By Leo Abina – A concerned World Citizen – for the Saker Blog
Going back as far as I can remember, the story of what my dad’s 1930s primary school teacher would say at the start of every school day has been ingrained in my family’s narrative for half a century. “Whites build locomotives. Negroes can’t produce a needle. Whites are civilized. Negroes are savages.” As he would recount this story, my dad would always add, with a mischievous chuckle, “my few other African classmates in that class would be outraged by this statement; but not me. For me, d’Assumption’s ‘greeting to the class’ became a source of motivation to excel, especially in mathematics and science, just to prove him wrong.” Over the years, teacher d’Assumption’s[1] statement would never fail to ignite passionate debates, emotions, and reactions among family members; me included.
During my childhood, in the 60s and 70s, I lived the life of a privileged West-African boy from a well-to-do family, growing up in multi-racial social networks, attending private schools in Africa and Europe, oblivious to the vicissitudes of both subtle and raw racism. During these early years, teacher d’Assumption’s statement felt like a distant, no longer relevant, piece of nasty colonial history that I did not fully understand but felt needed to just be forgotten.
As a youngster coming of age and completing tertiary education in the 80s and 90s, I lived through the collapse of the Soviet Union, the uninhibited advent of market-driven globalization, and the shift towards finance, rather than ‘goods and services’ -dominated economies. My thoughts about teacher d’Assumption’s statement during those years were that “aspiring to build African locomotives out of pride was wasteful and misguided development strategy.” What would be smarter, I argued, was “investing African capital to own shares in railway manufacturing companies, so as to better facilitate the deployment of railway infrastructure in Africa; while at the same time, striving to build competence in railway technology.’
Then came the beginning of my expat years. My first forays into the ‘real world’ of business, outside the manicured lawns and precious wood paneled walls of US Ivy League campuses. Those years brought my first encounters with the realities of ‘subtle,’ though at times not so ‘subtle,’ corporate double standards. I had up to then bought into the neo-liberal ethos about free and fair markets; only to discover that in reality, most markets, even within the western sphere of influence, were neither free nor fair. Corporate battles within the western world are testimony that strategic technologies are protected; Boeing vs Airbus, Apple vs Microsoft, Siemens vs GE, are but a few legendary examples of this reality. These examples helped me realize that my earlier thoughts about how Africans should use capital in order to play the economic game to their advantage might have been overly naive – state interventions do play a major role in today’s so called ‘free markets’, and the bigger the state, the stronger the interventions. Even in the apparently ‘leveled playing field’ of our modern world, teacher d’Assumption’s worldview seemed as entrenched and relevant as it ever was.
As I look back through the eyes and battle scars of a 50-something, I get an uneasy sense that humanity has remained stuck on this all-important racism issue. On one side of the issue, white folks are conditioned to inherently hold a sense of superiority, backed by centuries of modern western world dominance. While on the other side of the issue, brown folks, no matter where they live in the world, their place in society, or their achievements, feel a sense of injustice, inadequacy, and alienation, in a historical period dominated by the modern western construct; a construct in which they can at best live as ‘acceptable strangers,’ or at worst as victims or rebels.
Taking a closer look at these perspectives on racism might provide a better premise to bring the two main conflicting parties – the white, western European dominant side, and the non-white (brown) global-south side, nearer each other.
Let us begin with the white perspective. Looking at the advent of modern western civilization over the past 300 years, as well as today’s global power dynamics, one can easily understand why a 21st-Century white person might have an innate sense of superiority. Why in our times, even an unaccomplished, hopeless, inept white person of European descent would still feel superior to an accomplished, gifted, and successful brown person.
In a nutshell, this frame of mind stems from the observation that for the past few centuries, the modern western civilization managed to subjugate much of the rest of our world. Through naval supremacy and superior weaponry resulting in tremendous military might, small European nations with tiny territories and lesser populations were able to project power globally and overwhelm much larger, usually brown, peoples. These past conquests still resonate in the psyche of many modern Europeans, and in the view of many, bear witness to the greater ingenuity of the white race. Once the lands of the brown people were subdued and a colonial order was established to channel vast amounts of natural resources from the colonies to the colonial capitals, in the eyes of many Europeans, this exploitative world order was, and is to this day, justified.
For in their narrative, it is Europeans, in the first place, who knew and understood the value of these natural resources. Whereas the brown natives, who might have been sitting on these natural resources for centuries, a. did not have an industrial base to know the value of what was under their feet b. did not have the technology and means to access and exploit these natural resources, and c. did not have the capacity and strength to protect them. Therefore, it is only natural that those who have the knowledge, technology, and power to access natural resources should also have the nature-given right to exploit them.
Then comes the moral aspect, especially as it relates to one of the most gruesome episodes in the long racism saga: the trans-Atlantic slave trade. In public and in the name of political correctness, most white people who only have a passing acquaintance with slavery do feel a sense of guilt about it. However, upon greater scrutiny through which they come to understand the historical context of slavery, and in view of recent south-to-north emigration dynamics, in private, many other white people do not share that sense of guilt.
The rationale here is twofold. First, there is the very controversial observation that during the slave trade, Africa was not occupied; therefore and by-enlarge, it was mostly African chieftains who sold other Africans into slavery. If brown people were ready to sell their own kind into slavery while Europeans needed labor to build ‘the new world in the Americas,’ why should only one of the two parties lose the moral high ground? Second, decades after slavery and colonization, we live in a time of massive south-north migration where millions of brown people are ready to leave their own independent countries and risk their lives across deserts and seas in search of a better life in the white man’s ‘land of milk and honey.’ Isn’t that further testimony of the white man’s more aspirational, and therefore superior, way of life?
This old, profound inter-racial legacy explains why an unaccomplished white person would still feel superior to a gifted brown person. The white indigent person sees brown people parading in fancy clothes, fancy cars, fancy homes, and thinks, “this high life these brown people aspire to and are so fond of, was brought about by us.”
Let us now turn to the brown perspective. The brown person’s experience in today’s modern western civilization is an experience filled with contradictions. On one hand there is an attraction to the outward semblance of freedom, equality and fraternity professed by the West. On the other hand there is a rejection of the inward reality of coercion, double standards, and racism perpetrated by that very same West. In this context, the brown person’s best option often consists in navigating these contradictions as deftly and quietly as possible, with no overt defiance to the established order. I once attended an event where the condition of black Brazilians came up in the discussion; a white Brazilian businessman who was present casually responded; “we do not have a racial problem in Brazil because in Brazil, brown people know their place!”
Besides the cruelty, hurtful meaning, and Brazilian frame of reference of this remark, it basically captured the essence of brown peoples’ lives everywhere in the modern world. No matter where they live, what their personal circumstances are, whether they are conscious of it or not, racism is an integral part of brown peoples’ day-to-day reality. Of course, in the modern era the crude state-sanctioned form of racism that prevailed up to the 1960s has rescinded, but nonetheless racism is still alive and well in today’s world context, albeit in different forms according to different environments.
