CDC’s Acarous Gray Arrested; Party Talks up Plan to Seize Power in Liberia
It seems that history is repeating itself in Liberia.The only republic created and conceived by and for persons of African heritage.The story of Liberia is the collective story of the Black man of the modern era.The fight of enlightenment vs darkness progress vs backwardness tradition vs the future.The fight for recognition among the family of man is the core of the struggle of all Black peoples in the world.It cannot be simplified with misdirected conundrums about who and what is right or wrong.The whole existence of African humanity is in peril.Given that there has always been attempts by all groups to carve out a place,a basic existence to live in a world that they have no control over but to make the best of it.Africans collectively cannot be responsible for the mess they find themselves in the White world shares in that blame.Another conundrum asked in intellectual circles is just how much blame for Africa and how much responsibility goes to each player in the exploitation,pillage of Africa for its human and natural resources.Who benefited the most from Africa over the last 400 years?Who still benefits from Africa?Does its children benefit or do outsiders?Africa's failure to industrialize and develop with the rest of the world is the major cause for its instability.Because most people in Africa do not know just how wealth is created and just what their cash strapped governments can do and what are their limits.Education and purpose are at the core of this apathy.As long as people are uneducated they are easily manipulated into believing the state is their enemy and that some elite is to blame for their misery.As long as you have this someone will exploit the desperation for political gain.The vicious cycle of political partisans rabble rousing discontent will never end.The tragic part is it will take shared patience and sacrifice of the people to move any nation forward.In Africa it seems no one will do this so the endless coups and civil unrest continues.
The Rise Riots of 1978
The Republic of Liberia was founded in 1847 by African American settlers from the United States.Among the settlers were some of the most educated Black people in the world at the time.This was done deliberately to denied those still enslaved leadership.So the many educated free Africans in the United States were asked to leave.Many for generations went to school,owned property,businesses,and some even had political experience.Their African humanity was rejected by America.The settlers who were continuing the journey of the Western Renaissance,the Magna Carta,Treaty of Worms,The Age of Enlightenment,The American Revolution on the shores of the coast of West Africa.This attempt to carve out a place of refuge for persons of African heritage is the genesis of Liberia.Now to reconcile a Western life which commanded freedom and respect in a world where those who did not were colonized, is remarkable.The early settlers knew that in order to maintain their independence education and enlightenment was the key.This came at the expense of the local people who did not practice the settlers idea of civilization.So over the years two societies emerge in Liberia.One was a Black Westernized civilization in which the idea of nationalism and Pan Africanism was born from the progressive there,and one that was traditional and tribal the indigenous lived.The failure to merge the two was Liberia's downfall.And it was not only the settlers to blame.Indigenous Africa has always had tribal leaders in control of the masses.The power of the tribal leaders in Africa is a result of the introduction of two things,the slave trade and the gun.Before the introduction of the two Africa had a sort of democratic communal system.The gun and constant warfare empowered warlord who no longer need a meisi or village council.Power now came from force and intimidation.It was this system settlers both fought against and used to their advantage.For instance like the rest of Africa under colonial occupation the colonial governments used kings and chiefs to extract labor and control the masses.South Africa and Britain mastered this technique.In Liberia the Rice Riots was not about the concern for the price of rice.It was simply a power play by a new crop of elites who felt it was their turn to rule.In South Africa it can now be said the same thing occurred.The ANC were Black elite who under the guise of liberation wanted power and to rule a country they did not conceive or create.The average Black in South Africa has yet to benefit from the election of 1994.But former ANC officials like Cyril Ramaphosa left the struggle and is now a billionaire.All of the Mandela family are filthy rich.In Liberia history is repeating itself once again.Instead of people giving real solutions they want undeserved power.The coup of 1980 was a treasonous act and Liberia for failing to denounce the coup of 1980 may suffer similar tragedies in the future.Lets pray not.
Friday, December 23, 2011
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
The British and French true intentions toward Liberia during the Fernado Po Incident.
Thomas Faulkner an African American came to Liberia in the 1920's.At the time many people were critical of the images of a Black republic oppressing fellow Black people.Thomas Faulkner tried his hand at politics in advocating for the poor indigenous people of Liberia.Indeed they were at the bottom of Liberia society and abuses towards them was appalling.Being from a racist society he was determined to see justice and equality in Liberia.He formed the People's Party.He was undermined not out of any real wanting to keep the status quo but the fact that Liberia was a country of although brilliant men,very shortsighted and coveted in their personal greed and arrogance.He was silenced but before he was some important things came out.The British and French were encroaching on Liberia's territory its very sovereignty was in peril.The territory of the Sherbro Island Sulima River and the Mano River hinterland was taken by a Liberia helpless to stop it.British businessmen tried to offer development in exchange for Liberia's independence.Only the United States stood in the way of a complete take over.The French had taken land on the coast from the Cavalla River to the San Pedro river and in the North the whole Guinea highland which was rich in gold and diamonds.They claimed Liberia failed to occupy this territory.Indeed Liberia wanted settlers from the United States and the West to occupy that land but they never came.So by the early 20th century Liberia was cut in half from its original size.Liberia organized the Liberia Frontier Force with the help of American Black officers of the US Army plus some British officers this stopped the encroachment.Now with it territories now defined the Fernando Po incident happens.Liberia demonstrated it can govern itself,even better than the colonial administration in the region.This did not stop the racist forces determined to take Liberia's sovereignty away.Faulkner had a good heart and good intentions.But the road to hell is often paved with good intention.
A British distinguished author Lady Kathleen Simon wife of noted British statesmen Sir John Simon made a series of attacks on the Black republic and the Americo Liberian.These prejudices were the result of rumors not anything founded in evidence.She bluntly without evidence called for the government to be put under the rule of strong high minded White men.A view sanctioned by her husband.Most of what she knew about Liberia was hear say but to think when the British were butchering half the globe in the name of empire building she like most hypocritical racist at the time said nothing.Several other leading newspapers and writers in Britain and America joined the chorus in condemning the Americo Liberians.The truth was there was hostility towards Liberia being a Black government at a time when Cecil Rhodes and Kruger and others were advancing the belief that Black men were incapable of governing themselves.Liberia like the free Blacks in the USA during slavery gave hope to other in bondage.Infact Liberia was the main reason for the African Nationalist movement.A movement that at the time struck fear in the heart of White Supremacist.So this little republic with all its problems was a threat to the racist and their myth of Black inferiority.The Americo Liberia were some of the most thorough people on the planet.In intellectual circles and international affairs the kept peace in a continent often torn by conflict.
The Fernando Po Incident was the epitome of hypocrisy.The British was in competition with Spain in the cocoa trade.The Spanish recruited labor from Liberia just like it was being done all over Africa.The British used this as evidence of slavery and called for Liberia to be mandated.The Liberians shot back and with the US intervention its sovereignty was preserved.The incident shows that although countries make mistakes.America had chattel slavery and genocide of Native Americans but only White countries keep their independence.
The Contract Labor Scheme
All over the colonial world governments sanctioned contract labor.It still exist to this day.What happens is recruiters are paid for every head delivered.In Liberia's case labor was usually communal.This means groups of men from the same village came and did work.The problem was labor may be abused and induced.This is the by product of this system that all parties are aware of.The British brought labor to South Africa from India because they could better control them.They brought Chinese labor to Malaysia and Singapore to work on plantations and in mills.In Fernando Po an Island off the coast of Nigeria and Equitorial Guinea the Spanish were growing Cocoa and needed labor.This venture was in direct competition with the British in the Gold Coast(Ghana.Now the some Liberian middlemen recruited labor from the Kru migration which the British themselves started.The British abandoned the Island and the Spanish claimed it.So in 1920 the Liberian government claiming sovereignty over all business activity in its territory taxed the enterprise like any other state would.Now the labor that was sent could have been used to build Liberia's own cocoa industry but short sighted greedy leaders went along with it.So should Liberia have lost its independence?No.Lets look at the whole reason.The Spanish recruited labor from Angola,Gabon,and Congo all under the same circumstances.Why was there no out cry about the laborers recruited by the Portuguese?Or the French?Why was Liberia singled out?Answer Racism.This was an attempt to wage a colonial war on Liberia but Liberia out witted and out foxed the fox in Britain and kept her sovereignty.
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Liberia avoided another Rwanda Type Massacre by Shuting down the media.
