The Legacy of Imperialism

There is no place on earth I want to spend time in more than Africa. Ever since I was a kid, the sound of primal African tribal music sends my heart pulsing, African art makes me wish I had more money so I could collect it all, and the flavours of Africa makes my mouth water. I want to see the whole continent, top to bottom, but I'm mostly interested in the north of that continent. I could spend a year there tomorrow and never long for home.

When I see stories like this, or hear about the continuing neglect of the Darfur civil strife, it breaks my heart. More people, this story says, have died in the Congo since the beginning (and "end") of that war, which started 8 years ago, than in any conflict since WWII -- nearly 4 million. There's no reason for all of this to continue.

The western world broke Africa. We claimed it for imperial reasons, we stole its people and brutalized them, we ravaged their lands, and then we walked the fuck away and pretended they had their freedom, so all would be well. What they had was nothing; just strife and confusion and hurts to get over.

The UN claims that any country that needs to be rebuilt, ie: Haiti, etc, after a military takeover or abandonment, will take approximately 45 years to do so. When we walked out of Africa -- whether "we" is France, England, wherethefuckever -- we left them in ruins. The social divide that remains in places like the Congo, where more than 15 million people have died in the last 125 years, thanks to the rubber genocide begun by Belgium and continuing with the endless civil strife begun a decade ago, is something that isn't going to get better on its own.

It sickens me, this constant western belief that Africa's a continent of savages and the only ones who can fix Africa are the Africans. As we sit ignorantly on our hands, doing sweet fuck all, the numbers of AIDS-infected people on that troubled continent continues escalating; poverty is skyrocketing; crime is legendary. And yet, we do nothing. Not our problem. Doesn't matter. They're blacks who can't even help themselves; who cares.

Sometimes I think that telling ourselves we all live under the cloak of "humanity" is a fallacy. It seems we think humanity applies in only select cases. Classism is alive and well, and so is racism. What's happening in Africa -- be it the epidemic of rapes in South Africa, the agricultural failures in the northeast, the spread of AIDS, the civil failures of the Congo and Sudan -- is something that should shame us all into action.

It's not a surprise that the Congo's still so fucked. Read King Leopold's Ghosts by Adam Hochschild, and learn about the rubber trade that killed more than 10 million. They remained under imperial rule of the French until 1960. The book is one of the most heartfelt, moving history books I've ever read. (Hochschild is one of the two founders of the venerable Mother Jones magazine.)

The Western world is responsible for Africa. We came, we saw, we fucked them up, and we walked the hell away. No helping hand, no education, no moral support. Fucking nada. The US bombs Japan into the fucking middle ages, sticks around to help out, and look at them now. Africa's FULL of natural resources. There's no reason they can't become world powers. We simply would rather not see it happen.

Moreover, the powers that be do not want to admit the harm they've done. They don't want to be liable, they don't want to admit a legacy of four centuries of fucking that continent from top to bottom -- stealing its men and women for slavery, ravaging its lands for metals and jewels and even rubber, arming them and inspiring tribal strife...

God, it's disgusting. France, England, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Italy, America, and a few other countries all owe apologies, retribution, and assistance to Africa. After all, it's not like this happened hundreds of years ago. Foreign influence in Africa has really only left in the last five or six decades. And look what remains.

Fucking "White Man's Burden." What a joke. Africa's the canary in the goldmine, people. If we don't at least respond to the AIDS crisis, we'll get whatever we have coming, at the very least.