The western-dominated world order dates back to at least three centuries. Its latest, modern iteration was established at the end of World War II by the victorious powers. On the economic front, western dominance happened de facto through the establishment of the Bretton Woods institutions in 1944 – the World Bank and the IMF. On the political front, the United Nations was founded with the noble mandate to prevent future wars, and a 5-nations Security Council made up of the most powerful nations was formed to protect this mandate, as well as approve or veto United Nations resolutions. In reality, this system and the highly biased, misrepresentative nature of its governing body, the Security Council, has been used outwardly for the benefit of the ‘international community,’ but inwardly for the interests of a tiny, West-led, part of the world. On the cultural front, dominance pretty much occurred by default through the ubiquitous reach of western media, western movies, and western broadcasting power.
In a second phase spanning through the 70s, 80s and 90s, the post-war world order was further reshaped with the formation of a new, dollar-based monetary system (no longer backed by gold), a massive shift in geo-politics with the fall of the USSR, a series of international trade agreements, and the advent of satellite-based communications and information technologies. Last but not least, the West’s military dominance was further strengthened by the eastern expansion of NATO, and the broad deployment of military bases around the world – nearly a thousand for the US alone, with a $900b yearly military budget that is larger than all European countries’ military budgets put together, and 10x Russia’s.
In recent years this unipolar, US-dominated world order is being challenged by a re-emerging modern Russia, and by regional powers such as China, India and Brazil. Nonetheless, western power remains formidable and remains overwhelmingly white. As a result of this reality, for most brown people around the world the real question has not so much been about whether the modern western ethos harbors racism or not. It has been about the extent to which racism affects them directly and experientially, and the extent to which racism limits their opportunity to strive.
Some people in the West find it difficult to conceive of this, but the reality is that even brown people who live in their own countries, under their own government, are affected by racism. Such assertions, as is now the case for any dissenting assertions even backed by forensic evidence, are often dismissed as ‘conspiracy theories.’ Nonetheless, in order to understand how this is possible, it is important to understand that in today’s world order, years after colonization, most brown countries in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and Asia, are still not free. Sure, these countries are recognized as independent administrative entities, with their own flags, national anthems, and emblems, but in reality, western powers still exercise a tremendous amount of hegemonic political, economic, and cultural power on them.
Recent history around the world has shown that brown leaders who try to defy the status quo and defend the interest of their own people at the expense of western hegemony, do not last long. In order to survive in their positions, most brown leaders have to make political and economic choices that are not favorable to their nation. Although most of the time, leaders in brown countries are quite happy to become stooges of the West, pledge allegiance to their western overlords, and enjoy the monetary benefits that come with that allegiance – often at the expense of their own nation, just like the African chieftains who used to sell fellow Africans into slavery.
In such subservient brown countries, discord often grows between the state and the citizens, repression intensifies, and the leaders find themselves increasingly isolated and paranoid of their own people. The leaders then start trusting and favoring only people from their closest circle, as well as foreigners, more than all other locals. Soon in this process, all significant opportunities in business, in government, and especially the security and intelligence branches of government, become the preserve of a small, predatory clique with foreign and carefully selected local elements. Of course, the various aspects of this scenario play out differently from brown country to brown country, but the general outcome is usually the same; frustration, limited opportunities, and second-class citizenship for the local brown people, in their own country.
For brown people living in the West, the situation is also not ideal, albeit for different reasons. The list of day-to-day racism related life challenges brown people face in western countries is just too long to enumerate here. The worst such challenges such as police brutality, discrimination in the workplace, and the ghettoization of brown communities have been rampant in the West, and have once again become prominent through the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement. In the same vein as the civil rights movement of the 1960s, these recent developments have the merit of exposing the pain and hardships brown people in the West have been experiencing for decades. Huge protests are erupting to demand the downing of statues depicting historical ‘white racist’ figures, to demand that people kneel as a sign of outrage to the George Floyd killing, to demand reparations for the ill treatment brown peoples have endured in the past. Brown peoples’ tempers and frustrations are once again reaching boiling point in front of western oppression and injustice. However, to many well-intended observers, the types of demands brown people in the West are making to correct the situation and hopefully crush the scourge of racism seem superficial, ineffective, and perhaps even naive.
In order to defeat something as entrenched and deep as racism, a different premise might be needed. Perhaps each side of the racism issue, the western, white dominant side, and the global south, brown subjugated side, needs to re-examine its own frame of reference?
Today, as in teacher d’Assumption’s time in the 1930s, modern western civilization remains dominant and continues to exercise disproportionate power on the world; with each of the leading western countries exercising strong influence on specific ‘brown’ regions – the US in Latin America, Eastern Europe, and parts of the Middle East, the UK in Africa, Asia, and other parts of the Middle East, France mainly in its former African territories. That power is still derived from the West’s advances in technology, applied in various, more sophisticated fields of control; be it in surveillance and intelligence (via military satellites and cyber-tracking technology), subversive regime change methods (via color revolutions, co-opted local protests, or mainstream media ‘manufactured consent’ and leader-demonization campaigns), or good old, albeit more targeted, military operations (via drones, bombing campaigns, inter-ballistic missiles, or special ops interventions). On the economic front, the enactment of sanctions on brown countries that do not ‘toe the line’ has been a widely-used tool in recent years; with a flip side to this approach being the granting of western currency-denominated loans, with monies ‘created-out-of-thin-air’ and lent by western Treasury Ministries (or DFIs) to brown countries to ensure debt-driven ‘loyalty.’ On the political side, in a context of outward democracy since the 1980s, the use of data analytics and social media has been used to foster favorable, or at least non western-interest-threatening, electoral outcomes.
In light of all this, a modern-day teacher d’Assumption would say, “whites send satellites into space, blacks can’t make a bicycle. Whites are civilized. Blacks are savages.” The ‘satellites’ versus ‘bicycle’ part of that statement may be partly true, but it also infers important presumptions and omissions that should be brought to light and honored. As for the ‘civilized’ versus ‘savages’ part, it is a plain fallacy that should be exposed as such.
The presumption many westerners have about their technological superiority is that it came about exclusively from the brilliance and higher intellectual order of the white race. In reality, technological advancements truly surfaced in the 1500s in the European West, a period many would consider quite late in the historical process.
Ancient Greece, from which the modern western European civilization is thought to have emerged, learned extensively from ancient Egypt. Ancient Greece scholars in the fields of mathematics, philosophy, and medicine, learned from the ancient Egyptians. In other words, the way today’s scientists and technologists travel to Europe and the US to gain knowledge, is the same way ancient Greeks would travel to Egypt to gain knowledge. The great ’embarrassment’ western tradition has tried to keep under wraps for centuries, has tried to ‘deflate’ through Hollywood misrepresentation, has fought in bad faith in the academic arena, is that the ancient Egyptians were black, and were the real ancestors of modern day Africans, from across the continent and in the diaspora. Today’s core Egyptian population comes from a mix between different successions of historically newcomers to Egypt; notably Turks and Arabs. In the ancient world, black people from Egypt, who became ‘browner’ during the later Pharaonic dynasties after centuries of conquests and ‘métissage/mixing’ with lighter conquered people (we’re seeing the reverse today), dominated the world. This question should be finally settled and taught. Not out of pride to claim some ancient glory, but for humanity to learn and reflect on the lessons of the past, without falsifying the past.
