, who are dedicated and accountable to the citizens they are required to serve by law. According to Peter Obi, a former governor in Nigeria stated: what the society allowed them (politicians) to abuse today will take revenge on us tomorrow. Accountability has the potential to transform government and put political power back in the hands of masses — not politicians. Thus, wise men who refuse to do anything, suffer under the rules of idiots. If all Africans determine to hold their public officials accountable, Africa will be a prosperous, peaceful, and harmonious continent.
It is time for change in governance in Africa, hold elected officials accountable to transform government, and put power back in the hands of people.
Health and Medicine
Africa should have eradicated malaria, sickle cell, and tuberculosis from the continent by now, instead of waiting to the east or west. According to the World Malaria Report 2019,sub-Saharan Africa accounted for approximately 93% of all malaria cases and 94% of deaths in 2018. More than two-thirds of deaths were among children under the age of five. The World Health Organisation (WHO) warned that the number of deaths caused by malaria in sub-Saharan Africa could double to 769,000 in 2020.
Africa must understand that the east or west is mainly interested in diseases that affect their race and continent. Africa should question their medical interventions or interests in Africa, because of their history for medical abuse and neglect. We cannot forget the famous syphilis research experimentation on African Americans and in Guatemala; because their goals are for their safety and profits.
Africa must develop her pharmaceutical R&D and manufacturing facilities for security reasons and stop depending on the west or east for medicines. Instead, Africa should also encourage and harmonized standards for herbal medicines within the countries and across the continent. We have all the natural cures and remedies to cure Africa and beyond.
Judicial
The imposed judicial system is not conducive to the African cultural systems. The old fashion judicial wigs and gowns have out grown their usefulness. It is time for change and the change is now. Our judicial gowns or representations should reflect Africa and not the colonial intervention. The whole judicial systems should be reformed to reflect Africa, not Spain, England, America, or France. However, we can harness the best parts and incorporated them with our cultural settings. Africa needs a reformed judicial system to reflect 21st century Africa.
Languages
Research and studies indicated that the mother tongue (thinking language) is the best instructional language, an enabler that facilitates better learning, understanding, and transfer of knowledge. Colonial languages should be phased out and no longer used as the standard to measure literacy in Africa. Africa should be proud of her diversity of languages.
Africa should use major languages of their country as the instructional language; however, they should also teach other major languages alongside the instructional language of the locality. The colonial languages should be an elective, if at all offered. This will finally lead to developing a new lingua franca for the country, just like Sawhili is used in eastern and southern Africa.
Language is not inherent in humans; it is a learned process. We can develop a new lingua franca for Africa to facilitate commerce, development, and harmony.
Names
Places such as Victoria Falls, which the people call Mosi-oa-Tunya, the smoke that thunders on the Zambezi River at the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe, and likewise Victoria Island in Lagos, Nigeria. When and how did Victoria own lakes and islands in Africa? They ought to be reverted to their original African names.
Are there any islands or falls in the colonial countries named or called by African names? Africa needs redirection of her thinking, mindset, and should free herself from the destructive colonial mentality.
Africa ought and must erase all the colonial indoctrination from her psyche to forge a new beginning for the 21st century. Africa should think and must think like leaders rather than have the enclosure of the mindset, names like Nollywood should be changed as well. Nigerian movies industry should be a leader and not a follower of Hollywood. Every European country name their movies industry their own creation, yet for Nigeria movie industry to be relevant, it has to associated or align with Hollywood by naming her movie industry “Nolly-wood”. What a disgrace? Leaders always behave like leaders; Africa should develop the leadership mentality or mindset in all its endeavors for the new dawn.
Religion
If foreign religions are the answers to Africa’s colonialization challenges, then what are the questions? How are foreign religious salvations relevant to the answers to the questions of colonialism, social issues, instabilities, economic and political failures in Africa?
We are children of superior religions and Gods. Thus, Africa should develop their indigenous religions, package it, and sell it to the world like other religions. We should export our superior Gods to the world, instead of worshipping imported religions or gods. Why settle for foreign gods in our land?
If these foreign religions offered a better place other than this earth as they claimed, how come the so-called religious leaders have not gone there to get a better life? This absolute brainwash of the foreign religions, the opium of the poor, failed Africa.
Every group of people should worship the Gods of their imaginations and representations. After all, God is an exaggeration worship of the cultural self. The Bible or Torah and the Quran is a collection of religiously authoritative texts or books, a documentary hypothesis. After all, every religion is about morality and ethics, an elaborate system of worship and levels of discipline which imposed dos and don’ts on the activities of humanity concerning nature. Religions are different roads converging upon the same point. What does it matter that we take different roads so long we reach the same point — The words of Gandhi. Africa has superior religions and Gods, worship your Gods, and be content.
Technology — Internet Accessibility
Internet accessibility and affordability should be a human right in Africa. Internet technology is a game changer and should be deplored in all aspects of life on the continent. The 21st century is a knowledge-based society or economy and is no longer limited to any geographical area. However, affordability and accessibility are the keys to develop and harness the full potential of the technologies.
Internet cost is far too expensive in Africa, Nigeria has the highest cost for accessibility in the world. The high cost limits people’s ability to harness the power of internet technology possibilities. Make Internet more accessible, affordable and open to accelerate development, says New World Bank Report. Why outsource our technological needs to India, if the cost of housing the technology is made affordable and reliable? Imagine the number of jobs it will create on the continent? Affordable high-speed connectivity facilitates and accelerates business development, innovation, expansion, e-commerce, it creates wealth and new opportunities by attracting businesses that want to relocate to areas with a strong and connectivity presence.
The future is creativity, innovation, and technology. Why has Africa not developed her social media apps or platform to rival Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or Tiktok? Africa should innovate, develop, support, and buy technologies made in Africa.
The ultimate goal of the redefining strategy is to create, own, and operate a continental (African) media house. We recommend all African countries to contribute a minimum of half a billion dollars towards the creation of the continental media house that will rival CNN, RT, France24, and Al Jazeera.
The personnel should include Africans, African Americans, and Afro Brazilians media gurus, with the HQ located in any African country, and housed in the US and Brazil, with branches all over the world. We also advocate a name from any African linguistics, meaning Truth or Telling Our Stories. This media house will tell the world our stories and to correct any negativities about Africa.
Linguistic diversities define Africa as one of the most linguistically diverse continents. It has roughly estimated 2,000 different spoken languages, divided into four major categories which include: Afroasiatic, Nilo-Saharan, Niger-Congo, and Khoe. I am very confident that we can formulate or create a name from those 2,000 languages for the media house. Hence, we do not need any foreign names for the media house.
We are gods in the body of God, truth and love our destinies. Go then and make of the world something beautiful, set up a light in the darkness — Awakening Osiris; The Egyptian Book of the Dead, Normandi Ellis.
In conclusion, will Africa ever rise again? Yes, there has to be a re-thinking and re-birth, only when she becomes Africa all over again, The New Africa of the 21st century. Thus, the world is changing; Africa must change her thinking, and think anew, act anew.
“Education without interrogation, teacher don’t teach me nonsense”
Submitted by Dr. Bamidele Adeoye
The arrow of time is always delving deeper in us, constantly forcing us forward, and in any story, time only flows when the story is told. The arm of time is always ticking to the beat of change, and change is as constant as time. We should move along with time, and not be swept along by the tide of time.
Progress is the attraction that moves humanity — Marcus Garvey
The essence of education in all societies is to prepare individuals to be useful and effective participants in their society. It prepares youths to be active and productive members of their societies by instilling them with the necessary skills and talents from an early age.
Koma Kenneth stated that education is everything that prepares the young people for either integration in a given specific society to perpetuate the established values and norms of such society or transform and changing such values and norms.
While Mwalimu Julius Kambarage Nyerere defined education as the transmission of accumulated wisdom and knowledge of the society from one generation to the next and also to prepare the young people for their future membership in the society in which they find themselves.
Thus, the African educational system, “it takes a village to raise a child” concept, the education, knowledge, skills, and attitudes were passed from generation to generation mostly orally, and training was done by example in most African societies. In essence, the training was done directly, formally, indirectly, or informally by the family members, kinships, village groups, and the community at large participated in the educational and socialization process of the child.
Therefore, the African concept of it takes a village to raise a child-focused on producing a well-grounded, skillful, accommodating, and civil adult capable and able to contribute to the development of the community at large. As a result, the concept of education was never a colonial invention in Africa. Rather, training systems existed in Africa long before the intrusion of the rogue colonizers.Magnus Bassey posited that the African training was very practical, those who took to fishing were taught navigational techniques like seafaring, the effects of certain stars on tide and ebb, and migrational patterns and behavior of fish. Likewise, those who took to farming had similar training. Those who learned trades and crafts, such as blacksmithing, weaving, woodwork, and bronze work, needed a high degree of specialization and were often apprenticed outside their homes for training and discipline. On the other hand, those who took to the profession of the traditional priesthood, village heads, kings, medicine men and women diviners, rainmakers, and rulers underwent a long period of painstaking training and rituals to prepare them for the vital job they were to perform.
And no matter how old we are, we are a product of the community that raised, trained, supported, and helped shape the way we see the world from childhood. For that reason, western education has limited values compared to being educated in the “it takes a village to raise a child” concept and the values inherited from them. That is why the concept it takes a village to raise a child is very crucial in African societies.
The African system of education emphasized practicality, social solidarity, equal opportunity for all, homogeneity with culture, and religion focused, which were later destroyed by the introduction of western theoretical education that impedes Africa’s development.
“If you can control a man’s thinking you do not have to worry about his action. When you determine what a man shall think you do not have to concern yourself about what he will do. If you make a man feel that he is inferior, you do not have to compel him to accept an inferior status, for he will seek it himself. If you make a man think that he is justly an outcast, you do not have to order him to the back door. He will go without being told; and if there is no back door, his very nature will demand one” ― Carter Godwin Woodson.
The later introduction of western education excluded; African languages, history, cultures, religions and lifestyles in their curriculums. And practicing African cultural lifestyles or languages were discouraged or punished in those institutions.
Early churches discriminated against and discouraged the use of African names for baptism, forcing Africans to take biblical names for baptism, indirectly vied that African names were not Godly enough for Christian Salvation. White missionaries consistently preferred biblical names, and that they (Africans) stopped using an individual’s given or non-Christian name after their baptism — Katharine Gerbner. Likewise, traditional beliefs of naming ceremonies were frowned upon.
Unfortunately, decades later, Africans now mimic these behaviors in their institutions and at homes. That is why it is not surprising that the younger generations of Africans can hardly speak in their mother tongues.
Regrettably, and so far, 52 languages (Wilkipedia, 2020 & UNESCO) are extinct in Africa. Foreign instructional languages and religions introduced by the colonizers (western educational subjugation and negative attitude towards own languages) were the leading contributing factors to these losses. Therefore, the extinction of any language is not the loss of spoken words. Instead, it is the loss of self-identity, cultural, historical, linguistical, and psychological.
