The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams - Politics (9) - Nairaland
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| Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(m): 11:42am On Mar 09, 2012 |
[b]Even the holy robes of the priests in Angola not only covered their real mission as agents of empire, but also covered their insatiable lust for the black bodies of their helpless slave girls ." She had been forced by the actualities of black-white relations to distrust all whites, along with their tricky treaties . By 1641 the Dutch had made great progress in reducing the power of Portugal all along the coast, and Nzinga's adamant position made their situation an impossible one to maintain . A despairing governor and council had no choice but to declare war against her once again, a fullscale war . But the situation was now most favorable for the Angolans . Their northern neighbor, Kongo, had become more active in its own war against the Portuguese and, besides, a new and greater king had assumed the leadership . This was Garcia 11, who continued the policy of cooperating with the Dutch where and when Kongolese interests were involved . (Some black leaders had learned to use the whites as the whites always used them : when it served their own interests .) The other happy development for Ndongo was that the Dutch invasion of Portuguese- held areas had actually begun in 1641 before any moves could be made against either of the two black states, Kongo and Ndongo .II Nzinga continued her campaign against the Portuguese, winning victories everywhere a battle was joined . With Dutch aid, the great Portuguese stronghold of Masangano fell in 1648 . The Dutch, having previously captured Luanda, now found themselves threatened by the steady reenforcements that continued to pour in from Portuguese Brazil . The Dutch withdrew, leaving the Blacks in the area, who had helped them to capture and defend this, the most important Portuguese ---------------------------------------------- Notes 10. The Queen was further outraged over the success of the Portuguese in capture both of her younger sisters . This gave the enemy a most powerful bargaining weapon . Yet she continued to reject all of their principal demands, with the result that her sisters, to whom she was deeply devoted, remained in captivity for many years . 11 . We must continue to skip over much in every 'region that is briefly covered in this work . This is often painful, as here, for example, I am unable to deal with the quite relevant struggle of the unconquerable Dembo people against the Portuguese and slavery . But this must wait until black history is written in depth, period by period, region by region and state by state .[/b] |
| Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(m): 11:45am On Mar 09, 2012 |
[b]city in Africa, to fend for themselves alone . While the chiefs and their forces did indeed put up a gallant fight, they were massacred in one of the most savage onslaughts on record . The recapture of Luanda by Salvador de Sa, the new governor, and his crushing of black opposition there, led him to initiate new peace efforts with the two kingdoms of Kongo and Nzinga. The Kongolese king refused to answer his letter, but did send a monk to hear the governor's terms . Nzinga also agreed to efforts at negotiations . These gestures by the two African leaders led Salvador de Sa to advise the king of Portugal that all the African states were cowed and their power broken . He knew better, of course, for even the chiefs and their people in his own Portuguese-held territory were still fighting on despite the massacres, and probably because of them. If the Portuguese had been able to conquer either Kongo or Ndongo- Matamba, no peace offers would have been made . Hadn't they tried it over and over and failed? To be able to conquer both now was out of the question . Again, the old conquest route was invoked: beguiling smiles and protestations of friendship, finding concrete expression in negotiations for peace . The language of diplomacy reached its most brilliant heights of deception in those velvety clauses of proposed treaties which the Africans, if they signed them, would be signing themselves and their people into perpetual bondage . This fact was supposed to be assured by the other fact that the relevant clauses were so ambiguous that they could be interpreted in several different waysin this case in whatever way the Portuguese chose to interpret them . The very same provisions of the treaties could be read and explained to the Blacks in such language that it would appear that the Europeans were not only humbling themselves but also proclaiming the outcome as . a glorious victory for the Africans . Of course, no Blacks, not even a Nzinga, was supposed to be intelligent enough, sharply intelligent enough, to see through all this . But, stripping away all the glittering verbiage, Nzinga saw at a glance that what it all meant was that she was to be a vassal of the Portuguese king, one paying him a big annual tribute . She would die first . And no one should have known this better than the Portuguese who, at the time of this latest treaty offer, had been at war with her, and repeatedly defeated, for over twenty-eight years . They had met one of the giants of the human race whom they had found impossible to recognize as such because she appeared on the planet not only as a woman but one with black skin . Nzinga, therefore,[/b] |
| Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(m): 11:47am On Mar 09, 2012 |