‘Western’ mathematics and in particular algebra, without which modern technology would not have come about, were initiated by the Persians and later developed by the Arabs. To understand the importance of just this contribution, one should just try and write, never mind calculate, 10,354 x 726 in Roman numbers! This fact although it is more widely known and better accepted than the ‘ancient Egypt was black’ cover up, has also been largely ignored and set aside by the modern West. Once again, perpetuating the idea that white western ingenuity solely deserves the credit for the technical advances humanity now enjoys in the modern world, is a criminal cover-up that impairs progress in the racism discussion.
In any case, and perhaps from a more philosophical perspective, scientific and technological advancement should not be boasted over for as long as it hasn’t resolved the ultimate human aspiration, which is the avoidance of death. In our modern times, the dominant West should reflect upon the true extent of its power. As a spiritual leader once declared in the course of an argument with a western materialist, during which the latter was marveling at the supremacy of rationale epistemology, technology and science, “if you’re so smart, don’t die!” It might thus be helpful for today’s dominant group who prides itself for the preeminence of its technology, and thus for the preeminence of its power, to reflect on the reality that despite these advances, despite a particular group living in better material conditions than others, the finality of all humans on this earth has remained the same. It is also perhaps the reason why the ancient Egyptians were so obsessed with immortality; the ultimate frontier of their power. To this day, that frontier has not been reached.
When it comes to the notion that having greater mastery of technology makes a particular group more ‘civilized’ than another, despite the many lessons we have from History on this assertion, most of today’s dominant West appears to not have taken heed. Just looking at recent history, one could reflect on how in the first few months of WW2, the Wehrmacht conquered Europe through its ‘blitzkrieg/lightning war’ and superior military technology. Did those accomplishments make the Third Reich more ‘civilized’ than the rest of Europe? Why then carry this contention that dominance over brown people all over the world by means of higher technology, and thus power, makes one more ‘civilized?’ On the moral and civilizational spectrum, justice administered with crude weaponry will forever remain higher than injustice committed with ballistic missiles and drones.
After all, power, then and now, whatever its source and whatever its form, when it is exercised unjustly for the sake of a few, rather than justly for the sake of many, has a name: it is called tyranny.
On the brown side of the discussion, the re-framing might begin with a sharper sense of reality.
Despite proclamations to the contrary and an urge to lecture the world about freedom, democracy, equality for all, modern western civilization does not practice what it preaches. It likes to act as the victim when it is the aggressor. It co-opts a mainstream press compromised by special corporate and ideological interests. It supports brutal regimes that do its bidding and decries legitimate other regimes that defy the current order. It establishes states through genocide of indigenous populations, tolerates discrimination against second-class minority groups, talks about liberty but expects everyone to conform to western cultural norms. Yet, many brown people the world over, perhaps as a coping mechanism, pretend not to see the huge gap between the outward western assertions on freedom, liberty, and justice, and the inward reality of western power.
Once brown people realize that the modern western world order does function on the basis of quasi- imperial power dynamics with a dominant group and a subjugated group, they might also realize that progress will not happen on the racism question for as long as the technological gap between the parties does not subside. The reason for that comes from the other reality that the opposite of racism is mutual respect. If the West sees itself better than others because of its technological advances and the power that derives from it, while others seem incapable of matching western technology but aspire to the same living standards that this technology provides, there can be no mutual respect. The process of acquiring one’s own technology is essential not just to earn respect, but also to earn one’s real freedom. It is also an endeavor that is hard, complicated, onerous, and at times extremely dangerous. Brown people, just like other non-western Europeans have done, should consider this reality in their re-framing of the racism issue.
Between 1941 and 1945, the Allies, despite adhering to different political ideologies, worked together in order to defeat Nazism and had to catch up with German military technology as a matter of survival; it was an extremely arduous process. In the post-war era, being prevented from political and military autonomy, a humiliated and damaged Japan decided to catch up with western consumer technologies; it was also an extremely arduous process. Today, China is following and perhaps surpassing Japan’s footsteps on not just consumer, but on all commercial technologies. While post-Soviet/post-1990s Russia is doing the same on the military front. None of these countries were given a free pass to ‘catch up’! Nor did they waste time adding insult to injury by turning to others in plea for help and apologies. Brown people then, must learn those lessons and take heed.
A journalist once asked an African father-of-independence leader “what was,” in his view “the worst thing that can happen to a human being?” The old man paused for a short while, and then replied, “losing one’s dignity!”
Being poor and over-powered is not a degrading state to be in and of itself; most peoples at some point in their history have experienced that. However, looking for sympathy and apologies for one’s misfortune, expecting others to relinquish power and provide for one, being unwilling to make sacrifices in order to uplift oneself, is degrading and makes one the laughing stock of the world. In order to regain some respect that will help close the gap in the racism discussion, brown people and leaders in brown countries must make all necessary efforts to ‘catch up’ and regain some dignity. Brown people who pretend not to care for the benefits of modern life tend not to be very genuine and thus not deserving of respect. Brown people who are not prepared to make the efforts and sacrifices needed to ‘catch up,’ but are so keen to flock in and emulate institutions built by others instead of building their own, are also not deserving of respect. Then brown people who do manage to regain some level of power, and who in turn, for the sake of correcting past injustices, themselves become unjust, perpetrate the downward cycle of racism.
Perhaps, through this reframing of the racism issue, primary schoolteachers the world over will one day begin the day with a different statement?
“Satellites, locomotives and bicycles are the result of human ingenuity over the ages. They make our daily lives better and they can be a source of great power. However, these technological and material achievements, however great they maybe, should not make us arrogant or make us think ourselves better than those who have not reached them. They should become a means to bring justice and peace to the entire world.”
- Note: my father’s primary school teacher at the Lycée Faidherbe in 1930s St Louis, Senegal. ↑
It might be helpful for the discussion to read John M. Hobson’s: The Eastern Origins of Western Civilisation.
“The author argues the opposite: There was nothing inevitable about the West’s rise, and for a long time, it was the East that dominated the global economy. He shows that China was still the world’s largest economy by 1840. In fact, historical data shows that China held the position of the world’s leading economy as late as 1870. The East was crucial in helping the West advance: Hobson argues that “oriental globalization”, i.e., globalization led by non-European powers, “was the midwife, if not the mother, of the medieval and modern West.” Hobson’s brisk summary of non-Western global history largely relies on secondary sources, and thus does not reveal anything new to those who have studied the topic before. Still, it is well-written and helps strengthen his overall argument.”
Oliver Stuenkel in his review: https://www.oliverstuenkel.com/2014/11/29/eastern-western-civilisation/
“nearly a thousand for the US alone, with a $900b yearly military budget that is larger than all European countries’ military budgets put together, and 10x Russia’s.”