Baffoe, Issah and Amoah, Anthony Kwaku noted that Ghana had made concerted efforts to prioritize the use of indigenous languages in education. On the other hand, Mako Muzenda posited that South Africa’s proposal to teach students Mandarin has not been well received. Instead, there was a call for more focus on indigenous languages, which have been neglected by the education system. Despondently, Zimbabwean primary and secondary schools planned on introducing more foreign languages: Mandarin, French, and Portuguese into the education syllabus, instead of indigenous languages. Liseli A. Fitzpatrick put forward that language is the main conduit that transports cultural expression and marks one’s identity.
Thus, the further introduction of more foreign languages instead of indigenous languages in the school systems must be challenged and frowned upon, it will undoubtedly further exacerbate the extinction of more languages, if not checked. If this trend continues, Africa will deliberately seek more foreign gods to worship due to its “enclosure of the mind” syndrome. It should be noted, that the introduction of more foreign languages to the school systems is not limited to these few countries mentioned above.
That is why, if the elders leave you a legacy of dignified language, you do not abandon it and speak childish language — Ghanaian Proverb. In short, western education is culturally biased that it makes Africans consider their cultures and languages along with their history with a disdainful and shameful attitude.
Dr. John Henrik Clarke acknowledges that to control a people, you must first control what they think about themselves, and how they regard their history and culture. And when your conqueror makes you ashamed of your culture and your history, he needs no prison walls and no chains to hold you.
According to Vanqa Tembe, basically training was intended to enable an individual to play a useful role in society. Education was seen as a vehicle through which western cultures can be fostered or promoted in the African continent by its colonizers. Western education was meant to reinforce the colonial conditions by inculcating the values of colonial society and training individuals for the service of the colonial state.
The colonizer’s unfamiliarity with the diversities of Africa’s culture, training, and religion, they viewed any practices different from theirs as inferior, barbaric, and degraded these practices as witchcraft, devil-worshiping, and heathenism. As a consequence of their close-mindedness and superiority complex, they sought to convert and then exploit Africa.
Bartolomé de las Casas was part of the early conquistador of the Indies. Later, became reformed and a strong advocate to stop the Christian dehumanization and violence against the Inca Indians. Bartolomé de las Casas enumerated the account of the colonial destruction of the (Inca) Indians in his most influential writings the Brief Report on the Destruction of the Indies (1542). The conquistadors’ excesses reflected the reasons why the Christians killed and destroyed such an infinite number of souls (Inca Indians) because of their greed for gold and their desire to enrich themselves within a short time. Bartolomé de las Casas emphatically vied that Christ did not come into the world to die for gold.
That is why dehumanization and colonial violence in Africa intertwined with Christian intrusion.
As a result, the word “colonization of Africa” is a conjuring word for masking the disorganization, and dehumanization of Africa. And it should be called by the rightful and detrimental word association, Dehumanization of Africa, instead of colonization of Africa.
Research and studies indicated that the mother tongue (thinking language) is the best instructional language, an enabler that facilitates better learning, understanding, and transfer of knowledge. Despite these indicators, the colonizers discouraged these enablers and facilitated the self-destroying behaviors.
The colonizers intentional mis-education had a devastating effect of the psyche of Africa, particularly the confusion of six foreign instructional languages, excluding Arabic; English (20 countries), French (20 countries), Portuguese (4 countries), German (3 countries), Spanish (2 countries), and Italian (3 countries). Useless instructional languages on the continent that excluded Africa’s heritage.
However, a subtle indirect emphasis was placed on religion to manage the conscience of Africa, to be forever subservient to the colonizers’ interests on the continent. And Africa, sheepishly took the bait with the hope of heavenly salvation, when the colonizers did not believe in their own god.
With reference to Dr. John Henrik Clarke’s famous quote on religion, “anytime someone says your God is ugly and you release your God and join their god, there is no hope for your freedom until you once more believe in your own concept of God”. Thus, when others impose the image of their deity upon you while you abandon your Gods and accept theirs, you inevitably become their spiritual prisoners.
The introduction of western education was to reshape Africa for government control, religious mission, and economy in favor of the colonizers. Therefore, making it possible for the newly educated African elites that would later become leaders of the church, commerce, industry, and politics, their future masked indirect instruments of change. According to Bishop Jordan, J. P. Shanahan the head of the Holy Ghost Fathers in Eastern Nigeria in the early twentieth century, acknowledged that those who hold the school hold the country, holds religion, hold its future.
Thus, western education and religion were subtle key elements in masking class and race superiority, used to manipulate, dominate, and oppress Africans.
Western education was also designed to instill foreign cultural values, and Africans were craftily manipulated to abandon their own cultures, history, education, languages and traditions. And unfortunately, Africans did not understand that the colonizers did not only colonized people, but they also colonized the interpretation of history itself and was rewritten to favor them at the expense of other people.
Yet, culture is the product of human creativity, imaginative contrivance, the overall concept of self, life, and God, which is uniquely and endemically localized, one’s enthrallment. That is why there is no right or wrong culture, superior nor inferior culture, and every culture has a logic of philosophy guiding it. Consequently, the question is to understand the behavior of the people in that particular cultural space or localities and settings.
What makes one God superior to the other, if the concept of God is an exaggerated worship of the cultural self? According to the Cambodian proverb; “Do not take the straight path or the winding path. Take the path your ancestors have taken”.
That is why African culture, in every facet, is not an accident or inconsequential, nor decorative, or the songs as the west contended. Instead, African culture is about the body of moral and ethical values placed on each member within that cultural space. Cultural values do not limit the intelligence and know-how of the people. However, it is the collective strength of the people within that particular cultural space.
Likewise, Africans cherished the inviolability of their culture because the most fundamental aspect of human identity is their culture, a foundational part of the conscious self. Hence, Africans considered their culture a powerful concept of self-identity and self-esteem which should be respected.
Unfortunately, western education and religion infringed on Africanness, with a subtle but destructive scheme, to replace them with western lifestyles and values, which in essence, very detrimental to Africa’s existence.
Culture cannot occur without education, which is the transmission of values and accumulated wisdom of a society, while education is impossible without some form of societal culture.
The learning strategies, training, and teaching methods African societies engaged for a very long time were discarded and weakened at the expense of western education.
Furthermore, Apollos Nwauwa argued that, while missionaries used education as an instrument for effective conversion of Africans to Christianity, colonial governments saw education as a means of socially and politically controlling the subjects. In turn, education and religion confused and corrupted the African psyche, as expressed by Chinua Achebe series of books; Things Fall Apart (1958), No Longer at Ease (1960), and The Arrow of God (1964).
That is the state of hopeless disorientation caused by religion and the imposed colonial education. From an African proverb perspective, one who causes others’ misfortune also teaches them wisdom. However, the colonizers left the back door unlocked, with a tool to confront them. The wisdom from the Zambian proverb states that the worlds of the elders do not lock all the doors; they leave the right door open.
Africa’s western education was a catalyst and a perceived contradiction; while empowering in one hand, it became alienating and corrupt on the other. The unintended consequences of western education are the consciousness of knowledge, coupled with access to a vast amount of data (information), unparalleled in the history of mankind. The academic consciousness and knowledge are the tools to challenge the colonizer’s manipulations.
The pandora box was opened with renewed awakening and consciousness, as predicted by Pixley Ka Isaka Seme’s speech, The Regeneration of Africa on April 5, 1906.
Fantz Fanon avers in Black Skin, White Masks that colonizer internalizes colonialism and its attendant ideologies, and how the colonized internalize the idea of their own inferiority, ultimately emulate and speaking the language of the colonizer at the expense of their language, is to appropriate its world and culture. Since language is the carrier and instrument of culture. Thus, racism functions as a controlling mechanism that maintains colonial relations as ‘natural’ occurrences.
Instead, western education, theoretical (memorization without thinking) academics without interrogation or practical, provided the workforce for the continuation and exploitation of Africa’s resources with the help of the pseudo educated Africans. The German educational policy was designed to train Africans as laborers to ensure the regular supply of workers for the colonial system.
Walter Rodney posited that colonial education in Africa was an education for subordination, exploitation, the creation of mental confusion, and the development of underdevelopment; killing the communalist spirit in Africans and replacing it with a capitalistic one, corrupting the mental sensibilities of Africans by providing selective training to fill auxiliary positions in the colonial service, emphasizing vocational rather than a well-rounded education, disregarding the peoples’ cultures in the educational curriculum and fostered the underdevelopment of Africa’s intellectual resources.
For example, Nigeria is a society obsessed with titles, where they are addressed by various titles, such as their college degrees; architect, engineer, nurse, teacher, accountant, chartered accountant, surveyor, barrister, SAN, advocate, Pharm, along with other worthless and useless titles; Sir, Dame, Chief, Pastor, Alhaji, Alhaja, Elder, Imam, Prophet, Mallam, Prophetess, Igwe, Chief Dr. Sir, High Chief Alhaji, Double Chief Sir, Man of God, Merit, MD (not medical), PA, CSO, Chairman, etc., that does not enhance or advance the development of the country. Deplorably, they call their rouge politician(s), excellency(ies). Regrettably and unfortunately, Nigerians are exporting these useless attitudes to pollute other African countries, and hopefully, they will not succumb to these negative behaviors that have no relevance to the development of the continent.
Yet, most of these degrees are not advanced degrees, what a paradox, while Nigeria remains the poverty capital of the world and the number three most terrorized country (Global Terrorism Index 2020). As noted by the Justice and Empowering Initiatives director, Chapman Megan, 1.74% (10.6M) of the 610 million children in the world that cannot read and do basic mathematics are in Nigeria.
A country that imports foreign companies to help develop their infrastructures despite these fanciful degrees and titles. What is the essence or benefits of these fanciful theoretical degrees that do not advance the development of the country? In consequence, these fancy theoretical degrees require foreign partnerships to validate their competencies before they can embark on any major infrastructural developments.
How many foreign countries partner with African companies to develop their country’s infrastructures? On the other hand, Africa is constantly seeking foreign companies to help develop its infrastructures, yet, Africa has thousands of college graduates with so-called technical expertise in those areas for development.
These questions should be subject to investigation; why these so-called graduates are unable to develop their infrastructures independent of foreign companies?
That is why Ali Mazrui hypothesized that Africa produces what she does not consumes and consumes and what she does not produce.
If Africa husbands her resources, she should have changed the trajectory of her western educational systems, and likewise, she does not need loans from any foreign countries or foreign partnerships to develop the continent. Consequently, Africa should start questioning or investigate these fancy theoretical degrees and how it relates to the development of Africa? Or are the answers about corruption and lack of trust in their academic institutions’ proficiencies?
Africa can do better and must do their best. However, if Africa does not change the course of her western education and religion, Africa will jeopardize its Africanness, thus Africa must protect and preserve its culture, and religion. Otherwise, Africa ways of life and the overall essence of what makes Africa intrinsically unique are at the verge of permanent destruction, if she continues on the path of western education without reforms.
