I stumbled upon the following link;

http://www.libertas.demon.co.uk/index.htm

Makes for very interesting reading. I'd be interested in knowing what everyone thinks

Seeker,

The site attempts to recover the reputation of the Colonial leaders of Nigeria.

We are supposed to believe that people who had no intention of ever leaving Nigeria, were really there all along to prepare Nigeria for a transition to greatness among African nations?

Recovery of one man's reputation, seems a rather petty goal for all the "white supremacy", "whiteman's burden", "our negros were happy until you interfered and gave them freedom" one is being asked to swallow.

@ Seeker. Did you actually read all the essays on that website? If you did, I hail you! It will probably take days to read through the entire website in order to make meaningful comments. I did read the first one though, and so far it sounds like the story of our lives! Actually I remember quite vividly, many years ago, my father reiterating the exact same story of the carefully engineered fabrication of the British which they called our Independence. Damn right the British were smart! And we? Well, utterly confounded and flabberwoozed is all I can say. Question is, have we woken up from our slumber yet? If the rest of the essays on the Website are as frank and insightful as the first one on Zik, then it is a truly valuable online discovery that you have made Seeker. BTW.any other info on the author Harlod Smith? I do think I remember the name but can't seem to place a finger on it right now. Well, gotta get back to work now. Will return to the essays, and this thread later!

Sorry, Harold French is the author I had in mind. His book "A Continent for the taking: the tragedy and hope of Africa" is supposed to be good. What's the title of Harold Smith's book though? Any idea?

@Drusilla. I defintely don't advocate swallowing everything hook, line and sinker. The meat of the gist is not Britains intention, in my view, but the happenings around our "independence". It's obviously one mans take on the events leading up to and following 1960, which will almost definitely not be all 100% accurate, especially as the guy was really embittered. However, a lot of it rings true and corresponds to what many people have already been saying.



No, I haven't actually read all the essays, but I'm working on it.

If we had out independence late, I am sorry to say, but can't help but say, Nigeria would be more developed and safer than it is now. Fact !!.

Seeker, thanks for posting, but I can't help but feel that better articles that tell how Nigeria achieved Independence can be found. I will add what I consider to be better source material later on.

But I fully understand the reasoning behind choosing a short article. Afterall, only those that are really into politics, such as myself, would even bother to read anything beyond 2 pages.

Kazey,

I've heard that reasoning before. While the transition surely leaves something to be desired in a lot of African states (I have in mind the dirt did in the Congo to Lumumba), the idea that a longer colonialization would have helped Nigeria now does not seem to have been borne out when one looks at countries that have had a much longer colonialization -- like those in south America and Asia.

Their not generally in any better shape than Nigeria.

The really big difference between Nigeria and countries that knew Colonialization longer, is that they are not as naive as Nigeria.

Nigeria seems to have hope in it's ability to get on it's feet with European/American help.

As you can see, every south American country including just recently Mexico --are electing left wing governments on campaigns where America is most hated and Europe is not known as a friend.

So in that regard the other countries that have been colonized longer than Nigeria, are smarter than Nigeria.

The site makes for an interesting read and pretty much confirms a lot of what people already suspected. There was no way Britain was ever going to handover power to Africans 'who were too clever by half'.

Drusilla:

The really big difference between Nigeria and countries that knew Colonialization longer, is that they are not as naive as Nigeria.

Thats not really true. Nevertheless I was talking in regards to the economical situation of such a country. A good example is Hongkong. It was a British colony from 1843, until its sovereignty was transferred to the PRC in 1997.

Hong Kong has one of the least restricted economies in the world and is basically duty-free. It is the world's 11th largest trading entity and 13th largest banking centre.The dominant presence of international trade is reflected in the number of consulates in the territory.

At USD $32,900 in 2005 (CIA World Factbook), the nominal per capita GDP of Hong Kong is somewhat higher than that of the four big economies of western Europe which is around USD $30,000.

Kazey,

But that does not affect the welfare of the people? Poverty is at its minimal, people are ok, this is just plain politics. Nigeria on the other hand has economical and political problems, so what do we say to that?

Kazey,

I changed my mind. You might be right.

Colonization could help Africa. A good long Colonization.

Drusilla:

Colonization could help Africa. A good long Colonization.

