The War Against Africa: Ideological Colonialism

By Dr. Jeff Mirus (bio – articles – email) | Mar 22, 2018

I have long been convinced that those who seek political office are, as a general rule, morally unfit to rule. We could make an example of almost any historical regime to illustrate this thesis, for nearly every ruling group, whatever good it may have done, has deliberately led (not followed) those under its control and influence in ignoring one moral principle or another in pursuit of its own self-interest.

But we do not need to look to history. How else, except by the application of this general rule, can we explain why nearly every government in the world—and certainly every government in the West—spends so much time and energy undermining the very virtues which are required for a healthy social order? And at the purely theoretical level, is it not perfectly logical to assume that those who aspire to controlling others are most often uninterested in a wholesome participation in what we might call life on the ground?

If it were otherwise, they would be too busy for politics.

A new proof

Our political and social leaders, whatever their differences, are chosen from the pool of those who seek political and social advancement. This, my friends, is at best a tainted pool. Not only do the vast majority of them today consistently and deliberately undermine the natural law, but they work ceaselessly to export this contempt for sound moral values wherever wealth has enabled them to gain influence. In our time we have another monumental example: It was not enough that the European nations conspired to take political control of Africa in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; no, even in giving up overt political control, the West insists on taking social, economic and above all moral control of all who inhabit that vast continent.

Africa, in other words, is the new proof of my depressing thesis, and of an even older axiom: Beware of political and social leaders bearing gifts. Every one of them is a Trojan Horse. Every one of them is equipped not only with strings but reins. In Africa this takes the form of a relentless push by Western governments and foundations to destroy the personal integrity and family stability which a culture must possess if it is ever to be truly independent of first world nations that “just want to help.”

Thus the West is transforming Africa with treacherous gifts—with “aid” programs and packages designed to limit the population, lure young people and women to seek personal independence through sexual license, accept abortion as liberation, normalize sexual perversion, and remain dependent on foreign aid. All of this, of course, could have been predicted as just another variation of my central thesis. But Catholic readers, at least, know from the news that it is true. If they have any doubt, they should consult a brave new book by Obianuju Ekeocha entitled Target Africa.

My Note:

Obianuju Ekeocha

A remarkable Nigerian woman, Obianuju Ekeocha holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Microbiology from the University of Nigeria and a Masters in Biomedical Science from the University of East London. She works in Canterbury, England as a Specialist Biomedical Scientist. And perhaps most important of all, she is the founder of Culture of Life Africa, an organization defending the dignity of human life through research, information and education. According to the blurb on her book jacket, she has spoken on life and women’s issues in seventeen countries and at the United Nations.

By birth, nationality, upbringing, education and sheer ability, Ekeocha is the ideal foil for everything from the United States government to the Bill and Melissa Gates Foundation, which pours millions into Africa each year in a colossal effort to solve African problems by destroying Africans. In fact, a few years ago Ekeocha wrote an open letter to Melinda Gates, essentially telling her that Africans don’t need her stinkin’ money.

But the sum total of evil actors dwarfs the Gates Foundation. Ekeocha’s new book, just out from Ignatius Press with a foreword by Robert P. George, is subtitled “Ideological neocolonialism in the twenty-first century”. Following a jam-packed introduction providing the necessary background, Ekeocha offers compelling chapters on the effort to control Africa through population restrictions, the hypersexualization of youth, radical feminism, abortion rights, and the normalization of homosexuality. The final three chapters explain what it means to be a modern-day colonial master, explore the problem of “aid addiction”, and offer suggestions for decolonization. (Oh, and that remarkable letter to Gates is in the appendix.)

Compelling

Target Africa is absolutely compelling. It is a deeply-felt personal and even emotional witness coupled with more than enough data to prove the case, and all from a source whom the reader cannot help but admire.

“Africans by and large believe that sex is sacred,” Ekeocha writes,

that human life is precious from womb to tomb, that children are blessings, that motherhood is desirable, and that marriage between man and woman is life-generating. These are the basic family values that our parents and grandparents transmitted to us. They are embedded in our customs, enshrined in our laws, and even encoded in our native languages. To take them away from us amounts to invasion, occupation, annexation, and colonization of our people.

Returning to the thesis with which I began, I should point out that one of the book’s pervasive themes is the way in which African officials and bureaucrats line up to receive Western aid packages in return for implementing the purpose of these packages, which is to undermine their own people. What did I say about those who are interested in controlling the lives of others?