Except that Russian military budget should be estimated based on GDP-PPP, real value of money. It’s actually 3 times bigger than converting it with its nominal value to dollars. Russia’s GDP-PPP is around same as that of Germany. And likely over 80% of NATO budgets are nothing but personal military cost including wages etc. In short – with that huge money NATO doesn’t achieve much but pure fantasy and smoke.
Actually, the same “chosenness” that brought Europeans to this continent to displace the indigenous is what brought the Ashkenazi to Palestine to displace the Palestinians. Manifest Destiny and Zionism is racism, pure and simple.
With Zionists (Christian, Jewish, and otherwise) it’s a religious thing. They are supposedly God’s chosen people. That justified slavery, genocide, and the wholesale raping and pillaging of brown people and their property all around the planet. If you don’t believe me just ask any Native American, or any Palestinian.
This anti-white diatribe doesn’t mention the American Civil war and all the white people who fought and died to eliminate slavery. My great grandfather fought for the North in the American Civil War and more whites fought for the North than fought for the South. Non-whites didn’t rise up and rebel. White people freed them.
Which brings me to the 1964 civil rights act, passed by white politicians to establish racial quotas and make white people second class citizens. Here is how it works. Your son or grandson (white) wants a job, say at the local fire department. He takes the civil service exam and gets the highest score (95%). However, he doesn’t get the job because a non-white who got an 89% gets 10% added to his score because he is non-white. A similar thing applies to college admission, a job a Walmart etc etc. Do non-whites ever say eliminate this quota nonsense and make an equal playing field for all. You didn’t say so in your article. So it looks like you are in favor of preferential treatment for non-whites which makes you a racist of the worst kind.
I hold that a Ne*** is not and never ought to be a citizen of the United States.
I hold that this government was made on the white basis; made by the white men,
for the benefit of white men and their posterity forever, and should be administered
by white men and none others.
Senator Stephen A. Douglas
Presidential nominee of the Democratic Party, 1860
Abraham Lincoln – 1861-1865: UNITED STATES.
Prominent among the myths and lies which largely constitute the illusion that is “America” is the one which would have us believe that the U.S. Civil War was fought with the noble goal of abolishing slavery. In fact, the “Great Emancipator”, President Abraham Lincoln resolutely resisted the calls of abolitionists.
In his first inaugural address, Lincoln said, “I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the states where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so.” On August 22, 1862, Lincoln wrote “If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it.” In September, 1862, Lincoln gave the Confederate states four months to stop fighting, promising to leave the slaves in their chains if they did.
I can conceive of no greater calamity than the assimilation
of the Negro into our social and political life as our equal.
Abraham Lincoln
The real reasons for the slaughter of more than six hundred thousand ordinary Americans on both sides were, in fact, just the same two old reasons for each and every war from the dawn of time until today: the insatiable greed of the ruling class for ever more wealth and power.
The northern ruling class, represented by Lincoln, drooling at the prospect of the cash to be made in the kind of large-scale industrialization occurring in Britain, wanted free land, a large pool of cheap labor, a central bank which would operate strictly in their interests and a “free” market surrounded by high tariffs to protect their own industrial operations and maximize their profits.
The southern ruling class, which had largely controlled the federal government since the Revolution, simply wanted to maintain the status quo and, most importantly, wanted no tariff barriers which would increase the cost of manufactured goods imported into the South from Europe which would inevitably lead to other countries putting rataliatory tariffs on the agricultural products exported from the South.
The “emancipation” of the slaves was a tactic which had the effect of destroying the power base which the southern ruling class derived from slavery and “freeing” millions of slaves who then became available as a cheap labor for northern factories and mills. They augmented the huge number of poor whites, men and women, adults and children, who labored in atrocious conditions for long hours for pitiful pay.
Abraham Lincoln is yet another American icon, a largely fictional creation, who doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. The “Great Emancipator” opposed integration and intermarriage, did not think that freed slaves should be given full legal and voting rights, and forcefully advocated both before and during the Civil War that all blacks should be deported to Africa or the West Indies.
We cannot attain the ideal union our Fathers dreamed,
with millions of an alien, inferior race among us,
whose assimilation is neither possible or desirable.
Abraham Lincoln
Lincoln’s armies committed countless war crimes and atrocities, burning and looting civilian property, destroying entire cities and laying waste vast areas of countryside. Lincoln imposed a fascist regime within the Union states, making a farce of the Constitution. His regime arrested thousands of critics of his war policies, including dozens of newspaper editors and publishers. Under Lincoln, the writ of habeas corpus, a fundamental characteristic of a democratic society, was revoked, and mail and press censorship was imposed.
Only after the Confederate states refused Lincoln’s offer to leave the slaves in chains if they stopped fighting did he issue the Emancipation Proclamation which purported to free slaves in states not under Union control. Slaves in states controlled by Lincoln remained in slavery.
We show our sympathy with slavery by emancipating slaves where we cannot reach them
and holding them in bondage where we can set them free
William Seward
Lincoln’s Secretary of State
(Passage from: http://mtwsfh.blogspot.com/2008/01/1860-colombia.html)
Joe, I beg to differ. Your great grandfather may not have had full understanding of the matter and got screwed just like all others (all of us?) who are not in the big club. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKUaqFzZLxU
White oppression is a Myth. I Am so White my eyes are blue , but Me and Mine never oppressed anybody who didn’t need it. We shouldn`t throw any race under the bus for the sake of Propaganda and Politics. The World is falling apart ,big deal, who cares, the Chosen Ones are not of this World! That`s the Way I See it. If it be a good Tree it will Abide still. But, if it be a Corrupt Tree, then it is Hewn Down and cast into the Fire. Even as They do to Me Daily.
Just a few thoughts. JC are you trying to rewrite history? The Lincoln – Douglas debates established without a doubt that Lincoln was totally against slavery. Lincoln’s promise to allow slavery in any state that didn’t join the confederacy worked marvelously. Three key slave states didn’t joint the confederacy – Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri. Could the North have prevailed without these three key states on their side? I doubt it. Remember that the blockade of the south needed Baltimore, Maryland as the base of operations for the north’s navy.
Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri were totally taken in by Lincoln’s promises. After the civil war was over, does anyone really think that the USA would allow only three slave states to exist (Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri). Lincoln tricked them into thinking so – a real master stroke for the north.
From what I’ve seen here locally, publicly funded primary school teachers might soon be obsolete altogether. The scamdemic, now ramping up again in earnest here in the U.S., will probably be used to expand distance learning to K-12 for the rest of the year now, and once the public gets fully conditioned to that (probably already are), who knows where it goes from there? Kick in some off-the-shelf course algorithms and grading platforms and voila! Public school problems fixed for good. Not sure how I’d feel about any of that, but the opportunities for abuse should be obvious. Never mind even more corporate profit taking and the socialization issues of semi-isolating all those kids for what would amount to their entire childhoods.
Racism is a tough nut to crack. No answers here either, but I suspect it will be a generational issue in the end, as racist notions are ingrained and set for life early on in most people, with little chance for change after that. But I also suspect that this “multicultural mixing pot” that seems to be the current wet dream of some ain’t never going to work out as smoothly as they suspect, especially when the primary means of enforcement is wide spread social shaming and loss of livelihoods for single transgressions of what amount to constantly shifting standards. Such methods are just guaranteed to increase animosity and harden attitudes on all sides of the social divide, just as we’re seeing now, all of which primarily benefits the usual suspects.