[b]kept them anxiously waiting for action on the treaty, toying with it for six years, while giving her war-torn land and tired-out people a period for rest and recovery . She was the same queen who had twice fled the country not to save herself but save her people from a slaughter that her flight would prevent . For the same reason she did not want the war resumed again after over forty years of warfare . On the other hand, she would not surrender her country to Portugal and its slave trade . The areas of Angola they still held, including the important islands of Luanda and Sao Thome, belonged to the Angolan people, and some of these areas belonged directly to her own kingdoms of Ndongo and Matamba. Finally, then, in 1656, tired and weary from four decades of relentless struggles, she signed a treaty that was revised and made acceptable to her . Her greatest concession allowed the Portuguese puppet king, Aidi, to head the territory conceded to them . There were seven more years of a busy life for Queen Nzinga-pushing reconstruction, the resettlement of ex-slaves, and undertaking the development of an economy of free men and women that would be able to succeed without the slave trade . She could not have been unaware that, with the Portuguese still strongly entrenched in the most strategic areas, unless she was succeeded by equally great leaders, all of her labors in defense of the freedom of the Blacks would ultimately be in vain . That was the burning question in 1663 as a dull autumn sun lengthened the shadows over the palace grounds where thousands stood in tears : Were there any more Garcias anywhere? Would God send them another Nzinga to hold the line against the truly white devils? The sun slowly went down behind the Angolan trees and darkness spread over the land . Over three hundred years later the Blacks of Angola are still fighting the Portuguese, and still waiting for the sunrise . In the heart-torn state of national mourning the Queen's Council permitted two priests to come in and perform the last rites of the Church. Since the Queen had renounced the Catholic religion many years before her passing, and had banned missions from her country as centers of subversion, this appearance of priests at the royal bedside may be explained either as a once-a-Catholic-always-a-Catholic theory, or as an attempt by Catholic Portugal to give the appearance of final victory on all ftonts . In this case it would mean that the most unconquerable of foes, recanting and submissive, had been conquered by their religion in the end . And so it is written in the official documents of Portugal, the written record used by almost all historians of Africa, that[/b] |
| Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(m): 11:49am On Mar 09, 2012 |
Nzinga had returned to the Church that had baptized her "Ann" . Yet she was one of the very first Blacks to see that the Portuguese conquests, the slave trade, and the Church were all inseparably one and the same . The long years of warfare had been equally against all three-the unholy trinity . And she had never surrendered . In 1963, three hundred years after her death, her people, now Catholic themselves, did not believe she had ever returned to the Church . 12 ----------------------------------------------- Notes 12 . For a more detailed study of Queen Nzinga, see Roy Arthur Glasgow's The Warrior Queen, John Wiley Y Sons, 1969, and Queen Nzinga and the Mbundu Resistance to the Portuguese Slave Trade, scheduled for publication 1971 by Oxford University Press . Note in particular the great difference in the account of the last days of the Queen and that of mine . |
| Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(m): 11:55am On Mar 09, 2012 |
To be continued, The Last of the Black Empires |
| Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(m): 6:35pm On Mar 10, 2012 |
[b]The Last of the Black Empires ON A BALMY SPRING AFTERNOON IN 1964,1 CAME OUT OF A large cave where archaeologists had been working and climbed up the highest of the six hills in the area . In the valley and as far as the eyes could see there was so much of the same breathtaking natural beauty that had been seen everywhere in the country that one might wonder whether the Garden of Eden surpassed it . I was standing in the heart of Monomotapa, (then white-ruled Rhodesia, but now independent Zimbabwe)., the last of the black empires in Africa . (Abyssinia, or modern Ethiopia, has been under Semitic or Solomonid rule for centuries . The ruling house traces its line to King Solomon) . Up to this point we have been dealing very largely with states created or expanded by migrating groups before the coming of Asians and Europeans into their territories . We have, therefore, been looking at purely African-created institutions . But the picture has been very much skewed by the fact that very little attention was given to the advanced state of early civilization in other parts of the continent prior to the incursions of this or that group of immigrants after the 1200s (A .D .). This kind of treatment has misled many in the belief that a highly advanced civilization existed only in the Nile regions of ancient Ethiopia (Egypt and the Sudan), and was spread southward from the earliest times . That these early black brothers from the south probably brought [/b] |
| Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(m): 6:36pm On Mar 10, 2012 |