Liberty and freedom of speech is what I often hear people who detest Western philosophy spout when they want to spew their venom.My freedom of speech this,my rights that.Many of these people are hucksters,who have no idea what the world went through to acquire these rights.Forget civilization in Ancient Egypt,Greece,Rome,Persia,China or West Africa ect.All had their times of joy and liberty.This depended on who was ruling and how much they decided to share the blessings of liberty with you.In other words your rights were never written in stone.Well fast forward to the end of feudalism in Europe.The peasants and serfs rose up against feudal lords and corrupt kings then we had the Magna Carta and we had the Edict of Worms which is what the Prodestant reformation was the root cause.The beginning of the renaissance and the idea of individual rights.It seems what started in Ancient Egypt was coming full circle.This tiny attempt to recognize human dignity was the only thing challenging the the horrible Trans Atlantic slave trade, as humanist fought against corrupt religious institutions who sanctioned slavery.The right of mankind is something that man has been fighting for since the dawning of time.
Free Speech is not free
The idea of free speech is rooted in American democracy,or the experiment in democracy.There is no other time or place in history where this right was guaranteed by law.The Declaration of Independence,of which the Constitution is based states that "We hold these truths to be evident that all men are created equal".If that is the basis, then explain slavery?It was in imperfect experiment,but many take that and the constitution of America as their reference when wanting to exercise their so called civil liberties.No place is where this is more evident than in Africa.Many people still have no concept of what a civil society is, and what are the obligations to it.What is the responsibility of the citizen?What is the obligation of the state?In America democracy is rooted in land and property ownership.There is a social contract.The state protects property and the individual obeys the law and pays taxes.In other circumstances people may be require to go to war.But the rule of law and the consensus of the majority is what allows a country to grow and surviveLiberian opposition misunderstands democracy.
People forget the Rwanda Massacre.People who naively want to give free speech to people who cannot read or have a concept of what the limited of a government can do.In Liberia as in Africa many people accuse others of stealing.With no evidence they take to the airways and incite people to disobey authority.We see now this is how things are done in Africa.If you do not like the election results you go to the bush.You get arms from any power broker who will finance your cause.The state treasury is something to enrich oneself at the expense of the nation.So tell people to go out and make the country ungovernable is freedom of speech?Where is this based on?I know the Right wing in America is coming close to this sort of savagery,but is that what a democracy is?Has it ever worked?Look at what it did in America a civil war.Lincoln suspended habeas corpus during the early days of the civil war.Was President Sirleaf any different?History proved Lincoln right.History will vindicate President of Liberia Ellen Johnson Sirleaf for shutting down the media outlets to avoid another bloodbath instigated by the same type of people who have Africa in the state it is in.The AK47 and Machete rules all other consideration except money.The following is an excerpt from the Rwanda Massacre of 1993-1994...KALAGENESIS
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The killing was well organized by the government.[12] When it started, the Rwandan militia numbered around 30,000, or one militia member for every ten families. It was organized nationwide, with representatives in every neighborhood. Some militia members were able to acquire AK-47 assault rifles by completing requisition forms. Other weapons, such as grenades, required no paperwork and were widely distributed by the government. Many members of the Interahamwe and Impuzamugambi were armed only with machetes. Even after the 1993 peace agreement signed in Arusha, businessmen close to General Habyarimana imported 581,000 machetes for Hutu use in killing Tutsi, because machetes were cheaper than guns.[13]
Rwandan Prime Minister Jean Kambanda revealed in his testimony before the International Criminal Tribunal that the genocide was openly discussed in cabinet meetings and that "...one cabinet minister said she was personally in favor of getting rid of all Tutsi; without the Tutsi, she told ministers, all of Rwanda's problems would be over."[14] In addition to Kambanda, the genocide's organizers included Colonel Théoneste Bagosora, a retired army officer, and many top-ranking government officials and members of the army, such as General Augustin Bizimungu. On the local level, the genocide's planners included Burgomasters, or mayors, and members of the police.
Hutus and Tutsis were forced to use ID cards which specified an ethnic group. These cards served as symbols that the Interahamwe could check via the threat of force.[15] Skin color was a general physical trait that was typically used in "ethnic" identification. The lighter-colored Rwandans were typically Tutsi, the minority group, while the darker-skinned Rwandans were typically Hutu, the majority group in Rwanda. In many cases, Tutsi individuals were separated from the general population and sometimes forced to be Hutu slaves. Tutsi women were often referred to as "gypsies" and frequently fell victim to sexual violence.
Government leaders communicated with figures among the population to form and arm militias called Interahamwe, "those who stand (fight, kill) together", and Impuzamugambi, "those who have the same (or a single) goal". These groups, particularly their youth wings, were responsible for much of the violence.[16]
Family ties and relationships were manipulated by the Rwandan government as well as the Rwandan Armed Forces to create killing groups, or Interahamwe, throughout Kigali and more rural areas. Without these killing groups, the genocide would not have been nearly as effective and gruesome.[17] In her article on citizen participation in the genocide, Lee Ann Fujii argues that the Interhamwe formed not from hatred for Tutsi or the Rwandan Patriotic Front, but from "social dynamics that sometimes took precedence over ethnic considerations"[18]
Media propaganda
According to recent commentators, the news media played a crucial role in the genocide; local print and radio media fueled the killings while the international media either ignored or seriously misconstrued events on the ground.[19] The print media in Rwanda is believed to have started hate speech against Tutsis, which was later continued by radio stations. According to commentators, anti-Tutsi hate speech "...became so systemic as to seem the norm." The state-owned newspaper Kangura had a central role, starting an anti-Tutsi and anti-RPF campaign in October 1990. In the ongoing International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, the individuals behind Kangura have been accused of producing leaflets in 1992 picturing a machete and asking "What shall we do to complete the social revolution of 1959?" – a reference to the Hutu revolt that overthrew the Tutsi monarchy and the subsequent politically orchestrated communal violence that resulted in thousands of mostly Tutsi casualties and forced roughly 300,000 Tutsis to flee to neighboring Burundi and Uganda. Kangura also published the infamous "10 Hutu Commandments," which regulated all dealings with Tutsis and how Hutus were to treat them. It communicated the message that the RPF had a devious grand strategy against the Hutu (one feature article was titled "Tutsi colonization plan").[20]
Due to high rates of illiteracy at the time of the genocide, radio was an important way for the government to deliver messages to the public. Two radio stations key to inciting violence before and during the genocide were Radio Rwanda and Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM). In March 1992, Radio Rwanda was first used in directly promoting the killing of Tutsi in Bugesera, south of the national capital Kigali. Radio Rwanda repeatedly broadcast a communiqué warning that Hutu in Bugesera would be attacked by Tutsi, a message used by local officials to convince Hutu that they needed to attack first. Led by soldiers, Hutu civilians and the Interahamwe attacked and killed hundreds of Tutsi.[21]
At the end of 1993, the RTLM's highly sensationalized reporting on the assassination of the Burundian president, a Hutu, was used to underline supposed Tutsi brutality. The RTLM falsely reported that the president had been tortured, including castration (in pre-colonial times, some Tutsi kings castrated defeated enemy rulers). There were 50,000 civilian deaths in Burundi in 1993.
From late October 1993, the RTLM repeatedly broadcast themes developed by the extremist written press, underlining the inherent differences between Hutu and Tutsi, the foreign origin of Tutsi, the disproportionate share of Tutsi wealth and power, and the horrors of past Tutsi rule. The RTLM also repeatedly stressed the need to be alert to Tutsi plots and possible attacks. It warned Hutu to prepare to "defend" themselves against the Tutsi.[21] After April 6, 1994, authorities used the RTLM and Radio Rwanda to spur and direct killings, specifically in areas where the killings were initially resisted. Both radio stations were used to incite and mobilize populations, followed by specific directions for carrying out the killings.[21]
The RTLM had used terms such as inyenzi (cockroach in Kinyarwandan) and Tutsi interchangeably with others referring to the RPF combatants. It warned that RPF combatants dressed in civilian clothes were mingling among the displaced people fleeing combat zones. These broadcasts gave the impression that all Tutsi were supporters of the RPF force fighting against the elected government.[21] Women were targets of the anti-Tutsi propaganda prior to the 1994 genocide; for example, the "Ten Hutu Commandments" (1990) included four commandments that portrayed Tutsi women as tools of the Tutsi people, and as sexual weapons to weaken and ultimately destroy the Hutu men.[22] Gender-based propaganda also included cartoons printed in newspapers depicting Tutsi women as sex objects. Examples of gender-based hate propaganda used to incite war rape included statements by perpetrators, such as, "You Tutsi women think that you are too good for us", and "Let us see what a Tutsi woman tastes like."[22]
To promote an informed population and democracy in Rwanda, international agencies had promoted development of the media during the years leading up to the genocide.[23] It appeared that promoting one aspect of democracy (in this case the media) may, in fact, negatively influence other aspects of democracy or human rights. After this experience it has been argued that international development agencies must be highly sensitive to the specific context of their programmes and the need for promotion of democracy in a holistic manner.[23]