And Africa should have listened and taken heed to the preaching and echoes of John Langalibalele Dube’s gospel of self-help and inner change.
Therefore, Africa is a continent where banks destroyed the economy, doctors destroyed health, the government destroyed freedom, judges destroyed justice, politicians destroyed accountability, the press destroyed information, religion destroyed morals and ethics, teachers destroyed education, and university destroyed knowledge.
The politicians are corrupt at will and deluded by their precipitous audacity of impunity, while they are impervious to the misery of the masses.
Why is this education system still acknowledged in Africa? Is Africa proud of this inherited academic system for Africa’s development? And who are the beneficiaries of this current academic system, Africans or colonizers? Why are Africans not enraged and repugnant against the systems (academic and religion) that failed Africa?
These and many other fundamentally intensely critical questions should be asked and investigated after roughly sixty years of the so-called independence in Africa. Therefore, Africa should question the concept of independence, independence from whom, and what? Were Africans not independent before the intrusion of those rogue colonizers?
Freedom is what we do with what is done to us, and man is nothing else but what he purposes, he exists only in so far as he realizes himself, he is, therefore, nothing else but the sum of his actions, nothing else but what his life is ― Jean-Paul Sartre.
Unfortunately for the colonizers, the African race is like an Indian rubber; the harder you dash it to the ground, the higher it will rise — African Proverb.
Conclusively; western education in Africa was designed to indoctrinate and reinforce colonizer’s values and lifestyles while the foci were to prepare Africans for the service of the colonial state. On the other hand, the African system of education emphasized practicality, social solidarity, equal opportunity for all, homogeneity with culture, and religious focus. The damage by the colonial intervention and indoctrination in Africa is so entrenched that the status quo of the colonial interests is still perpetuated indirectly by Africa’s pseudo elites.
Africans have been in denial that western religion and education did not have calamitous effects on the psyche of Africans. Conversely, this western academic system and religion should be challenged and questioned for its practicality and the sustainability of Africa’s development for the 21st century.
Finally, the task for Africa is to collaborate with the academic and indigenous religious communities to research, document, and compile her religiously authoritative texts in a refined form — books, just like other religious books.
Likewise, the academic system should be redefined and reformed, to transform the learning experience that will incorporate a holistic perspective of Africa in terms of culture, history, language, religion, cultural space, and the people into consideration.
Then, Africa will wake up with a renewed consciousness, a long-overdue rebirth in cultures, education, history, languages, and the religions of Africa.
Africa, the motherland of humanity, a gift to the world that keeps giving, and it should be respected honorably by the comity of nations, no matter her state of affairs.
The greatest tragedy of all African states is the introduction of foreign gods and languages, cemented by tribes, decimated by education without interrogation or intelligence.
Welcome to Africa, the new Africans, our world, our opportunities.
Before the advent of foreign intrusion into Africa, African societies have their concept of Supreme Being or High God, which is generally held to be the creator of the world (Lord of the universe) and the source of all powers operating it. African Gods are usually associated with particular cultures and tribes with an elaborate system of worship, ethics, morals, and levels of discipline which imposed dos and don’ts on the activities of humanity concerning nature.
Africans worshipped our Gods in harmony with our neighbours. There were no levels of superiority or rivalry between our Gods. Africans respected each other’s Gods despite their tribes, cultural spaces, and intellectual differences. Africa was a borderless state, yet a big family of people with no defined boundaries and many Gods.
In the past, Africans were capable of learning to attribute meanings to her surroundings and situations, drawn from her religious resources (our original Gods). Africa’s spirituality forms the fundamental pillars of all aspects of African societies.
The spirit of Godliness is within us, and we are the temple of God. Hence, no one can give Africa their Gods, because the essence of God is in all of us ⎯ humans. And, according to a Ghana proverb, no one teaches the child to know God, and the consciousness of God is deemed inherent in the child from birth. Thus, Africa did not need foreign religions or gods to be spiritual or Godly. Africa was the quintessence of Godliness and the glory of all Gods manifested in Africa.
However, the arrival of foreign incursion changed everything, and it disrupted our Gods, cultures, languages, and cultural spaces. Although there is no right or wrong culture, every culture has its logic of philosophy guiding it. Africans operated in other dimensions of realities that have parallelism to our cosmologies and mythologies that continued to dictate behaviors in our societies.
African culture is not an accident or trivial, it is not decorative, or the songs they sing as the west contended but culture is about the body of moral and ethical values place on each human being lies in each of us.
Thus, cultural diversity is not an academic pursuit, it is the fundamental indications of the ways things are meant to be. Hence, our culture guided us in harmony with our neighbours concerning our religions and languages with man-for-nature or eco-centric acclimatization mentality.
Africans were later cursed, brainwashed and indoctrinated with foreign religions to believe that they were people of inferior Gods and languages. And the only gods and languages Africans should value and respect were theirs. Thus, Africans guiltily resented her Gods and languages along with their meaningful names; it became shameful and tormented. Africa’s identities were compressed, polluted, and converted, and it became fashionable to acquire the colonial master’s attitudes and ways of life, particularly their gods.
And anytime someone says your God is ugly and you release your God and join their god, there is no hope for your freedom until you once more believe in your own concept of the God — Dr. John Henrik Clarke.
On behold to the Africans that they signed their death warrant to foreign inferior gods at the detriment of our superior Gods. African Gods were devalued, relegated to the bottom while they introduced their gods in their image, and elevated their gods above ours, what a tragedy of faith.
You may westernize me, but my God, do not Christianize me — Jerry Rawlings, former president of Ghana.
Foreign religions were used to dominate, manipulate, and oppress Africans. They were the subtle key elements in masking class and race superiority. This foreign religion manipulation was vividly evident in the use of the Slave Bible to push a message of servitude to enslaved Africans.
British colonists created the Slave Bible, a truncated version of the bible, by removing portions, and in some cases, entire books out from it for the fear that it would encourage insurgence among enslaved Africans. On average, a typical standard Bible edition (Roman Catholic-66 books, Protestant-77 books & Eastern Orthodox-78 books), contains roughly 72.3 books while the Slave Bible contains only 14 books, an approximately 81% reduction. The Slave Bible was published in London in 1807 and used by British missionaries to convert and manipulate enslaved Africans about Christianity while inculcating obedience and safeguarding the slavery institutions throughout their colonies.
The Slave Bible is the openly recorded history of abuse and manipulation of religion in the modern era. It provides insight into how the Slave Bible performed a vital role in race relations (racism), discrimination, and economic gains. Unfortunately, Africans are so embedded in these foreign religions that they failed to understand their discriminatory, chauvinistic, and detrimental nature. Thus, Africans refused to develop, refine, make our Gods palatable, and sell it to the world like other religions.
Today in Africa, particularly in Nigeria, they are doomed to the forces of foreign gods; Christians against Muslims, fighting over religious hypothesis, an abstraction of ideas. Currently, in Nigeria, ninety-nine percent worship foreign gods, only one percent worship their original Gods. Nigeria is not the only country in Africa susceptible or prone to this religious calamity and malady.
Africans are prisoners of sorrows and lamentations. They have relegated what they should do to God when God is an exaggerated worship of the cultural self. God is as the wind, which touches everything. Africans failed to conquer, master, and nurture their natural environments. Instead, they solely rely on divine intervention in their survival.
The Bible and the Quran is a collection of religiously authoritative texts or books, a documentary hypothesis. A hypothesis is an assumption or concession for an unexplained occurrence that does not fit into current accepted scientific theory. In other words, the hypothesis implies insufficient evidence to provide more than a tentative explanation.
Religion has no place in any business equation. In Africa today, research and development along with common sense have been relegated to divine intervention. Africans must understand that religion is about morality and ethics, while science is about the natural order of things or nature.
Hence, religion and science are mutually exclusive. Likewise, wishes and hopes are not business strategies, while denial is not a life strategy. Religions can hardly fit into the generalized theoretical categories employed by social scientists, a contestable character of religions.
Africans are slaves to their colonial masters who govern them, and the religions they gave them, manages their conscience. Hence, Africans will continue to be under the control of their colonial master’s bondage.
The danger to the development of Africa is in the hands of the so-called educated Africans, education without interrogation. They are the architects of Africa’s failures due to their religious zealousness. Even though we are defined by courage and redeemed by character rather than religion, Africans tend to be more religious than the foreigners that introduced these doctrines to them. They have no common sense approach to religion and development.
Africa is the only continent where we do not value and worship our Gods. Research and studies indicated that the mother tongue (thinking language) is the best instructional language, an enabler that facilitates better learning, understanding, and transfer of knowledge. Africa is the single continent where we use foreign languages as lingua franca, both in our institutions of learning and business.
Yet, Africans cherished the inviolability of language, because the most fundamental aspect of human identity is their language and name, a foundational part of the conscious self. Hence, Africans considered our names with meanings as a powerful concept of self-identity, and self-esteem which should be honoured.
The energies and creativities Africans infused to foster foreign religions, and languages, if channelled to develop African Gods and languages, it will catapult Africa to the pinnacle of developments. And, Africans will be respected around the world. This creative tenaciousness will also lead to further developments within the continent, particularly in Nigeria.
According to Nigeria, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Ghana, Benin, and Togo proverb, until the lion tells the story of the hunt, the tales always glorify the hunter.
Until Africans develop and make their Gods palatable, think, and teach in their mother tongues, speak in one voice, break the border barriers both mentally and physically, Africans will never have peace or harmony, not anytime soon.
In Africa, what is logical is not practical, while what is practical is not right. Whichever is right, is not ethical, and ethical things are not desired. And the desire is not logical. Africans like innovative things, without been innovating, and things that require efforts without putting in any efforts. Unfortunately, Africans have become feeble-minded and lazy thinkers. That is the state of Africans and Africa affairs.
Why are African leaders consumed with power, prestige, pomposity, popularity, and property?
Africans have the “enclosure of the mind” syndrome, in other words, inferiority complex. Africa always embraces detrimental foreign solutions to Africa’s problems, instead of the solutions for Africa by the Africans and for the Africans.
Africa must ostracize the ghost of low self-esteem from their consciousness, return to their original Gods, use their languages for learning, and lingua franca. Until when that sanitization takes place, Africa is going nowhere anytime soon in their developments.
Leadership is the center of the effective utilization of resources. The true essence of leadership is personal conquest, discovery, and self-esteem. And the first duty of any leader is to create more effective leaders, and a true leader is successful when their successor succeeds.
Are African leaders creating more effective leaders?
Leadership is about serving, sacrificing, and seeking the best for their people. African leaders or people in leadership positions should show selfless leadership by example. If not, the world will once again leave Africa behind in the process of development. Hence, Africa needs selfless leaders, soldiers of truth, and promise keepers.
How many African leaders are about the service of their people, or are African politicians truthful about their governance intent?
