By Dr. Kwame Nantambu
November 14, 2009
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com
History is one of the most powerful weapons in the armory of a people to define and empower and defend themselves.
If a people do not place themselves in their proper historical context, then, such a people would be defenseless, powerless and nothingless. As such, it is very vital for a people to write, interpret, and analyse their own history for, by and of themselves. Failure to do so would be fatal for their existence. And their demise would be assured. No people should allow another people to write, interpret and analyse their own history. Most of all, the oppressed or colonised must not allow their oppressor or coloniser to write, interpret and analyse their history. More specifically, we Afrikan people must not allow our European oppressor/coloniser to write, interpret and analyse our history.
We must not allow him to tell us who we are, as a people.We, Afrikan people, must write, interpret and analyse our own perspectives, frame of reference and worldview.
Our European coloniser only writes, interprets and analyses our Afrikan history in order to maintain, perpetuate and strengthen European global supremacy, as part of “the manifestation of the evil genius of Europe”. Under this scenario, Europe and Europeans are portrayed as the subject and creators of world history and world events, while Afrika and Africans are portrayed as the Object.
However, the liberation struggle demands that, as an Afrikan people, we must re-write our history so that Afrika and Afrikans are the true Subject and creators of world history and world events.
Our history tells us that humankind was born or created in Mother Afrika, and not in Father Europe. Mother Afrika is the cradle of civilisation. Our history tells us that we are the original peoples with original ideas. Our history tells us that we are true global majority, while Europeans are the global minority. Our history tells us that our past is that as an Afrikan people; our present is that as an Afrikan people; and our future is that as an Afrikan people. And there is nothing we or anyone can do to deny these realities. The liberation struggle demands that the time is now for us to live as our history dictates in every aspect of our daily lives. The time is now for us to Afrikanise ourselves 24-7- 365. The time is now for us to relive, re-practice and return to our original spiritual way of life and belief system. The time is now for us to return to our communal and extended family way of life. The time is now for us to internalise our original Afrikan mindset as we strive for total liberation, as a people, in this new millennium.
Our history tells us that being an Afrikan is an internal or inside job. It does not follow that just because someone wears Afrikan clothes, eats Afrikan foods, play Afrikan music, and even has an Afrikan name that these external actions make such a person an Afrikan. They do not.
Such a person may just only be a fake, superficial, phoney Afrikan or Trini-Afro-Negro.
A person’s Afrikanness is, first of all, planted and the seeds are sown in one’s invisible, internal, subconscious mind. This is the first stage in this growth process. This spiritual experience is similar to a drug or alcohol addiction when one achieves sobriety. Such a person knows when that time comes or when such an experience is achieved within himself or herself. Such a person also knows that inner, internal, invisible feeling and comfort zone. Such a person knows that a life-long spiritual, subconscious connection has been made with their “higher power” in this case or that spiritual God-force, Amun-Ra, the “giver of life” in the case of Afrikanness. These are two inside jobs. These addicts not only submit but also put their daily life in the hands of their “higher power ” just as the new Afrikan also puts his/her daily life in the hands of their spiritual God-force. This internal, spiritual sobriety then dictates, guides and fashions the external, visible, conscious mind-set and actions of this new Afrikan.
The liberation struggle suggests that a people without a sense of history are ill-equipped to visualise and plan a future because of an unclear, distorted and mis-directed picture of their past. It also asserts that a people without the knowledge of “having done”, will have grave difficulty in acquiring the positive motivation of “can do”. As slain Pan Afrikan Nationalist Bro. Malcolm X, once warned: “If I can convince you that you have done nothing, then you will do nothing.” Over the past 500 years, European or Euro-centric scholarship and history have been written to convince the world that Afrikans are a nothing people; a people without a history, culture or civilisation; and that nothing came out of Afrika but uncivilised, barbaric, primitive slaves, savages and cannibals.
As a counter-measure, we must re-write our history to convince the world that Afrika and Afrikans created original culture and civilisations. Indeed, the Nile River in ancient Kemet (Egypt) was known as “the world’s first cultural highway.” Afrikan people created everything and there would not be a world, Europe or America today in the A.D. Era if there was not an Afrika in the B.C. era. History proves that Afrikans, are an everything, all-inclusive people.
