From: sunny@me.cs.wm.edu (John S. Egbo)
Subject: The Black Man's Burden.
Organization: College of William & Mary, founded 1693
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 23:42:30 GMT

I think that it is time that the Africans and the Africans in Diaspora
reading Soc.Culture.African and Soc.Culture.African.American sink some
teeth into THE issue connecting all Black people.  What is the Black
Man's Burden?

Obviously the burden is very big and it goes without saying that a
discussion of the Black Man's Burden without full account of the Black
Man's recent history will not be worth the medium.  If you don't fully
know where you came from you surely don't know where you are going.  In
this thread and the next few that I am about to start, I will shed some
insights into the issues, such as neo-colonialism, the White man's
burden, and Issue of Reparation.  Read with an open mind.

So we start with the history. I now quote from a book by E. D. Morel
written in 1920 with the same title as this note:
   
   "In hewing out for himself a fixed abode in Africa, the white 
    man has massacred the Africans in heaps.  The African has 
    survived, and it is well for the white settlers that he has.

    In the process of imposing his political dominion over the
    African, the white man has carved broad and bloody avenues
    from one end of Africa to the other.  The African has resisted
    and persisted.

    For three centuries the white man seized and enslaved millions
    of Africans and transported them, with every circumstance of
    ferocious cruelty, across the seas.  Still the African survived
    and, in his land of exile, multiplied exceedingly.

    But what partial occupation of his soil by the white man has
    failed to do; what the mapping out of European political 
    'spheres of influence' has failed to do; what the maxim and
    the rifle, the slave gang, labour in the bowels of the earth
    and the lash have failed to do; what imported measles,
    smallpox and syphilis have failed to do; what even the oversea
    slave trade failed to do, the power of modern capitalistic
    exploitation, assisted by modern engines of destruction, may
    yet succeed in accomplishing."

It is very telling that a book written in 1920 forsaw the problems
of Africans everywhere as they exist today.  I believe that it is 
neo-colonialism that has confused Africans the most.  You just have
to listen to an African American discussing their opinion of what is
wrong with Africa or the Africans discussing the faceless political
problems at home to understand why I say this.  It is amazing to me
that a book written in 1920 before the first "independence" of a
modern African country existed predicted the issues that confront
the mordern African.

Again from the book by Morel:

    "His [the African's] chances of effective resistance have been
     steadily dwindling with the increasing perfectibility in the 
     killing power of modern armament.  Gunpowder broke the 
     effectiveness of his resistance to slave trade although he
     continued to struggle. He has ...

     ... He cannot successfully oppose members of his own race
     free from these impediments, employed by his white adversaries,
     and trained in all the diabolical devices of scientific massacre.
     And although ...

     ... The trade had grown so large that mere kidnapping raids
     conducted by white men in the immediate neighbourhood of the
     coast-line were quite insufficient to meet its requirements...
     ... Tribe was bribed to fight tribe, community to raid
     community.  To every native chief, as to every one of his 
     subjects, was held out the prospect of gain at the expense of
     his neighbour.  Tribal feuds and individual hatred were alike
     intesified, and while wide stretches of countryside were 
     systematically ravaged by organised bands of raiders armed
     with muskets, 'hunting down victims for the English trader
     whose blasting influence, like some malignant providence
     extended over mighty regions where the face of the white man
     was never seen', the trade put within the reach of the
     individual the means of satisfying a personal grudge and of
     ministering to a private vengeance."

What value is the intellectual achievement of any of us if we do not
critically review our own history for our enlightenment and insight.
I know that you all will not dissappoint as far as saying what needs to
be said.  I also know that there are forces out there that would rather
have us not be discussing this issue of import to our survival.

-Sunny
Newsgroups: soc.culture.african