Saturday, November 12, 2011
1921 Liberia.The Fernando Po Incident.
The Fernando Po Incident was a scandal involving the Liberian Presidency of King during the 1920's and 1930's with the collaboration of traditional rulers of the people.This involved forced of coerced labor from the interior to islands in Fernando Po.Now coerced labor was being done in South Africa,Belgium Congo,Kenya-Mombassa on much larger scales and brutal methods.The Liberian situation was different in that the perpetrators were Americo-Liberian agents their tribal partners and the Government of Liberia who taxed labor as a state would tax any economic activity under its control.Laborers were forced to work much like the Black codes in the post Slavery South in the USA.This system of exploitation was common in much of the world.It is what brought the labor movement of the 1930's in the West.Now It should be noted that the perpetrators against the natives of Liberia were also native Liberians who assimilated into the Americo Liberian society.They along with the elite Americo Liberian were the most harsh on the indigenous population.Grebos educated people were middlemen in dealing with the kings who got paid for every head sent.Also without the Kings who had the authority over the people this system would never have worked.Never the less the enemies of the only Black Republic in Africa besides Ethiopia,used this to discredit the government of Liberia.The attempt was to get Liberia to cede it's independence and become a colony.It had nothing to do with concern for the Native Liberians.The Belgium King Leopold occupied the Congo and made himself one of the richest men in the world by enslaving the whole Congo.Men,women and children had their fingers,hands,ears,cut off for not meeting a quota of rubber.Now in Liberia workers never faced that sort of brutality.The Liberians never made profit off the labor they only taxed it.The bigger question is why is this incident known but the outrages in the Congo not? This was racist propaganda against Liberia.The Liberian elite saw the Native African as competition if they did not assimilate with them as the Grebos did.When Native Africans read about what was going on in the rest of Africa they joined and supported the Liberian government more than the settlers.Liberia elite began to exploit the natives out of a false sense of superiority.The issue was why the native would obey White visiting administrators but never give the Americo Liberians the same respect.This created a sense that they had to be controlled. This is the root of the bitterness lingering in Liberia today.The The best way to exploit people was to control where they worked.Instead of using the labor to create roads and farms the corrupt Americo Liberian agents and officials found it easier to export the labor.The years of lost manpower,that could have developed Liberia was a scandal.
Friday, November 11, 2011
The Contrast or Difference between a African Nationalist and a Black Separatist
The difference between someone who is a African Nationalist and someone who is a Black separatist is the facts that the nationalist revolve around his culture and heritage.This means he wants a connection or cohesion with his people.When people come from the same land,city,state,territory,nation they develop a culture from traditions, values,morays,norms and customs.Those values are reinforce though economic cooperation,folk music,dance,storytelling and identifying a common enemy or dislike.Example the Texan may say collectively "Remember the Alamo"and most Texans will know where he is coming.Now the nationalist want to ultimately have a NATION to be the focus of the people.Like the Jewish community have Israel.The Chinese have Hong Kong,Mainland China,Taiwan and Chinatown's all over the globe.Even assimilated White Americans have ties to their ancestor's homeland.The Scott/Irish trace their heritage 20 generations back to Ireland.The Italian community pride themselves for successfully recreating themselves in America while maintaining their heritage and cultural ties to Italy.
The False doctrine of Black Separatism
The Black separatist movement is a product of American White supremacy culture and the lasting effects of slavery and Jim Crow.This movement has its roots in the bitter legacy of the Plantation system in America.A system that completely destroyed the African people in America.Africans were stripped of their land,language and culture.Also the brutality of rape is commonly known and the castration and emasculation of the Black man is one of the effects lingering today in Black America.Now one of the short sightedness to come out of the American experience is Black separatism.A separatist believes in racial separatism from Whites.But the separatist never gives their students a successful example of how to achieve this inside a White country.This plays right into White racist hands.They know America after spending trillions to develop is not going to give Black people one state.But many racist dangle this to the so called Black separatist to make his dream of independent Black communities in America an alternative to an Exodus from America which would bring down this country's image to the world.The Black separatist masked his deceit and foolishness with hate speech,violent rhetoric,and threats.All the while he never embraces Africa or plans to leave America.He is a pathetic loser.The Ugly Man,standing on the corner peddling newspapers,pies,herbs,oils never rising above mediocrity.Now the same people will attack Black people for venturing into the mainstream of business.They will put down and ridicule Black men and women for engaging in business with Whites or Asians even when that business will create wealth.I have seen Whites come on Black radio shows only to get insulted by blindsides"White man is the Devil"Coons and radicals.Now it is time to embrace African Nationalism which is not separatism.Any attempt to link the two is slander and a conspiracy to silence real revolutionary men and women.
Sunday, October 30, 2011
How to use the Kemetic Pipeline System beat the American Game.
Economics was the reason for the slave trade.The slave trade was not about a singling out of the Black race for special cruelty and degradation.Although over the centuries that is exactly what happened.Many people Black and White wonder will all that goes on the world and all the barriers that have been broken why do we still talk about slavery and why are so many Black people still angry?Why are some still asking for reparations while using the benefits and comforts of the same society they purport to reject and despise?The answer is economics.When we say economics it is not about just having money in your pocket.It is not just about getting rich.Economics has to do with the ability to control and create wealth and independence.This is the last frontier for the African American and Africans world wide.We have seen African countries free themselves from Colonial rule since 1957.Liberia and Ethiopia free always.The idea of political power with no economic power leads to imbalances that causes strife,envy,and conflict.It is unfortunate that many in the African American community have no grasp of how to empower our community.We have millionaires and a Billionaire in the Black community but none can deliver us from our constant state of desperation and pathetic generation after generation of poverty and serfdom.We have made gains many of us are in the middle class and many of us have careers and live in nice homes.Given this we still feel vulnerable.Many of us are just six months from being destitute.We envy other groups coming here with strong family units and business support groups.We ask how do they do it?One reason is they play theAmerican GameThis is something all immigrants learn before they ever step on a boat to come here.They come with the idea that they will keep who they are and have one foot in America and still have a foot in their homeland.This is to keep cultural norms and morays alive as to keep the order of things harmonious.The observant student will notice that the people with the strongest sense of ethnic cohesion are the most successful.The people who are most Americanized usually have the most poverty,broken communities and crime.This is because the group does not need each other for survival.They are relying on the American economy and society to give them a fair deal.While the group that form their own networks and clubs use America to further their agenda.They will wave the American flag at events and sing songs of patriotism to show but they are not about America only what they can get out of this country.It has been like that from day one people looking out for number one.The only people who really expect America to be fair and just and provide for them are the African American people.No other group has had a civil rights movement for parity.Chinese own enclaves that gross billions called Chinatown.We have been saying we wanted our own Chinatowns in America for 100 years now still we have just ghettos to claim where everyone but us own businesses.Why is this?The Chinese are not beholden to American borders.The observant student will notice the Chinese are part if a global network of people,money,interest that has a continue for thousands of years.They were Chinese 4000 years ago and 4000 years from now no matter if they are in Singapore,Australia,USA they are Chinese.We Black people seem to be the only ones wanting to be American and confined to the plantation boundaries of America.Not having a base or beachhead outside the American paradigm will prove suicidal in the coming years.
Some Tips on the Kemetic trading
The question people ask me all the time is what can I do to start a plan?Where can I get involved?How can we change things.The first thing is self love.Like George Fraizer wrote in his book years ago "Success runs in our race"That we have to see ourselves as a tribe.That is what the Japanese are,The Italians,The Chinese,The Indians.These are global tribes linked by culture internationally by race and culture.When they are in every country they maintain these bonds.It is this basic simplicity that enables them to grow billion dollars businesses.Now we have Nigerian tribes emerging.The Dangote Group is a Nigerian industrial conglomerate headed by the richest African in the world Aliko Dangote.Why are they now African American tribes?Now we have the chance with the Kemetic Pipeline.
Importing is a start
Imagine doing your homework and finding that many African nations are moving into manufacturing.From just exporting cash crops to now creating finished goods Africa is changing the game.In East Africa Uganda and Rwanda now process finished coffee and have a domestic coffee business.Coffee shops are springing up all over the region as Africans like the coffee cafe sitting.Now imagine you have saved ten thousand dollars for a venture.You go to Rwanda to meet a coffee manufacturer.He shows you marketing material displays,and samples of his coffee.You like it and say I think I can get this in restaurants on you home city.He gives you samples and a logo with display to take back.You go around to several stores and restaurants and they like it but have concerns about introducing a new product.You ask the manufacturer to give you enough for a trial run.The coffee becomes a hit the restaurant has 10 stores that it wants to put on the menu.They put a big order in!Then you go through the Kemetic Pipeline to arrange procurement and shipping to the USA.The money you have as collateral plus a monetary system and letter of credit will secure the product.Once the product is delivered another restaurant hears about your coffee,now you are ready for a warehouse and hiring people.This is just one humble example you can use to get on the road to beating the American Game
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
African American Revolution.A land of our own
Sunday, September 18, 2011
The Enemy Within."The Benevolent Tyrant"
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Why many Native Liberians cannot be trusted.