Everything on this Planet Earth came out of Mother Afrika and then spread to the rest of the world. Our history seeks to re-make us the powerful people we once were. Our history does not focus on those Afrikans who picked cotton, etc. on the plantations of the American South or the Caribbean or South America. This brutal, inhumane experience only represents .01 percent of the history of Afrikan people on this earth. This European slavery experience represents our nationality.
Indeed, our interpretation and celebration of our history must focus on those Afrikans who built the pyramids; invented the world’s first 365 ¼ day calendar; astronomy, astrology, writing, philosophy, religion, mathematics, paper, medicine, the Caesarean Section, psychology, governance and architecture, just to name a few. This glorious and humane experience represents 99.9 percent of the history of Afrikan people on this planet. This experience represents our Afrikan originality.
Our history informs us that our nationality is an accident of birth that is based on European enslavement, colonialism, imperialism and supremacy. It represents an indictment from Father Europe.
However, our originality is based on our direct Afrikan heritage/ Afrikanness and this is no accident.
Originality represents a gift from Mother Afrika. This interpretation and celebration of our history proves that we are the people of yesterday and tomorrow, while Europeans are only the people of today.
We, Afrikans, are the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.
It must be properly understood that without a proper interpretation and analysis of our history, then the liberation struggle will be exercise in absolute futility, at best. Our history’s role is to facilitate, to define, re-locate, re-direct, fashion and mould the liberation struggle. Our history’s role is to equip us with the necessary tools and ammunition to formulate plans for the future. Its role is to enable us to engage in critical thinking and analysis of the multi-faceted problems and issues that affect and impact on us as a people. As the deceased Afri-centric historian, Dr. John Henrik Clarke, correctly observes:
“History is a clock that people use to tell their political and cultural time of day. It is also a compass that people use to find themselves on the map of human geography. The role of history is to tell a people what they have been and where they have been; what they are and where they are. The most important role that history plays is that it has the function of telling a people where they still must go and what they still must be.”
The reality is that cultural revolution is necessary today as a result of 500 years of European colonialism, imperialism, and supremacy. Such a revolution is all the more vital among oppressed peoples, in general, and people of Afrikan decent, in particular, as a result of European enslavement a la Afrikan Holocaust or MAAFA. Cultural revolution must involve total decolonisation if liberation is to be achieved and maximized. Anise asserts that: “Total national liberation must manifest in the establishment of a revolutionary culture as the foundation of nation-building.”
Cultural dependency cannot co-exist on the same road to liberation. This only represents cultural confusion and congestion at its zenith. Something would have to give way to the other.
Liberation calls for the exercise of “mass culture”, not “elite culture”. It must represent the cultural values of the masses and not those of the chosen few in society. If it does not, then this change will only lead to further nation or internal self-imposed divide and rule and inequality in the short-run and violence in the long-run. It must be clearly understood that the liberation struggle is “an act of culture”. Cabral also asserts that: “Culture and struggle come to influence one another reciprocally. Culture, the foundation and resource of inspiration for the struggle, begins itself to be influenced by the struggle; this is reflected in the conduct of social groupings and individuals as well as the unfolding of struggle itself”.
In the past and present, culture has never been regarded as relevant to socio-economic development in TnT. The cultural impact was absent, by accident or design and even political leaders have tended to neglect the detrimental and direct correlation between cultural imperialism, economic dependency and under-development. It is time that we realise that cultural factors are paramount in the process of genuine liberation. Tall buildings do not develop or industrialization make. They can engender superficial success or bring about disaster, as they have undoubtedly done for TnT.
In TnT today, we do not have an inward-looking, self-reliant, cultural approach to liberation. Instead, we have pursued and accepted foreign Euro-models.
As was enunciated in the 19th Century: “The country that is more developed industrially, only shows to the less developed, the image of its own future”. That is, the future for which TnT is striving – the achievement of first world developed nation status or to become the new United States of Trinidad and Tobago. This only tantamounts to the Euro-American re-colonization of TnT.