While the sleeping giant of Africa is busy sleeping, other countries are busy working on developing their economies. Instead, they are religiously praying for the foreign gods to rescue them from greediness, selfishness, and ignorance. A country where the primary mission of their politicians is to amass wealth and undeviatingly abuse their position of power with impunity, and where greed runs in the veins of its citizens, instead of rectifying their situation, they are busy praying for salvation.
As an alternative to building factories and businesses, Nigerians are busy building churches and mosques, instead of paying taxes, they are religiously paying tithes. Their pastors are getting fatter while the congregation is getting leaner by religious manipulation and deceit.
A religion where your salvation is directly proportional to the number and amounts of your tithes, along with other contributions. A religion where salvation is on sale. What a religion!
Rather than take a diligent, constructive, creative, practical, and empirical approach to rectify their appalling situations, Nigerians rely on the efficacy of prayers, fasting, and are religiously waiting for their foreign gods to change their horrendous circumstances while languishing in sorrows.
The devastating influence of foreign religions on the African’s psyche in individual conscience and social life reveals that 85% of Nigerians trust religious leaders, and a similar percentage are willing to allocate them more power. Yet these religious leaders are greedy, selfish, materialistic, ignorant, and manipulating as the politicians.
The greediness of Africans would not allow them to consider the next person, yet they expect God’s blessings. Africa has greedy, selfish, and ignorant people, which elucidates greedy, selfish, materialistic, and ignorant leaders. Where the rich, are deluded by their precipitous audacity of impunity, and oblivious to the misery of the masses.
Are Africans not the leaders they want their leaders to be?
Yet, they keep praying for change. Insanity is doing the same thing over and over while expecting a different outcome, that is not the law of nature, and there is no divine intervention that will change that outcome.
Africa turns to foreign religions and gods for salvation, while religious salvation is more important to Africa than research and development. Africa’s salvation is in the hands of Africans, and will only come from the African Gods. No foreign religions or gods will deliver any salvation to Africa.
While Africa is still trying to recuperate from its past colonial misery, sadly, there is a new wave of re-colonialization in the making, called China, in the form of elephant projects that are doomed to fail.
Very soon, Africans will start seeking Chinese gods and goddesses to worship even though 90% of Chinese classified themselves as non-religious. It will be surprising if this is not already happening. Africans will once again neglect their original Gods for other foreign gods and goddesses from the far east.
The world is changing, Africa must change her thinking if she excepts any change in her state of affairs. Africa will never return to its past glory until there is a total transformation of her mindset.
Africa, one continent, many worlds, prisoners to foreign religions and languages, while neglecting their Gods with a refusal to develop their languages or Gods. Africans have adopted Willie Lynch’s making the slave mentality, and are perpetuating it very well.
In the essence of the religious argument that religion is the opium of the poor, typifies the current state of Africa affairs, and Africa must remove that mentality from her consciousness.
Africans must believe and have the dignity that they are capable of being great because they are Great. Africans must change their mindsets because that is where most of the problem lies. Unfortunately, the truth is as hard as adamant and tender as a blossom. African religiosity and divinities should be homegrown ⎯ Africa, no foreign religion will save Africa, but African Gods.
Africans are intoxicated, constipated, and religiously obsessed with foreign religions that Africans have ignored the social issues that changed the dynamics of Africa’s affairs. Likewise, Africa runs on borrowed foreign religions and gods; hence Africa must be re-introduced back to its original Gods for repentance, purification, and forgiveness.
While Africa is religiously praying to foreign gods and waiting for salvation, their colonial masters are once again busy with their think tanks on how to re-colonize Africa again.
Africa will not change until Africa finds African solutions to Africa’s challenges, through African Gods, languages, and ingenuities. The time is right for the change, and Africa must seize this opportunity to make the necessary changes. However, changes must take place in the minds and hearts of Africa to affect the change.
What has Africa contributed in the past sixty years to profoundly change the world in medicine, technology, or science, rather than raw materials without added value?
Africa is a blessed continent and should use her diversity as intellectual diversity. However, once the engine of development starts, there is no limit to the power it can generate. If only all the natural resources are still available for development and for Africa to eliminate the spiritualism for foreign salvation from her consciousness.
If Africa wants to command her dignity on the world stage, Africa must regain its Africanity through the deep-rooted practices of the cultural self, integrity, and dignity, which was lost through the colonial encounters. Hence, it is time for her to start acting accordingly, and the time is now.
And according to Professor Patrick Loch Otieno Lumumba (PLO), We must refuse to be known as the Continent that never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity; let us seize this opportunity and make our mark as a people in this 21st Century.
Africa must wake up to the new realities of our world and protect her opportunities. And for the change to occur, Africa must have a knowing, curious, and informed mind of the new realities of her surroundings. Africa must understand other’s ways of thinking and learn to deal with them as equal stakeholders, not as beggars, but as equals.
Then, we will see the beauty in the gloom, and when glee replaces wailing in Africa, the motherland of humanity. Consequently, Africa will eventually take her rightful leadership position on the world stage.
We are gods in the body of God, truth and love our destinies. Go then and make of the world something beautiful, set up a light in the darkness — Awakening Osiris; The Egyptian Book of the Dead.
Finally, the key test for Africa is whether or not she is self-correcting. And for Africa to be self-correcting, Africa must first be open and truthful about herself. The voice of truth is easily known, and credibility is earned through action, polished by words and knowledge.
In conclusion, is Africa open and truthful about herself?
Colonialism Reparation welcomes that the United Nations Special Rapporteur has clarified the human rights obligations of Member States in relation to reparations for racial discrimination rooted in slavery and colonialism and calls for all Member States to follow her recommendations for the implementation of the reparations of colonialism and slavery, bearing in mind their lasting impact in the present.
On December 22, 2018 the United Nations General Assembly adopts resolution 73/262 (A global call for concrete action for the total elimination of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance and the comprehensive implementation of and follow-up to the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action) in which, […] welcoming the call upon all the former colonial Powers for reparations, consistent with paragraphs 157 and 158 of the Durban Programme of Action, to redress the historical injustices of slavery and the slave trade, including the transatlantic slave trade, […] encourages the Special Rapporteur […] to submit reports in this regard to the Human Rights Council and the General Assembly […].
Colonialism Reparation welcomes that the United Nations Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance has clarified the human rights obligations of Member States in relation to reparations for racial discrimination rooted in slavery and colonialism and calls for all Member States to follow her recommendations (points 55-63 of the report) for the implementation of the reparations of colonialism and slavery, bearing in mind their lasting impact in the present.
For further information, inquiries and interviews:
Colonialism Reparation is part of the movement for the condemnation, the reconciliation, the apologies and the compensation for colonialism.
Colonialism Reparation promotes, supports and spreads non-violent activities aimed to create awareness of the current world situation and thereby to encourage the achievement of its objective
that the colonizing nations condemn their colonial past recognizing it as a crime against humanity and that the colonized nations exert pressure to make it happen
that the colonizing nations reconcile with their past, permanently distancing themselves from it by officially apologizing the colonized nations
that the colonizing nations compensate the colonized nations for the atrocities and abuses committed thus allowing an improvement in their socio-economic conditions.
The contribution of every person who recognizes the importance of this activity to the creation of a climate of friendship and cooperation between peoples is necessary and appreciated. This contribution will create an extremely positive precedent in international relations as well, promoting the supremacy of the “force of law” on the “law of force”.
Submitted by Tara Inniss, Department of History and Philosophy, The University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus
Some of us in Barbados and the Diaspora saw some posts and short videos on social media this past weekend showing a ceremony taking place in Ghana of Barbadian officials burying the “remains” of an “unknown” enslaved African burial/space from Barbados to Africa. Those present described it as a very emotional experience. I have no doubt that it was. Confronting the theft of our culture and the erasure of lives lived during enslavement in Barbados is an extremely visceral experience that would touch any one of us if we had the opportunities to do so.
When we take our students to the spaces that exist here in Barbados, it is also an emotional experience. If I were to describe it, I would say the emotion is more of revelation and connection than it is of reflection and communion. It is a revelation simply because they did not know that these spaces existed. There are no signposts. There are no pathways or guided markers. If there is a sign upon arrival, it is likely a plaque describing something that was – not is. They are forced to reflect on the fact that these spaces are not a valued part of their heritage. They never even learned about them in school. In fact, they never really learned their own history. We reflect on that. Together.
There must be many places on this island that hold the remains of our enslaved ancestors. Unfortunately, we are only aware of three that have been documented archaeologically – all of which faced threats to their protection and at least one, which was completely destroyed. These are the burial spaces at Newton Slave Burial Ground which is now the property of the Barbados Museum and Historical Society (BMHS); Fontabelle Slave and Free Coloured Burial Ground which was destroyed by Government to make way for the Barbados Investment and Development Corporation (BIDC) Small Business Development Building; and at least one burial that was excavated during development at the Pier Head likely in the vicinity of the Royal African Company’s Barracoons where newly arrived African captives were landed before being sold off to enslavers in Barbados and the rest of the Caribbean. The area is better known today as the Barbados Tourism and Investment (BTI) Inc. car park in Bridgetown.
The Barbadian landscape — past and present — is such that we have little documentation on the burials of hundreds of thousands of Africans and their enslaved descendants after living, working and dying here. We know they exist, but we do not know where they are. Plantation records, if they exist and accessible, had been silent and certainly the changing nature of sugar production, estate ownership and residential patterns of a landless emancipation in this island have rendered people’s memories of these spaces either fragile or absent. The majority of enslaved Africans in Barbados were not allowed to be buried in the well-known parish cemeteries on this island as they were not ‘Christian’ and there was complete denial of their religion and spirituality. But they had to bury their dead somewhere – and the places that were selected for them to confer their own rites for their departed were often on the most marginal land of the plantation – usually not suitable for sugar or other agricultural production.
In the case of the burial space at Fontabelle, this was land that was given for this expressed purpose by Joseph Rachell (1716-66) who was widely regarded as the first free black businessman in Barbados.1 He recognised that the slave and free coloured communities of Bridgetown did not have anywhere to bury their dead so he gave them land to do so. Unfortunately, these spaces have been largely lost to time. Having little access to the somewhat permanent materials that we traditionally associate with grave sites, such as tombstones or other memorials, all that may remain is some of the plantings of tress and shrubs that we know helped the enslaved and free find their dead.
1 The irony here, of course, is that there is no memorial to Joseph Rachell, an early example of an enterprising black Barbadian, whose own grave was moved in street communities of Bridgetown did not have anywhere to bury their dead so he gave them land to do so. Unfortunately, these spaces have been largely lost to time. Having little access to the somewhat permanent materials that we traditionally associate with grave sites, such as tombstones or other memorials, all that may remain is some of the plantings of tress and shrubs that we know helped the enslaved and free find their dead.