Before ever I wrote this review, there was Qoholeth the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem, as quoted in the Book of Ecclesiastes. Was he thinking of social engineers when he said there was nothing new under the sun? Perhaps I am vain to think my own little theory is original. But I can say this: For those who seek to direct others without first surrendering themselves to God, everything under that all-revealing sun is vanity.

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How The European Union Starves Africa into Submission

For example, in 2014, the continent of Africa earned 2.8 billion US dollars from exporting coffee, mainly raw, unprocessed beans which carry the lowest tariffs. By contrast, Germany alone – where coffee doesn’t grow – earned 3.8 billion US dollars from exporting processed coffee products.

It is estimated that of all the food items imported by African countries, nearly 83 per cent comes from outside the continent. The rest comes from other African countries.

African leaders are seeking ways to feed their peoples and become players in the global economy.

In the second edition of The New Harvest: Agricultural Innovation in Africa, I argue that Africa can feed itself in a generation. However, efforts to achieve such an ambitious goal continue to be frustrated by policies adopted by Africa’s historical trading partners, especially the European Union.

There are at least three ways in which EU policies affect Africa’s ability to address its agricultural and food challenges: tariff escalation; technological innovation and food export preferences.

African leaders would like to escape the colonial trap of being viewed simply as raw material exporters. But their efforts to add value to the materials continue to be frustrated by existing EU policies.

Take the example of coffee. In 2014 Africa —the home of coffee— earned nearly $2.4 billion from the crop. Germany, a leading processor, earned about $3.8 billion from coffee re-exports.

The concern is not that Germany benefits from processing coffee. It is that Africa is punished by EU tariff barriers for doing so. Non-decaffeinated green coffee is exempt from the charges. However, a 7.5 per cent charge is imposed on roasted coffee. As a result, the bulk of Africa’s export to the EU is unroasted green coffee.

The charge on cocoa is even more debilitating. It is reported that the “EU charges (a tariff) of 30 per cent for processed cocoa products like chocolate bars or cocoa powder, and 60 per cent for some other refined products containing cocoa.

The impact of such charges goes well beyond lost export opportunities. They suppress technological innovation and industrial development among African countries. The practice denies the continent the ability to acquire, adopt and diffuse technologies used in food processing. It explains to some extent the low level of investment in Africa’s food processing enterprises.

Usually, the know-how accumulated from processing exports such as coffee could be adopted for use on other crops and in other sectors. This in turn would help to stimulate industrial development and generate employment. Being defined as raw material exporters undermines technological innovation in the wider economy, not just in agriculture.

The second example where EU policy undermines African agricultural innovation is in the field of genetically modified (GM) crops. The EU exercises its right not to cultivate transgenic crops but only to import them as animal feed. However, its export of restrictive policies on GM crops has negatively affected Africa.

The adoption of restrictive policies across Africa has been pursued under the pretext of protecting the environment and human health. So far there has been little evidence to support draconian biosafety rules. It is important that the risks of new products be assessed. But the restrictions should proportionate and consistent with needs of different countries.

Africa’s needs are different from those of the EU. There are certain uniquely African problems where GM should be considered as an option. Let us look at the examples of Uganda and Nigeria.

The Xanthomonas banana wilt bacterial disease causes early ripening and discoloration of bananas, a staple crop for Uganda. This costs the Great Lakes region nearly US $500m annually in losses. There is no treatment for the disease, which continues to undermine food security.

Ugandan scientists at Kawanda Agricultural Research Institute have developed a GM approach but their efforts to further their research in the technology are hampered by opposition to it. Those opposed to the technology advocate the adoption of an EU biosafety approach that would effectively stall the adoption of the technology. In fact, some of opponents using scare tactics against the technology are EU-based non-governmental organizations.

The moth Maruca vitrata destroys about US $300 million worth of blackeyed peas in Nigeria. The country is forced to import pesticides worth US $500m annually to control the pest. Scientists at the Institute for Agricultural Research at Nigeria’s Ahmadu Bello University have developed a Maruca-resistant, GM blackeyed pea variety. Nigerian policy makers are hesitant to pursue a technology that they fear might put them on a collision course with the EU.

Pursuing EU-inspired biosafety policies denies Africa the capacity to leverage biotechnology and use it to meet its own local needs. GM technology has wider application in fields such as medicine and can be used in the development of diagnostics.