There is a growing debate in Africa over the role Africans played in the slave trade.Now some have accused me of starting conflict within our community.I want to say I still believe African unity is possible.But when people who are ignorant and narrow minded put tribe above anything else.Mis informed African Americans underestimate tribalism and xenophobia in Africa and many will see this when it is too late.Ive always said the descendents of the victims of the trans Atlantic slave trade need to have a nation of their own.I will not back off that belief.They same thing can happen to us again.Maybe not a slave trade but violence,civil rights abuse,theft,rape,murder genocide,discrimination all are the step children of slavery.I have been studying our experiment in nationhood-Liberia for over 20 years.I have seen where our ancestors went wrong and what they did right.What was clear was the desire to have a nation with people who dont want to be a nation is not feasible.People with no concept of the modern world.No concept of White supremacy,colonialism,geo politics,finance,ect.The failure of the settlers to win the hearts and minds of the native people was the biggest shortcoming.No real vision was articulated until Tolbert became president and by then it was too late.The images of old men being stripped naked and gunned down by roving drunk soldiers while the crowd cheered this blood lust cannot be forgotten.Now it seems some So called Native Liberians are not done.They want more blood.Now at a time Liberia is trying to convince the world it is on the way to reconciliation there are people ready to send Liberia into another war.This time there are no settlers to blame.Now it is NATO,America,AFRICOM,Chevron,Mittal to blame.It is never the people who had power for the last 31 years and destroyed a once beautiful up and coming nation.The following is a conversation that transpired on a discussion about the Americo Liberian vs Natives debate.
AMERICO-LIBERIAN or CONGO PEOPLE V.S. NATIVE/COUNTRYMAN~~~~~
-- It is well documented way before the settlers arrival that inter-tribal wars were outstanding in Liberia. Natives attacked each other, captured & enslaved one another, sold one another as slaves. Majority of the attacks came about as a result of trade disagreements & disputes, and offcourse cultural differences.
I have listen to folks argue, Cuss one another and damn at others because of their views and stance on the issue of Americo-Liberian V.S. Natives. No one actually states & clarifies the assualts and attacks the native perpetrated on the settlers, which were numerous. And there were numerous assualts!
Nevertheless, when the settlers banned together as small a percentage as they were and usurp power, maintaining control for over a period of 100+ yrs. every Liberian play the blame game and rebuked our settler ancestors who were of African descend forcibly removed from their very homeland, (AFRICA)... Perhaps by the same Country or Natives people.
Have we ever stopped to think many of these same natives came or migrated from parts unknown?? (Other regions)....
--QUESTION IS:
(1) Why is some native Liberians insinuating that they have more rights to Liberia then, those who came from the State and settled in Liberia?? Does native Liberian have more rights or entitlement to Liberia then others???
(2) why do we constantly blame americo-Liberians or Congo people for the natives & Liberia's failures??
**This is not intended to provoke insults or fights. Simply to debate reasonably & find solutions to re-unite ourselves..** THANK~YOU, ALL!
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Duke Fearless Hyena Kla-Williams Good debatable piece Coopz!
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Thomas Cooper ~~Thanks Duke Fearless Hyena Kla-Williams...We need to find answers & solutions to our age old problems:-)
14 hours ago · Like
Wonnie Arkoiwala When the settlers came, they started to behave like slave masters themselves. They took children of the so-called indigenous to live with them n most of those children were treated differently from d biological children. The settlers, becos they knew the alphabet had to b masters.
10 hours ago via mobile · Like
Ruth Dorsla I object to the collective term "native people" what you mean is native peoples as you are well aware that there are separate tribes who were separate kingdoms/chieftain etc. Africans did not sell their OWN people. One tribe would sell the people of their rival tribe, mostly after defeat as a means of acquiring their land & eliminating the possible chance that their enemy could return & undo them.
As far as the natives attacking the settlers, hell yeah! What people of sound mind would let a stranger or even relative move in the house unannounced & feel entitled by saying "my parents used to live in this neighbourhood, not this exact house, but any house near here will do. After all you MAY have had something to do with them losing their house".
This is ridiculous & duplicitous because we have had this very discussion before. I also suspect the same idiot who called me a bitch, whore & prostitute on discussing Liberia because he got frustrated will show he face here again.
If we are going to have these conversations people need to grow up!
10 hours ago via mobile · Like
Thomas Cooper Ruth Dorsla: among Liberians it is understandable when the terminology " natives " ie: " congo's " " americo-liberian or " country man" is used for that matter.. There are numerous references to inter-tribal rivalries even before the settlers arrival...
This post is rather different from other post that have been discussed and it is our plea to address it appropriately. I am not aware of any " Idiot" who insulted you on Discussing Liberia as you stated. However, in the event of such I advice you kindly inform the Admin.
In the main time let's address the topic!
2 hours ago · Like
Ruth Dorsla @Cooper, did I not address the question? I did. The native peoples of Liberia are the only natives I am referring to in my answer. Kpelles DID NOT sell their own, Krus DID NOT sell their own. They sold their enemies. There were cases of two rival clans of the same ethnic group fighting for power. The winner seized power & the losing clan was killed or sold.
Now having made my answer clear, revisit my previous comment.
2 hours ago via mobile · Like · 1 person
Lena Broberg The history of the already existing slavery in Africa and other places in those days are not so so wellknown to most people, in that system there was always or often a way out...the slavery forced upon blacks by whites is a total different story, the most unjust and brutal ever...a shame for humanity!
2 hours ago · Like
Teddy Theodora Brooks I recently responded in another forum on this same topic although presented in a different way. The actions of the settlers and the indegenous people were not limited to them, it was and continues to be universal. Humans are capable of great good and great evil. And it goes back to the beginning of time. The selling of humans as slaves goes back to Biblical days. The transatlantic slave trade was barbaric because the people were taken away from eveything. Where as in an African setting one could hear their language and send a message or even find people of their own ethnic group in their new "home," this one completely alienated the people from their roots. Also, let's not forget the horrific slave ships that they travelled on and the conditions. All that said, what is the purpose of this ongoing back and forth about the actions of Americo Liberians versus Indigenous people? Our history is well known and the horse has been beaten to death so hard that it is a pulp. No one is in denial. What I see is finger pointing "your folks did this" on both sides. No side was perfect!!!! We seem to be stuck on accusation. Is there a way for us to take the conversation to a place where national pride and the commitment to NEVER repeat the sins of our forebears can be the order of the day? We are an incredible people. Whether in LIberia or in the diaspora, Liberians have made something out of themselves. The younger folks have role models and hope, lets focus on the best of ourselves and vow never to let the past repeat itself.
2 hours ago · Like · 1 person
Lena Broberg I wrote a small paper on this issue long time ago, while studying social/cultural anthropology, before computerage...I too lazy to scann n translate it less someone really interested...
2 hours ago · Like
Monday, August 22, 2011
The Ma'at way challenged.What is the African way?
There was a recent debate on facebook where a sister of the Ma'at set was challenged by a young girl about a photo of an African village girl.The photo shows a smiling pretty African girl.One young lady commented that she looks happy and content and that she envied her.The Ma'at sister implied she was only happy because she was uneducated and she had no knowledge of the outside world.The bigger question is what is African?Black middle class reactionary politics of Ma'at rooted in feminism and Marxism or one that embraces the world as you see it?Africans are very adaptable to the challenges they face.It is doubtful African Americans could survive without the world the White man created for them.Africans more and more are making the choice to join the modern world on their own terms at their own pace.This is not enough for the feminist posing as Pan Africanist in the many movement born in the Black American experience.They want to superimpose their idea of female equality and the idea of the oppressive social order on the African woman.The result in their minds would be more women in nightclubs until their 55 years old.Chasing some American dream never marrying and blaming men for their misery and failures.Now the race is on to give African women opportunities while not letting them get poisoned with the man hating Oprah like foolishness.The following is a debate following a photo of a Botswana village girl photo:
mari Jaffe Mbukushu or Thimbukushu is a Bantu language spoken by 45,000 people along the Okavango River in Namibia, where it is a national language; in Botswana; in Angola; and in Zambia, where it is an official regional language.
November 29, 2010 at 5:11am · Like · 1 person
Zf Shubbaz-inc Smith nice
January 2 at 12:18pm · Like
Mo GivedemFace Martin look at the curve in her back. Wow!