We’re never going to get over this, Disaffected, as it’s built into our national DNA, just like with Israel. We have enshrined our “chosenness” in a way that can only be called faith-based. The only way out of it is to have an epiphany that will come from owning up to our failings and submitting to the living God of justice, compassion, and truth. That most likely is not going to happen. But, one can always hope…
Very true, Tommy. This is largely lizard brain, unconscious programming stuff at this point. Over population pressures should not be discounted either, as it’s a known fact that overcrowding and resource depletion causes species to act in increasingly erratic ways on their way to extinction, which is where we’re rapidly headed, given our adoption of the insane exponential growth paradigm.
The exponential growth paradigm is like a cancer. It spreads through the host until it kills it. History is littered with the remains of nations and empires that overreached. The AngloZionist Empire is no different. It, too, will be buried in the sands of time. Problem is, we have nukes and will take all humanity with us when we go.
No thanks!
Not signing up for your suicide pact, Tommy.
But Bad Luck With It, OK??? LOL
You make two errors that you apparently cannot see:
1) “The exponential growth paradigm is like a cancer.” This is what the oligarchy thinks of YOU. And you swallow the Malthusian Kool-Aid. The same nonsense that corrupted the mind and soul of Barack Obama when he told Africans that they can forget a modern standard of living………..because the planet “would BOIL over” if they even tried to achieve it! I repeat for the umpteenth time: The Club of Rome’s Limits to Growth dogma was/is a NATO (read EMPIRE) document/blueprint.
2) “we have nukes and will take all humanity with us when we go” There are alternatives to such a disaster, Tommy. Those alternatives are what you ought to consider, rather than embracing the defeatist Death Cult Bollocks promoted by those that want to cull you (and billions more) right out of the human herd and off of this planet..
Have a nice day, if that is possible for anyone gladly slurping up the absolute slop that “No, stranger (who asked for directions), You Can’t Get There (Safety, Peace, General Well Being) From Here.”
Geez!
That’s what you’re response to the author and the peoples of Africa and their aspirations boils down to!
The same as Barack Obama’s.
Which is fundamentally a Species Variety of Self-Loathing.
Maybe the author would disagree (I suspect, I hope, maybe not….) but I maintain that before you could assist or ever conceivably “love” his aspirations in any way….you would need to love and respect your own self and the human species for the beauty and genius and good that it is capable of…and not remain in self-loathing because of horror at the knowledge that many past humans have not lived up to their more positive potential.
What’s past is past.
What about the present or better put, the future…..since it stretches out in front of us, always…whereas the present never stands still…never even lasts a nano-second?
And what about your creative potential to affect that future………..rather than wring your hands and insist it will end in mushroom clouds???
Ummm, Tommy???
No argument here that the Oligarchy is indeed exploiting the exponential growth paradigm to their advantage, Bro, but carrying capacity is also most definitely a real thing; “human creative potential” and all such similar malarkey notwithstanding. Technological cornucopianism is the term for the logical fallacy you’re subscribing to here. I’ll admit, it’s an increasingly attractive philosophy for those who are scared shitless of human species overreach, just as we’re seeing today, but like all mathematical exponential functions, it has its limits. I’ll contend that we’re reaching those limits in almost every field of endeavor as we speak and that much of our current political unrest the world over is the result of just that.
” logical fallacy”
A proposition can be fallacious and logical simultaneously.
“like all mathematical exponential functions, it has its limits”
Although you appear to posit that such is the case, mathematics is not limited to the linear as even Mr. Malthus started to perceive.
Perhaps it would be wiser to choose different analogies/frames ?
Thanks, you are correct. Yep, mixing metaphors/analogies awkwardly will get you in trouble every time. But the basic point still stands.
Not limited too? It basically is the pinnacle of intellect.
As a kid, I was never So happy as when I could count to a hundred.
Outstanding. Articles like this is why I support the Saker.
The author has classified Eastern Europeans as people of “brown region”, not white?! Interesting..
As for UN, it is without doubt, has it’s share of problems, mainly various attempts by some Western powers to corrupt and control it, but it is still the ONLY world organisation that provides representation for every country on this planet. And until global population can come up with “something better”, we need to keep the UN and it’s mandate, which is actually extremely well worded. Just keeping UN clean from corrupters with their own agendas should be the order of the day – then it will work very well. As intended.
As for “brown” leadership in “brown regions”, well, the same corruption seems to be an absolutely in-bred characteristic in most of these “leaders” and their “leaderships” and the rest of the populations there do very little to effect any changes in that power structure. What are you waiting for?
Education is the key, but for such education the “brown” people from the global “south” still want to come to the West, and as a consequence, get a “western” education, which absolutely does not address their aspirations as espoused by the author. What, Senegal does not have a well funded, well-run higher learning establishments? If not, why not? As I said before, self-reflection is the hardest thing..
“As for “brown” leadership in “brown regions”, well, the same corruption seems to be an absolutely in-bred characteristic in most of these “leaders” and their “leaderships” and the rest of the populations there do very little to effect any changes in that power structure. What are you waiting for?”
This is based on which info?
To N.A:E
First of all it’s not “which info”, but what info. Secondly, the information regarding the incredible corruption that exists in the most African countries has been very well documented, but you must have been living in outer space all this time to even ask a question like that. Please get yourself some proper knowledge before posting comments on this blog.
I suggest the writer try to find out why Slavs are called Slavs and then check who owned most slave selling stations and ships in the west.
This read like a huffpost post in my eyes and i do not understand why it is posted in this blog.
The contempt for wypipo was to much and i gave up reading midways, the writer is an academic that seems to feel he/she is above the hollpolloi and deplorable Eurotrash and fails to see the beam in his/her eye as he/she complains about the splinter in “ours”.
(“ours” as a halfbreed wypipo oppressor and Sámi i am born with milk white skin but clearly Sami and Slavic looking for those that care about such things and get subjected to racism from both parts🤷♂️ but i am clearly counted as a wypipo oppressor by huffposters and other fake leftists + academia so i have low opinions about them)
Per
Sápmi/Norway
In the late 1800’s farmers owning forests in Scandinavia were swindled by shrewd businessmen to sell their forests to logging companies, often they got them drunk and sweet-talked them into signing a sell agreement. How is that different from Africans being tricked out of their natural resources?
While I agree with the author that racism is a very serious problem, it does not define the most serious issue that faces humanity today , which is that human rivalrous behavior is stronger than our love for our brothers and sisters. The word slave was taken from the root slav and they were to my knowledge not dark skinned .10s of thousands of white slaves were taken to the U.S. from Ireland, Scotland and England and they were arguably treated worse than African slaves .The elites that always gain the ascendancy by using highly rivalrous behavior, don’t care whether we are black, white or green and they will use the obvious disparities to keep us busy. Our problem is if we revolt against these psychopaths others will take their place and it will be the same in a short time. If humanity can’t solve the problem that rivalrous people always win against those who treat others as they would themselves, then I fear that the technology we have created coupled with the rivalrous games will be existential.
