I was sent this by my Father and I found it rather disturbing.
Could someone please explain what really happened, and the similarities and differences between the colonisation of Africa and other land grabs?
Believing in the article below makes us in a Black Man's eyes automatically a racist - and yet it is sooooo true . The real truth about the ‘PREVIOUSLY DISADVANTAGED’
The author of this article is right on the money. The fact is nobody owes blacks anything.
Please explain the term "PREVIOUSLY DISADVANTAGED" Kindly make special reference to following:
Who "disadvantaged" the black people of the interior Southern Africa before the (supposed) ‘belligerent’ white settlers moved inland in the mid-19th century? What the settlers found was not hugely advanced infrastructures -- deep mines, hospitals, vast libraries of written knowledge, imposing institutions of learning, etc. No, as little as 170 years Ago they found masses of black people (indigenous to the Southern tip of Africa) living on the fringes of the Stone Age. Primitive beings dressed in skins, wielding sticks, living in primitive dwellings, dragging- and carrying their meager possessions around, since they had not been introduced to the benefits of the wheel yet!
Ethiopia - a country that was NEVER colonised is today one of the most desolate places on the planet! Who "disadvantaged" the people of Ethiopia?
Compare Zimbabwe and Germany with each other and please explain the differences. In 1945 Germany was, for all intents and purposes, flattened to ground and torn in half. Fifteen years later, West Germany was described as an "Economic Wonder". Around the same time as the end of apartheid, Germany was re-unified. It yanked the now-unified Germany back four centuries in time.
Yet, in about fifteen years (for the second time within a few decades) it built another 'economic wonder'. Today it is fast becoming a global leader in almost every field! On the flip side – Zimbabwe’s people were handed one of the wealthiest countries in the WORLD (for eg: a currency that was stronger than the US dollar!). What is the situation today? Competing with Ethiopia as the most desolate hellhole on the planet? Please explain...
I can carry on for days -- but let that be enough for now. Just one more request: please, pretty please, kindly respect the intellect of our audience and refrain from cheap (ANC-like) red herrings for eg. calling people racists. Just answer the questions directly and with tangible substance. In parting, I would suggest the following: The term "Previously Disadvantaged' is as much a fantasy as is the delusional lunacy that threatens voters with the revenge of the ancestors. The same delusional insanity that claims the words "KILL THE BOER" really, only means, "Come over to my
mansion for tea and cookies."
You cannot take something from somebody WHO NEVER HAD IT in the first place! In fact, what is it that white people, specifically white men, are supposed to "give back" to black people? Can someone PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE explain to me what it is that white men took from blacks?
LAND? Blacks NEVER owned any land. Any form of formal ownership is a Western concept. The black tribes of the mid-19th century haphazardly SETTLED in an ad hoc manner -- effectively governed by tribal savagery – in other words, the most savage ruled the land (a bit like Hillbrow today). They simply ran away until they could not run any more -- not having ANY grasp of the concept of a horizon or for that matter any measure of finite land mass – for eg. the boundaries -- that is the fundamental concept of ownership.
MINERALS? More hallucinations aside -- eg ancient gold mines -- a little bit like the Zimbabwe Ruins (the Pyramids, etc) -- next to the magnificent structure, the indigenous people built stone-age dwellings out of dirt and sticks (at best emulating the birds). Minerals beneficiation is an entirely Imperialist/Western concept -- in fact, in many ways it saw some of the most tangible advances, by WHITE SOUTH AFRICAN MEN -- just peruse
some of the academic papers at Wits' Engineering Library.
WEALTH? Money, capital and the pivotal mechanisms of the wealth that allows you to breathe, eat, have children, live a rather healthy productive and fulfilling life, but also allowed the cognitive development that leads you to make your daft comments here -- it is ALL of Western origins. In fact, the key advancements in modern finance and economics were made by the DUTCH. Why do you think New York’s financial centre is called 'Wall Street'? It was initially called 'Waal Straat'.when the settlement was under Dutch control Yes, my dear, the Dutch took their cognitive substance there as well. The same Dutch that were the most direct decendants of the people who landed at the Cape in 1652. In fact, the modern 'WEALTH system' was originated by the Dutch and it funded the explorations around the tip of Africa.
Perhaps we robbed the ‘disadvantaged’ blacks of their private jets, their Breitling watches, their Italian designer suits, or their German luxury limousines, their Blue Light Brigades or perhaps their space shuttles? Mmmm... I just hate the implicit assumption that whites stole from blacks
Wow, thats quite a rant, most historians of Africa today would almost certainly wholeheartedly disagree with it. I don't really deal with the history of colonialism outside of an African context so I wont draw parallels, but even within African history we can clearly see that a lot of the premises of the argument are false. I also won't deal with the reparations argument, that's an issue for politics rather than history. I'll be using a few specific examples to combat some of the very wrong generalizations made above, Africa is a large continent and this by no means comprehensive of the continent.