Zmapp is an example of an experimental drug for use against the Ebola virus that was developed using GM technology. In this case, EU policies on food safety may have unintended consequences of suppressing innovation in Africa not only in agriculture, but also in healthcare.

There are areas of EU-Africa agricultural trade that on the surface appear to offer hopeful signs. One of them is trade in organic produce. In fact, part of the opposition to GM technology is linked to the perception that it might compromise Africa’s export of organic produce to the EU.

The surge in demand in organic produce around the world does offer parts of Africa the opportunity to increase their food exports. Over the last two decades, Africa’s share of world food exports has dropped from 11 per cent to less than 3 per cent. Thailand exports nearly as much food as all of sub-Saharan Africa.

But boosting food exports is not going to be satisfied by dependence on niche organic markets provided by the EU. Africa needs robust efforts to upgrade its agriculture through technology adoption and not simply reliance on the exploitation of Africa’s “cheap ecology”.

One of the impacts of the policies has been to nudge Africa towards new partnerships with countries such China and Brazil that have pioneered the adoption of new agricultural technologies. This, in turn, has the long-term potential of eroding trade relations between the UK and Africa. The time has come for the EU to rethink the impact of its policies on African agriculture in general and technological transformation in particular.

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My Note: The whole financial system is monitored and safeguarded by the IMF, the Bank of International Settlement, the World Bank, the FBI, the CIA, the M16, the French Intelligence, US Army, and the Roman Catholic Churches and Mosques.

It is a global system of international enslavement which bounds every nation of today.

Africa is especially hated and feared so no one ever allocates any international capital for development to Africa.

That is why the cost of capital the final magic to economic activity is prohibitive and almost impossible in Africa. That is why Africa is still poor and under-managed!

In the rest of the world, capital is relatively cheap….

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Rich Men In London Still Deciding Africa’s Future

Some £600 million in UK aid money courtesy of the taxpayer is helping big business increase its profits in Africa via the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition. In return for receiving aid money and corporate investment, African countries have to change their laws, making it easier for corporations to acquire farmland, control seed supplies and export produce. Director of the Global Justice Now Nick Dearden said:

Director of the Global Justice Now Nick Dearden said:

“It’s scandalous that UK aid money is being used to carve up Africa in the interests of big business. This is the exact opposite of what is needed, which is support to small-scale farmers and fairer distribution of land and resources to give African countries more control over their food systems. Africa can produce enough food to feed its people. The problem is that our food system is geared to the luxury tastes of the richest, not the needs of ordinary people. Here the British government is using aid money to make the problem even worse.”

Ethiopia, Ghana, Tanzania, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Mozambique, Nigeria, Benin, Malawi and Senegal are all involved in the New Alliance.

In a January 2015 piece in The Guardian, Dearden continued by saying that development was once regarded as a process of breaking with colonial exploitation and transferring power over resources from the ‘first’ to the ‘third world’, involving a revolutionary struggle over the world’s resources. However, the current paradigm is based on the assumption that developing countries need to adopt neo-liberal policies and that public money in the guise of aid should facilitate this. The notion of ‘development’ has become hijacked by rich corporations and the concept of poverty depoliticised and separated from structurally embedded power relations.

To see this in action, we need look no further to a conference held on Monday 23 March in London, organised by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). This secretive, invitation-only meeting with aid donors and big seed companies discussed a strategy to make it easier for these companies to sell patented seeds in Africa and thus increase corporate control of seeds.

Farmers have for generations been saving and exchanging seeds among themselves. This has allowed them a certain degree of independence and has enabled them to innovate, maintain biodiversity, adapt seeds to climatic conditions and fend off plant disease. Big seed companies with help from the Gates Foundation, the US government and other aid donors are now discussing ways to increase their market penetration of commercial seeds by displacing farmers own seed systems.

Corporate sold hybrid seeds often produce higher yields when first planted, but the second generation seeds produce low yields and unpredictable crop traits, making them unsuitable for saving and storing. As Heidi Chow from Global Justice Now rightly says, instead of saving seeds from their own crops, farmers who use hybrid seeds become completely dependent on the seed, fertiliser and pesticide companies, which can (and has) in turn result in an agrarian crisis centred on debt, environmental damage and health problems.