I had to stop reading about 40% of the way through, the author has little to no knowledge of any history, let alone the slave trade. My own people, whites, were the victims of slave traders – they were taken and sold by Turks, Scandinavians, Franks, Romans, et al. The slave trade is not unique to blacks, yellows, whites, browns, or any other specific colour of human – all living humans have ancestors who been affected by it in some form or another.
I am tired of the diatribe from people like this author. Africa sat on the largest historical mineral, animal, and agricultural resources of the planet and did nothing with it – other than Egypt. Asia developed large advanced civilizations and ruled most of the world economically for thousands of years. The Middle East built huge civilizations on the backs of slaves of every colour and developed advanced mathematics and astronomy, Europe developed the most advanced technology starting from about the 1600’s, eventually overtaking Asia in the 1700’s. Today the scientific and economic center is shifting back to Asia – where is Africa? Selling resources to Asia now, not Europe.
I have worked with many nationalities over my 35+ years career – I care not what your colour, gender, ideological bent, sexual orientation or religious leanings are. I have two questions – are you competent to do the job – yes or no. Can you bring value to the organization/society/group of which you are a part? Yes or no. The rest is irrelevant.
I know many people of colour who have done financially better than me – I’m not jealous of them, I applaud them. None of those people sat around and whined about how they were oppressed – they saw opportunity and took it – opportunity that I missed.
Whether anybody likes it or not, the world we live in today has been generated by our history as a species – the current industrial base was generated by White Europe – building on Mediterranean and Middle Eastern mathematics, who may have transferred Asian technology.
I’m done ranting now.
If you’d finished reading to the end of the article you’d have found you had a lot more in common with the author than you think as he reached the same conclusion. He just set out the position on both sides before reaching it. Excellent blog post.
@Phil,
An ‘excellent post’ would have had me reading to the end by capturing my attention and maintaining it, regardless of whether I agreed with the conclusion. Instead this comes across as yet another anti-white, anti-colonial, pro-BLM article regardless of how it ‘finishes’ and I’m certainly not alone in that interpretation.
Cheers!
Because the West is an *imperial* affair, rather then an egalitarian one, the power base is essentially derived from cheerleading propaganda— spoon fed to the masses, generation after generation. Besides the occasionally obvious vanquishing of uncomfortable facts (and persons) from the history books, the most effort is spent in developing the storylines that support the untruth. Personally I see evolution as key to this plutocrat-paradigm, because it allows for the far Northern whites to evolve superiority in a harsh and unforgiving land, while the *browns* vegetate in a jungle stasis of undevelopment and, of course, genetic inferiority. If anyone were to think about it for themselves, they’d quickly root out this fallacy for what it is — poppycock.
The harsh and unforgiving lands of which you speak had the richest soils on earth. Equatorial soils are thin and don’t produce so much food .Eurpeans were positively backward in the times when the indian, Chinese, Persian and Egyptian cultures were flourishing. As for ‘ genetic inferiority ‘ , that’s nuts. It is not known as to what humans will evolve to, but if we don’t learn to love one another we will not find out……
Excellent essay. I will try to explain reasons for historical outcomes we have today. The goal is to convince people that brown people are not inferior to whites, by no means, on level of individuals. Why white countries are more organized than (some) brown people’s countries, that requires explanation. Att he end, “advice” is offered, based on observation of historical events
I am white, but the other kind, untermensch, lesser race, so I am free of any sense of historical guilt. So I assume I can speak free, without intent to hurt, insult, or even oppose anybody. I can be cynical, so please do not get me wrong if somewhere in the text I sound like jerk.
Where I grew up, we never knew or have seen racism in modern sense. African people mostly, and Middle East (Syria, Palestine, Egypt(?)) were always welcome guests at universities. We did do business with African nations, but in slightly different way than Westerners. We would built roads, ports, hydropower plants , and they would pay us in oil, or something else, convenient for both sides. It could be described by mutually beneficial and friendly arrangement. I believe that similar deals worked with socialist block. Only difference was that YU as not trying to export revolution, and people say USSR did that. Well, people say many things about Russia, past and present that we are slowly learning are/were untrue.
Little we knew, and them, that it would all stop with destruction of two countries, USSR and Yugoslavia. With out USSR, USA/NATO had free hands to do whatever they wanted. Oh, boy, did they do it… As for YU, once it was gone, those arrangements ceased. All post YU countries wanted to join EU and NATO at any price. Even my Serbia has enough voices that are pro EU/NATO, so we are ne different than Croats or Macedonians or Bosnians. Perhaps they have more pro, and we have more against EU/NATO, but not 100%. It does not matter, we can see how we have been treated by the west. All I can say, we are brown too, just nobody wants to say it openly.
Here is the main story: Western dominance is a pure luck. At the time before Columbus discovered his India, Western Europe was literally dark and distant end of the world. They depended for many things on Eastern world, as the author correctly observed.
Discovery of “india” is important as a moment in time easy to define. It was not the cause of European expansion. But it was a lucky find, with which they would have not known what to do, AT the same time, one more event happened – Spanish reconquest, when Queen Izabella and King Ferdinand managed to dislodge last remnant of Arabic culture – Moorish Spain, Andalusian, Salamanca, Cordoba and the rest. How come the Arabs ruled Spain for 7-8 hundred years, and then suddenly collapsed in front of opponent inferior to them in all domains? Another event happens, about the same time. Ottoman Turks took Canstantinopolis in1453. Doors to Europe were open, via Balkan and Hungarian steppes. It was easy to reach Vienna, which they did, in 1529 and then again in 1680. Turks were not expanding only in Europe, they conquered northern Africa – from Arabs. Arabic Spain become an island, surrounded by enemies. So, eventually, they collapsed, about the same time. Look at the dates: Byzantium fall in 1453, short after that Arabs were out of Spain, and in 1492 Columbus did what he did. We can argue that those things were bound to happen, Spaniards and Columbus and Arabs. It is not THE luck, but we cannot say that the right cards were delivered to Europeans. Portuguese had been sailing up to South Afrika and back . Question now, why Brits or French did not do it back then? Answer is simple – they were not capable of such a feat, ignorance we can call it. But why would be Portuguese less ignorant than Brits aor French? Luck again. For about 700-800 years they were in contact with Arabs in Spain, sometimes as conquered people, at some point kind of free. Some knowledge about astronomy (base for navigation) rubbed off. yet, they did not sail West, but South. It is them who started slave trade, but Brits eclipsed them later, so few people mention Portuguese. Of course, if they do not live in Angola, Mozambique and few more places, The first slaves came from Western Africa, Senegal comes to mind. Who sold them, their chieftains or perhaps Arabs captured and sold them, it is unclear. Where did they go? I am not sure, but Europe, western and south western . Eastern Mediterranean Sea was controlled by Turks, so they could have been a willing byers, too.