We cannot talk about national liberation when over 75 percent of TnT’s TV programs originate from Euro-America.These programs were once described by deceased William Demas as “brainless”, “junk” and an “insult” to the intelligence of our people. In terms of the liberation struggle, television programs must be used for re-education, development, transmission, strengthening and location of a cultural identity for entertainment and to ignite the spirit of TnT nationalism. As of this writing, TV programs and commercials have completely Kentuckyfried, Mc Donaldarised, Royal Castled, Pizza Hutted, Pizza Boysed, Mario’s Pizzarised, Burger Kinged, Ginzanos Subbed, Church’s Chickened, Subwayed and Popeyed Chickened & Seafooded TnT’s cultural/culinary values and way of life 24-7-365. Instead of having family evening dinners at home, these domestic meetings are now held in Euro-American, unhealthy, fast food eating venues. Trinis like foreign! And the shameful, sad, realistic irony is that 95.0 percent of the patrons of these eating outlets are Afrikan-Trinis.
This is unabashed cultural insanity, dislocation and retrogressive human behavior. The bottom-line is that Trinbagonians are neurologically culturally brain-damaged, brain-dead, anesthetized and culturally comatose.
However, the dangerous and scary tragedy is that Trinbagonians are walking around as if nothing is dysfunctional and/or wrong with their cultural body-politic; they are operating as if there is no problem. “We like it.”
As a result of this cultural madness, TnT not only has physical vagrants on its streets everyday, but also cultural vagrants who wear Afrikan clothing once a year at the Emancipation Carnival Day celebrations… one-ah-day-Africans.
It is at this juncture that we have to distinguish the vital difference between Emancipation and Liberation within a cultural context. The fact of the matter is that the current celebration of Emancipation has been practised in a Euro-Centric, dysfunctional context. It is devoid of its original, Afrikan historical context or Afrikanness; hence its obvious ineffectiveness in either empowering Afrikan-Trinis or being regarded as a serious, concerted and planned challenge to European supremacy. There is a vital endemic disconnect between Emancipation Day celebrations and the totality of the Afrikan historical experience on this planet. In other words, every August 1, Afrikan-Trinis wear very expensive Afrikan clothes, albeit costumes, at the historical site at the old Treasury Building, where the Afrikan slaves received the news of their so-called Emancipation from their Euro-British slaves – masters. At this site, Afrikan-Trinis not only beat Afrikan drums and Steelpans but also chew Euro-American made gum in the boiling hot sun in the early morning. This is cultural insanity, contradiction and inconsistency at its TnT asinine zenith. It represents past Euro-British colonisation and present Euro-American re-colonisation in the era of supposed political independence, or, as the deceased Afri- Centric historian, Dr. John Henrik Clarke, describes it, “flag independence”. These Afrikan-Trinis would then march through the streets of Port-of-Spain and end their pilgrimage at the Queen’s Park Savannah – a physical venue named in the image and likeness of the very same Euro-British slave – masters who enslaved and freed/emancipated them. This is cultural insanity, contradictions and inconsistency at its TnT asinine zenith. This Euro-centric action proves that the descendants of those Afrikan slaves may have been freed physically, between 1834-1838, but their actions in August 2009 prove that they have not been emancipated mentally.
As Bro. Malcolm X once observed: “The white man took the chains from our feet and put them on our mind”. In other words, physical slavery has been abolished, but mental, psychological or scientific slavery is still alive and kicking in TnT. 24-7-365. True liberation, within a cultural context, does not reflect what Afrikan-Trinis wear on August 1 but their values and way of life from August 2 to July 31, every year, surely do. Emancipation means that Afrikan-Trinis are freed and Afrikanised for one day, but for the remaining 364 days, they are Euro-Americanised in their daily lives. “We like it.” As a result of the current celebration of Emancipation Day, what we have in TnT are nothing but one-ah-day Afrikans. If any reader doubts this writer, please observe the clothes these same Afrikan-Trinis wear during these other 364 days; observe the foods these same Afrikan-Trinis eat during these 364 days; observe the Gods the Afrikan-Trinis worship during these 364 days.
The cultural reality is that Emancipation is nothing but an event to make Afrikan-Trinis feel good about themselves; at least temporarily. On a permanent basis, they are a powerless, defenceless people. Wake up, my fellow Trinis and smell the coffee; its Afrikan/ Black; its not Dougla, “Trini-White” or Red as in “Redman”. Emancipate yourself from mental, cultural Euro-imposed slavery.