January 11 at 8:29am · Like · 2 people
Bettam Konjo Nikeysha is it okay to have such a curve in the backkk???
January 15 at 6:43pm · Like
Ptah Ra Tehuti BEAUTY IS HER NAME!! WOW !
January 22 at 12:23pm · Like · 3 people
Atiba Wiltshire WOW!!!!
January 24 at 6:11pm · Like · 2 people
Ptah Ra ~ My wife ~
January 24 at 6:30pm · Like · 1 person
Bettam Konjo Nikeysha Lol lol @ptah ra
January 24 at 6:38pm · Like · 1 person
Ptah Ra jus being honest sistah , she is beautiful ..all natural ~ eye love it
January 24 at 6:40pm · Like · 1 person
Bettam Konjo Nikeysha She is.......don't know when some of us will a appreciate the beauty of black
January 24 at 6:43pm · Like · 4 people
Lucciwaliwali LucciBang Bang BEAUTIFUL
January 31 at 9:50pm · Like · 1 person
Egipt Sahu Burgos Family
February 5 at 8:29pm · Like · 1 person
Jessica Renee Dunston i love seeing pictures of young african women who have physical features like mine. doesnt make me feel as strange anymore.
May 6 at 10:23pm · Like · 3 people
Romonne Gordon LMAO!!!
May 6 at 10:54pm · Like
Al-lat Ma'at Will she be able to grow and become educated? Will she have the opportunity to see life beyond her village? Are these photos in anyway helping any of these young girls to improve anything in their futures.
June 17 at 9:48am · Like
Jessica Renee Dunston Why does leaving their village and joining our rat race have to be an "improvement"? I wanna be where she is. I'm quite sure she has feet and can do otherwise if she chooses even if with consequence.
June 17 at 10:22am · Like · 1 person
Al-lat Ma'at
I believe u know what I am saying. I am not saying be like me or u. I not even saying that she be educated in the European education system. I am saying she deserves a chance to be educated (education is not limited to a classroom) and to make a decision about what life she wants to live. She may not even know of all the options we as women have. She may not know how to read. I hear what ur saying but I think u read me wrong. She deserves a chance to be educated about the world and to make her own independent study and if desired to return to her villiage. We can guess all day but I am sure u and eveyone else seeing this pic knows what I am tryint to say. I didnt say she should be an American or am I saying America is an improvement. What I said is she deserves a chance.
June 17 at 10:28am · Like
Jessica Renee Dunston
I'm just saying that your statement is very presumptuous and borderline arrogant. Perhaps she doesn't want or need all that. Perhaps she's had those opportunities. Given that there's a man with a camera in front of her, she's encountered "a...See More
June 17 at 10:41am · Like
Al-lat Ma'at
Wow, thats the first time my concern was considered arrogant. Im not an intellectual just concerned and interested in the quality of life for alot of these young girls in the photos. U may think that and someone else may think my words anot...See More
June 17 at 10:50am · Like
Al-lat Ma'at Uv put words in my mouth and u want me to respond to things I didnt even say. Ur interpretation of what I said and what I said are two very different things. But u have revealed plenty of ur own feelings with ur attempt to psychoanalyze me.
June 17 at 10:51am · Like
Jessica Renee Dunston
I'm not saying it in a hurtful way so you don't need to get defensive and offended. No need to get hostile. And if I said you've said anything, I merely responded to the exact words you've presented. I'm sorry if you feel attacked but that...See More
June 17 at 11:00am · Like
Adeosun Shelly Adeoyin
The Europeans own the education system. Why should she want to be educated to bend to the needs of one man who claims to know what is good enough for her. Does she look like she is unhappy where she is? Ma'at i like your passion but try not...See More
June 18 at 1:52pm · Like
Al-lat Ma'at Im not sure what ur talking about.
June 18 at 1:58pm · Like
Al-lat Ma'at We dont know anything about her. We are all assuming.
June 18 at 1:58pm · Like
Adeosun Shelly Adeoyin me sentiments exactly............you assume that she needs a better way of life. Who says she does?
June 18 at 1:59pm · Like
Adeosun Shelly Adeoyin who says she is not happy where she is. i do believe you understand what i am saying. its not that hard to understand
June 18 at 1:59pm · Like
Al-lat Ma'at She doesnt look old enough to have her breast exposed all in the name of culture and cusoms. I hear u.
June 18 at 2:02pm · Like
Adeosun Shelly Adeoyin you judging where she should be through the eyes of YOUR cultural experiences and insperiences
June 18 at 2:05pm · Like
Al-lat Ma'at Im not ur enemy because I believe young women should be educated and given certain rights and choices. Maybe Im using the wrong words to express myself. I cant see where the hostility is coming from.
June 18 at 2:07pm · Like
Adeosun Shelly Adeoyin if you want an enemy of me then say that. I am not posting these comments to make you an enemy. Putting it simply, so you can understand, i don't agree with all of your thoughts. you make good points, but to me it seems a little one sided. You not looking at the other side of the coin. What if she is a happy young woman living in Botswana? That is all i am saying.........what if she is happy where she is.
June 18 at 2:11pm · Like · 2 people
Territory Liberia lost to France in 1892 should be returned.
In the year of 1885 European powers met to discuss the carving up of the African continent.They met in Germany at the Berlin conference.Liberia the lone African republic was recognized as a sovereign nation.But what was in dispute was just where its sovereignty laid.The Government of Liberia had hoped that settlers from the USA and the West would populate the hinterland securing it from being taken by colonial powers.The settlers came in too small of numbers.In fact after the Voyage of the Bark Azor in 1878 from Charleston S.C.,there were no organized settler schemes planned.Although a success the Azor was the last because the shipping company went into financial trouble.Sabotaged by racist and treacherous Blacks who wanted no part of African emigration because it undermined their plans for a intergrated America.In fact most African Americans viewed having a nation of their own favorable.Only the educated and very light skinned Negroes viewed America as their only home.Liberia held the territory past the Cavalla River to the San Pedro river.North to what is Guinea and the mountains in Western Coat d Ivoire.A land that nearly doubled Liberia's size.The French saw this beautiful land and wanted it.Liberia concerned for its safety and independence desperately wanted this land occupied.The French with a force in the region said it would claim the area if Liberia could not prove it was governing it.Liberia failing to get the natives to agree to Liberian hegemony lost this land.
Maryland County once covered much of the coast.
The reason this land should be reclaimed is for the purpose of settlement of millions of people of African heritage looking to return.The world has a humanitarian obligation to consider statehood for the millions of African descendants displaced by the slave trade.The land that once belong to the settlers from the USA should be returned ASAP.This land belongs to the original settlers of Liberia and their descendants.The land to the west of the CoatdIvoire will succeed and become a new republic for the Diaspora to return to.This is a must in order for Africa to grow.A new state would mean billions in revenue for the region.Investments and land development from the settlements would improve the continent.
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Remembering Warrior Queen Nzinga ruler of the Kongo.
THE TERRIBLE BLACK QUEEN
SLAVE ROUTES (DUTCH EXPEDITIONS)
“For every two million Blacks enslaved over a million died. The record indicates rather clearly that many millions preferred death to slavery. I just said “the record indicates,” but you will never find a single Portuguese, Dutch, Spanish, English or American document that explicitly says any such thing. The archives in Lisbon are rich to overflowing with African documents going back 500 yrs. By wading through such a great mass of written records the historian often gets a picture that was not intended for painting and messages from the same documents which were not sent--- which is merely another way of saying again that written documents often reveal far more than their authors intended. You will therefore search in vain for an account written of the following”:
“It is not true that all women, and even children were like-wise marched in chains; this would have been unnecessary anyway because we had learned that these black women are so loyal to their men that they would follow them even to hell. Yet many of these same women would seek death directly by attacking us and our armed guards. These, of course, were beaten and chained the same as the male slaves___Another problem was the large number of suicides during the two-hundred mile trek to the slave pens on the coast. The greatest number died from poison which hundreds of women would conceal on their bodies for the purpose, passing it to friends and kinsmen in the darkness of night before giving it to their children and finally taking it themselves. All this slowed us down during the night when we should have moved faster because it was cooler. Yet the dead and the dying had to have their chains chopped off from the living. Many babies were deliberately smothered to death by their dying mothers___We do not believe that the other deaths were caused by the long march as some allege. For while it is true that we ourselves are carried in hammocks, the bearers are changed every ten or fifteen miles. The biggest and strongest boys are selected to carry us. They are usually between twenty and thirty years old. They also collapse sometimes, but only five have died during this year. It must be remembered that these Blacks are quite used to walking very long distances with heavy burdens___There are many problems in this business. The captains, taking it easy on the coast, are always complaining about our slow movement and the many weeks it takes on the march. They never take into account how much we are slowed down by tramping and stumbling over the skeletons and rottening dead bodies of slaves that went along these trails before us___sometimes, years before us. The stench of those who died recently is unbearable, yet we bear it. We also lose much time trying to find routes down which are free of the dead and dying. Then there are scores and scores of perfectly healthy Blacks who drop dead without any apparent cause. Some say they die out of sheer spite __ another way of defeating us_______We work in fear, for our guns are often useless in the increasing number of ambush attacks along the death-ridden trails. And while the Kongolese kings now harass us in the Angola region, the region of the Black Terror in the form of a death-defying Black queen, Ann Nzinga. Who ever heard of a woman general, leading her armies in person? The truth is that she is the greatest military strategist that ever confronted the armed forces of Portugal. Her tactics keep our commanders sweating in confusion and dismay. Her aim is nothing less than the total destruction of the slave trade. To this end __ and what alarms us most __ she has developed a system of infiltrating our Black troops with her own men, causing whole companies to rebel, desert, and join her armies in what she calls a ‘WAR OF LIBERATION’ . . .’ Portuguese casualties are always heavier than reported, for she stages surprise attacks with lightening speed, always aiming first to capture guns and cannons. And while we now surround ourselves with armed guards on these long marches, we never know how many of our Black soldiers are the Queens own men . . .”