The London conference aimed to share findings of a report by Monitor Deloitte on developing the commercial seed sector in sub-Saharan Africa. The report recommends that in countries where farmers are using their own seed saving networks NGOs and aid donors should encourage governments to introduce intellectual property rights for seed breeders and help to persuade farmers to buy commercial, patented seeds rather than relying on their own traditional varieties. The report also suggests that governments should remove regulations so that the seed sector is opened up to the global market.

The guest list comprised corporations, development agencies and aid donors, including Syngenta, the World Bank and the Gates Foundation. It speaks volumes that not one farmer organisation was invited. Farmers have been imbued with the spirit of entrepreneurship for thousands of years. They have been “scientists, innovators, natural resource stewards, seed savers and hybridisation experts” who have increasingly been reduced to becoming recipients of technical fixes and consumers of poisonous products of a growing agricultural inputs industry. So who better than to discuss issues concerning agriculture?

But the whole point of such a conference is that the West regards African agriculture as a ‘business opportunity’, albeit wrapped up in warm-sounding notions of ‘feeding Africa’ or ‘lifting millions out of poverty’. The West’s legacy in Africa (and elsewhere) has been to plunge millions into poverty. Enforcing structural reforms to benefit big agribusiness and its unsustainable toxic GMO/petrochemical inputs represents a continuation of the neo-colonialist plundering of Africa. The US has for many decades been using agriculture as a key part of foreign policy to secure global hegemony.

Phil Bereano, food sovereignty campaigner with AGRA Watch and an Emeritus Professor at the University of Washington says:

“This is an extension of what the Gates Foundation has been doing for several years – working with the US government and agribusiness giants like Monsanto to corporatize Africa’s genetic riches for the benefit of outsiders. Don’t Bill and Melinda realize that such colonialism is no longer in fashion? It’s time to support African farmers’ self-determination.”

Bereano also shows how Western corporations only intend to cherry-pick the most profitable aspects of the food production chain, while leaving the public sector in Africa to pick up the tab for the non-profitable aspects that allow profitability further along the chain.

Giant agritech corporations with their patented seeds and associated chemical inputs are ensuring a shift away from diversified agriculture that guarantees balanced local food production, the protection of people’s livelihoods and agricultural sustainability. African agriculture is being placed in the hands of big agritech for private profit under the pretext of helping the poor. The Gates Foundation has substantial shares in Monsanto. With Monsanto’s active backingfrom the US State Department and the Gates Foundation’s links with USAID, African farmers face a formidable force.

Report after report suggests that support for conventional agriculture, agroecology and local economies is required, especially in the Global South. Instead, Western governments are supporting powerful corporations with taxpayers money whose thrust via the WTO, World Bank and IMF has been to encourage strings-attached loans, monocrop cultivation for export using corporate seeds, the restructuring of economies, the opening of economies to the vagaries of land and commodity speculation and a system of globalised trade rigged in favour of the West.

In this vision for Africa, those farmers who are regarded as having any role to play in all of this are viewed only as passive consumers of corporate seeds and agendas. The future of Africa is once again being decided by rich men in London.

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— Ethiopia: Not a Fair Price for Coffee Farmers in Ethiopia

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The Destabilization of Africa. A Machiavellian Intrigue of Colossal Proportions

On December 24th 2013, the United Nations Security Council voted to increase peacekeeping forces in South Sudan, whose independence from the North US-NATO powers celebrated only recently.  Democratic elections in South Sudan did not, however, lead to peace and stability.  Now, two ethnic groups, in South Sudan, the Dinka and Nuer are slaughtering each other.  UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon stated:

“We have reports of horrific attacks.  Innocent civilians are being targeted because of their ethnicity.  This is a grave violation of human rights, which could fuel a spiral of civil unrest across the country.”

South Sudan, which contains vast oil reserves, borders Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.  Spread of its crisis would further destabilize a significant part of Africa.  Clearly, Western-style “democratic elections,” the panacea touted by Western agencies such as National Endowment for Democracy, and related Western NGOs, have not only failed to provide stability and enhanced standards of living for many countries where they have been implemented  (or imposed, militarily by US-NATO intervention, such as in Iraq and Libya and Afghanistan), but are beginning to appear to be the precursor of ethnic and social violence and disintegration in many notable instances in Africa, and not only in Africa.

