AFRICA; ENOUGH OF THE BLAME GAME

Thinking and worrying about my continent Africa. So out of curiosity and learning I chanced upon this letter.

LETTER FROM KING LEOPOLD II OF BELGIUM TO COLONIAL MISSIONARIES, 1883

“Reverends, Fathers and Dear Compatriots: The task that is given to fulfill is very delicate and requires much tact. You will go certainly to evangelize, but your evangelization must inspire above all Belgium interests. Your principal objective in our mission in the Congo is never to teach the niggers to know God, this they know already. They speak and submit to a Mungu, one Nzambi, one Nzakomba, and what else I don't know. They know that to kill, to sleep with someone else's wife, to lie and to insult is bad. Have courage to admit it; you are not going to teach them what they know already. Your essential role is to facilitate the task of administrators and industrials, which means you will go to interpret the gospel in the way it will be the best to protect your interests in that part of the world. For these things, you have to keep watch on disinteresting our savages from the richness that is plenty [in their underground. To avoid that, they get interested in it, and make you murderous] competition and dream one day to overthrow you. Your knowledge of the gospel will allow you to find texts ordering, and encouraging your followers to love poverty, like “Happier are the poor because they will inherit the heaven” and, “It's very difficult for the rich to enter the kingdom of God.” You have to detach from them and make them disrespect everything which gives courage to affront us. I make reference to their Mystic System and their war fetish – warfare protection – which they pretend not to want to abandon, and you must do everything in your power to make it disappear. Your action will be directed essentially to the younger ones, for they won't revolt when the recommendation of the priest is contradictory to their parent's teachings. The children have to learn to obey what the missionary recommends, who is the father of their soul. You must singularly insist on their total submission and obedience, avoid developing the spirit in the schools, teach students to read and not to reason. There, dear patriots, are some of the principles that you must apply. You will find many other books, which will be given to you at the end of this conference. Evangelize the niggers so that they stay forever in submission to the white colonialists, so they never revolt against the restraints they are undergoing. Recite every day – “Happy are those who are weeping because the kingdom of God is for them.” Convert always the blacks by using the whip. Keep their women in nine months of submission to work freely for us. Force them to pay you in sign of recognition-goats, chicken or eggs-every time you visit their villages. And make sure that niggers never become rich. Sing every day that it's impossible for the rich to enter heaven. Make them pay tax each week at Sunday mass. Use the money supposed for the poor, to build flourishing business centres. Institute a confessional system, which allows you to be good detectives denouncing any black that has a different consciousness contrary to that of the decision-maker. Teach the niggers to forget their heroes and to adore only ours. Never present a chair to a black that comes to visit you. Don't give him more than one cigarette. Never invite him for dinner even if he gives you a chicken every time you arrive at his house.”

The above letter which shows the real intention of the Christian missionary journey in Africa was exposed to the world by Mr. Moukouani Muikwani Bukoko, born in the Congo in 1915, and who in 1935 while working in the Congo, bought a second hand Bible from a Belgian priest, Dr. Chiedozie Okoro who forgot the letter in the Bible.

Has anything changed after colonialism? Or maybe am asking the wrong question, is colonialism over at all? But before we miss the point and start talking the brain washing intent of the colonial master lets handle our home issues. The history of slave trade in Ghana has some interesting facts we overlook. The white man came, gave us mirrors, spices, bottles of drinks e.t.c. and what did we give to them in exchange – human beings. Our leaders and chiefs were willing to give out their own people and lands in exchange for such items. The issue to me has never been what someone is doing to us but what we did to encourage it. If you don’t nurse or feed something it dies. Based on history the only reason the Portuguese left and came back to settle was because the rate at which we were willing to exchange items was overwhelming. So before we point fingers “let him who is without sin cast the first stone” (John 8:7).

So after centuries let’s ask some worrying questions –
Has our educational system changed? Because we seem to have an educational system that is good at churning out graduates with first classes and yet have no idea how to bring that knowledge to the field of work because the two are most often not related anyway. We have an educational system that has no solution to the problems we face in Africa.

Has our choice in leaders changed? Over the years Africa including our beloved country has been bedeviled with leaders who superintend over corruption. No doubt the bane to the progress /development of the continent and our beloved country is corruption. In reference to a speech by Prof. PLO Lumumba a former Chairman of the Kenyan Anti Corruption Commission at the 3rd Anti Corruption Convention. In his speech, the good professor revealed how he was victimized for having stood his grounds in the fight against corruption. Thus according to the politics of the day, he rather misunderstood his mandate. “My mandate was not to fight corruption but to appear to be fighting corruption… “it appears in Africa if you serve your full term it is because you have refused to fight corruption. A great Philosopher said it is in the nature of man to harm the small thieves and elect the great ones into office… Our leaders offer us a system of education and health that they themselves have no trust in. They would rather fly abroad for medical attention and fly their children outside for education...”

Our Public sectors are full of corrupt practices and personalities who call the shots and cause more problems than the governments in power. Nobody questions them and sadly they never get to be voted out. They are not accountable to anyone and no one questions them. The level of maladministration, injustice and mediocrity is outrageous. The public sector seems to have all the sharks with the PHD’s and all the qualifications you can think of. And what has the continent benefited from it. They run at losses year in year out, so at the end we make a decision either to sell out or privatize most of our state owned companies.

What about the question of abuse of power? Unfortunately, the plight of the African voter is to make their leaders kings over them, where in other fine democratic jurisdiction is not so. Tony Benn, a British MP posed what he termed the “five democratic questions” during a debate in the 1970’s on the European Parliamentary Elections Bill.
“(a) what power do you have?
(b) where did you get it?
(c) In whose interest do you exercise it;
(d) to whom are you accountable; and
(e) How can we get rid of you?

We need to question the powers that be, It’s about time they know they must be accountable. It might not fix our problems but it will be the beginning of something great.

Africans today do not have colonial masters walking our shores asking to buy slaves. Truth is they don’t have to; People are willing and ready to go anyway they don’t have to force anyone. The sentimental call by the likes of Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah was enough to make the white man go away but little was done about us the natives. One great personality in the era of the slave trade said “I freed a thousand slaves I could have freed more only if they knew they were slaves”. We have become slaves to something bigger than a colonial master.

In the famous Independence Speech by Kwame Nkrumah March 6, 1957, Accra, Ghana he said “At long last, the battle has ended! And thus, Ghana, your beloved country is free forever…Also; I want to thank the valiant ex-service men who have so cooperated with me in this mighty task of freeing our country from foreign rule and imperialism. And, as I pointed out… from now on, today, we must change our attitudes and our minds. We must realize that from now on we are no longer a colonial but free and independent people. But also, as I pointed out, that also entails hard work. That new Africa is ready to fight his own battles and show that after all the black man is capable of managing his own affairs.”

What then must Africans of today begin to do to save themselves from brainwashing by their White World enemies here on earth? – That is a legitimate question but enough of the blame game; Africa must work and it can work again only if we are willing to change our mindset and attitudes. Looking around I’m tempted to think the most powerful act of the colonial masters was the work they did with our minds and not the gold or the minerals they took. If anything must change it is our mindset. So what if they did succeed in brainwashing us – hello African it was centuries ago. Have we become robots that can’t change and do Something  for ourselves?

 by: BEKINA MIREKUAH MENSAH