[b]more to their black brothers in Egypt than they borrowed from them is becoming clearer as our research develops . The stepped-up waves of "crisis migrations" after the destruction of the Ethiopian Empire should not obscure the central facts . The invading immigrants, then, often found the already existing states as well organized and with institutions as highly advanced as their own had been before the 13th century . But, almost without exception, they all had one thing in common, the one thing that made each one so easy to conquer first by black invaders and later by white invaders : They were all small ; the smaller and weaker the state, the more fiercely "independent" it was . The African continent presented a vast, vast panorama of mini-states-at once a vast panorama of disunity and weakness. The reorganizing invaders tended to expand territorially over many of these adjacent states, thus forcing a kind of artificial unity . Unlike the Kuba of Shyaam and the Angola of Nzinga, few undertook the great task of developing a sense of national community among the many diverse groups that made up the state . The Vakaranga immigrants who developed the Empire of Monomotapa followed the general practice of establishing effective political rule, while promoting economic development . As forecast above, however„ we shall look briefly at the people and their civilization some centuries before the Vakaranga advent in the early 1400s . The land and the people to be covered by the Empire extended from the north above the Zambezi River, included Rhodesia, westward to the Kalahara, eastward over Mozambique to the Indian Ocean, and southward into the Transvaal in South Africa below the Limpopo River (Vembe) . Since the archaeological evidence gathered all over this vast territory makes it clear that iron technology and allied crafts were well advanced here long before the Christian era, the spread of the economic revolution over Africa by the iron age may have come from this southern center as well as from Meroe in the northeast . From the period roughly indicated as early as 300 B .C ., the states which were to form the Empire of Monomotapa were engaged in a wide range of diversified economic activities that led not only to interstate trade but foreign commerce over the Indian Ocean as well . This economic development was inextricably an index of the development of their civilization . The drive for the attainment of excellence in everything produced was reflected in their artistic[/b] |
| Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(m): 6:37pm On Mar 10, 2012 |
[b]endeavors even on common utilities where art could hardly be expected . The huge jars for storing grain were glazed and as beautifully channelled as the cups used by priests and kings . Here, as elsewhere in early Africa, there seems to have been an insatiable drive for beauty and perfection . There was an underlying philosophy : Each craftsman felt that his finished work was at once a reflection and actual measure of what he himself was, his character . The industrial activities, particularly mining, overshadowed agriculture and even threatened the existence of this very basic economy . Over four thousand ancient mining sites have been discovered, and no one claims that these are all. Iron ore, gold and, to a lesser extent, copper and tin were the leading industrial activities, although ivory and ivory carvings always played a considerable role in the total economy . These widespread industrial activities, along with the ever increasing number of cattle brought in by migrating pastoral groups, drove the farmers to the hills-to a new type of terrace farming on every available hillside, and the building of mounds for the same purpose where there were no hills . As difficult as all this was, the genius of African man was further tested in overcoming the more formidable problem of water and an irrigation system for hillsides and mounds . Widespread mining meant widespread deforestation because of the demand for timber for charcoal production-another industry by itself . Soil erosion kept pace, unchecked . The steady disappearance of grasslands was assured by cattle and other roaming animals that fed on grass, the goats being the most ravishing . The agricultural life of the country was sustained by intensive terrace farming in the northesast region of which Inyanga was the center . By 1200 A.D ., production and international trade had already reached the high level affluence that was to attract Arabs and Europeans to this land . Gold was the leading export commodity, although there was also a great demand in India for the superior type of ironware processed in Monomotapa . The African smelting process and type of iron ore peculiar to the region enabled them to produce the best swords, spears and other weapons that could be found anywhere . The iron industries created an economic revolution not only in warfare but also in the production of farming tools, household and kitchenware and better mining tools . The crafts of blacksmiths, goldsmiths, coppersmiths and tinsmiths were the most important, each being a well organized secret society . Quite early, and without any "Bronze Age" period, they experimented[/b] |
| Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(m): 6:39pm On Mar 10, 2012 |