This would have been a true account up to 1663 when the forty years of unremitting warfare that Queen Nzinga waged against the Portuguese to free Angola ended with her passing. Africa had lost her greatest daughter, the slaves their greatest emancipator. Where is this explicitly written?
(((((((((((((( NOWHERE)))))))))))))))
QUEEN NZINGA: THE UNCONQUERABLE
QUEEN NZINGA - WARS OF LIBERATION (40YRS)
Greatness was born out of the savage oppression of the Africans and out of that oppression it grew like a giant. Just why the Portuguese drew so much blood with the lash from already chained and helpless slaves is beyond all human understanding since, if for no other reason, the victims were “articles of commerce” and the source of the very riches slavers sought. Besides, over half of the captured Blacks died before reaching their destination. Self interest, then, should have stayed the murderous hands of the slavers. Nothing did, and that fact was one of the reasons that Queen Nzinga said that the real savages in Africa were the whites. They created the conditions that brought her to the fore.
GUNS AND SLAVES
“Up to the sixteenth century the people the world calls "slaves" in Africa were not at all slaves in the modern sense, but labourers, either captured as prisoners of war or persons imprisoned for various offenses. During the first stages of the slave trade many African chiefs and kings actually thought they were supplying workers needed abroad—and at a great profit to themselves. They has no experience with the white man’s slave system or its equation with “race”. Not at first, we have said. But as the decades passed—and the Kongo state is a good example—many Africans became enmeshed in the pursuit of guns and riches, became as brutal as the whites in dealing with their own kind”.
Guns Black leaders saw these new weapons of death as the real source of the white man’s power and the immediate threat to their own existence; the earth-shaking cannons that were being brought into Africa seemed to herald the death of a whole race or its total enslavement. The Africans became insistent in their demands for guns as articles of trade. There was then, as now, a silent embargo on arms to Black Africa—a sort of white “Gentleman’s Agreement.” The demand for guns by the chiefs was pitted against the demand for slaves by the Europeans and the Arabs (the Arab slavers had no trouble securing firearms).The chiefs could seriously hamper the trade if their demands for guns were not met. Besides, many slave traders were quick to see that the supply of slaves would double and triple if firearms were given to a certain strategically located kingdoms and chiefdoms; for these would then seek to become bigger, wealthier powers, expanding their territories over weaker Black states, and capturing millions of prisoners to be enslaved in the process. The more aggressive traders were willing to arm such African states as one of the risks capitalists must take in the pursuit of wealth. The more imperialist-minded saw an outcome even more important. That this would be a built in motivation for perpetual warfare among the Blacks themselves, creating an everlasting hatred between groups, destroying every basis for unity and, above all, keep them so busily hating and fighting each other that they would forget their real enemies—the “white devils” from the sea.
CHRISTIANIZATION AND COMMERCE
The Portuguese Christianization of the Kongo created something more than chaos. It was a revolting mess, no matter from what angle it is viewed. To begin with, priests were not only among the leading slave traders, but they also owned slave ships to carry the “black cargoes” to distant lands. Priests also had their harems of black slave girls, some having as many as twenty each. They were called “house servants” by these “holy fathers”. The great majority of the whites were the scum of the land from which they came. Even the half-educated priests were generally of the very lowest character, morally and otherwise. The slave situation became more and more desparate and out of hand as every white man down to the lowly worker became a trader. The slave situation became more and more desperate and out of hand as every white man down to the lowly worker became a trader. The builders sent over to erect the fortifications and other permanent installations for the Portuguese—stone and brick masons, carpenters, engineers, painters, metal and other craftsmen were all slave traders. Sailors and unskilled Portuguese labourers had their own quotas of slaves—especially slave girls. For let it stand out clearly: One of the main attractions of slavery, and the magnet that drew thousands of white men on, was their sexual freedom unlimited with all the Black girls and women who were enslaved and helpless in the power of their masters. These “wholesale raids” on Black womanhood continued to swell the mulatto population, the majority of which—again as in the case of Egypt and the Sudan—became the faithful servants and loyal representatives of the conquering races to which their fathers belonged.
The Portuguese were so aggressive in their program of dividing the Blacks and keeping them fighting among themselves that they overshot the mark, simply went too far. The system of spreading out over the country into the provinces and allying themselves with the various chiefs has been mentioned more than once. But after 1608 the commander-in-chief of the Portuguese army tightened the noose. This was Bento Cardoso. Under his plan Angola was to be depopulated by a massive onslaught for slaves through a closely coordinated system in which every chief in the land would be “owned” by a Portuguese and directly responsible to him for a stated quota of slaves. This would bypass the Angolan king (of Ndongo) to whom the provincial chiefs paid their taxes in slaves. This would also mean increased warfare between the chiefdoms in order to meet the increased quotas demanded by raiding into each other’s territories.
Chiefs failing to secure the required number of slaves were themselves enslaved by the Portuguese. Over a hundred chiefs and other notables were sold into slavery in a single year and another hundred murdered by the Portuguese. We may safely assume that the actual number of chiefs enslaved or murdered was greater than that stated above since the Portuguese, like other nations, generally cut casualty figures for the record.
The situation to be considered here, however, is the widespread confusion and terror among a hunted and leaderless people. To make matters even worse – if that was possible, the half-savage Jaga, who would join anybody for their favourite game of looting and raping – becoming allies of Cardoso. The Angolan king, who had been cooperating with the slave traders, now saw himself ruined on all fronts, losing his people and his profits. He therefore began to resist the Portuguese. The people, even though they knew that their king himself was a slaver, in sheer desperation flocked to support the war of resistance. It paid off. Both the Portuguese and their Jaga allies were checked, and the war dragged on year after year. After Kabasa, the capital city, fell to the Portuguese, their losses had become so heavy that the new governor who had been sent from Lisbon with firm orders to complete the conquest of Angola “once and for all,” nevertheless was forced to sue for peace without victory. The Portuguese had suffered a disastrous defeat by the Blacks, but the official version –and excuse—was that there was “general illness” in their ranks. Yet the Portuguese insisted on holding Kabasa. The Africans therefore rejected peace proposals as a trick and the war was resumed in a land of famine where food crops and slave trade itself had come to a standstill. In this desperate state of affairs the fighting somehow continued, with both sides obviously weakened and in disarray. It was during this period, in 1619, that a new Portuguese commander managed to murder over a hundred chiefs. At this point the Pope intervened, insisting that the wholesale slaughter be ended and peace be pursued. In 1622, a new governor was sent from Lisbon to make peace. Portugal had been appointing “governors of Angola” for over forty years without having control over it.