On September 20, 2013, at the opulent Westgate mall in Nairobi, Kenya endured a deadly terrorist attack that slaughtered more than 40 people, including several Europeans.  The Al Qaeda affiliated Shabab, the Islamic jihadist group based in Somalia took responsibility for the attack, ostensibly in reprisal for Kenya’s participation in the African Union’s mission to combat Shabab’s domination of large areas of Somalia.

Less than two months later, in Security Council action – or more accurately described – inaction) on November 15, the Security Council failed to support a resolution submitted by the African Union, in accordance with Article 16 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, to defer, for 12 months, prosecution of Kenyan President Kenyatta and Deputy-President William Ruto.  The deferral would enable President Kenyatta to concentrate his efforts on combating the terrorism that is destabilizing Kenya, terrorism by the jihadist group who imposition of barbaric Sharia law includes the burial of young girls up to their necks in sand, and then stoning these innocent children to death.

The African Union pleaded for this deferral to prevent the serious distraction of the Kenyan President’s attention from his efforts to combat this recent upsurge of terrorism in Kenya.  The Security Council failed to adopt this resolution, thereby abdicating its primary responsibility to protect peace and security.  The Security Council’s failure to adopt this African Union resolution could also be perceived as a “double message” in the effort to eliminate terrorism.  Following the vote, in explanation, each country spoke.

Not only have democratic elections failed to enhance the quality of life and standard of living in numerous African countries – and elsewhere;  Kenya is a country in which democratic elections in December 2007 unleashed horrendous inter-ethnic slaughter and violent destabilization in a country that had hitherto been a model of stability and economic and social development for Africa and the developing world.  How can the sudden eruption of such clan and tribal warfare be explained in a country that had, for decades, not undergone such violent inter-ethnic conflict and destabilization?

Recently a highly placed diplomatic source accredited to the United Nations observed a pattern emerging in African countries where western NGOs with links to U.S. intelligence were based and operating:  previously non-existent inter-ethnic violence suddenly erupted, and this phenomenon was occurring in even the most stable countries.  One of these western NGOs, in particular, was based and operating in Kenya since 2003, a full four years before the sudden eruption of inter-ethnic warfare and violent destabilization that followed the December, 2007 democratic elections.

One can only question the “coincidental” nature of these violent inter-ethnic occurrences in many previously stable African countries. Recalling that Russian President Putin prohibited USAID and particular Western NGO’s  from operating in Russia, one can only conclude that he was trying to spare Russia from the fate observed in too many African countries, and elsewhere.

This “indirect exercise of influence on dependent foreign elites” could be the hidden trigger provoking and inciting the violent ethnic and political conflict that appears to be rapidly spreading, undermining previously functioning economies and national structures and institutions.

Who benefits?  A substantial part of China’s oil supply comes from Africa.  Chinese contracts with African nations are more equitable than those of US-NATO countries, and therefore have preferential status in many African countries, with China contributing to the construction of infrastructure, and offering considerably higher payment for oil extracted.  It is, however, very much in China’s interest that internal stability prevail in these African countries, in order to perpetuate this arrangement.  Chaos, spreading terrorism, civil conflict disrupt the functioning of these arrangements, and may ultimately serve the purpose of driving China out of Africa.

In the corridors of power at the United Nations, and elsewhere, is whispered that it is part of large-scale geopolitical engineering to to disrupt and deprive China of its oil supply in Africa, thereby implementing the first part of “hegemony of a new type.”  What follows this “new type of hegemony” is a Machiavellian intrigue of colossal proportion.

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5 of The Biggest Threats Facing Black People Today

1: Modern Arab Slave Trade

Africa has been devastated economically, socially, politically, and demographically from a combined 13 centuries of chattel slavery at the hands of Europeans and Arabs that involved the removal of 35 million people from their native land, according to some estimates.

Although slavery has been legally abolished, African people are still subjected to chattel slavery in 2013. Anti-slavery International reports that over 50,000 Africans have been sold and owned by Arabs in North Africa. An estimated 660,000 people are subjected to forced labor in sub-Saharan Africa.

In the northwestern African country of Mauritania, a system now exists by which Arab Muslims—called the Bidanes (masters) who disdain physical work—still hold Haratine (enslaved Africans) as property. An estimated 90,000 Mauritanians remain essentially enslaved.

Haratine mothers do not own their children; they are instead passed down through their masters’ estates. Captives are bought and sold, given as wedding gifts, and traded for camels, trucks, or guns. The enslaved Africans perform domestic work, haul water, and shepherd cattle.