Free your subconscious mind from Euro-centric garbage and cobweb so that total liberation can flow and be fruitful in this new millennium. Our Afrikan ancestors demand nothing more; so let us give them nothing less. Liberation demands that Afrikan-Trinis should stop celebrating Afrikan History Month in November and celebrate Afrikan Liberation Year instead. Emancipation Day must thus become part of Afrikan Liberation Year. Liberation demands that Afrikan-Trinis should renounce the Red, White and Blue psychologically and culturally, and embrace and operationalise (on a daily basis), the Red, White and Black, and the Red, Black and Green. At the global, macrolevel, Afrikan cultural potency demands that in this new millennium Afrikan-Trinis be Afrikan 24-7-365.
It is a full time job of consciousness with overtime expected. Emancipation Day only provides for part time, temporary work with no overtime expected or desired. It only produces dislocated, mis-directed and ahistorical feeling good Afrikan-Trinis. “Afrikans must live in the hope that, in the process of time, their turn will come when they will (once again) occupy a prominent position in world’s history and when they command a voice in the (global) councils of nations (as they did in the B.C. Era).” For whereas Emancipation deals with local Trini-cultural national identity, Liberation deals with global, international Pan Afrikan cultural nationalist identity. Whereas Emancipation Day gives Afrikan-Trinis a fish so that they can feed themselves for one day, Afrikan Liberation Year teaches Afrikan-Trinis how to fish, so that they can feed themselves for the rest of their lives.
Whereas Emancipation Day focuses on that period of history when Afrikans were powerless and Europeans were powerful, Afrikan Liberation Year focuses on that period of history when Afrikans were powerful and Europeans were powerless.Whereas Emancipation Day focuses on the Nationality of Afrikans in the A.D. era, Afrikan Liberation Year focuses on the Originality of Afrikans in the B.C. Era. Whereas Emancipation Day focuses on Afrikans who picked cotton etc. for Europeans, Afrikan Liberation Year focuses on Afrikans who educated Europeans, built their first university (University of Salamanca in Spain in 900 A.D.) and built pyramids etc. And whereas Emancipation focuses on the 0.1 percent of the history of Afrikan people, Liberation focuses on the 99.9 percent of the history of Afrikan people on this planet.
“Afrikans of TnT unite; we have nothing to lose but our minds.”
Shem Hotep (“I go in peace”).
Dr. Kwame Nantambu is a part-time lecturer at Cipriani College of Labour and Co-operative Studies and The University of the West Indies.
Dr.Nantambu’s theory of “Africanism” needs to be reviewed.Slavery without a doubt left an indelible scar on the black mind, but it’s time for africans to forgive and ‘move on’ instead of carping.Do africans want world dominance because of their traumatic history?Africans must look at a reflection of themselves in the mirror and be introspective.No one else is responsible for the ills plaguing african communities but themselves.The black male is overrepresented in the penal system and contributes significantly to violent crime in Trinidad and the US,a 2005 Bureau of Justice Statsitics in the U.S revealed that black males 18-24 have the highest homicide offending rates in America.A similar pattern can be seen in Trinidad involving black males and violent crime,the vast majority of violent crime in Trinidad is perpetrated by black males.Black males are more likely to be high school drop outs compared to their white counterparts in the U.S.Many other social ills afflict africans in the U.S and Trinidad.Who is to be blamed?Advances in race science will elucidate the small genetic differences among blacks that may translate into larger real world effects.The African continent is noted for high levels of corruption,poverty and violence.Who is to be blamed?Africans must take a good hard look in the mirror and be objective about themselves.It’s time for the blame game to stop.If the african diaspora isn’t ‘africanized’enough, well they should all get on a plane and go back to Africa.