_
AFRICA'S GREATEST DAUGHTER
The peace conference was held at Luanda. The Black delegation was headed by the country’s ablest and most uncompromising diplomat, Ann Nzinga, not yet queen, but sister to the king—the woman power behind a weak king, and the one responsible for inspiring the people to continue the war of resistance when every hope was gone, unless she herself had become their last hope. But even before the peace offering began, and at the risk of wrecking it, the governor’s Caucasian arrogance could not be restrained. He had decided on a studied insult at the outset by providing chairs in the conference room only for himself and his councillors, with the idea of forcing the Black princess to stand humbly before his noble presence. He remained seated of course, staring haughtily as she entered the room. She took in the situation at a glance with a contemptuous smile, while her attendants moved with a swiftness that seemed to suggest that they anticipated this stupid behaviour by the Portuguese. They quickly rolled out the beautifully designed royal carpet they had brought before Nzinga, after which one of them went down on all fours and expertly formed himself into a “royal throne” upon which the princess sat easily without being a strain on her devoted follower. Yet she rose at regular intervals, knowing that other attendants were vying for the honour of thus giving to these whites still another defeat. I gather from the different ways this incident is reported that the Western mind is unable to grasp its real meaning. Some historians saw it as a cruel and inhuman use of slaves, ignoring the fact that Nzinga’s chief claim to fame was that she was the greatest abolitionist of slavery, that she herself had no slaves and, indeed, had not the slightest need for any. One reason might well be that she was so much loved and even blindly followed by her people that it was believed that all would die to the last man and woman following her leadership. Such were the men, not slaves, who gladly formed a human couch before the astonished Portuguese for their leader.
She faced the Portuguese governor and spoke as a ruler of the land, and not as a subject of the king of Portugal. She did not recognise the man in the big chair as a governor because she did not recognise the existence of a Portuguese “colony of Angola.” She only saw before her what her people had seen approaching their shores over a hundred years before—pompous white devils bent on the destruction of the non white world. The Ndongo terms for peace were presented as uncompromising demands, and it was clear from the beginning that the Portuguese would have fared better with a man. For before any kind of treaty was signed Portugal had to agree (1) to evacuate Kabasa and all nearby fortifications; (2) the Portuguese were to wage war against the Jaga (a harsh provision since the Jaga had been Portugal’s allies in trying to crush Ndongo); (3) all chiefs who had become vassals of the Portuguese king were to be freed and enabled to return to return to former tributary status at home and, finally, the important concession Nzinga made was to return the Portuguese prisoners-of-war she held. The treaty of 1622 was supposed to end all fighting in the whole West-Central region. But the governor, as though to make up for his defeat in the peace negotiations with Nzinga, marched off to invade Kongo again almost immediately. The treaty then became dead insofar as its execution was concerned. But Nzinga’s brother died the next year and she became Queen of Ndongo. The distressed Portuguese, in order to discredit her, put out the story that she had poisoned him. And while there was not a scintilla of evidence or any basis at all for their concoction, historians have shown their unbiased objectivity by faithfully carrying on the charge for over three hundred years. Yet if lying is a legitimate aspect of warfare, the Portuguese may have felt justified in trying to destroy such an implacable foe in any way they could. Their greatest trouble was yet to come.
_
QUEEN NZINGA (1623)
Nzinga became queen in 1623, and went into action at once. Her first major move was to send an ultimatum to the Portuguese authorities demanding the immediate execution of the terms of the treaty—otherwise war would be declared. While the Portuguese were preparing to meet the Queen’s armies, the Dutch fleet appeared as a new threat. The Dutch, themselves great slavers, certainly did not come as liberators of the hard-pressed Blacks. Their aim was to break the Portuguese monopoly and secure their share of the slave trade and the mineral wealth of West and Central Africa. To further these ends, they used the Blacks as other white peoples did and still do. So no time was lost in forming an alliance with Pedro II, King of Kongo, in his war with the Portuguese. The Dutch had already captured seven Portuguese slave ships at sea, sunk other vessels in the harbours at Luanda and Mpinda, and were raising hell generally. All this gave Queen Nzinga more time to prepare for the inevitable. She even reversed he demands for a Portuguese war against the Jaga and formed a military alliance with them herself. Knowing how very unreliable the Jaga were, she sought to make the alliance binding by promising to marry the Jaga chief, Kasinji, and adopting certain Jaga customs.
_
STRATEGY
Nzinga’s greatest act, however—and probably the one that makes he one of the greatest women in history—was in 1624 when she declared all territory in Angola over which she had control was Free Country, all slaves reaching it from whatever quarter were forever free. She went further. Since it was clear to her that White Power in Africa rested squarely on the use of Black troops against Black people, she undertook the first and only carefully organised effort to undermine and destroy the effective employment and use of Black soldiers by whites—the first and only Black leader in history who was ever known to undertake such a task. She has carefully selected groups of her own soldiers to infiltrate the Portuguese held territory and allowing themselves to be “induced” by Portuguese recruiting agents to join their forces. The quiet and effective work of Nzinga’s agents among the Black troops of Portugal was one of the most glorious, yet unsung, pages in African history. For whole companies rebelled and deserted to the colours of the Black queen, taking with them the much needed guns and ammunition which she had been unable to secure except by swiftly moving surprise attacks on enemy units. The Queen’s armies were further strengthened by the runaway slaves who streamed into the only certain haven for the free on the whole continent of Africa. To the Portuguese Queen Nzinga had just passed the last word in unheard-of audacity when she was able to influence scores of vassal chiefs to rebel against them and join the cause of their own race. This was too much. This woman had to be destroyed. It had come to that.
Warrior Queen Nzinga
The Portuguese sent their ultimatum to the Queen from their Luanda stronghold—Portugal’s Lisbon in Africa. It demanded the immediate return of all chiefs, soldiers and slaves to Portuguese territory; that is, all who had fled therefrom. Refusal would mean war, the ultimatum concluded. The fact was that a state of war already existed since the Queen’s own ultimatum of the previous year. The Portuguese were afraid to move against her stronger forces now, although they continued to give the Dutch threat as the reason for delaying the required all-out attack. Meanwhile, the usual strategy of first instigating factional strife among the Blacks was by no means forgotten. It was just that there was so much unity and patriotism in this dominant Angola state that there was so much unity to this “terrible Black Queen”, that internal subversion was almost impossible. They tried to overcome all this by formally declaring that Nzinga was not legally Queen of Ndongo, the throne vacant, and one of their own vassal chiefs, Aidi Kiluanji, was declared king. The Portuguese marshalled all of their forces on land and sea, their special river fleet in particular, to crush Nzinga before the Dutch struck again. But the Queen herself opened the offensive, striking first at the Portuguese puppet king and his forces. The Portuguese captured her principal island stronghold in the Cuanza river in July, 1626, thus dividing her forces and, by a swift encircling movement designed to capture the Queen, cut off her main supporting regiments and forced her not only to retreat but to withdraw from he country. Joy reigned at Luanda and Sao Thome. With Nzinga;s flight from Angola it appeared that the Black menace was over and victory complete. Aidi Kiluanji was crowned King Philip I of Ndongo.
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The solidarity of the Blacks remained unbroken, however, and their loyalty to Nzinga remained steadfast. She was “just away a little while,” and would return soon. Any child in the most distant bush could tell you that their Queen was just “away on business”. So who was Philip !?” His name said he was Portuguese, so he couldn’t be King of Ndongo. All Angolan kings and queens were so African that they couldn’t be tricked out of their own African names. The Queen herself had dropped “ANNA” from her name when she discovered that baptizing a Black into Christianity meant surrendering his soul and body not to any Christ, but to the white man. And oral tradition further has it that the people not only rejected “Philip I”, but made fun of the very idea that he considered himself to be king. Their blind faith in their Queen and the certainty of her return, according to the same oral record, was not really so blind. Those who understood the coded drum messages spread the news that all guerrilla attacks which occurred throughout the land were attacks which were personally directed by the Queen and that, in fact, she was raising a new army of liberation. Her loyal chiefs and people in Ndongo were to stand by, ready.
The written records, no matter how slanted, supports the oral. For in November, 1627, she crossed the borders back into her country at the head of a strong army—made stronger and stronger as her loyal chiefs and wildly cheering people—including her fanatically devoted freed men—flocked to her standard as she swept forward to recapture the Cuanza stronghold held by Philip I and put him to flight. The Portuguese continued to be amazed at this display at Black unity—and under a woman’s leadership at that. Black unity was now seen clearly as Black Power, and that meant an unconquerable people. The Portuguese were resolved to break that unity and the power the developed from it. The revolt against them had become general as Nzinga’s victorious forces advanced. The Portuguese retreated to their own strongholds on the coast, giving the Dutch threat as an excuse—and not the threat of being annihilated by the Queen’s forces.
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But as there was in fact no imminent Dutch threat, the Portuguese regrouped and strengthened their forces for an all-out war to destroy Nzinga and, this time, not to cease fighting until this was done. They began by giving orders and offering a big reward for her capture, dead or alive. Their slave troops, still the backbone of the Portuguese armed forces, were given the special inducements of land and freedom for her capture. Realizing that such an all-out attempt to capture her meant that countless thousands of her people would die in her defence, she outwitted the Portuguese again by slipping out of the country, instructing her lieutenants to spread the word everywhere that she had fled the country, mistakenly entered the country of an enemy and had been killed. To give point to the story, there was general weeping and mourning throughout Ndongo—real weeping and mourning, because the masses believed the story to be true. So did the Portuguese. The only reason for the war having been removed by Providence, the Bishop could celebrate a special mass in celebration of this special blessing, and the Colony of Angola could at last be organized after over fifty years of obstruction. All things now seemed to be happy and going well according to the original grand design.