That is why when we have found them here or in other parts of the Caribbean or the rest of the Americas they are quite special on a number of levels. Although an estimated 12.5 million enslaved Africans came to the Americas, there are only a handful of burial spaces that have been located – largely by accident – during archaeological surveys prior to modern construction. Among these are the African Burial Ground National Monument in New York City, USA and Valongo Wharf Arcaheological, a UNESCO World Heritage Property in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. There have been other excavations in the region including the house-yard slave burials at Seville Estate in Jamaica as well as others in the French-speaking Caribbean. It is important to note that controversies have existed over the movement of ancestral remains of enslaved peoples as well as other artifacts within and outside of state borders for a number of reasons.
Newton Slave Burial Ground is special because it is the only extant communal slave burial ground that has been found in the region, quite possibly in the Americas. That means that we know that the burials at Newton were those of persons enslaved at Newton. When Jerome Handler uncovered the location of the burials at Newton in the 1970s, it spurred an entire new field of archaeological and historical investigation into the cultural and biological history of Africans in the Americas. It is still used today as a benchmark field study for archaeologists and historians globally. And, unlike the rest of the island’s plantation history, Newton Plantation is one of the best-documented estates in the island. That means that we know a lot about the slave community at Newton – stories of maronnage, landmark court cases for freedom; gender dynamics; resistance; even names and family groups for certain time periods. The enslaved community at Newton is not anonymous.
But are these burial spaces quite special to us as a country? That is a categorical No. I know about them because I learned about them while doing history and archaeology at The UWI, Cave Hill. My knowledge of them largely derives from the work we did with Dr. Karl Watson as undergraduate and postgraduate students. In fact, I was there with him and other students when we tried to do rescue archaeology of only a handful of what was hundreds, maybe thousands of burials at Fontabelle in the early 2000s under severe pressure from the contractor with heavy equipment that had destroyed most of the site and with it one of the largest known slave and free coloured urban burial grounds in the Caribbean. Approximately 1000 burials were destroyed! That was an emotional, visceral experience too as we bulldozed a sacred space belonging to our ancestors as a consequence of “development”.
Most people today are not aware of burials at Newton, Fontabelle or Pier Head. Most people do not even know where the Newton Slave Burial Ground is; and if you went you would have to drive up to the back of an industrial park, walk a short hike through a cart road in a cane ground and stare at a rolling field which is usually overgrown so you cannot see the burial mounds. You will be greeted by a molded over Barbados Slave Route sign which is part of a now defunct Ministry of Tourism project. At Fontabelle, all there is to mark what was is a small plaque at the entrance of the BIDC complex. And at Pier Head — well we all park our cars there to go on to do our shopping in town and rarely contemplate the suffering and bewilderment of arrival that took place under our feet.
These are places of return too! These are sites of memory for the slave trade and slavery right here in Barbados! Look what we have done with them. Nothing. Destroyed them. Neglect them. They are not places of revelation or connection and certainly not places for reflection or communion. Most of us will never be able to visit a symbolic burial of ancestral “remains” in Ghana, or any other place on the West African coast although many of us may wish to. Why have we not done our work in Barbados to confront our own African past and to understand the identities that evolved because Africans were here? We have not done our work spiritually or otherwise to even ready ourselves for return. And it is my greatest regret as a daughter of the Diaspora that we have no place here in Barbados to honour our ancestors, even though they exist!
I say this in the light of what other communities in Barbados have done to reflect and commune with their own past and the value they have placed on sharing it with others. The recent redevelopment of the Nidhe Israel Synagogue and its environs demonstrates an enduring commitment by the Jewish community to not only honor their presence here but also to share in that recognition with others, including memorializing the historic location of Codd’s House where our emancipation was read aloud for the first time on our soil (also destroyed by Government in the 1980s). I also look to a small group of dedicated persons who cleared and restored a Quaker Burial Ground – there is not even a Quaker presence on the island having been driven out by persecution in the 17th century! But this space was regarded as having significance and is maintained as such. We can say that since Independence, a majority African-descended Government of Barbados has invested little in the spaces that symbolize the survival and sacrifice of our African ancestors – in fact, we can say that there has been a legacy of neglect and destruction to remove our this past from our landscape.
I am calling on our Government to recognize these failings in our past decision-making of erasure and neglect and with a fervent plea: do not relegate our own heritage to the dust-pile of history. Please respect, protect and value our own archaeological and historical past. Please see archaeology as a friend, not foe to our country’s development and knowledge about ourselves. Please invest in our archives and repositories of memory. Please make this history known in our schools and museums. These are spaces for peace-building and community. These are places that can instill the pride we all feel slipping away.
If 2020 is the year of return for Barbadians, please let it to be spaces like Newton Slave Burial Ground that show the value we place on this history with sensitive interpretation where we can do more than reveal and connect but also to reflect and commune.
We do not have these spaces.
We cannot go on these emotional journeys.
We cannot truly free our ancestral call for return without them.
As part of the Year of Return and the visit of H.E, the President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to Barbados in June this year, the Prime Minister of Barbados, H.E. Mia Mottley, arrives in Ghana today for a 3-day visit.
The visit also forms part of the bilateral discussions started during the President’s visit to Barbados.
She will be in Assin Manso where a Durbar of Chiefs will be held in her honour at the forecourt of the Assin Manso Ancestral River Site.
Remains of an unknown enslaved African from Barbados brought along with the Prime Minister will be buried at the site.
This will bring to three, the number of African ancestral remains buried at the Assin Manso slave river site.
Prime Minister Mottley will also visit the Kwame Nkrumah Mausoleum and participate in the Damba Festival in Yendi over the weekend. Her delegation includes Foreign Affairs, protocol, and business leaders.
According to the Minister of Tourism, Arts and Culture, Hon. Barbara Oteng Gyasi, Ghana’s tourism sector seeks to deepen its interest in the Carribean with Barbados as a key gateway.
The Coordinator of the Year of Return and CEO of the Ghana Tourism Authority, Akwasi Agyeman, says the visit highlights the importance of the Year of Return in the Global African discussion.
Today with the aid of the history microscope, it is quite easy to see that slave control is the demonic reason why the overwhelming majority of today’s x-slaves have been deliberately kept bound in the punitive and subjugating chains of landless-ness.
In this post-emancipation era, the world has become split into two different economic realities: Slavery-Wealth and Slavery Poverty…. otherwise known as First world and Third world…. otherwise known as
The Developed World
and The UNDER-Developed World…
otherwise known to the wise as The Shameful and Unjust Results of The Great Robbery.Look at this picture below: It can be called “Inequality as a result of The Great Robbery,”
…and you can be sure It is a strategy of White Supremacy.
One US dollar equals 134 Jamaican dollars.
Any place in the world where you look, you will find the same economic disparity when comparing any predominantly white country with any predominantly Black country.That is why there is always an exodus from the countries that were invaded and robbed to the countries that benefited from invading and robbing other countries. The survival instinct is always the prime motivator of Black and Brown migration.
Melissa Martin, Ph.D., is an author, columnist, educator, and therapist. She lives in USA
From sea to shining sea—America. We cherish the First Amendment to our Constitution. Nonetheless, sometimes we take our basic freedoms for granted.
Consider the country of Zimbabwe; found on the continent of Africa. A land with a population 16.5 million. A land with a history of unrest and human rights violations. A land with citizens that long for peace.
In December 1979 a peace agreement was reached between the British and Zimbabwean representatives, following a declaration of independence. In April of 1980 Rhodesia became Zimbabwe. Bob Marley headlined the independence celebrations with his song “Zimbabwe.”
In America Stevie Wonder sang the lyrics “Peace has come to Zimbabwe.”
They want us to join their fighting
But our answer today
Is to let all our worries
Like the breeze through our fingers slip away
Peace has come to Zimbabwe
Third World’s right on the one
Now’s the time for celebration
Because we’ve only just begun
“Over this past year, political proclamations and policy choices in the wake of Robert Mugabe’s replacement by Emmerson Mnangagwa have served only to widen the gap between the southern African country’s rich and its rank and file,” according to a 2019 article in The Atlantic.
“Referring to Putin as a senior brother,” President Mnangagwa recently reached out for economic guidance from Russia. www.africanews.com/.
The following information was sent in a 2019 letter to President Mnangagwa from The Zimbabwean (A Voice for the Voiceless) website publication:
“Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Oxfam International are writing to urge you to urgently take concrete and effective action to address the deteriorating human rights situation and increasing risk of a humanitarian crisis in Zimbabwe…We are seriously concerned about the escalating crackdown by your government on human rights defenders, civil society activists, labour and opposition leaders and members and Zimbabweans protesting the recent fuel price increase…We are also aware that several women and girls were reportedly raped by members of the security forces.” www.thezimbabwean.co/.
The following information is stated on the US Embassy in Zimbabwe website:
“The United States shares the same fundamental interest as the Zimbabwean people: a stable, peaceful, democratic Zimbabwe that reflects the people’s will and provides for their needs. Our support for the people of Zimbabwe includes ensuring that those few Zimbabweans using their positions of power to undermine Zimbabwe’s democratic progress are not benefiting from their actions.” zw.usembassy.gov./
“The United States remains seriously concerned about the excessive use of force by Government of Zimbabwe security forces since January 14, which has resulted in at least 13 deaths, 600 victims of violence, torture or rape, and more than 1,000 arrests. We extend our condolences to the families and friends of those killed or injured. The Government of Zimbabwe’s use of violence against civil society and imposition of undue internet restrictions betray promises to create a new Zimbabwe.” www.state.gov/.
Why should Americans care about the people of Zimbabwe? USA for Africa’s “We Are the World,” was released 34 years ago, on March 7th, 1985.
We are the world
We are the children
We are the ones who make a brighter day, so let’s start giving
There’s a choice we’re making
We’re saving our own lives
It’s true we’ll make a better day, just you and me
I want to daily live without inhuman treatment, torture, violence, war, poverty and so do you. My blessings are many. But obtaining contentment is not possible in lieu of suffering humanity and violated universal human rights in Africa. People like me—people like you. People. Human beings.
Peace will not be accomplished by elected officials and diplomats; presidents and kings; treaties and truces; armies and weapons of mass destruction; popes and preachers; or even by our most altruistic leaders. Peace will be accomplished by millions of civilians standing up for universal human rights, yet marching on their knees. Hands reaching horizontally around the globe, yet reaching vertically toward the sky. Humble people saying humble prayers. Peace for Zimbabwe.
I am on a mission to visit Ghana in West Africa and you may wonder why. It is all because of Slavery. It has always bothered me. I never knew that I was descended from someone who was kidnapped and made a slave until one fateful day when I was in Infants A or Infants B at Christ Church Girls’ school. I do not recall which class it was. An argument started in the class between two little girls, mind you we were all little then. One wanted the other one to carry her bag and the other refused. It became boisterous and caught the teacher’s attention. Her name was Ms. Lovell. It was only when she teacher was addressing the matter that I found out what it was about. The first little girl said she only asked the second girl to carry her bag. The second little girl said she was not carrying the bag because she was not a slave.