Move on my a—. On a recent trip to Europe, I found that in the town of Rome, headquarters of the Catholic Church, and in other major cities of Italy that I visited, it is “Illegal to be a street vendor” and visitors should not buy from street vendors as that would be breaking the law. Well intentioned as my two American friends and I were, we soon noticed that in Rome there are three layers of vendors- those with small shops locked into the architecture of the city, those who vend from parked vehicles, and those who walk the streets with their goods on their backs. All those vending from small stores were white, as were all the restaurants, all those vending from vehicles- vans and cars, some with open sides that become a sort of shelf, were middle easterners and Indo-pakistanis, all those walking the streets with their goods on their backs, were Africans. I thought of the biggest Catholic church in the world, in a small , poor West African country, I thought of all the riches the Catholic Church and Italy have taken out of Africa since Roman times, and I proudly bought an African wood carving from a street vendor walking near the famous ruins for 30 Euros, or $45.US. More than I would normally pay for a wood carving, but I knew it may have been his only sale that day. When we travel, we find that the poison of racism has so infested the world, worse than the swine flu, that all sorts of structures and stricturesare put in place to prevent us from functioning, and it is most prevalent in Mediterranean Europe. In Barcelona,it was the same, but because of the gypsy heritage there were street vendors were non-Africans also. A friend who travels for the US government says its even worse in cities on the south of France. Yet I know how West African mines continue to enricjh France, particularly the iron ore mines of Mali.
When Caribbean governments hide these truths from their children, they are continuing to perpetuate the racism that brought us from Africa in the first place.I am glad I live in North America.I can see on PBS documentaries on the origins of man, which clearly show that Africa was man’s ancestral home. So, those who say forget slavery, I say forget you. Africans need to continually remind our children of who we are and were, since the rest of the wworld is so actively trying to take it from us again and again. China’s treatment of its brown pop star being only the latest example. Shakespeare ‘s Othello shows Italian racism five hundred years ago.The Italian soccer star who was head butted d by the French Algerian player,had offered him an insult that one would not do to a white player. I cheered the head butting. I kick butts verbally for s–t like that.
Linda Edwards wrote:
“When we travel, we find that the poison of racism has so infested the world, worse than the swine flu, that all sorts of structures and strictures are put in place to prevent us from functioning, and it is most prevalent in Mediterranean Europe. In Barcelona,it was the same.”
There are numerous successful Blacks functioning in Mediterranean Europe.The problem ” with those walking the streets with their goods on their backs “, is one of illegal immigration.They are constantly on the move to avoid deportation because of illegal entry.We had conversations with them and also bought their “knock-off” handbags in Rome. However,your point about the exploitation of Africa and continuous discrimination is valid.The Chinese have taken over in Africa where the Europeans have left off and unfortunately they are being aided and abetted by some African governments.
Pitbull- it doesn’t make much sense to compare African Americans to Afro Trinis. The system is entirely different. Afri Trini’s that have gone to the United States without becomming assimilated to the norms of the local culture within that society have done well behind a wall of Trinibagonian values. The one thing that is similar globally between Africans of the diaspora is that the varied systematic approaches to oppress Africans of the diaspora has left many of them refusing to fight the power which in return leads to a host of other social problems that in return get labled as the “black problem”
The solution isn’t just looking at each other from within, but it is also being able to protect against outside interference.
In my opinion, Africans should not ever forgive. Move on yes, but it is almost immpossible to forgive the genocide that the remainder of us have to constantly live with as second class citizens in societyies that are eurocentric manifestations of civilizations. The only thing that Africans need is to develop a structure and a format that offers a base and direction to lead them into the future while punishing all of those who would destroy any effort to return a people to greatness. People who want to self destruct and pander to others while giving their land and resources to others who could care less about them need to be destroyed by all means necessary.
Instead of African fleeing Africa for these Eurocentric manifistations of civlized existence, they themselves should be staying home and fighting to make sure that their society has the resources that they are fleeing to Europe to get. Africa should be for Africans until at least the damage is repaired on all levels of society. It makes no sense that others can come in from other continents and be productive in Africa while the local population continues to be hoodwinked, baboozeled and led astray. It’s a shame that within the next 50 years that many Africans will be speaking Mandarin as their first language. It’s sad that they don’t even know it yet.
Excuse my typing errors please.