Then in 1629 the Portuguese stood aghast when Queen Nzinga “burst upon them from the grave,” sweeping all opposition before her. She brought in her fierce Jaga allies with her, apparently willing to do even this to defeat the whites. The Portuguese were completely defeated. She had not only retaken her own country but had, meanwhile, become Queen of Matamba also, having replaced the weak Queen there. Nzinga was now an empress of two countries. She no redoubled he campaign against slavery and the slave trade by making both Ndongo and Matamba havens for all who could escape from the slaver by rebelling or otherwise. Chiefs engaged in the traffic in nearby states now stood in fear of her wrath. The Portuguese saw “the handwriting on the wall”. In order not to loose every foothold in the area, Lisbon suddenly remembered that it had never carried out the treaty signed with Nzinga in 1622, and declared the Portugal’s wars against her had been unjust! High level embassies were sent to the Queen in 1639 in efforts to effect a settlement. Nzinga received them, listened to their protestations of eternal friendship, and went ahead with determination in reorganizing both of her kingdoms and undermining colonial rule in areas held by the enemy. That every white man in Africa was an enemy of the Blacks was a matter about which there was no debate in her mind. Even the holy robes of the priests in Angola no only covered their real mission as agents of empire, but also covered their insatiable lust for the Black bodies of their helpless slave girls. She had been forced by the actualities of black-white relations to distrust all whites, along with their tricky treaties.
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[The Queen was further outraged over the success of the Portuguese in capturing both of her younger sisters. This gave the enemy a most powerful bargaining weapon. Yet she continued to reject all of their principal demands, with the result that her sisters—to whom she was deeply devoted—remained in captivity for many years].
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By 1641 the Dutch had made great progress in reducing the power of Portugal all along the coast, and Nzinga’s adamant position made their situation an impossible one to maintain. So a despairing governor and council had no choice but to declare war against her once again—a full scale war. But the situation was now most favourable for the Angolans. Their northern neighbour, Kongo, had become more active in its own war against the Portuguese and, besides, a new and greater king had assumed the leadership. This was Garcia II, who had continued the policy of cooperating with the Dutch where and when Kongolese interests were involved. (Some Black leaders had learned to use the whites as they had always used them: When it served their own interests). The other happy development for Ndongo was that the Dutch invasion of Portuguese-held areas had actually begun in 1641 before any moves could be made against any of the two Black states, Kongo and Ndongo.
Nzinga continued her campaign against the Portuguese, winning victories everywhere a battle was joined. With Dutch aid, the great Portuguese stronghold of Massangano fell in 1648. The Dutch, having previously captured Luanda, now found themselves threatened by the steady reinforcements that continued to pour in from Portuguese Brazil. The Dutch withdrew, leaving the Blacks in the area, who had helped them to capture and defend this the most important Portuguese city in Africa, to fend for themselves alone. While the chiefs and their forces did indeed put up a gallant fight, they were massacred in one of the most savage onslaughts on record. The recapture of Luanda by Salvador de Sa, the new governor, and his crushing of Black opposition there, led him to initiate new peace efforts with Kongo and Nzinga’s new kingdoms. The Kongolese King refused to answer his letter, but did send a monk to hear the governor’s terms. Nzinga also agreed to efforts at negotiations. These gestures by the two African leaders led Salvador de Sa to advise the king of Portugal that all the African states were cowed and their power broken. He knew better, of course, for even the chiefs and their people in his own Portuguese-held territory were still fighting on despite the massacres, and probably because of them.
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If the Portuguese had been able to conquer either Kongo or Ndong-Matamba, no peace offers would have been made. Hadn’t they tried it over and over and failed? To be able to conquer both now was out of the question. So the old conquest route was being tried again: The beginning smiles and protestations of friendship, finding concrete expression in negotiation for peace. The language of diplomacy reached its most brilliant heights of deception in those velvety clauses of proposed treaties which the Africans, if they signed them, would be signing themselves and their people into perpetual bondage, This fact was supposed to be assured by the other fact that the relevant clauses were so ambiguous that they could be interpreted in several ways—in this case in whatever way the Portuguese chose to interpret them. The very same provisions of the treaties could be read and explained to the Blacks in such language that the Europeans were not only humbling themselves but also proclaiming the outcome as a victory for the Africans. For of course no Blacks—not even an Nzinga—was supposed to be intelligent enough, sharply intelligent enough to see through all this. But, stripping away all the glittering verbiage, Nzinga saw at a glance that what it all meant was that she was to be a vassal of the Portuguese king, and one paying him a big annual tribute. She would die first. And no one should have known this better than the Portuguese who at the time of this latest treaty offer had been at war with her—and repeatedly defeated—for over twenty-eight years.
They had met one of the giants of the human race which they had found impossible to recognise as such because she appeared on the planet not only as a woman but one with black skin. Nzinga, therefore, kept them anxiously waiting for action on the treaty, toying with it for six years, while giving her war-torn land and tired-out people a period for rest and recovery. She was the same Queen who had twice fled the country not to save herself but to save her people from a slaughter that her flight would prevent. For the same reason she did not want the war resumed again after forty years of warfare. On the other hand, she would not surrender her country to Portugal and its slave trade. The areas of Angola they still held, including the important islands of Luanda and Sao Thome, belonged to the Angolan people, and some of these areas belonged directly to her own kingdoms of Ndongo and Matamba. Finally, then, in 1656—tired and weary from four decades of relentless struggles—she signed a treaty that was revised and made acceptable to her. Her greatest concession allowed the Portuguese puppet king, Aidi, to head the territory conceded to them.
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SEVEN MORE YEARS
There were seven more years of a busy life for Queen Nzinga—pushing reconstruction, the resettlement of ex-slaves, and under-taking the development of an economy of free men and women that would be able to succeed without the slave trade. She could not have been unaware that, with the Portuguese still strongly entrenched in the most strategic areas, unless she was succeeded by equally great leader, all of her labours in defense of the freedom of the Blacks would ultimately be in vain. That was the burning question in 1663 as a dull autumn sun lengthened the shadows over the palace grounds where thousands stood in tears: Were there any more Garcias anywhere? The sun slowly went down over the Angolan trees and darkness spread over the land. Over three hundred years later the blacks of Angola are still fighting the Portuguese, and still waiting for the sunrise.
In the heart-torn state of national mourning, the Queen’s Council permitted two priests wo come in and perform the last rites of the Church. Since the Queen had renounced the Catholic religion many years before her passing, had banned missions from her country as centers of subversion, this appearance of priests at the royal bedside may be explained either as a once-a-Catholic-always a-Catholic theory, or as an attempt by Catholic Portugal to give the appearance of final victory on all fronts. In this case it would mean that the most unconquerable of foes, recanting and submissive, had been conquered by their religion in the end. And so it is written in the official documents of Portugal—written that Nzinga returned to the Church that had baptized her “Anna”—the written record used by almost all historians of Africa. Yet she was one of the very first of the Blacks to see that the Portuguese conquests, the slave trade, and the Church were all inseparably one and the same. The long years of warfare had been equally against all three—the unholy trinity.She never surrendered to either. In 1963—three hundred years after her death—people, now Catholic themselves, did not believe she ever returned to the Church.
(pronounced Geen-gah Em-bahn-day) (c. 1583 – December 17, 1663)
NZINGA MBANDE KNOWN TO LEAD HER TROOPS INTO BATTLE WELL BEYOND HER SIXTIES. EVEN HER SISTERS, KIFUNJI AND MUKUMBU. ALL THREE WOULD MARCH INTO BATTLE WEARING THE EXACT SAME ANIMAL SKIN OUTFITS, EQUIPPED WITH SWORDS, AXES, BOWS AND ARROWSNZINGA ART
QUEEN NZINGA (NJINGA)
STATUE OF QUEEN 'NJINGA' IN LUANDA ANGOLA, KINAXIXI SQUARE
"Queen Nzingha, also known as Ann Nzingha, was overlord of portions of both Angola and Zaire. She has been called the "greatest military strategist that ever confronted the armed forces of Portugal." Nzingha's military campaigns kept the Portuguese in Africa at bay for more than four decades. Her objective was nothing less than the complete and total destruction of the African slave trade. Nzingha sent ambassadors throughout West and Central Africa with the intent of enlisting a huge coalition of African armies to eject the Portuguese. Queen Nzingha died fighting for her people in 1663 at the ripe old age of eighty-one. Africa has known no greater patriot".
(RUNOKO RASHIDI)
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