What was a slave? I had not a clue. I lived in a bubble that was the world that I knew. I do not remember who asked the question out loud. However, Ms. Lovell began to tell us a story which became my first history lesson. I do not remember if anyone else knew what she told us; that we were all descendants of people who were taken from West Africa and made slaves in all the Caribbean Islands. The slaves worked without pay and belonged to the white people who owned the sugar plantations. Her history lesson must have had a profound affect on all of the little girls because from that day on if any one of the of the girls asked each other to do something menial for them the response was “no! I am not your slave!” This story and those words have stuck with me for a lifetime. However, that was not all that those works did, they made me feel as though I had been living a lie for all the 5 or 6 years of my life.
I could not wait to get home after school. When my cousins and I turned the corner onto to our gap from the main road in Cane Vale, I ran home. When I reached the opened back door, I ran inside and I told Aunt V (my grandmother) “the teacher say that we were slaves,” and I waited for her to say that it was not true. Instead of saying no or yes, she calmly asked what had happened and I repeated the story. I was still awaiting and wanted her to say no that is not so but the look in her eyes filled me with a deep sadness as I waited for her to respond. Her failure to respond to my shock started my traumatization and made me ashamed of who I was. After what seemed like an eternity, all she said was to stop worrying my little head, but I never did.
By the time my mother got home from work I was still quiet; engulfed in a state of sadness. She asked what was wrong and Aunt V told her. I do not recall her response. Later that night as I snuggled up next to Aunt V, I asked her to tell me about the slaves. She said she did know anything about slaves but she could only tell me about the old-time people. From that I understood that it was her way of saying that she would never call them slaves; it was as though she was part of the resistance. That was my comfort and from that night on, it was the stories of the old-time people and the old-time days that my grandmother told me.
Not that she knew much but it was a start. We were already close but the stories she told drew us closer. They were the stories that she had been told about mud houses the old- time people lived in, what they wore; about a woman who lost her hand feeding the canes in the mill and about duppies, how the dead were buried facing the East and more that I have long forgotten. I was a curious child one who asked for minute details, one who wanted exact details and if a repeat was not the same version, I would remind her what was missing. So much so, that she would get tired of my questioning and ask me if I was a lawyer. I never got tired of hearing the same stories.
By the time I entered high school at 11, I had long exhausted my grandmother’s informal knowledge. So, I read every history text book every year before the school year started. I had developed an insatiable appetite for knowledge of the people from my past.
The year that I was 16 we did a school project and I went to the Archives and there I discovered that there were slaves at Hannays Plantation whose last name was Cole. My great grandmother somehow made the journey from there to Church Hill of the Christ Church Parish Church and my grandmother moved from there to Oistins Hill and then Cane Vale. I never got a chance to see the oldest Slave Registers because they were closed from public viewing, so I never found out who were the old-time man and woman who lived at Hannays Plantation from whom I am descended.
Throughout the years, I have thought of them, where exactly did there come from, what did they do for a living prior to them being taken away. I may never know who they were, whose big dove shaped eyes I now wear or whose smile grace my face. I will never know what their real names were, or the exact area they came from, which tribe they belonged to, I do not know who gave me this streak of determination and fearlessness that I possess. I wonder if I am a descendant of a griot, yet I have this thing in me that makes me love art and colour. I always want to make things with my hands and then there is this love that I have for fabric. I cannot explain my numerous trips to Abeds and the other stores in Bridgetown that sell fabric to see what they have for sale. What I do know is that my ancestors’ blood still runs in my veins and I still carry their DNA.
Somehow long ago someone did things that are still a part of me. It is as though through me my ancestors live forever. Your knowledge of your distant past may not be much different from mine and our stories may be intertwined.
The President of Ghana is welcoming the Diaspora home in this historic year of our destiny that commemorates the 400th year anniversary of the commencement of the slave trade. Will you join me and friends and be part of this historic occasion from August 5 to 15, 2019 as we reconnect to our distant past?
With settled and incontestable scientific certainty we know that the original peoples of the universes were as Black as midnight – blue-black. Long before there was anything called a White race, Afrikans had peopled the entirety of Mother Earth. Even today, about 90% of all humanoids are still peoples of colour. Yet we have the internal contradiction of a people which did not create the year, the month, the week, the day, the hour, the minute, the second or anything else foundationally, mustering the audacity to assign a month to those who actually did, as if by right, by papal bull (er).
When they talk about Black history month they are essentially describing events emanating from Nicholas V’s issuance of such a papal bull (Romanus Pontifex) on January 8, 1455. It gave the Portuguese a monopoly to trade with Afrika and in our enslavement – just 570 years ago. It was a declaration of war on the Afrikan world. The Pope presumed that he was the owner of the earth, that some god somewhere had so given it. Some still, to this day, argue that that Bull is still the law of the land – all lands. And though we well know that Afrikan peoples have been here at the beginning of the time before time, the only history which really matters in White history month is the last five hundred and seventy (570) years. And that is so because White people say so and ignorant Black people believe it.
Only in White history does 570 years have any significance in the grand scheme of things – for to them everything around us was built just 6000 years ago. And that ignorance continues despite carbon dating, despite genetic sequencing, despite not making common sense, despite historical inconsistencies. More troubling, is the fixation on this twinkling of the eye, in astronomical terms, by much of Black academia, the Black church, Black elites and the general public.
Could it be possible that this artificiality was constructed to serve the purposes of those who would want to really rewrite history, as if to start anew? And who are those who have benefited from such monumental set of plagiaries? How could it be that the very peoples who invented all the sciences, developed the techno-complexes, settled the entire earth, conquered the seas, invented writing, hundreds of thousands of years previously could now be the slaves of Europeans who never even existed until recently, nor developed a script of their own and were not even writing, generally, until well into the second millennia of the common era.
Black academia serves White and Jewish interests, in presenting the truncated historical record which informs our every action. That the historiographies which have as their point of departure a slavery epoch deliberately leaves out truths which have the immense potential of awakening the sleeping Afrikan giant could only have been informed by sinister motives. We contend that if Afrikan peoples today knew the truth of our existence, it would be apparent that everything of significance Europeans have told us was a lie and that the Europeans, themselves, are in perpetual fear of genetic annihilation, then this White history month could have an entirely different meaning.
There is not one academician in the Caribbean and few elsewhere who would, for example, and with specificity draw on the mountains of literature written by Jewish scholars which clearly show that though we generally blame the Europeans for the Holocaust of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, from the beginning to ‘now’ slavery was a Jewish led enterprise. Those Jewish scholars provide incontrovertible proofs that Columbus was himself a Jew who converted to Christianity in order to receive the support of both the Spanish and Portuguese courts. Of course, it was the ‘Arabs’ who first traded the Slavic peoples, thus giving us this etymology.
We have been appealing for the local expert on the Jewish Synagogue, Karl Watson, to explain to us the forces which would have led to the erection of such a place of ‘worship’ in Barbados in 1654. While he is at it, he might want to tell us why the synagogue in Brazil, the oldest in the western hemisphere, was built as early as 1636, a few years earlier, and what the relationships between the two were. Also, why was Barbados so important to international Jewry for such a congregation to be so established, as the second oldest in the western hemisphere? If you are contending that the last 570 years of history is such a significant epoch, why can we never come to an accurate understanding of the underlying forces in the society at that time, in relation to world Jewry? We will leave questions about the significant (leading) Jewish role, especially Dutch Jewry, in the slave economy in North America to your colleague Skip Gates, a ‘prominent’ White historian in Black face operating up north.
During White history month we will not be hearing the likes of Dr. Ben, Van Sertima, James, Williams, Jan Carew, Diop, Obenga, Clarke, Smalls and thousands more as Afrikan Studies Departments continue to face cuts in budgets. We are certainly not going to hear anything of the majesty of Afrikan peoples – that history before time, before Europeans even existed. Instead we will be fed with general narratives which support European history and culture, in Black face, of course. We will be seeing ‘exceptional Negroes’ being paraded who could ‘shuck and jive’, Negroes who could run behind a ball, a man who could offer the other cheek – not down below we hope, even milquetoast presentations of both MLK and Malcolm X as a staple and to protect the ‘sensibilities’ of Europeans.
Let us deal with some of the social forces which have harmed the Afrikan interests in recent times.
The most sinister of these must be the ‘selection’ of Barack Obama for the presidency of the USA. Obama used that position to strategically relocate the ‘civil rights movement’ firmly into the camp of the LGBTQ political formations. It is pellucid to us that this Obama was appointed to do a job of the master pimp. And Obama did a massive devastation of Afrikans within the USA, and elsewhere, were by most metrics the vestiges of slavery continued to wreak havoc from coast to coast.
With the merging of these social formations the whole orientation of human rights discourses have been forever transformed by Obama. Black interests were made to take a back seat while the society is set sail down a cultural dead end with a social ‘experiment’ whose outcome is not uncertain. It is an experiment which could only come from the mind of the Devil or White people in Black face. Thus we’ve seen the Black church, led by people like Barber, Sharpton, and more, going all in, on the Obama legacy of mainstreaming bulling with all its emerging ‘specializations’.
Obama and his supporters even weaponized this hideous agenda. With this many were forced to break with him. It was when he decided (implemented) that Afrikan countries, in order to receive America aide, had to change their laws to permit bulling in all its manifestations. This was however consistent with his generalized attitude towards Afrikan people – our destruction. Certainly, he was a White man in Black face, no?
Even when we look at American military aggressions on Africa during the Obama presidency we see a level of militarism not inconsistent with the other form of cultural penetration as described above. When Obama came to office there were only four (4) American military bases on the Afrikan continent. On leaving office there had markedly increased to eighty-four (84), in just eight (8) years. Could he have been anything but a White man in Black face like Northam, the now embroiled governor of Virginia?
One good thing about Obama though. Were there not an Obama we could not have a Trump. For Trump may very well be a blessing in disguise. For what Donald Trump has done, is doing, has contributed more to the destruction of the American imperium than we could have hoped for in our wildest dreams. How ironic? For that is the subject of our next contribution.
“The events that transpired five thousand years ago, five years ago, or five minutes ago, have determined what will happen five minutes from now, five years from now, or five thousand years from now. All history is a current event.”
-Dr. John Henrik Clarke -–
That global experience that is commonly referred to as “history” effectively divided the world into two distinct regions that can accurately be called White Heaven and Black Hell.
Throughout that history “political correctness” had not yet been invented, so White Satan went to and fro in the broad daylight without a mask, invading, raping, robbing, enslaving, and committing genocide on all continents. And so the present White World Order came into existence.
A captive people are not likely to recognize their captivity if they were born in captivity and have no memory of freedom.
Nor are they likely to identify liberation as an urgent necessity… if they have been schooled and churched to see their landless bondage as normal.
