Adonis Diaries

Connecting a few dots: Colonialism and Blood Money in Africa. Part 2.

You may start with part 1, if you wish https://adonis49.wordpress.com/2012/07/14/part-1-on-africa-and-blood-money/

Part 2 concerns the consequences of Colonialism on the African people (with slight editing and rearrangement of the original source):

“Africa is almost 4 times the size of the United States of America in land size and in all kinds of riches, especially in raw materials such as platinum, cobalt, uranium, tantalum, gold, diamonds and oil…

Africa was destroyed by imperialist Europe and is still being destroyed by Europe. The effects of colonialism past and present are visible all over Africa.

Africa has suffered the worst genocide and holocaust at the hands of the architects of slavery and colonialism. What is called “European Renaissance” was the worst darkness for Africa’s people.

Armed with the technology of the gun and the compass that it copied from China, Europe became a menace for Africa against her spears. So-called “civilized” Europe and claiming to be “Christian” came up with the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. There was massive loss of African population and skills.

A few historians have estimated that the Gold Coast (today’s Ghana) alone, lost over 2 million of its people to slavery over four hundred years.

What would have been Britain’s level of development had millions of her people been put to work as slaves out of their country over a period of four centuries?

As if slavery had not already done enough damage to Africa’s people, European leaders met in Germany from December 1884 to February 1885 at the imperialist Berlin Conference.

The Belgian King Leopold stated the purpose of the Berlin Conference as “How we should divide among ourselves this magnificent African cake.”

Africa was thus plunged into another human tragedy.

The Berlin Treaty of February 26, 1885, of the European imperialists sliced Africa into “Portuguese Africa”, “British Africa”, “German Africa”, “Italian Africa,” “Spanish Africa”, “French Africa” and “Belgian Africa.” There was no Africa left for Africans except Ethiopia, encircled by paupers of land dispossessed people who were now the reservoir of cheap native labor for their dispossessors.

Somalia, a tiny African country, had the misfortune of becoming “British Somaliland”, “Italian Somaliland”, and “French Somaliland.” Colonial brutality on the colonized Africans knew no bounds.

Here are a few examples of atrocities committed against Africans by colonialists.

A British philosopher, Bertrand Russell wrote about some of these colonial atrocities perpetrated by Belgium in the Congo in the name of “Western Christian Civilisation.” Russell wrote:

“Each village was ordered by the authorities to collect and bring in a certain amount of rubber – as much as the men could bring in by neglecting all work for their own maintenance. If they failed to bring the required amount, their women were taken away and kept as hostages…in the harems of colonial government employees. If this method failed…troops were sent to the village to spread terror, if necessary by killing some of the men…they were ordered to bring one right hand amputated from an African victim for every cartridge used.” (Introduction To African Civilisations, John G. Jackson 310-311)

The result of these atrocities according to Sir H.H. Johnston was the reduction of the population in the Congo from twenty million to nine million people in fifteen years.

The worst genocide also occurred in Namibia in 1904.

Namibia was then a German colony. The Herero people resisted German colonialism. A well armed army under General Lothar von Trotha defeated the people in Herero at the Battle of Waterberg.

The German colonial aggressors drove these Africans from their land to the desert where there was no water. Over 70% of the Herero population died of dehydration in that desert.

In South Africa, the Khoisan people were exterminated by colonialists after being hunted like animals and dispossessed of their land.

Colonised Africans were treated not only as sub-humans, they were denied basic rights such as education and the right to land for decent housing, farming, mining and fishing. Colonial functionaries were honoured for barbaric actions and atrocities.  For example:

The British government honoured its colonial officials such as “Sir Andries Stockkenstrom“. Stockkenstrom had earlier said:

“The question of robbing natives of their land is not whether it is right or wrong to plunder their land, massacre and exterminate the Hottentots, the Kaffirs…the simple question is will it PAY? But if the Bible and the missionary stands in the way of this one thousand per cent profit…If in short, they cannot promote the great work of converting a nation of shop-keepers into a nation of millionaires,…gun powder will produce a more efficient gospel for the purpose of our system of civilization.” (R.U. Kenny, Piet Retief, Cape Town and Pretoria: Human and Reason, 1976 page 77)

When introducing inferior education for African mental enslavement in South Africa, Hendrik F. Verwoerd, that arch implementer of apartheid colonialism, said:

“There is no place for him (the African) in the European community above the level of certain forms of labour. Until now, he (the African) has been subjected to a school system which drew him away from his community and misled him by showing him the green pastures of the European society where he is not allowed to graze.” (‘Apartheid: The Story Of A Dispossessed People, Motsoko Pheko page 150 Marram Books London 1984)

Slavery and colonialism enriched Europe and reduced Africa to abject poverty. The riches of Africa and her raw materials fueled the economies of imperialist countries. The British Prime Minister, Sir Winston Churchill bore testimony to this fact when he said:

“Our possession of the West Indies gave us the strength, the support, but especially the capital, the wealth, at the time when no other European nations possessed such reserve, which enabled us to come through the great struggles of the Napoleonic Wars. The keen competition of commerce in the 18th and 19th centuries enabled us not only to acquire this appendage of possessions which we have, but also to lay the foundations of that commercial and financial leadership which when the world was young,…enabled us to make our great position in the world.” (‘The Long Road To Humanity’, by Stanton A. Coblentz page 325 and Introduction To African Civilizations John G. Jackson page 306)

It was against this background of genocide in the name of “European civilization  that Africans in the Diaspora who had been shipped from Africa and enslaved in the West Indies and in the Americas realized that the solution to Africa’s people both at home and abroad was Pan-Africanism…To be followed on part 3

Note:  Part 2 is another section of a long reply letter by Nalliah Thayahbaran, in reply to my post https://adonis49.wordpress.com/2012/06/29/mania-of-rebranding-africa-disaster-vogue-of-italy/