Features
Questions for Europe
When I hear of Europe, I get confused as to who is referenced. I know who America is: one federation of states forming a union. Europe sounds, and is, very different. Countries that call themselves European used to be monarchies. Indeed, many of them remain monarchies, yet pander to constitutional governance.
Having plundered the human resources of the African continent through the most obnoxious crime ever committed against humanity in the form of slavery, European countries had the effrontery to spread the map of our continent and carve out countries and share them among themselves.
Calling those countries their colonies, they set out to plunder the natural resources even after the direct slave trade was abolished. Our forebears were shipped to the Americas, where European settlers had large plantations that needed human labour. The majority of the human cargoes were, however, discharged in US ports.
Many of the slave ships were commissioned by the Crown, aided by the Church, to transport the slaves. The Crown and the Church took commissions on each Negro, as the black Africans were called, and safely delivered them to their destinations.
Britain, France, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Holland, and Portugal were the main European nations that had colonies. That Portugal, the poorest country in Europe, also managed to have colonies, beats the mind. The Dutch and the Danes made incursions and retreated, and Germany lost its territories after its defeat in the Second World War.
My first question is: when the European sailors arrived at our shores, did they see us as humans or as commodities to be traded? How did we react to their arrival? When the epoch of conquests rocked Europe, how did the ‘victims’ react to their conquerors? When the Vikings from Scandinavia raided other countries, how did the ‘victims’ react? Europe must answer these questions.
I ask the above questions so as to understand what my forebears would have felt when they were hounded and either stolen or sold into slavery. When the Dutch East India Company, the progenitor of the obnoxious apartheid system in South Africa, arrived on the Western Cape in 1652, how did they treat the locals?
The Europeans have presented the Zulu King, Chaka, as a bloodhound who terrorised his own people by setting them against one another. Chaka’s crime was that he took up arms against the invading Boers and wanted them out of his land.
I have stated many times that nothing about the British excites me, but I give them credit for not fighting their colonies, who agitated for independence. The Brits had enriched themselves and knew they were done for if they expended that wealth on fighting their colonies and getting impoverished in the process.
But this does not absolve Britain from the atrocious mayhem it unleashed in Kenya, killing, maiming, and raping as a sport. I am yet to understand what gives the Caucasians their sense of superiority over everyone else.
If these Europeans saw us as savages, that would be their own thinking. But have they forgotten how their forebears lived in medieval times? Have they forgotten they lived in caves, hardly bathed for ages, and had hair left like the mane of a grown lion? They evolved into who they are today, but would not allow others their right to evolve.
The French took up arms against many of their colonies that had the nerve to demand independence. Algeria is a classic example of French brutality.
Ahmed Ben Bella led that country to independence, but French influence was pervasive, regardless.
Many patriots rose up to fight France to gain independence. I recall Modibo Keita in Mali, Maurice Yameogo in Burkina Faso, which was then called Upper Volta, Francois Tombalbaye in Chad, and Sekou Toure in Guinea. I have not forgotten Leopold Senghor in Senegal, Mouktar Ould Dada of Mauritania, and David Dacko of the Central African Republic. I cannot mention all the rest in this narrative.
But the French made a fast move. They assimilated all heads of government of their former colonies as members of the French Parliament, thus keeping a draconian economic stranglehold on those countries. Burkina Faso could not import fish directly from neighbouring Senegal. It must import the fish through Paris. None of their colonies could make direct phone calls among themselves unless they were routed through Paris.
Now that these countries are severing such a relationship, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, is frantically trying to salvage what the current wind is blowing away. In a recent visit to the DR Congo, Macron thought Mr. Tchisekedi should listen only to him. He was stunned when the Congolese leader put him in his place by telling him to listen to what he was saying, which was in response to what a journalist had stated.
Belgium ensured Rwanda and Burundi knew no peace. The genocide of 1994 in Rwanda shook Brussels to its foundation, but human life was the cost. Belgium asked the Hutu why they allowed the Tutsi, who constituted only 15% of the population, to run the country while they held 85%. What did they expect? Thankfully, Rwanda has dusted itself off the ashes and is on the mend.
They aided the American CIA to murder Patrice Lumumba, the Congolese Prime Minister, on suspicion that he was a Communist. His body was chopped up and dipped in acid.
America installed Mobutu Sese Sekou in power. He became a dictator, yet a stooge of the West for 32 years. He so plundered the wealth of his country that he was richer than the country. DR Congo has the capacity to give the whole of the African continent hydro power nonstop for fifty years. But the West cannot tolerate a non-dependent Africa.
While the West preaches against child labour, it finances and arms bandits who use child labour to mine cobalt and other precious minerals for tech industries in Silicon Valley. Indeed, the DR Congo is the richest country in Africa in terms of natural resources, but the West will not let that country be. In truth, the more unrest there is in our Great Lakes region, the more it suits the West economically.
Why can’t Europe and America leave Africa alone? Is it because Africa has the largest natural resources in the world? Or does Africa have dumb leaders who are stooges of Western interests? These two are easily the most palpable reasons. When Muammar Gaddafi wanted to finance Africa’s own telephone industry, the West got him murdered. When he wanted to finance an African drive for its own currency backed by gold under the banner of the Africa Union, some African leaders betrayed him, and the West murdered him.