All of that happens at the time of European Renessainse, when Europe started coming out from religious darkness. They must have learned all those things Leonardo, Galileo, Guttenberg, Michelangelo and other made and discovered. Gravitation may be explained by Newton, but formulas for it were stated correctly by Galileo. He also said some other politically incorrect thing, like Earth is round, for what he was punished, almost burned at the stake, but ended up with just home imprisonment for life. Poor Giordano Bruno was not that lucky, he got roasted. After all, Europe just started appearing from religious darkness. So, where did the knowledge come? From Spain, Arab Spain, vie expelled Jews
Once Arabs were expelled, Jews were expelled as well, and they spread over South and Eastern Europe. those a re Roman time Jews, which Caesars expelled from Judea and Palestine. Since they had not any country to call theirs, they were foreigners everywhere. They were generally prevented from holding land, so they had to make living somehow. They become learned people, about 3 standard deviations from average European. They could add, subtract, multiply and divide, all of that in – Arabic numbers, which they picked up in Arabic Spain. Since both Islam and Christian creed forbid lending money at interest, monarchs who wanted to finance wars against neighbors, so Jews were convenient solution – they were allowed to lend money to monarchs. To lend it, they were allowed to earn it somehow, which was difficult until first loan was made, The interest solved money supply problems. Interest calculations are not the simplest math, so they must have known geometric curves, such as hyperbola, which is inverse of exponential which is used to calculate interest. They were learned in many other things, learned from Arabs, and some things from ancient Greeks. You see, they lived on Middle east, which was conquered by Alexandra The Great, who left most of written Greek knowledge in Alexandrian Library. That was 300 years before Roman conquest of middle east, so they had plenty of time to adopt and learn. Arabs, too, even before Caliphat – lived there, and were in contact with Persia, India and China, were able to kind of collect and concentrate all the knowledge they knew existed. While under 700-800 years under Arabs, being idle most of the time – no land to tens or cattle to take care of, they had enough time and curiosity and skills to translate from Arab, Greek and Persian into – Latin. Latin was language of Church, lingua Franca from royal courts. I wonder how did Jews knew Latin, perhaps they preserved it from Roman times. So enlightenment happened in Europe, with few more centuries of inquisition and religious wars, from 30 to 100 years long in extreme cases. Europeans needed one thing from far away countries – spices. There were no refrigerators for white people either, so it was difficult to preserve meat for longer time. Pepper helped, not with preservation, but by hiding the taste of rottenness. Turks were controlling Middle East, so caravans from the East stopped. Sever shortage of pepper happened. Being practical people, Europeans were looking for solution and it was heresy of round Earth. It was conspiracy, aimed to weakening authority of church, eh. No one believed in that, yet Queen Izabella of Spain, being a newcomer to royal business, was charmed by good looks of Columbus of Genoa, Italian romantic and heartbreaker, (ok I invented this part, but sounds good) so she gave him permission and money to sail around the world, hit India or China from the other side and by as much pepper as possible. Maybe she just wanted to get rid of him, who knows.
We all know what he did. Now the plot thickens. Others came after him, met lots of natives, of course called them Indians, and realized that these kind of humans reddish-brownish people had lots of gold, which they used for decorating buildings. They had magnificent cities, roads and farms. Spaniards could not care less about farming, they wanted gold, and in lack of it, sliver would do. Of course, Indians must have known where the gold comes from, so after stripping all gold from palaces and religious temples, Spaniard decided to teach them a civilized pre-industrial activity – deep underground mining. It was noticed that Indians were dying en mass of some diseases that looked like smallpox and tuberculosis even after the mildest flu which white people do not even notice. It was noticed, but no one read paperwork, and there was a decent supply of workers. But supply dwindled to almost nothing. Before the supply of humans was gone, Spaniards were shipping gold and silver on galleons, to Spain. Occasionally, a galleon or two would disappear on the way to Spain Some and ended up at the bottom of the sea, or Johnny Dep would take it to Tortuga, or, English privateers would take it – to England. Privateer is a nice word for a pirate, a robber, thief. Sir Walter Raighley was knighted for privateering services, 30% he kept, 70% to English crown, all of that after costs were deducted. What is England doing here? Well, due to Geography, it was easy to see from England or Irish shores that traffic to and forth Atlantic has increased. So they joined the fry. Caribbean islands were good place to hide, rest or attack, so many islands were populated by various pirates and privateers. Sailors like sailors, they need rum to operate. They learned from Indians, before Indians disappeared, that best rum is made from molasses from a weed – sugar cane. Of course some other weeds were discovered, not for sugar, but for fun – peyote, coka leaves, marihuana, but that is beyond this story. Indians kept dying.
English realized that sugar can be sold in Europe – they did not have any other sweetened except honey, which was more difficult to get. Thus, sugar trade began. At the beginning, Indians provided labor necessary to produce molasses from which both sugar and rum are made. Apparently, chemistry of organic matters could expand in Europe. And Indians kept dying. At the beginning, ships were sailing full of sugar and rum, from Caribbean to England, and returning empty. Too bad they were sailing empty, but what one can do, that is the nature of business. Suddenly labor was in short supply. Both Caribbean and South America were depopulated. That was fine, those brown reddish people were savages, good for nothing. However, business must go on. And bingo, somebody remembered slave trade. Two birds with one shot – workers for sugar plantations, and ships full of valuable cargo – same workers for the plantations. Win-Win. Captains and sugar producers were happy.
That is how it started. By accident – local native Indians were dying, so African people turned out to be a good substitute. They somehow were not dying. They would breed, mix with local survivors. Businesses were booming – sugar, room, slave trading, slave raising, locally, to replenish the stock…
If we were cynical, we could explain all of these events by white man being technically superior. Neither American natives nor African people could built oceangoing ships. Regardless of how disgusting, all of that needed organization and management. Arms of white man were superior. Once natives learned to use (not to produce) firearms – muskets or repeating rifle, whites came with automatic weapons. There is saying in England “After all, we have got a Gatling gun, and they have none”. When we say white man, that does not mean individuals, it means society, organization level, efficiency. When we use that on individual level, like any white man is better/smarter than any brown man, that is racism. People identify with the crowd. If my soccer team beats yours, that somehow make me a superior being. Which is nonsense, but nonsense never prevented anybody from using it as God give. That becomes mass hysteria, not just in Europe. There is a case when Honduras and I believe Equator declared war because goal somebody scored from offside position. Human insanity has no borders.
We could use all said to support the claim “whites are more capable of everything and others deserve to be ruled”. However, that is absolutely not correct.
The repeating thought in the story is “Natives kept dying”. Why were American natives dying? That did not happen in Africa, in Asia, but it did in Australia. True, whites ruled and exploited Africa and Asia, yet not on the scale seen in Americas. The answer is – germs, biological warfare unbeknownst to whites at the time, if it is worth anything. What germs? Not bacteria, viruses. Even today it is hard to fight virus. Forget Covid 19, there is no cure for common flu. Antibiotics don’t work on viruses.