Maybe,

Kazey,

Wait a second. Now you seem as if you are not sure. Was colonialization a good thing? Or not?

hehehe colonisation might not be a good thing if we look at what it entails, but in regards to African's current situation such as Nigerian's case, we would tend to be well better of being colonised, since we can't manage ourself properly. But in regards to what it entails, such as freedom to choose who to lead, then it might be question yet again.

Look at the reason on why US invaded Iraq for example? Currently some people think it is a good thing, some fail to agree. It all depends on how it helped the citizens of the country. The effects of it does matter

Nigeria does not need a longer colonial period. What Nigeria needs is to be split into 3. A federation for the Western region with additional freedoms granted to the Benin, Urhobo Ishekiri, and Isoko states. A confederation for the Eastern Region that would comprise of a semi-sovereign Ijaw State, Igbo State, Ibibio, Idoma and other ethnic minorities in that region. And lastly, the Northerners can do whatever they like. Heck, they could set themselves on fire for all I care.

Well if that would solve the current mess, WHY NOT? but I doubt it would.

Kazey,

Well, you have given me a lot to think about.

Nigerians who love to be colonized if you are good to the people.

I'll think about it.

@Kazey, you seem to have found 1 example where 'long' colonisation appears to have been beneficial. Just out of curiosity, can you find 3 more examples. No, in fact, just 2 more examples. Is it colonisation that got Japan, Korea where they are, and more recently China and India's giant strides. Just curious.

seeker:

@Kazey, you seem to have found 1 example where 'long' colonisation appears to have been beneficial. Just out of curiosity, can you find 3 more examples. No, in fact, just 2 more examples. Is it colonisation that got Japan, Korea where they are, and more recently China and India's giant strides. Just curious.

1. Antigua and Barbuda
Independence
From the UK
November 1, 1981
GDP: $11,523

2. Brunei
Independence
- From British protectorate January 1, 1984
GDP $24,143

Seeker,

Do not be so quick to agree that Kazey has shown a successful colony of the British in Hong Kong.

Kazey is showing dollar amounts, she is not showing what the Hong Kong people think.

As a colonized Asian people, Hong Kongers have been assigned to live in the mythical and oppressive world as represented by The World of Susie Wong and Love Is a Many Splendored Thing, and such functioning but distorted perceptions that Hong Kong, the Pearl of the Orient, nicknamed Fragrant Port, is where East meets West, and that Hong Kong is bilingual. For the natives, negotiating this kind of cultural schizophrenia has necessitated the donning of two simultaneous masks. Indeed, Hong Kong’s pea blossom icon identified on the global level as an orchid (see Newt Gingrich’s perception of the relationship between China and Hong Kong as a gorilla holding an orchid in its hand) is not an orchid at all. It is a pea tree, Bauhinia blakeana Dunn (Caesalpiniaceae), not a natural species, but appropriately, a sterile hothouse hybrid named after a former governor.

The disappearance of the British icons and their instantaneous substitutions are not new to Hong Kong. Hong Kongers have always worn two faces simultaneously, [/b]one in public for the public, and the other also public but waiting for the next public; [b]one is presented to the British colonizers and their various representations, and the other to relatives and proven friends. During the Korean War and much of the 1950s Cold War, for example, the necessity for the public-public face almost spelled the demise of the next-public face, as the Chinese and Kuomintang sent down competing assassination squads in an attempt to reverse the brain drain. The British rulers refereed from the sidelines to minimize the drain on Hong Kong’s blood bank and maintain local stability by arresting and detaining just about every known political activist without trial, sometimes on the whimsical evidence of reading the wrong newspaper in public.

Currently there is a growing billion-dollar industry focusing on historical preservation. It is linked to Hong Kong’s attempt to re-take its identity by turning to its past, by looking at its landmark buildings, and by looking at old photographs to construct a visual narrative of its own history. But the selectivity inherent in preservation is not memory, and if memory plays any significant part in the construction of history, preservation is then not history either, particularly not in the hands of the last-colonialists or post-colonialists. They are more interested in cultivating (read investment) artifacts such as authentic native furniture, paintings, even costumes, than they are in the total human experience including the pain and suffering that sometimes accumulates in shit. Their interest in preservation stems in part from their effort to alleviate their guilt, and in part from re-colonization as cultural piracy—except now they have to cash up—and in part from an honest attempt to see what they’ve ignored for nearly 200 years. The restoration of Kowloon’s Walled City, now devoid of drugs, prostitution, and other forms of human misery, has elevated it to the most sophisticated expression of kitsch, the theme park.