Did any of you find it odd that the noted African singer, Miriam Makeba collapsed and died in an Italian town, Naples, I think it was, where she had gone to hold a concert in support of an African immigrant who had been murdered there? There is an entire city in northwestern Italy where all the residents under fifty are Africans. They are imported to work there, but they cannot be citizens, and many of them have children there, who are not citizens. My Fulbright Scholar whom I helped host for the last two years was from Malawi. She and her husband had a baby while she was here. She got almost free medical care all the way, and the baby went home six weeks later with an American passport. She is a citizen of the US as well as of the homeland of her parents. This does not happen in many of the countries of southern Europe.Some are now considering how to grant citizenship to children born in their country, Greece for one,who are ten and twelve years old! Although there are racial problems in the US, one cannot legislate people’s hearts, only their actions, every child born on US soil, even to an illegal immigrant, is an American Citizen, entitled to all the protections this country can offer,except that an infant cannot legalize her parent’s status. She is still illegal. That is quite different from many European countries, except England. When a dark half African girl entered as Ms.Italy in a beauty contest some years ago, she was villified just like that Chinese pop star. So, I say that southern Europe, because of its proximity to Africa has issues about how they treat Africans. African women are a delight to them, I understand, but African men are the enemy, the compatition, and racism is widespread.
We watch movies, and soccer matches, and we think that these people are just like us. Wrong. They are severely afflicted with racism. They want the labour of the African, his raw materials, but not his citizenship. They are very nice to Africans on cruise ships. That spells money! I have seen it. On the back roads of Italy, there are as many unfinished houses as you see driving down the Southern Main Road. Its one poor-assed place, so they are nice to tourists. Both of my friends were African Americans. One salesman insisted that he had seen me in a movie.(In other words, if you are cruising the Mediterranean, and have an accent that is not African, you must be a movie star.) Racists!
Unfortunately, few of my African friends are capable of sustaining the burning anger needed to throw some of these people to the crocodiles in the Nile, so they get away with vsiting, when Africans are harassed and deported all the time, and sometimes murdered.
The government of Trinidad and Tobago also need to watch the Chinese. We already have ennough African looking people in TnTwith chinese names. The days of having sex with a woman inorder to give her groceries for her cildren should be a thing of the past. whenever large numbers of men are imported to a place, the poor women pay the price.It is said that young male prostitution was not known in TnT, until the French arrived to build The eRic Williams Medical Complex. They imported their food and water, but raped our young boys for money. The government did not intervene in that either.
Why the hell should Africans forgive. And the idiocy of an assertion about moving on in relation to Africans and their experience is starkly obvious in a world where Hindus and Muslims, Palestinians and Jews, and other groups all over the world are still locked in violent struggles with their adversaries. Africans moved on when they did not resort to violent revengeful activism against those responsible for their holocaust. It is ironic that the people who make these kinds of assinine assertions seldom look inward to see if “they have moved on”.
I am always amused by the idiots who adopt these macho sounding handles and use them to issue forth crap. Maybe if you operated at an intellegence level above the creature whose description you chose as a handle, your output would rise above the retarded jabbering that describes your post.
Reparations, not forgiveness! Europe made itself rich by commiting atrocities against Africans, as well as the peoples of Latin America, India and Southeast Asia. The reparations due for mass murder and forced labour, exploitation of mineral and other resources, and pillaging of works of art, would most likely be 10 or more times the so-called “Third World Debt”. Those people owe us money.
In a couple days ,the movie Invictus would be out with two of my favorite American actors in the lead ,Morgan Freedman, and Matt Damion .It is a story based on the life of Nelson Mandela during the 1995 SA World Cup game and was directed by Clint Eastwood .This movie would break the box office records and garner a couple Academy awards I predict , is it’s a feel good escapade about how that country allegedly came together with love , civility ,and respect for all together for a few days just like we and or Brazilian neighbors do every year come February or March during the carnival period.
This was the same Clint Eastwood that was criticized by Black entertainment hero , business icon ,and socially conscious controversial guru , Spike Lee for only producing films devoid of African American characters and their historical contribution. Spike in turn was rebuffed by the good old Clint , and told in not so pleasant fashion to go in peace , and produce his own movies if he so cared. My eye was caught in another brewing controversy as Jennifer Huston is carded to star in an upcoming movie depicting Winnie Mandella – who I consider as the mother of the successful SA revolution to end the despicable Apartheid system. Her African bothers and sisters are outraged that the producers dared to use an African American to depict Winnie what other capable South African actresses are available.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/africa/article6948016.ece
There are times that I am forced to agree that there is something very perplexing about the African psyche . The same young and mature Africans that died to end Apartheid and the freedom of Nelson, allowed politics to dominate ,as they collectively closed their eyes and fell asleep when her name was sullied, and stella image tarnished when victory was close years ago. Today however the grown ups are the ones pushing a hash anti African immigrant policy . They are the ones that are insensitive to the one time solidarity of brothers and sisters across the borders and far away oceans .
