Friday, 16 January 2004

Underdevelopment In Post-Colonial Africa

All this talk of "development" and "aid" is all a smoke-screen. The colonialists established their companies and stole all the land, then they left under the guise of being kicked out and they are still raking in the profits from afar. They bribe and steal from Africa with the connivance of a small group of greedy African despots, and at the same time they preach to Africa about "good governance" and "democracy". It's a farce, just like everything else in this corporate nightmare world we live in. The colonialists are alive and well, hiding away in their ivory towers worshipping the legacy of Rhodes and bleeding the whole world dry.

"I think what we need in our society is the power by us blacks to innovate. We have got the very system from which we can expand, from which we can innovate, to say: this is what we believe, accept or not accept . . . Cultures affect each other, like fashions, and you cannot escape rubbing against someone else's culture. But you must have the right to reject or not anything that is given to you." - Bantu Steven Biko

"The basic tenet of black consciousness is that the black man must reject all value systems that seek to make him a foreigner in the country of his birth and reduce his basic human dignity." - Bantu Steven Biko

"We are looking forward to a non-racial, just and egalitarian society in which color, creed and race shall form no point of reference." - Bantu Steven Biko

"We are not concerned with that curious bunch of non-conformists...that bunch of do-gooders that goes under all sorts of names - liberals, leftists, etc. These are all the people who argue that they are not responsible for white racism...These are all the people who claim that they too feel the oppression just as acutely as the blacks and therefore should be jointly involved in the black man's struggle.... In short, these are the people who say that they have black souls wrapped up in white skins." - Bantu Steven Biko

"The overall analysis, therefore, based on the Hegelian theory of dialectic materialism, is as follows. That since the thesis is a white racism there can only be one valid antithesis i.e. a solid black unity to counterbalance the scale.... We can never wage any struggle without offering a strong counterpoint to the white races that permeate our society so effectively" - Bantu Steven Biko