** Do notice that now that the British are gone, Hong Kong is getting rid of the drugs and prostitution and other forms of human misery.

Visible on Sundays and public holidays is an ironic public statement against this newest variation of late capitalism that is Hong Kong, this gargantuan economic imbalance in which a very few are making fortunes from other people’s misery.

**Do notice that their economy is considered by them to be one where a few make fortunes at the expense of the other people in misery.

We are in a topic now, where the Colonizers of Nigeria, propped themselves and what they did for Nigeria up.

As this article shows, that is the same kind of false hype about Hong Kong that has been going on.

Seeker,

Now that we have established that the Hong Kong people lived in an oppressive society and are only now trying to recover their mind and stop their people from visible forms of subservience to the british like prostitution.

And we did not even talk about the suicide rate being one of the world's highest or that the Hong Kong people don't have enough babies to repopulate themselves (one thing you have to sacrifice to make it in this world is babies and family).

Now let us even look at the economy of Hong Kong:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Hong_Kong

First, the Hong Kong dollar is worth less than the South African dollar.

Exchange rates: Hong Kong dollars per US dollar - 7.759 (April 2006)

Notice that Kazey brought up Hong Kong being the 13th largest banking industry. (I'll talk more about this idea later -- bring up how rich people hide their money from their governments in these backwater countries -- artifically pumping up the economy of these countries. When we get to Antiqua & barbados)

Yet look at the amount of people who work in this industry: financing, insurance, and real estate 13%

My point about this, is one should not be mislead about banking statistics to believe that this means that the Hong Kong people share equally in this 'banking benefit'.

In fact this is the truth:

The majority of Hong Kong people work in industry's getting the British the cheap goods they have set Hong Kong up to provide or getting the luggage of rich people as they come for a visit to see about the banking assets they are hiding in Hong Kong.

wholesale and retail trade, restaurants, and hotels 31%

Hong Kong has lots of pretty tall buildings and the rich elite from Europe and America like to bank there because it is virtually free for them (their a small and crowded little city on mostly hills, so they are forced to grow up rather than out) but let us not assume that means the people should be thanking the British for enslaving them.

kazey, Brunei! You go kill me with laughter. What does British rule have to do with the oil wealth in this country of a handful of people. Abi dem plant the oil for them. You seem not to realise that all the wealth ends up in the emirs' and his cronies pockets. All those GDP figures are to say the least very misleading.

Drusilla, thx for enlightening me o jare.

Afeni, where's the superior link, I'm waiting.

seeker:

kazey, Brunei! You go kill me with laughter. What does British rule have to do with the oil wealth in this country of a handful of people. Abi them plant the oil for them. You seem not to realise that all the wealth ends up in the emirs' and his cronies pockets. All those GDP figures are to say the least very misleading.

Good point, and Nigeria doesnt have such resources? Or are we applying a different conclusion in regards?

In regards to the hongkong's citizen's, I think its better if we get one right here, : because nothing I would say would convince you.

Drusilla:

Exchange rates: Hong Kong dollars per US dollar - 7.759 (April 2006)

I think you should try to read on determinants of currency, trade differentials etc besides pegging, Come to think of it, Maybe I might want to invite Japan to tell us their currency power, so that I can judge their economical status.

Please while your Japanese friend is here answering that question, maybe he can explain quality of life in Japan with all their money!



Living in holes all week because they work such long hours, it is not feasible to go home for a few hours.





Have him explain why 600 people take their life every week in Japan:

Japan's suicide rate highest among industrialized countries.

Source: Knight Ridder Washington Bureau (via Knight-Ridder/Tribune News Service)

Publication Date: 17-JAN-03
Byline: Michael Zielenziger

TOKYO _ Japanese are committing suicide in record numbers.

Nearly 600 die by their own hands each week, and every year, three times as many Japanese hang themselves, hurl themselves in front of speeding commuter trains or kill themselves in other ways as die in automobile accidents.