Little do they know of the important role played by of African Americans in their struggles, by folks such as members of the Black Caucus and TransNational chairman Randall Robinson to name a few. No one can explain to them that liberation , and success in any part of Africa , is an emotional victory for her children and byproducts across the globe. Admirers of CLR James, George Padmore,Du Bois , Stokley Carmichael, Marcus Garvey, Walter Rodney ,and countless others should be part of any future celebration. If Asians , and Europeans understand this simple symbolic principle , why can’t they. That’s what a 40 million dollars elite all girls school can get you Oprah.
They are victims of a mindset that was purposely instilled in their phsyichy. It cannot be erased in one or two generations. We can work on that as long as the outside interference doesn’t promote self hate and we don’t fall for it. There were threats of Boycotts of products produced by some of the United States biggestmultinational corporations like Coke Cocola that did a lot of business with the African American community. At that time it was said that if the entire African American community had the economic power to make any top ten wealthiest country the wealthiest country with one swift mass migration.
I’m interested in how Morgan Freeman will portray his charachter and how the other Character is portrayed.
Here is a bit o chew on. An African-American friend of mine is currently travelling in two North African countries on US governmen t business. You interested in how she gets there? First she flies to Paris, france, then takes another flight to Country A,on the mediterranean coast. Work completed, in a week, say, she flies back to PAris, then flies the next day to Country B. then flies back to PAris to come home. Now these two former french colonies are close to each other. It would be like flying to New York from TnT, to go to BArbados, then returning to New York to fly back home. Whether one chooses to fly via London, PAris, Heidelburg or Amsterdam, the routes are a conspiracy between former colonial powers. A businessman in the oil business had the same expeience in terms of Nigeria and Angola. Fly USA to Lagos, do three days worth of business, fly to Paris to catch a plane to Angola, then fly back to Paris to return to Lagos to go back to the US.Do you suppose this is because Africans cannot fly planes. or the tarmac is cracked or some other such foolishness? It just to guarantee that the profits go to Europeans.South African Airways,and Kenya Airways are mostly white owned, and they can fly from Amsterdam or the US to their own countries.
Some of you know about the landing rights issue of former TnT airline BWIA. It was sabotage all the way, which we blamed on our government’s incompetence.
The critics are already at work destroying this movie Curtis, and your point might be fine , Morgan might be forced to do a modern day butt kissing , Driving Miss Daisy role all over. Some are calling it boring, and sappy with too much forays into irrelevance . By that they mean not controversial enough, but what do they expect when most of the dehumanizing savagery that took place in South Africa since Apartheid ended , affected only blacks. Whites and close South Asian collaborators have been immune, and still maintained their economic stranglehold over the country as Mandela and Embeke were no Dada Amin , or Mugabe.One cannot risk spoiling that tranquility via a movie for the world to see.
There is again the significant point ,in that here you have thousands of African actors , directors, movie producers , writers and millionaires across the globe , and it still have to take a white very conservative American like Eastwood, – and I am certain a writer of similar background -to deliver a portrayal of the great African giant Mandala in another chapter of ‘post conflict reconstruction,’ on the Virgin continent.
Tell me who but an African man can write Capitalism and Slavery, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa,Roots, Do the right thing? Could a European write The Lonely Londoners ,Black Jacobins , The Dragon can’t Dance, Mieguel Street, The Games are coming,or House for Mr. Biswah? Perhaps they could, but can they capture the authentic flavors in similar fashion ?
Well, take heart, Nigerians have perhaps the biggest/ most lucrative film industry in Africa today ,and produces enough cheap trills , escapist soap operas for Trinis and numerous kinky head folks consumptions globally.
Who knows, some day they’ll decide to raise the bar and tackle a gritty story of let say a Wole Showenka’s play or Achiba novel dealing with colonial oppressions ,or modern day African corruption, and political failures .