All of a sudden, there is a Franco-Africa summit. There is the China-Africa summit and other summits where individual Western countries meet Africa as one whole entity. Meanwhile, DR Congo as a country is almost as big as all of Europe put together. These countries think Africa is a baby that must be guided by Senior Brother.
Why does Europe treat us like this? We must have an Africa that has the courage to boycott such summits unless they are organised on a continent-to-continent basis. It must be from Europe to Africa, from Asia to Africa, from North America to Africa, etc. What is the use of the British Commonwealth when there is no wealth common to its members?
The reality is that these Western leaders have a penchant for lecturing African leaders, never the other way around. They do not want Africa to talk to them. Africa must always listen and take instructions. Meanwhile, our leaders are so old and brain-fagged that by the time their buttocks touch their seats at these lecture sessions, they are already asleep.
Another question: why has Europe ceded leadership to America? Europe seems to fear the US so much that it has allowed American military bases all over their continent. Is this an admission that American interests supercede European interests?
Kamala Harris, the US Vice President, was in Ghana this week after Macron had come and left. Rishi Sunak may be next to visit in an effort to counter what they perceive as Sino-Russian inroads to the continent. The scramble for Africa has resurrected in earnest. My heart bleeds for a continent that is rich in natural and human resources yet is so bereft of a leadership that is expected to work for the good of all its people. This is sad.
Writer’s email address:
akofa45@yahoo.com
By Dr. Akofa K. Segbefia
Features
Political punches and the Blackman
A live boxing showdown between an Arab champion, Saddam Hussein, and the Western ‘Bazooka,’ George Bush, should be the most spectacular event in boxing and political history.
Most probably, Saddam Hussein will rely more on his thick moustache than his ‘chemical’ upper-cuts. Naturally, the dancing kenkeyweight titlist, George Bush, will turn into a southpaw, floating in the ring, jabbing, ducking and targeting Saddam’s moustache to rip it off once and for all.
Such a boxing show would be one of near equals. But consider for a moment a similar show between the Pride of Pretoria, F. W.de Klerk, and the Hope of South Africa, Oliver Tambo.
Although Tambo is not in the very best of health, he is sure to be a diligent pugilist with all the qualities of a BLACK BOMBER. F. W.de Klerk, the stronger of the two is likely to be cautioned several times for hitting below the belt. Fact is that, de Klerk’s punches are never direct. Perhaps his fists need a binoculars to help target Tambo’s nose.
Oliver Tambo had never been a good friend to South African leaders, especially
Pieter Botha. And for quite some time, Botha has had more than a fair share of Tambo’s political punches till his corner men threw in the towel. Still Botha wanted to fight on although they told him that he needed to be replaced by a clerk-de Klerk.
Today, Oliver Tambo is still fighting on behalf of his people. And gradually, the satanic apartheid regime is crumbling, but piecemeal. I bet, de Klerk’s formula for dismantling apartheid that can be likened to a small ant commissioned to eat a mountain of LOAF. Certainly, it would take a thousand years to complete.
This fact is further underscored when we consider that just recently, leaders of the European Community have agreed to scrap the ban on new investments in South Africa. With this decision, South Africa is going to get some breathing space and the process of disentangling its dreaded stranglehold on the black majority is going to be dead-slow.
The German Foreign Minister, Hans Dietrich Genscher, rationalising the community’s decision, said the lifting of the ban would reward de Klerk for legalising the African National Congress (ANC), freeing its deputy leader, Nelson Mandela, and permitting Oliver Tambo to return to South Africa after thirty years in exile.
In reaction to this, the ANC adopted a resolution calling for sanctions to be maintained, with the stand that the EC’s decision which was against ANC interests. Earlier, during an ANC congress, Oliver Tambo had stated that it was time the ANC reviewed its stand on sanctions against South Africa.
“It is no longer enough to repeat the trite slogans …… we should carefully re-evaluate the advisability of insisting on sanctions given the situation domestically and abroad.”
Apparently, the optimism of the black majority of attaining a wish is gradually becoming tantalising if not illusionary.
As it is now, the European Community’s decision is a pointer to the fact that members of the Community regard the South African whites as their first cousins. And obviously, many Europeans directly or indirectly have commercial interests in South Africa. And how can one punish a brother for so long no matter how recalcitrant he proves to be?
Fact is, covertly or overtly, the apartheid regime is being made to perpetuate till doomsday. No one cares for the black man. The whites will come out openly to condemn the racist regime and go indoors to have plans about how best to strengthen this regime.
Worse atrocities have been visited upon the black man. Since history began chronicling world events, the black man has been at the receiving end of all unpleasantries. He is even cited to have descended from a cursed man called Ham, who according to the Bible derided his father’s nakedness. Quite fallaciously, one child of Ham was said to be black (because of the curse), and became the progenitor of the African race.
It is quite uncertain whether orientals like the Chinese also had some share of the curse to make some of them yellow-skinned.