"Suicide is the single biggest health-care issue in Japan today," said Yukio Saito, a Lutheran minister who runs Japan's largest suicide-prevention hot line. Japan's suicide rate, he said, is three times higher than America's; the World Health Organization ranks it the highest among industrialized countries.

The rise in suicides,

http://www.accessmylibrary.com/comsite5/bin/pdinventory.pl?pdlanding=1&referid=2930&purchase_type=ITM&item_id=0286-8163178&word=Japans_Suicide_Rate



Then of course have him explain why Japanese people no longer want to have babies or go on existing, why they are dying off:

“A nation requires a certain scale in the population to continue its momentum, but in Japan, we are confronting a serious combination of a low birthrate and an aging nation,” deputy director of Japan's Education Ministry Kota Murase said. “Our pension system is already being tested to its limits. And with fewer young people in society, the question is: How are we going to sustain the elderly and the nation's future? We don't have a clear answer yet.”

In the past 10 years, the Post explains that 90 theme parks aimed at children have disappeared, while the number of hospitals in Japan with pediatric wings decreased from 4,119 in 1990 to 3,473 in 2000. [b]In addition, 70 percent of young women have no interest in marriage. [/b]In Japan, married women traditionally stay home to raise children. Some towns have even offered cash incentives for couples to have a baby.


Kazey,

Have you ever read Plato's: The Allegory of the Cave?

It's a most famous part of his book "the republic" and it talks about when people first come out of the cave(Village in Africa let us say), of course the SUNLIGHT DAZZLES THEM (material things) but the sun also BLINDS THEM (they can not see problems).

Be careful of jumping up and declaring money GOD.

Money God demands Blood sacrifices just like every God in the world. You got to be willing to pay those blood sacrifices.

That is my only point. Money is fine in Japan and Hong Kong but they paid in the BLOOD and continue to pay in the BLOOD for the money God.

@Drusilla

Weew haba, take am easy now. Wetin be money blood now or nah blood money? I no fit understand you o. I just they yearn simply about colonisation vs economical status, and my stand on it. HEHEHE LIFE IS EASY O.

The average lifestyle of an average Japanese is better than that of an average Nigerian. They sucides are honourable and are accepted by the society, They are more of a shinto believers, they think it is something that is good, just like for naija, to chop govt money, na good thing. Kapish. This is even total deviation from my debate

Kazey,

Cute.

Nigeria is ranked the second worst country in the world. The lifestyle of any of your neighbors like Ghana is better than the lifestyle of Nigerians. You don't have to look to Asia to find people living better than Nigerians.

Your argument was that British Colonization helped those who stayed colonized longer.

My response was Colonialization dollars do not tell the whole story.

As this debate seems to be taking a tail-spin, I feel inclined to add a link to a rebuttal to the original one;

http://www.ceddert.com/Rigging_nigerian_history.htm

Oga, Kazey. I'm sure that Brunei has more per capital oil than nigeria. What do you think Delta state, or Bayelsa would be like if it kept all it's oil revenue, even after making provisions for corruption at the going rate.

seeker:

Oga, Kazey. I'm sure that Brunei has more per capital oil than nigeria. What do you think Delta state, or Bayelsa would be like if it kept all it's oil revenue, even after making provisions for corruption at the going rate.

well if you say so, but I don't think they want to, rather its the leaders and the ibgo's making all the trouble. Besides their allocation is more than what other states get considering their size. Where does the excess go?

@ Seeker, nawa o, the kin' research wey you dey do to come up with all this info dey serious o! Anyhow, some good info there putting a different spin on credibility of the "ex"-colonial, Harold Smith. So what are we to believe now?

Seeker,

Beautiful link. The second link reflects standard teaching about Colonial Africa. Nobody and certainly not the colonial forces, was trying to help any African country make a proper transition to power.

He merely called these Nigerians clerks, typists and African staff, without mentioning their names. Maybe, he did not think that it is important to know their names and mention these in his autobiography, in the way that he did to each and every European staff that he worked with, or even came across. The truth is that the closest Nigerians to Harold Smith were his household servants, whose names he knew and mentioned them in his autobiography.

This is how the Colonial powers saw Africans, as household servants.