Take heart, India’s Bollywood can rival Hollywood any day with it’s huge list of exotic movies as well, but it took an Englishman Director, and half Jewish Ben Kingsley, to do justice on that Mahatma Oscar winning classic years ago.
Don’t worry , “life is a stage , and we are the actors , every body have a part to portray,” claimed Brother Valantino in song. Perhaps that’s Morgan Freedman role, hmmm?
Neal, I thought you were an emancipated man of indeterminate race. Your “Kinky head” comment gives you away. Such words are totally obnoxious to us, who treasure our very curly woolly hair. We love the skin we are in, and we love our hair. It is the one thing Europeans cannot steal from us. Emancipated Africans wear ther hair naturally, those still working to free themselves, while working for companies and governments hostile to “dreads” wear theirs straightened, risking liver disease from all the chemicals. This is true for both men and women. Notice the African originated people wo live to a “ripe old age” with their brains still functioning, and notice how they wear their hair!It is good medicine to forgo attempts to undo your curly hair. God is not a fool. He put it so for a reason. All those who wear Asian hair sacrificed in a temple by Hindu women, are heaping curses on their own heads., by rejectng their ancestral spirits who cannot recognize them in that masquerade costume.The Hindu women pray for purity, while sacrificing their hair.It is like wearing someone else’s cast off, germ filled garments. Hair is protien. It can have diseases buried in its DNA. Check on this.
“Emancipated man of indeterminate race,Ms. L ?” I never lay claims to such. No ecstatic green eyed by product for me my good lady , but a proud 100 percent Mandingo – I believe. Even more so than some of my gullible African brothers that runs around the US dressed in African outfits in the hope that it might curb racial profiling , and shooting death squads led by white racist cops .
I won’t take umbrage to you finding my “kinky head” comment obnoxious , if you are equally outraged by those who treasure ….very curly woolly hair and love their skins so much ,that they choose daily to African and Jamaican women that bleach their faces with chemicals in like fashion to the late Mickey J the king of pop , make Koreans merchants into millionaires by wearing those ugly horse hair extensions , just like Tyra Banks ,fry their hair like 90 % of misguided global African women , use the smelly gerry curl oils to soften their like a Harlem pimp ,just like one time UNC top notched MP Peters aka Kasonian Gypsey, sport the contact lenses ,try to marry up a shade just below white, and worst of all ,suffer the indignity that golfing icon Tiger experienced at the hands of his scorned wife , after he allegedly slept with over 1000 white borderline prostitute women since marrying the European blond goddess model/nanny. Here is a guy who treasure his blackness so much that I am certain he would choose to cut his two hands off first before he would even offer a smile, much less a drink to a Black Harvard Phd Miss America. As for your favorite 2nd African American President, Mr. O ,it’s only the ‘political animal’ in him that caused him to make the trek down to the Chicago South Side to make his choices.
That’s a good one Ms. L , next thing you’ll be telling me the author of Columbus to Castro was a proud African ,even as he ran and left the two half white kids in the US, so as to come home and liberate his black people from the British.
I should have fall for this trap , but could not help it Ms. L. let’s keep them honest.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1256425/Nelson-Mandelas-ex-wife-accuses-President-betraying-blacks-South-Africa.html
Now many would know why I love this historical giant of a woman so much , and yes history matters. I am on record as saying that if these South African jokers don’t quickly get their collective acts together to reverse some of the post Apartheid travesties that are occurring , this country is set to make the tribal interplays in nutcase henchman Mugabe Zimbabwe look like a Mother Teresa kindergarden sand and toys child’s play in comparison.
On another subject , don’t we wish that Nadira Naipaul had the courage to interview her phony European , selfish , ungrateful , and pompous ,Trini country hating husband V.S. Naipaul in similar fashion to ascertain when he too would take his head out of his romp and recognize the country that gave him his education , and start in life . With jokey citizens like this who needs enemies?
If this clown Naipaul was a Jamaican , American , Russian , Chinese, Australian , Canadian , or citizen of any country of worth where patriotism abounds, they would arrest him as soon as he set foot on their soil, round up his entire family and band them for life from their country. How did we naive and gullible Trinis reward this traitor instead? You know , with national awards, as he continues to grovel like some elite Mumbai yuppie to Mother India.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQEQaJ9AfjQ