Anyhow, blacks of the world have suffered a lot, having been made slaves, tortured and abused. In the United States where many blacks became domiciled after the slave trade, they were regarded as second rate citizens. To this very day, they are discriminated against when it comes to job opportunities and prospects for promotion.
AMUSING CONCLUSIONS
They are considered brainless and only fun-loving. In a seemingly very crooked research conducted not far back, the following amusing conclusions were arrived at. Chinese students were said to be studious, European children very ambitious and bright and Negro children were said to like partying and music. Adult Negroes were said to be physically strong with large sexual organs but no brains in their heads.
The Blackman’s culture is described as uncivilised and extremely backward. But let’s come to face it. The white man’s culture teaches him to hate others who are not of his colour. You go to Europe and you would be shocked that some whites would not like to sit in the same bus with you.
When they (Europeans) come to Africa, we are not hostile to them although they’ve once enslaved and brutalised us and continue to discriminate against us. We bear them no grudge. Our culture does not breed hatred for other races. It preaches hospitality and respect for all. Which of these two cultures should be placed higher on the scale of civilisation?
In the US, a white supremacist group named the Ku Klux Klan, have a morbid hatred for blacks and have policies geared towards the elimination of the black race. The neo-Nazis do not like blacks either.
History has it that when Jesse Owens won four Olympic gold medals in Berlin, the Nazi warlord, Adolf Hitler, was gravely embittered.
We are discriminated against in sports, the latest being two dubious penalties awarded against the Indomitable Lions of Cameroun in the match against England in the 1990 World Cup in Italy. Cameroun, as a result, failed to reach the semi-final stage. Africans do not deserve a World Cup.
And quite sadly we allow Caucasians and Anglo Saxons to dictate to us which of our women are beautiful and which are not. We accept their criteria for beauty and allow our women to parade semi naked before them, only to be ridiculed as hairless monkeys, and undeserving of beauty awards.
Year after year, we send our women there to experience the same ordeal and we would never learn to stop that nonsense. Are we not encouraging the whites to go on ridiculing our race?
Caucasians, Orientals and Africans have their own considerations when appraising beauty. Why allow Caucasians to superimpose their idea of beauty on ours.
Shall we always be slaves who never stop to think for a while of their independence?
This article was first published on Saturday, December 22, 1990
Features
Is God a Liar?
I believe the first thought that will occur to anyone who reads the topic of this write-up will be what is going on here? Is this author not committing blasphemy? Recent developments on our political front has made this question relevant because of the impact these developments can have on Christianity.
In fact, a respected Christian leader in the country has commented that, Charismatic Christians seem to have decided to embark on a one way journey to self destruction.
He further commented that Charismatics have desecrated noble titles like Apostle, Bishop etc. to the extent that now if you call yourself a Prophet it is synonymous to a con man. Prophets are supposed to speak the mind of God to his people or his church and therefore when a statement is made by a Prophet claiming “thus saith the Lord” people take it whole heartedly as if God was uttering it directly to them.
Again we believe as Christians that God does not lie according to Numbers 23:19 and other references in the bible, and therefore, when a so called Prophet makes an emphatic statement that it is coming from God and a few years later this same God makes another statement contradicting the first one, then it is legitimate to ask the question “Is God a liar”?
People are beginning to lose trust in men of God because of their utterances and actions. You hear of stories of so called men of God committing adultery, stealing, cheating and all kinds of unpleasant behaviour. Unspeakable things that even unbelievers shy away from are being associated with men in white collar.
When elections are approaching, you hear of all manner of prophesies as to which presidential candidate is going to win the elections. Previously, it used to be prophetic declarations on 31st December Night until a certain Dr Dampare issued an order and suddenly God decided to take a holiday each 31st night in my beloved country, Ghana.
The respected Christian leader I mentioned earlier said, he does not believe that God elects leaders especially in our continent and that if he does, given some of the leaders we have had, then we need to have a conversation with him. I fully agree. How can a God of order and discipline, elect lawless people to be leaders who refuse to hand over power contrary to what their constitution states, when their term of office expires?
If I were a member of the fake prophet’s church, I definitely would quit the church because he has proven to be a charlatan. The Bible makes it clear in Mathew 7:20 that the criteria for determining a person’s status as a Christian is by their fruits. Instead of focusing on spreading the Gospel and showing the unsaved the way of salvation, they have turned themselves into favour seekers.
The current places of church auditoriums of some of these pastors were places of businesses as those of us who are privileged to be old enough, vividly recollect. They sing the praises of leaders and their governments, so they would be favoured with prime locations for their church auditoriums among others. These are what the Bible talks about according to Philippians 3:19 that their God is their belly among others.
Instead of seeking Godly wisdom for the revival of these distressed companies, what they were interested in was the place being given to them and they hypocritically turn around and say let us pray for jobs for the youth.
Some of these so called men of God, demand consultation fees before you can see them and I pity the poor souls who visit such places.
God is not a liar. It is against his nature to lie. He is a spirit of truth. It is rather the Devil who is a liar and the father of lies so if you lead a life of lies, as some of these pastors obviously are doing, then according to the Bible, they are fake.
By Lord Kissi-Mensah