[b]with alloys to tin and copper and began the production of bronze and bronze implements on a limited scale . The widespread pottery finds of so many different types indicate the vastness of their ceramics industries . The decorative designs of all pottery, as well as on all other artifacts found, seem to tell us that all of these early craftsmen were artists also . That there were many other highly skilled and professional classes is evident from the total cultural record these early Blacks left behind in Southern Africa . The several thousand mining sites of so many different kinds-iron, gold, copper, tin-suggest expert prospectors, just as the ruins of nearby temples and other beautifully designed stone structures tell us that there were great black architects and stonemasons here just as they had been in Black Egypt when the first pyramids were built there . But the ancient ruins of so many cities, towns and villages are the stony pages of the unwritten history we seek . And just as written records of black history were destroyed, here, too, in Monomotapa the first Arabs and Europeans to find these long since deserted sites undertook wrecking and destroying operations on a scale beyond belief . These were your modern men, your civilizers of other men . Hidden and lost in the tangled vines and trees of forests, many stone temples were still defying the centuries of passing time and standing in all the dignity of their colonnaded beauty until the 20th century when they were wrecked by the same people who had wrecked the race of the builders . The fact that almost all of these ruins were located in or near gold mining areas enabled some writers to "explain" that the wanton destruction was carried on in a feverish search for gold . But anyone viewing the nature and scale of the demolition of the massive stone structures would find it difficult to see how the search for gold involved the destruction of buildings . Their efforts were in vain, however. So much could be reassembled, reconstructed ; so much could not be destroyed at all . There was, therefore, a record left written in stone, a record that tells the story of Blacks who were building a highly developed civilization in Southern Africa during the same ancient period their brothers were amazing the world by their advances in Northern Ethiopia (Egypt) and its southern region (Sudan) .[/b] |
| Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(m): 6:40pm On Mar 10, 2012 |
[b]THE EMPIRE BUILDERS We have been establishing that the high civilization of Monomopata, for which the invading Vakaranga have been credited, antedated their coming by at least 1,500 years . During this long period, before the Rosvi chiefs led their people into the region in 1400 (circ .), there were many changes and improvements in the methods and styles of the various crafts. The changes are shown by determining the period of such artifacts as pottery and the architectural designs of buildings . The Vakaranga simply continued to build upon and further develop preexisting states . Their greatest achievement was in welding several strong states and some lesser ones into one great empire . Their second greatest achievement was the reclaiming of the seacoast lands that had been leased by the states to Asians as trading posts, but over which the Asians had gradually assumed absolute sovereignty . It is the same old story of the same techniques of penetration and domination that had to be repeated over and over in these pages as we moved from country to country . Ethiopia, Makuria, Alwa, Ghana, Mali, Songhay, the Mossi States, Kongo, Angola, and Kuba were all destroyed as a direct result of the first trading post footholds established in their lands . And so it was for the other states on the continent, large and small . None withstood the Sirens' songs of the fabulous riches to be gained from trade . As the history of this region of Africa is generally written, one gathers that the advanced cultures on the seacoast and key islands were of Asian origin, the black barbarians being confined to the interior . The fact is that, while readily granting concessions for trade and settlement to the Asians on lands along the Indian Ocean coastline, Africans did not withdraw but remained as active sea captains, sailors, traders, boat and ship builders and, in short, in all the on-going occupations along the coasts . The builders of stone cities in the interior also built where Arabs, Indians and later Portuguese settled at Sofala, Chinde, Quelimane and farther north at Kilwa . When the cattle-breeding Vakaranga came into the country under the leadership of the Rosvi ruling clan, they found the indigenous people more highly advanced than themselves . The fact that so many of the states that came into prominence between the 13th and 16th centuries were further reorganized and expanded by newcomers has tended to obscure the preexisting civilization upon which the immigrants built . There were several kinds of invaders . Some were from a homeland only recently broken up . These could make immediate contributions from their own society of whatever was new[/b] |
| Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(m): 6:41pm On Mar 10, 2012 |