(That is why “The Manual of Slave Control” clearly spells out in its preamble: “the need to educate all X-Slaves with the myth that their captivity ended on the day of Emancipation, and to support this myth by keeping the X-Slaves constantly doped, domesticated, and entertained in a drunken stupor.”)
On August 1, 1838, enslaved people across the British Caribbean gained their freedom. Contrary to what is often peddled about the singular role of abolitionists in ending transatlantic slavery, there were two main reasons for abolition- economic and rebellions. The British did not in some great moralistic and ethical wave bestow freedom upon the enslaved. The system was altered because slavery had become an economic liability. Furthermore, the planters lived with the constant fear of slaves rebelling and of another Haiti transpiring. In the end, it was better to agree to free the enslaved than to live with this fear or worse to experience a rebellion. I discuss all of this in more detail in a piece I wrote in 2007 which was the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the trans-Atlantic slave trade by Britain.
As we commemorate the emancipation of our Caribbean forefathers, remember that the British in abolishing slavery also provided a large compensation package for the slave owners. The sum of money amounted to £20 million (£15 billion today) or about 40% of the national budget. The formerly enslaved of course received nothing. What is even more perverse is that the loan taken out at that time by the British government to fund the compensation package was not paid off until 2015. Thus, the British taxpayer was until recently, through payments to the holders of the slavery bonds, still contributing to the beneficiaries of slavery. This is the same British government and society that dismisses the descendants of the enslaved condescendingly, lecturing to them that they should move on and stop living in the past. This is the same British government and society that refuses to consider the just demands of Caribbean people for reparations. The same British government that argues absurdly that the slave trade and slavery were not illegal at the time and so they are not obliged to provide compensation for the heinous role they played in one of the worst crimes against humanity. For these people though, it is not a historical matter to be left behind when until February 2015 they were still reaping the benefits of the slavery abolition loan. The height of dishonesty, arrogance and hypocrisy.
In addition, as we celebrate August 1, we must be mindful that 180 years after abolition and 56 years after the decolonisation period in the British Caribbean commenced with Jamaica’s independence on August 6, 1962, we have a long way to go in the quest for true freedom. The legacy of colonialism and slavery endures in our tiny island states. Most of us continue to experience significant socio-economic challenges. Race and class considerations remain central factors in how our societies function. For example, in Barbados, the justice system still operates in two forms- one for the rich and white and nowadays Indian and one for blacks particularly those that are not rich. Just under a year ago, I penned a long article about the harsh realities of race in Barbados beyond the symbolism of its Emancipation statue. Last week, two prominent white Barbadian businessmen were charged with drug offences and anyone following the saga would have seen first-hand the playing out of the politics of race and class that I wrote about.
The Caribbean has much work to do. We need to examine in earnest these mental chains that impede us. An honest, brutal conversation about our past, how it looms large over us and how we must proceed is essential. Our intellectual giants started the process. It is necessary for us to build on it and propel it to the next level. It is also imperative that we do this together as a region. We are one people with a shared history of colonialism, slavery and exploitation. People to people relationships that transcend artificial borders have always been a central feature of our Caribbean reality. In addition, in a world of large and medium powers, we have no choice as small islands but to integrate. Our politicians with their egos and selfish interests have frustrated the institutionalisation of our deep ties. We the people must take the lead.
Saturday April 21st marks the 48th anniversary of the declaration of the State of Emergency to quell the Black Power Revolution in Trinidad in 1970. The uprising was led by Makandal Daaga and his chey-la [disciple], Kafra Kambon, of the National Joint Action Committee (NJAC).
This year also marks the 18th anniversary since Kambon and his gang of followers rowdily stormed out of a conference on the rebellion during my presentation at University of the West Indies (UWI).
On that Holy Thursday, I was simply trying to expose the popular, (politically correct) propagated myth that many Indians actively participated in the Black Power Revolution.
Seven years after Kambon and his gang noisily interrupted my presentation, Professor Bridget Brereton of the Department of History at UWI came out to support my position.
In an article entitled “Contesting the past: Narratives of Trinidad & Tobago,” Brereton wrote: “Most Indo-Trinidadians opposed the movement and rejected the label ‘black,’ which, most felt, subsumed their ethnic identity under a blanket term always primarily associated with people of African descent” (page 19).
At the Black Power conference in UWI in 2010, I began my presentation by saying: “I speak with the knowledge that there is an attempt by NJAC, and a few Indian militants, to sanitize what, according to historian Kelvin Singh was really ‘a bid by Afro-Trinidadians to dominate the multi-ethnic society in a totalitarian way’” (page 5).
In his book East Indians and Black Power in the Caribbean (1986), Professor Mahin Gosine stated that the participation level of Indians was very low. He wrote that Black Power meant a call to African people to return to their cultural roots, to reject White domination, and to seize political power through revolutionary struggle. The ideology, at its core, preached a return to the traditional African past.
Many Indians did not actively participate in the Black Power Movement because of the violence that was involved. Violence exploded on a large scale on the night of March 5, 1970. Each night, the number of targets hit by Molotov cocktails increased.
Indians feared that the violence would be turned against them, their families, their homes and their small business establishments. An Indian-owned factory was burnt in San Juan and four children died in the fire.
Although NJAC led a procession of 20,000 demonstrators to San Juan, and later to Caroni as an apology, and to signal Afro-Indian unity, the damage was already done to the psyche of Indians.
In his journal article entitled “East Indians and Black Power in Trinidad,” foreign-based researcher, David Nicholls (1971), agreed that the “majority of Indians looked with a certain degree of detachment and with some suspicion upon what was going on. They saw it as a confrontation between black demonstrators, black policemen, and a black Government” (page 443).
At the forefront of the movement were a few Indians. These were men like Winston Leonard who could not have claimed for himself to be either a spokesman or a leader of the Indian community. There was also Chan Maraj of the unknown Arouca-based National Freedom Association, whose fame to claim was that he was related to veteran politician Stephen Maharaj.
These men were aliens to the Indian community. Indeed the Indian community saw them as confused men without a cultural identity. They were token Indian symbols used by advocates of the Black Power Movement for strategic, symbolic and political purposes.
Like Raja Ramlogan, these Indian men did not talk about India, Indian history and Indian heritage with the same passion as their African counterparts talked about their ancestral past.
Indeed, while the Black Power leader, Daaga, and his chey-la, Kambon, were sporting dashiki with pride, Ramlogan was sporting dashiki too, instead of the culturally-acceptable Indian kurta shirt.
A few Indian university students were involved. They went beforehand along the Caroni route explaining the purpose of the proposed march. But they were not taken seriously by villagers since they were considered young university students who just had “more book sense that common sense.”
On March 12, 1970, Indian children came out on the streets out of curiosity to see the dramatic procession, complete with colour, props, chants and speeches.
Indian adults on the Caroni route came out not so much in support of the Movement, but more out of the characteristic Indian hospitality to give food and water to any passing stranger in need.
There was also the strong feeling of fear: Give these rebels what they want and let them go quickly.” If Indians did give a hand of support to the protesters, it was really in support against Prime Minister Dr Eric Williams and his ruling PNM (People’s National Movement) who were considered to be the enemies of Indians.
THE WRITER is an anthropologist who has published 11 books.
Correspondence – Dr. Kumar Mahabir, 10 Swami Avenue, Don Miguel Road, San Juan, Trinidad and Tobago, West Indies. Mobile: (868) 756-4961 E-mail: dmahabir@gmail.com
“A melanated big cat, called a panther, is a solitary, fearsome creature.”
Let us welcome Margaret Brito to the BU family. Do not ever forget that the BU forum is about a melting pot of ideas, opinions- a forum where academics and ordinary share a single space.
– David, blogmaster
The image of the black panther is a symbol of Black power in the Caucasian paradigm. I use Thomas Kuhn’s definition of paradigm developed in his essay “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions”¹ published in 1962. In this essay, Kuhn, a Harvard scholar, defines a paradigm as a conceptual box which validates and legitimizes the ideas within it, and invalidates and renders invisible whatever is outside it.
A paradigm defines what is known and how it is known. It defines the relevance of what is known. A paradigm dictates what can be known and should be known, as well as that which is not known and should not be known. It dictates what’s included in one’s experience and what’s excluded. It defines how people should understand and respond to their experiences, both those which should be and are included, and those which should be and are excluded.
Chapter 4 of THE SLAVE IN YOUR MENTALITY is a continuation of the introspective journey that seeks to identify the many ways in which the X-Slave continues to carry the marks of his enslavement. In this chapter we examine an issue called “SATISFACTION WITH INFERIORITY,” showing how long slave conditioning caused inferiority to become normalized to the point that it is not even recognized as inferiority.
The press is saying very little about this! Repost!!!!! This is no laughing matter! I’m so grieved! We WILL NOT be silent! This must stop!!! So what are we gonna DO? #REPOST #Repost @bishopjakes (@get_repost)
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The slave trade that is going on in Libya, and even globally, is an atrocity that has to STOP. We, as a people have to partner together to put an end to this horrific disregard for human life. Here are a few ways you can help: —Use YOUR voice (Social Media, your community, etc.) to raise awareness! —Support organizations that give aid to countries from which migrants are fleeing. —Contact your local officials and become an advocate in the fight against slavery & human trafficking.
We have got to say something…we CANNOT be silent. #Libya #HumanTrafficking #SlaveryInLibya
Decolonizing the African mind has become the most urgent task that now needs to be done if there is to be any meaningful reparations. What will it take to accomplish this most sacred mission? It means curing the broken slave of TRUTH ALLERGIES.
“View a video of the award winning dance entitled BLACK LIVES MATTER, choreographed by Aisha Comissiong and performed by Dancin Africa. This was one of the stand out dances at the recently concluded CARIFESTA arts festival in Barbados. It is the ultimate REPARATIONS DANCE!”
Peter Lawrence Thompson, Social Enterprise Advisor on a USAID funded project
It is August 1st, Emancipation Day across much of the formerly British Caribbean. It commemorates the Slavery Abolition Act (1833), which legislated the end of slavery in the British Empire in August, 1834. Here in Jamaica it is part of a week of parades and parties leading up to Independence Day on August 6th. In Barbados this year it coincides with the Crop Over Festival and its climax, Grand Kadooment, a day where Bajans let their hair down (not to mention much else) and party can’t done.
CARIBBEAN GOVERNMENTS MUST INTERVENE IN DEFENSE OF OUR AFRICAN- AMERICAN BROTHERS AND SISTERS!
The murders, earlier this month, of two young African-American men — Philando Castile and Alton Sterling — by white American police officers, should bring home to all African-Barbadian and African-Caribbean people the critical importance of the United Nations International Decade For People of African Descent, and of our duty to make full use of this UN sanctioned international programme to come to the defense of our beleaguered African-American brothers and sisters.
These two recent US-based genocidal outrages come at a time when right-thinking people all over the world are already expressing shock and horror at the phenomenon of white American police officers callously and with regularity killing literally hundreds of African-American men, women and children every year, and the United States Criminal Justice system routinely declaring that the killers are not even required to stand trial for their wrong-doing!