Sudan has seen a resurgence of slavery since 1983. During the second Sudanese civil war, as many as 200,000 people had been taken into slavery. The indigenous ethnic groups in South Sudan are often attacked by North African Arabs, who kill men and imprison children and women as slaves. Physical maiming is not uncommon and is usually done to the captives to instill fear and prevent escape.

According to CBS News, slaves have been sold for $50 per person. Many of the perpetrators of these atrocities are mixed-race and Arabized Blacks who have completely rejected their African identities and murder and enslave in the interest of Arabs.

Slavery also occurs in a number of other African countries including Somalia, Mali, Niger, and Chad.

2. Neocolonialism in Africa by the US, European countries, Arab Nations and China

American, Chinese, Arab and European powers have embarked on a new scramble for Africa, targeting its natural resources.

The Chinese are traveling to Africa in large numbers, with over 1 million Chinese citizens on the continent already and more arriving daily. Angola alone has a Chinese population of over 350,000.

China’s direct investment in Africa today exceeds $50 billion, but most of the profits are returned to China and do not largely benefit the people of the African nations.

The presence of the United States is also expanding. The Pentagon’s Africa Command suggests there is one military base on the continent, but according to sources, the U.S. military is at work throughout Africa in base construction, security cooperation engagements, training exercises, advisory deployments, special operations missions, and a growing logistics network – all undeniable evidence of expansion to secure its interests there.

Arab expansionists in Sudan are currently killing native Africans in Darfur and Nubia to grab land and resources and make way for Arabs outside the continent to resettle there. Over the past 50 to 60 years, Arabs have killed or enslaved millions of Africans, seizing land from them and displacing them in their efforts.

3. Black Tribalism (Lack of Solidarity)

The negative effects of tribalism permeate Black people in the Americas, Caribbean and within African nations. In Africa alone, there are over 3,000 distinct tribes and resulting conflicts have caused  millions of deaths, trauma and displacement. In 1994, an estimated 1 million Rwandans were killed in the battle between the Tutsi and the Hutu. In the Americas and in parts of the Caribbean, tribalism also plays out in the form of Black-on-Black gang violence.

The major issue stemming from tribalism among Black people is that it causes a lack of solidarity.  Europeans and Asians have all but eradicate thousands of years of tribalism and have been able to unify and achieve major advancements. They understood the importance of binding together for success.  Black people have been unable to accomplish this unity and so the Black world today is often divisive leading to  mediocre governments, poor military defense, weak economies and other issues.

Black tribalism is also part of the reason why Europeans and Asians have been able to take advantage of Blacks politically, economically and physically. For example, the colonial Belgian government began actively promoting tensions between the Hutu and Tutsi after World War I when it took control of Rwanda.

4. Falsification of African Consciousness

In his book, “Falsification of African Consciousness,” Dr. Amos Wilson offers an analysis of the current state of Black people’s collective consciousness and how it prevents them from developing solutions to their collective problems.

Wilson defines consciousness in terms of three elements:

Contents – beliefs, opinions, knowledge, perceived knowledge, self-perceptions, worldview, conditioned responses.

Instrumentalities – how we process the contents in our mind.

Directional Organization  – how we use our consciousness to pursue goals; the values we hold; and the reasons behind our thoughts.

Via his analysis, Wilson concludes that white supremacy has altered the consciousness of Black people by giving us fabricated contents: a false history, false knowledge and false fantasies. Therefore, our ability to think and act in our own interests has been impaired because we have become confused about what knowledge is, who it belongs to, and how it should be used.

Today, because of propaganda intended to influence our thinking, many Black people perceive racism only in terms of prejudice and discrimination. Therefore we are focused on the consumption of goods we think will get other people to like and respect us, while neglecting the acquisition of real power to dominate and control our own affairs.

5. Underdevelopment and Lack of Security

Twenty-five hundred years of invasion, conquest, slavery, and colonization have led to the severe underdevelopment of the African continent. Many economists argue that the physical infrastructure of African, Latin American and Caribbean nations are insufficient to maintain favorable economic development.

Physical infrastructure refers mainly to public transportation ( roads, highways, railroads, ports, airports, etc.), telecommunications, potable water and electric energy systems, sanitation, schools, and hospitals.

Adequate infrastructure is the foundation for economic development and the elimination of poverty. Its absence  places limitations on a region’s international competitiveness, trade opportunities, and foreign investment.