[b]and advanced, whatever skills or technologies that had not been lost or forgotten ; other migrating groups had been on the move from one settlement to another for so many generations that they had lost some of the most essential elements in the heritage of their distant forebears during these constant movements from place to place, movements which were the most potent factors in disintegrating civilization itself; and still other invaders were ruthless barbarians "pure and simple ." Even these, after being absorbed by an advanced population, were often given the credit for the new advances made by the state . Some of the societies in this great region were on different levels of development . Among these were the Sotho, Tswana, Matadyatadya or the so-called "Bushmen," the Vatonga et al . The Arabs, of course, had been slowly penetrating the interior from their seacoast footholds for over two hundred years before the Vakaranga arrived . By 1400 they had their trading posts scattered throughout the independent states which were to form the empire . According to D .P. Abraham, by 1500 about 10,000 Arabs were stationed at different points in the interior . They had been penetrating inland all the way from beyond Kilwa to stations southward below Sofala . The major built-in threat was complete before the first great Vakaranga king surveyed the scene . THE GREAT MUTOTA The year was 1440 . The king was Mutota . In just about any other land he would be known to history as Mutota the Great . He and his council were apparently quick to see that even the most advanced states, each standing independently and alone, were doomed unless unified into a single nation with a strong central government. This should be achieved by voluntary association if possible . The divisive influence of the Arabs operating in the capitals of the respective states had to be obvious, as they appeared not to feel it necessary to be either as secretive or as subtle as their Portuguese enemies . Both the Arabs and the Europeans had one thing in common, however . Both had the deeply rooted conviction that they knew the Blacks and that their power over them and the continued ability to garner their endless wealth rested squarely on keeping them divided and continuously at each other's throats . No one, except the Blacks themselves, needed any argument to show that black unity meant black power and black power meant an end to white domination, from the east or the west .[/b] |
| Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(m): 6:42pm On Mar 10, 2012 |
[b]Mutota and the new leaders saw and understood this very well . They knew where almost all the gold, copper, iron and tin had been going from over 4,000 mines. They knew how all the strategems used by the Blacks to bar the Arabs from the interior had failed, and would continue to fail as long as the Arabs controlled all overseas trade by controlling the entire seaboard and, having done so unchallenged for so long that they now claimed sovereignty over the whole coastal area . Therefore, Mutota, in 1440, began the campaign to carry out his own "Grand Design," a great plan that aimed at nothing less than uniting .Blacks in a vast empire that cut across South Africa below the Limpopo River, and covered Rhodesia with an indefinite boundary beyond the Zambezi River in Zambia, and on over Mozambique to the Indian Ocean, sweeping southward again to repossess the entire coastline fronting the new empire. Now is all of this the same version as given by Abraham and other Western historians? Would an Arab historian, no-matter what the fact : might be, present it this way? Of course not . The Western historians, employing their usual club to crush rebellion from the masters' viewpoints, would proclaim "sheer Romanticism!" For, see here now, listen : Does not Professor Abraham make it quite clear at the very outset that no black man, king or commoner, could have conceived of such a vast undertaking? What black man, unaided by whites, could have Mutota's great and awe-inspiring vision? Abraham and his school might well thank their God that there were many "White" Arabs around to whom such credit could be given . After a review of so many centuries of the ideological stance of writers where Blacks are concerned, anger and outrage should be replaced with amusement . For it has become amusing-to this writer at any rate-to witness the sweating dilemma of these investigators when confronted with any kind of all-Black achievements, even in relatively unimportant and routine matters which any human or, any people of any race anywhere would be thought capable of achieving. But where Blacks are involved in anything considered outstanding, the whites somehow feel threatened . What is threatened, of course, is the deeply rooted presupposition of the innate inferiority of the Blacks . If somewhere in their long history a single record of outstanding achievement by Blacks was found by whites and declared at once to be such, rather than "evidently" non-Negroid, if this was ever done the black world has been unable to discover it and, if there is an error here or a misconception, a correction is welcomed .[/b] |
| Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(m): 6:43pm On Mar 10, 2012 |
[b]But, returning to the traditional white line in this case of the Vakaranga king, Abraham and others say that the Arabs persuaded him to unify and expand the country north and south and to the Indian Ocean-the Arabs who had nothing to gain from a strong and unified Black empire and might lose what they had . Professor Abraham says that the Arabs "conceived and implanted in the mind of the Rosvi king a desire for empire ."' The empire was to serve as an "effective umbrella," protecting their operations in the country from the Portuguese . Scholarly reasoning, but logical? Of course, except that there were no Portuguese or Portuguese threats in the area in 1440 . They did not arrive until 65 years later . Meanwhile Mutota moved forward . His first move was to recruit and build up strong, well-trained armies, each under an able general . He displayed the mark of a great executive by his keen insight in the evaluation and selection of men for posts of high responsibility and, in so