Indeed, the U S Justice System has been sending such loud and clear messages that Black, Brown and Native-American lives do NOT matter, that it was not surprising that an ordinary white civilian racist in Charleston, South Carolina would get it into his head to enter the sanctuary of an historic African-American church and assassinate black men, women and children who were in a posture of prayer!
But the inherent message of the United Nations International Decade For People Of African Descent – which began on 1st January 2015- is that the African- American people of the United States of America are our black Barbadian and Caribbean kith and kin!
The nine black American men, women and children who were so brutally murdered in Charleston, as well as such recent victims as Eric Garner, Trayvon Martin, Sandra Bland, Mike Browne, Freddie Gray, Philando Castile, Alton Sterling and so many others– far too numerous to list– are our “brothers and sisters”!
And they are our brothers and sisters because their African ancestors were brought to the Americas in the same slave ships that brought our African ancestors, and were subjected to the same architectonic socialization experiences of chattel slavery and colonialism in “Plantation America” that our ancestors were subjected to on the plantations of the Caribbean.
The only truly significant difference between ourselves and our African-American brothers and sisters is that we are Blacks in a black majority society, while they are Blacks in a white majority society!
This fundamental difference is responsible for the fact that we possess pre-dominantly black or Afro/Asian governments, legislators, nation states, police forces, judicial officers, diplomatic representatives, and the list goes on, while they remain a relatively powerless and under-represented minority in the racist white majority institutions of the USA.
Furthermore, it has now become absolutely clear that the traditional White American establishment that orchestrated the genocide of the Native American population and the anti-Black slavery and slave trade of the 18th and 19th centuries has no intention– if they can help it– of ever permitting the black descendants of their former slaves ( or the Native American people for that matter) to ever be truly and fully free in the USA !
Thus, the very existence of the United Nations International Decade For People of African Descent impels us as Black people to come to this profound understanding of the predicament of our African-American brothers and sisters, and to the responsibilities that we must undertake as a result of that horrific predicament.
And the clearest such responsibility is that we black Barbadian and Caribbean people who are racial majorities in our national societies, and who possess predominantly black or Afro/Asian nation-states,national governments, and diplomatic seats at the United Nations and other high councils of international decision-making, are duty-bound to speak up for and to defend the rights of our African-American brothers and sisters!
We simply can no longer allow our interest in our brothers’ plight to be restricted because they are supposedly citizens of a different nation! No! We who are joined together by deeply rooted ties of ancestry, kinship and affinity, must not permit artificial national barriers to keep us apart.
The time has therefore come when the Prime Ministers, the Ministers of Foreign Affairs, and the various Ambassadors and consular officers of our Caribbean nations must accept that they have a duty to speak up for and defend our African-American brothers and sisters!
Just as the American State Department, Secretary of State , President and Vice-President believe that they possess a right to intervene in and pass judgement on our national domestic affairs, our Caribbean high officials of state must assert an even greater right to intervene in and pass judgement on the existential predicament of our African-American brothers and sisters within the national arena of the USA.
It is high time that our premier officials of state take meaningful initiatives to place the plight of our African-American brothers and sisters before such high level international human rights bodies as the Inter-American Human Rights Commission and the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, and indeed, before the highest democratic international policy and law making body of them all — the United Nations General Assembly.
Indeed, this was the approach advocated by the late great Malcom X when, in the 1960’s , he established his Organization of Afro-American Unity, and commenced on a campaign to “internationalize” the domestic civil rights struggle of the African-American people by having the Governments of the newly independent African nations take the plight of the black American people before relevant international bodies.
It is also high time that our premier officials of state intervene with United States President Barack Obama and call upon him to do his duty to the African-American people of the USA!
The sad reality is that President Obama has spectacularly FAILED— during his Presidency— to address the issue of the deeply entrenched anti-Black racism that exists in the bowels of American society and in the very DNA of the institutions of the USA.
Even with these most recent racist murders, President Obama has shamelessly side-stepped his duty to represent the African-American cause, and, in the case of the South Carolina massacre for example, has sought to characterize the massacre as being related to the ease of access to guns in the USA, rather than to pinpoint the fact that it was underpinned by the trenchant anti-Black racism that exists in U S society .
Way back in the 1960’s, the late Lyndon B Johnson, a white American president, distinguished himself on the race issue by establishing the Kerner Commission to enquire into the endemic racist conditions that were at the heart of the race-based civil disorders of the mid-1960’s and to propose possible solutions. What has President Obama done on the issue of anti-Black racism since becoming President? The tragic answer is:– nothing of consequence!
Truly, the time has come for us to move forward on this issue! The advent of the United Nations Decade For People of African Descent says to us that the time has come for us as Black people to express solidarity with each other right across the Black Diaspora! The time has come for us to collectively declare an attitude of zero tolerance towards all elements of anti-Black racism and racial discrimination!
The time has also come for us to address the United States Government about this issue of the racial oppression of our African-American brothers and sisters, and to use our political leaders and diplomats to take this issue before the United Nations organization and other international human rights bodies!
Quite frankly, in this U N International Decade For People of African Descent, the time has come for us to undertake powerful trans-national campaigns of activism to finally and permanently destroy the centuries- old demon of institutionalized anti-Black racism!
On behalf of the Caribbean Chapter of the International Network In Defense of Humanity and the Barbados-based Pan-African Coalition of Organizations (PACO) we hereby call upon the political leaders and Governments of the Caribbean to accept and embrace this new understanding of their duty to our African-American brothers and sisters, and to act upon it with a sense of urgency!
SIGNED on behalf of the International Network In Defense of Humanity (Caribbean Chapter) by:- DAVID COMISSIONG
SIGNED on behalf of the Pan-African Coalition of Organizations (PACO) by:- WAYNE “ONKPHRA” WELLS
This video uses the famous song called “Emmerton” to expose the injustice of Black Emancipation, a sordid act that compensated the owners of slaves to the tune of trillions of dollars, while leaving the X-Slaves in a landless and vulnerable condition where they are forced to live from rent to rent, and forced to continue working for the same entities that captured and enslaved them.
It is the cry of a people chained in the exploiter’s trap called LANDLESS NATIONALITY.
What is this thing called LANDLESS NATIONALITY? Is it not a form of slavery by means of trickery? And why is it held to be so sacred that few have ever dared to question it?It is found in places where masses of X-slaves are held in unofficial captivity to X-slave-masters who inherited the wealth of the slave plantation and now own the whole nation. One can hardly find an X-slave today that does not have this thing called Landless Nationality. But is it such a good thing to have? Is it something that the X-slaves should be celebrating?It was handed down in the name of emancipation to the X-slaves on today’s plantation, and if you have been fully Churched, Schooled, and Universitied in the system that was specially crafted by The Slavery Wealth Inheritors, you will be very proud of having it.
In the process of robbing the kidnapped children of The Middle Passage of their African homeland, so that African labor and the much coveted natural resources of Africa could be used to make Europeans wealthy while Africans perish in poverty, it became necessary to school, fool, and religiously indoctrinate the kidnapped African.
Consequently this far-reaching crime that would negatively impact the African for centuries would be officially pardoned, blessed, and legalized, and the victims would learn to honor and respect The Invader’s Right to Stolen Property.
The victims would therefore tell themselves that this is the way God planned it. They would therefore view their own present-day landless situation that resulted from the historical robbery as a normal life situation that has been ordained by God.
The site on the Inter Net where you will find virtual Art Galleries, videos, the best roots music, and insightful articles to awaken the mind and release the Genie […] Continue reading →
Senator Maxine McClean, Minister of Foreign Affairs
The loud silence by the government of Barbados, traditional media and other actors to the deportation (‘cleansing’) of Haitians from the Dominican Republic betrays why attempts at regional integration is a pipe dream. Yet again Haitians find themselves […] Continue reading →
Fun and entertainment addiction is a computer chip that is placed in the psyche of every slave on the plantation via a continuous counter-intelligence operation that is performed by The Walt Disney Nation.Any possibility of The Negro regaining his African intelligence is countered by this counter-intelligence program.
Because of this chip, when the slave reaches adulthood, he is easily integrated into any of the many branches of The Devil’s army.That is why the task of freeing the Black mind has proven to be so difficult. Trying to separate the slave from his bondage is like trying to separate a person from the thing that he loves with the uttermost addiction.
The BU family ALWAYS gets the inside track on what is happening in Barbados. It is a pity the traditional media whether by accident or design allows itself to be anchored to a moribund state by being shackled to agendas not aligned to being a purveyor of truth. The CBC and the BarbadosAdvocate have been manipulated by successive governments this we know. The Nation Publishing Group which includes the popular VOB92.9FM radio and Nation newspaper in recent times has been feeling the pressure from Port of Spain, Barbados Today is controlled by the moneyed class Harris and Bizzy. Not to forget the advertisers.
There is a strong view in the United States of America which states for any Republican candidate to be successful as a politician he or she must get the blessing of the Fox News Network. Such a position gives credence to how closely correlated an active media and the ability to shape public opinion. In Barbados the government shapes the news delivered by the CBC and the BarbadosAdvocate. The moneyed class does clean up with the Nation Publishing and Barbados Today.
BU continues to be intrigued by the Nigerian Saga playing out in Barbados. We reserve the right to refer to it as the Nigerian Scam at a future time. How so many things can go wrong with a transaction said to be well funded boggles the minds of sensible onlookers.
BU asked Donna St. Hill to answer three simple questions on behalf of the BU family to start the ball rolling – 1) . Please advise the nature of the relationship with you and Sharon Brathwaite and how it has affected the transaction. 2). Please advise why the BCC is not ready to admit the students given the preplanning and 3). Please advise the contingent arrangement with Renee Coppin at Infinity when the arrival of the students had to be delayed. What is the current status of that arrangement. BU’s communication to organiser of the Nigerian Student visit remains unanswered.
The following advice was offered to Barbadians by a Trinidadian contractor allegedly burnt by Donna St. Hill.
If you free a people and continue to control all the land, and control all the money, 
On August 1, 1838, enslaved people across the British Caribbean gained their freedom. Contrary to what is often peddled about the singular role of abolitionists in ending transatlantic slavery, there were two main reasons for abolition- economic and rebellions. The British did not in some great moralistic and ethical wave bestow freedom upon the enslaved. The system was altered because slavery had become an economic liability. Furthermore, the planters lived with the constant fear of slaves rebelling and of another Haiti transpiring. In the end, it was better to agree to free the enslaved than to live with this fear or worse to experience a rebellion. I discuss all of this in more detail in 
In the process of robbing the kidnapped children of The Middle Passage of their African homeland, so that African labor and the much coveted natural resources of Africa could be used to make Europeans wealthy while Africans perish in poverty, it became necessary to school, fool, and religiously indoctrinate the kidnapped African.