The African continent, the second largest on earth, is more immense than the United States, China, India and the European Union combined. Enormous distances combined with poor infrastructure hampers the intercommunication and the development of ties between African nations, which also consist of diverse ethnic groups.

Unity in Africa is challenging under these circumstances. This is unlike Europe, which is only one-third the size of Africa and whose population have been unified by Christianity for almost 2,00o years.

Economic, social, and political development in Africa and the Diaspora is essential to Black unity, which  is absolutely necessary if we are to effectively address major world forces that threaten the Black world.

It was a neglect of collective security that made it possible for other groups to divide, conquer, enslave, and colonize Black people repeatedly over the last 2,000 years. Building a Black world collective security system is, therefore, of vital importance for our dignity, self-respect and more importantly, our survival.

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Out of Africa – Did the Colonial Powers Ever Really Leave?

Africa may have achieved independence, but the old colonial ties are still important as France’s decision to send troops to Mali to fight Islamist extremists shows. The old colonial powers in Africa may no longer be the rulers, but they still exert influence and have strong economic and political links. David McDonald, professor of the Global Development Studies at Queen’s University, says, “The French and the English were much more strategic in terms of recognizing that they wanted to maintain neo-colonial linkages with their former colonies. So it was shedding the direct authoritarian power at the barrel of a gun and replacing that with independence, but an independence that was, and is still to some extent, extremely dependent on the political and economic will of the former colonial masters.”

 

Continue reading…

Another Stealth War For Resources : The New Scramble for Africa

Biofuels war has broken out in Africa.

Newspaper headlines have not proclaimed it but the gist of it is already out. Big money profiteers from Europe and United States are rushing to Africa in a new scramble for the continent, transforming large swathes of arable land into massive biofuels plantations.

Local but poor populations in many parts of Africa are increasingly being driven deeper into economic obscurity yet 60% of them still depend on agriculture for survival. Another 60% of that eke out a living by subsistence farming and animal husbandry.

The World Bank has been sitting on a secret report since April that says biofuels are responsible for the global food crisis; food prices have risen 75% because of the impact of the search for alternative fuels through the use of food products.

According to the anti biofuels investment campaigners, whole villages are being cleared or grabbed, but families have been given minimal compensation or opportunities for their loss of land, community and way of life.

African civil society is calling for a moratorium on new biofuels investments in Africa amid concern that that the biofuels revolution will bring more food insecurity, higher food prices and hunger to the continent. In Tanzania, thousands of farmers growing cereals like corn and rice are already being evicted from fertile land with good access to water, for biofuel sugar cane and jatropha plantations on newly privatized land.

Endangered wildlife are not spared too. It is claimed one European investor has been granted 13,000 hectares of land in Oromia state of Ethiopia; 87% of which is the Babile Elephant Sanctuary, a home to rare and endangered elephants.

Spiegel Online reported recently how African governments and local farmers were being showered with promises by these big money spenders out on a green gold mad rush on the continent and further questioned if the frenzy was a form of economic colonialism.

Sun Biofuels, a British firm, has been granted free of charge a 99 year lease by the Tanzanian authorities to put 9,000 hectares or 22,230 acres of farmland under biofuels crop in exchange of a paltry $20 million (€13 million) corporate social responsibility investment to build roads and schools, among other amenities.

This deal follows dozens others involving firms from Netherlands, the United States, Sweden, Japan, South Korea, Canada and Germany, the German website reported. It is emerging that the US and Europe may be in a trade war over biofuels subsidies.

To prove that the biofuels scramble has nothing to do with alternative fuels but profit and more profit, Spielgel reported that Prokon, a German company switched from its primary business of producing wind turbines to growing jatropha curcas, now the catch phrase of African biofuels, in a land area the size of Luxembourg. It is a shrub with toxic seeds which contain a high percentage of oil used for candles, soap and biodiesel production.

But skeptical European scientists, alarmed by the impact of biofuels on skyrocketing food prices, are pushing the European Union to back away from its commitment to eco-fuel. Part of this skepticism, however, means that while the Western world pursues biofuels, caution demands that other lands must be found to cultivate the crop, and Africa fits the bill.

With China also looming in the picture, Africa could just be the perfect battle ground of the Biofuels Armageddon. Sadly, her role, as in most other economic wars, will be that of the grass on which two elephants fight.

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