Dr. John H. Clarke - Notes For An African World Revolution
Slavery and colonialism destroyed the memory of what they were before foreign contact
(Pg 383-385)
African people can have a Golden Age or another Age of Continue Despair, depending on how they view themselves in relationship to the totality of history and its ironies. The cruelest thing slavery and colonialism did to the Africans was to destroy their memory of what they were before foreign contact. Africans have not dealt forthrightly with invaders, slave traders and colonialists, who came among African people as guest and stayed as conquerors. The strongest thing about African people is their respect for the humanity of other people and the hospitality they have shown to strangers. In most cases, Europeans and Western Asians have come into African societies as guest and stayed as conquerors. Africans have never had a strong armed force. They assumed that they did not need one because they had no intention of conquering other people.Africa has been and still is the grand prize that non-Africans have always wanted to conquer
Too many times in the past and in the present Africans have had a parochial view of Africa. There is a need now to look not only at the Africans in Africa, but also at how they relate to that vast number of Africans who live outside of Africa. Properly counted, considering the large number of Africans in the Caribbean Islands, North and South America, and the millions of people of Africa descent in India and in the Pacific, Africans may number at least a billion people on the face of the earth (1.5 Billion as of 2020). Africa is the last mineral and geographic reserve in the world. Africa has been and still is the grand prize that non-Africans have always wanted to conquer.Africa has things other people want, think they can’t do without, and don’t want to pay for.
Because Africa is the world’s richest continent a great deal of the economic strength of the Western world and parts of Asia is built on what is taken out of Africa. The continent has things that other people want, think they can’t do without, and don’t want to pay for. Africa is the pawn in a world power game that the Africans have not learned how to play. I emphasized repeatedly that Africa has been under siege for more than 3,000 years, and this condition did not change with the superficial end of colonialism and an independence explosion that had more ceremony than substance. In most African countries the condition of the average African person has not changed on iota with the coming of “flag” independence. All too often Africans fighting for the liberation Africa pronounced to the world what they were going to do for Africa before they strategically planned how they were going to do it. A case in point is South Africans in the international rhetoric against apartheid. Apartheid is not the main issue in South Africa, bad as it is. If the white in South Africa eliminated apartheid tomorrow, the Africans would still be in difficulty because they would have no economic power and their land would still be in the hands of foreigners (As of 2020 SA has 58 million people. Only 35,000 are white. Yet the white colonial settlers own & control over 80% of the land and economy).Land is the basis of nation. There is no way to build a strong independent nation when most of the land is being controlled by foreigners who also determine the economic status of the nation. Africans need seriously to study their conquerors and their respective temperaments. Neither the Europeans nor the Arabs came to Africa to share power with any African. They both came as guest and stayed as conquerors.
Land is the basis of nation. There is no way to build a strong independent nation when most of the land is being controlled by foreigners
There is a need now to study, at least briefly, the more than 3,000 years when Africa was under siege and under pressure from foreigners who had no understanding or respect for African religions or customs. The Hebrew entry into Africa occurred in the 1700s B.C. They came into Africa escaping famine in western Asia. They were treated as guests by the Africans. In 1675 B.C. Africa was invaded from western Asia by warriors referred to as Hyksos, or Shepherd Kings. The Hebrews were acquainted with these warriors because some of them came from the area of their migration. Therefore many of the Hebrews became collaborators, clerks and administrators for these invaders, working against the interests of the Africans who had befriended them. When after nearly 200 years of this occupation the Africans organized a force large enough to drive out the invaders, they began to ask some questions about the Hebrews who had been their collaborators. The story of Hebrew slavery in Africa is just that, a “story”. There is no proof of this matter in Egyptian literature or in western Asian literature.(Pg 386)…we have not asked and answered the question of where we African people are within the context of world history. We see history unfolding around us, and many times we develop a complex, assuming that we are not the makers of history. Something has divided us between the period when we made history and the period when history was made at our expense…(Pg 386)…We cannot save ourselves and decide where we are going until we understand where we have been and where we are. With history unfolding before us, we’ve got to become astute in asking and answering the question: Where are we in relationship to what we are seeing right now?