OK, viruses white people brought to Americas killed off most of native population. How come American natives (North and Latin) did not have any immunity, and white people did? Viruses appear first in animals, then jump to humans. Except last 200 years, European and Asian people have lived with animals – cattle, pigs, chicken, for about 10,000 years at least. I assume 10,000 years is enough to develop herd immunity. African people too lived with animals, thus developing herd immunity. And whites never replaced African native population the way they did with American ( and Australian) populations. Whites did exploit China, India as much as they did Americas. Yet, today we have East Asian Tigers, level of freedom today and 200 years ago in Asia cannot compare. Did whites bring that? Not intentionally for sure. Most professors at universities in USA and Canada for STEM are – Chinese and Indian, Iranian. When I say India, I mean pre-white India, when Pakistan, India and Bangladesh were one people on one land.
So it was lack of immunity that decimated American native populations. And that is pure luck. Before whites, there was no large cattle in Americas. Cows, pigs, horses, sheep did not exist in Americas. Horses did exist the disappeared way before people appeared in Americas. What caused lack of domesticated cattle in Americas? Luck. Some random event in the past caused all of that.
How much behind white society ware brown people before Columbus? Let’s see. Metals (Iron) were produced in Africa way before than Europe. Europe inherited all knowledge from East or South. Europe was starving, literally, before Columbus. What are staples of European diet today? Potatoes – from Inka, Corn – Mississippi Valley, Tomatos – Mexico, Peppers – Mexico and on and on. Europeans got oats from somewhere in medieval time – shortly before Columbus, so they could make use of horse power. Until then, there simply was not much fodder to keep huge number of horses. Stirrups for riding, those things you see on cowboy boots with spikes to shit horse belly with, were brought from Mongolia, from Attila the Hun to Kublai Khan, personal friend of Marco Polo, who brought lumps of coal, Europe did not know it can be burned for heat. Whites thought of conquered people in Americas as stone age people – they did not have any metals tools. However, to call Maya or Inca people stone age people, is absurd. What they produced with their stone age tools was not produced in Europe until Industrial revolution. Cities, agriculture, roads, long spanned bridges made of rope. OK, buildings, that puts them at best in Roman times, or developed medieval rimes (not true, when Inca or Maya ruled cities of million people, where was Europe? Cities with water supply and sewer systems? Yeah, some will say building craft is not rocket science. The new no Chemistry or Bio Chemistry. Not true, they did. They generically modified a common thorny bush, teosinte, which even animals do not bother eating, into – corn. Somehow archeologists calculated that it was done for only 700 years. To engineer a new species in 700 years? What would Darwin say…
So, brown people are by no mean inferior to whites, person by person. Whites even considered Arabs semi-savages, 4-5 hundred years ago, not knowing that they knowledge of technical sciences and medicine comes directly from Arabs, who compiled it from Persians, Indians and Chinese. Why did Constainopolis fall in 1453? Because Ottoman Turks at that moment were superior in technical sciences and medicine. For example, they washed hands and bathed. Which European royal was regularly taking bath in 1453? Perfumes were invented in France to cover the body stink, Those white things on their heads were perhaps to protect from lice. Soon, Europeans discovered Americas sugar corn and slave trade and development exploded. When yo have wealth, then science and arts are created, people can afford to do nothing for living than read books, or write them, or paint or sing.
And brown people are catching up. It is slow process, no one gets freedom served on the platter, no matter how unfair it was in the past. I know, you cannot beat them when they are strong, no one could beat England i 1600-1914. Even before WWII, most of the colonies were not free. After WWII, it exploded. India, China, many African countries in 70s. They at least are not under direct occupation of their colonizers. But they have crooked elite. Well, it takes time to get rid of crooked elite, practically impossible. But it is possible to wrench out a bit more of freedom and dignity.
We Serbs were 500 years under Ottoman Turks, It was not walk in the park. Insurrections were few and far in between broken in pools of blood, before 19th century. Ottoman impery grew weaker and weaker, so finally in 1805 we had another insurrection. It was broken in 1810 – almost 5 years of “freedom”. Next insurrection was 1815. It was not badly crashed, and we got many concessions – we became a principality within Ottoman empire, with Serb as a ruler.
We got to control our own education system. A few learned or capable to learn men were sent to Vienna, Berlin, Paris,, Prague to study this and that, When they come back, first higher level schools were opened. We were not independent, but no blood on the streets. And one day, 1867 we managed to make the last Turkish garrison to leave. Negotiations, lobbying with Great Forces and continued.
We were about 100 years free, when we initiated a war or two, 1912, 1913 to liberate more land where Serbs lived for centuries. That gave us what today’s Serbia is. In 1914, Bosnian Serbs claimed that Bosnia should be under Serbia. AT the time Bosnia was ruled by Habsburg Monarch (Austro-Hungarian Empire). To make point, we shot heir to the throne when he cam on our turf. They did not like it a bit, so they declared war on us, then everybody else in Europe declared war on each other. As a result, at the end we got a whole new country Yugoslavia, and several European countries kind of were liberated from Hapsburgs.
Conclusion – Brown people are not inferiors to whites by birth, Whites happened to have upper hand and they appressed, abused and exploited everybody who was not white or European. British empire is no more, so many countries across Africa and Asia got liberated. Sometimes, early freedom seems as bad as before, but that is how it is. Only way is fight and struggle. However, insurrections do not generally work, unless the colonizer is weak. Then insurrections might work, not when colonizers they are in full strength
You have to agree thou that if the competition for resources was a guide (it so deservingly? earned) of success, that just about all races were inferior to whites, and then they continued to have the upper hand right to up to today.
The racial debate is boring as it is a discussion in negative about people who believe in a lie.
Because if you take racism or racial matters serious you have jumped the game and accepted the assumption of racial differences.
You must grab the fact the we are all created as a unique miracle of God. There is not two of us. When you have this inside your head as a universal basic condition, all discussions about race is indifferent and boring.
Hmmm, well modern Vietnam has no inferiority complex about its civilization according to friends who live there.
With a sacrifice of millions of their citizens and help from China but mainly Russia they defeated a complex, corrupt and cruel “Anglo-Saxon”/white military system. That does wonder for self esteem although the scars still remain but they have moved on as a unified culture.
Racism is used to divide the working class –finding common interests among that class which cross lines of race, language, religion , gender identity I etc. is what the current batch of pseudo revolutionaries can’t seem to “discover”. The discussion of race outside of class is boring and divisive. Assuming the victim role just sets one up to become the next victimizer of someone else somewhere down the line. It is a no go to no where.
Did you know that if you say “colored people” ( gasp) you are labeled a degenerate racist but if you say” people of color”, then you go to the head of the class as long as you bow low and deep to the person of color teacher running it. It is called reverse humiliation and I think it is a form of collective revenge. Hmmm.
‘However, looking for sympathy and apologies for one’s misfortune, expecting others to relinquish power and provide for one, being unwilling to make sacrifices in order to uplift oneself, is degrading and makes one the laughing stock of the world.’
What is degrading, friend, is making sacrifices to uplift oneself and having parasitic psychopaths put you under surveillance, steal all your hard work, get false promotions due to joining the Security Services, then in effect say that they ‘own’ you. When that psychopath is a female family member, the indignity is off the Richter scale…..