So the first arguement is that prior to colonialism African people lived in neolithic or stone conditions. Hunter gatherer communities with little political or economic structure. This is completely false, we can name plenty of polities across the continent that had very complicated political systems and economic systems that reached well into the Arab and Mediterranean world. The West African Empires (Ghana, Mali, Songhai etc) traded extensively with Arabs to the point that they adopted Islam through the trade routes. Further to the south Central Africans in modern day Angola and Congo traded with the Portuguese settlers inducting them into long distance trade. An example of the complexity of this would be trade from Mwata Yamvo Lunda (modern day Katanga) going through Kasanje (modern day northern Angola) to the coast at Luanda. At First this was mostly slaves, after the abolition of the slave trade Ivory became the main export. Guns were imported into the continent as well as cloth, spices and other luxury goods. We can date trading networks in most places (thanks to sparse archaeological work) to 1000AD or earlier.
As to the Africans never owned Land, that too is completely false. The Lunda (mentioned earlier) had very clever system of land ownership. The Mwata Yamvo (or King) kept control of the central Ruund region as his personal domain. As an expansionist state they would conquer a village or town. The previous village or town was allowed to keep ownership of the land, but the Mwata Yamvo would become the 'owner' of the people. Therefore, the village was allowed to use the land more or less as they pleased but had to pay dues (labor, military and produce) to the Mwata Yamvo. Other systems of land ownership can be seen in Chikwasha's Chikunda who settled in modern day Zambia. The Chikunda were original guests in the area living off hunting at the behest of the local kings. Eventually they were granted land by a king for their loyalty. This made Chikwasha a ruler in his own right and eventually his Chikunda came to become the dominant power in the region. Chikwasha convinced the locals to accept his protection from the Ngoni (a militaristic group who threatened them) gaining more land and power int he process. These examples show complex political systems of land ownership, not "simply running away until they could not run any more".
Alright, I think you'll want look into the collaborator angle then. When looking at forms of African resistance to colonial rule often one tends to gravitate towards violent resistance such as the Nguni (Zulu, Ndebele etc) and Samori Ture's Wassoulou empire. The Nguni narrative generally involves heroic charges towards maxim guns while Samori mounted arguably the most successful guerrilla campaign against a colonial power. Ultimately, however, these guys were defeated and lost rulership, having to submit to the will of colonial empires. This is the narrative that is probably in the minds of most people out there when they think of colonial conquest.
However, there is the story of 'collaborators' which reads a little differently to those of violent resistance. Some African rulers arranged treatise with colonial powers, giving up some of their power in return for protection. Often rulers who allied with the colonial powers would then use their new allies to help them subjugate neighbors or enemies. Essentially they saw the way the wind was blowing and tried to use it pragmatically to their gain. Sometimes it worked, the Lozi kingdom under Lewanika managed to organise treatise with the British South Africa company which granted them special protectorate status right up until 1969 after independence. Lewanika accepted missionaries and 'westernised' (I dislike this term of phrase) his children by having them taught to read and write. Lewanika's decedents are still Royalty and hold positions of power even today. The Tswana under Khama managed to similar things.
What I should say is that for the elite, this was fine, they maintained a decent if not better standard of living. For the average citizen a life (and quite often untimely death) in Company mines and farms was hard and dangerous. African Citizens in Barotseland (Lozi territory) had to pay taxes to the British and the Lozi king. In order to pay taxes they were forced into whatever work they could find, usually this was highly exploitative and for people who didn't really care about safety or the livelihood of Africans. So if you want to take this from an Afro-centrist position, some African people certainly did benefit, but not many.
On the last point, comparing Zimbabwe to Germany, the history of both of countries/regions is so vastly different that it is absurd to do so. Zimbabwe is perhaps one of the worst choices one could choose to claim colonialism was fair. As with many colonial boundaries Zimbabwe's were drawn up for the benefit of European colonizers not Africans. As such the borders include two very different ethnic groups (the Shona and the Ndebele) who were in conflict before colonialism. Zimbabwe did not get its independence from white minority rule (a system that was incredibly unfair and often cruel towards the native black population) until 1980. Prior to this under colonialism and white minority rule most if not, all of the countries resources (including labor) were pooled towards the benefit of the white settler population. Resources were extracted and the wealth given to a small settler population. There is essentially nothing to compare to Germany, a country that itself had a colonial empire until 1918 that it was extracting resources and wealth.