doing, secured the active support of the Great Council of the realm . It is significant, too, that his leadership strategy included recruiting soldiers from the surrounding states which were not yet a part of the projected empire . Another important move was to secure unity through the voluntary association of as many states as possible before any conquest by force was attempted . The usual African pattern of empire building was followed : All states joining the imperial union were not only assured of autonomy but special rights also, such as membership in the Great Council of the Empire, a privilege denied territories that had to be conquered . With these policies reaffirmed and settled, Mutota's formidable armies began their sweep in the different planned directions and fields of operation. The main drive was northward under the command of the King himself . Within ten years all territory between the Limpopo in South Africa to the Zambezi had been brought under imperial rule . The great undertaking was far from completion when Mutota died in 1450 . The objectives had been worked out in detailed specifications of a blueprint for expansion, unification and development of a great empire composed of great states . ----------------------------------------------- Notes 1 . D.P. Abraham, "MARAMUCA : An Exercise in the Combined Use of Portuguese Records and Oral Tradition," Journal of African History, Vol. II, No . 2, 1961 .[/b] |
| Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(m): 6:44pm On Mar 10, 2012 |
[b]Unlike most of the societies we have been studying, the Vakaranga clans had become patrilineal . Therefore, Mutota's son rather than his nephew was the successor to the throne . This was a happy circumstance, since the son, Matope, turned out to be as great a statesman-king and general as his late father . He had the greater task because some of the most powerful states in the "Blueprint" had yet to be won, and breaking Arab control over the seacoasts, the greatest undertaking, had not been achieved . Matope assumed the leadership aggressively, having the good fortune of securing the same loyalty the ablest generals had given to his father, supported by fanatically devoted soldiers . This was no accident, for Matope himself had been a popular young commander during his father's reign. Above all, Changa and Togwa, two of Matope's greatest generals, were his friends . The armies were reorganized, strengthened by relentless training, and expanded . This display of both strength and unity among the Blacks puzzled the Arabs . This was something new, amazing . They had a long history of dealing with Blacks, and nothing was better known than the disunity, mutual suspicions and the hostility of one group toward another . How was this spectacle of over thirty different tribal groups forming solid phalanxes of unity under black leaders to be explained? Moreover, the Arabs, who had always maintained their own black troops under Arab officers, were barred from joining the imperial forces by both Mutota and Matope . All this was seen as a very real threat to the powerful commercial position the Arabs had in all the hitherto independent states as well as the equally powerful political influence they enjoyed at the capitals of these states, not to mention their independent status on the coasts . Matope's campaigns for the unification of many states into one empire were not easy . For although the Arabs pledged and proclaimed their undying loyalty to the new Emperor as this mission of empire building advanced, they secretly gave active support to the armies of resisting states . Some of the key states that formed the Empire were Mbire, Guniuswa in the southern region; Chidima, Utonga, Barwe, Manyika, Madonda, and Shiringoma formed the eastern and southeastern region . It took thirty years of unremitting efforts to complete the Empire of Monomotapa with its long eastern border bathed at last by the Indian Ocean. Every detail of his father's specifications having been carried out in full, a weary Emperor, worn out by the task, retired for the final sleep. The year was 1480 . ***[/b] |
| Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(m): 6:46pm On Mar 10, 2012 |
[b]What would happen now? The great imperial system had been completed . Black unity had been achieved among numerous language groups on one of the widest scales in history, from Zambia down into South Africa . Cities of stone dotted the land, the Zimbabwe cities north and south were the deathless symbols of a people's greatness . The long wars of expansion seem to have stimulated economic development rather than hinder it . The government had gained a more direct control over the mines and mining industries, and this meant more control over the Arabs in the interior and on the coast, especially at Sofala, Kilimoni, Sena and Tete on the Zambezi . The agricultural system was actively promoted by the central government and, indeed, just as the vast building operations that produced the amazingly beautiful temples and huge structures such as the Great Zimbabwe were all government sponsored, so were all the other craft industries . Active government sponsorship, promotion or encouragement in all these fields did not necessarily mean government ownership or direct control . The Emperor Matope also left the country with a great organized religion with a powerful and formally organized priesthood, something unusual in Africa outside of ancient Egypt, Ethiopia, and Abyssinia . The traditional African religion is essentially the same everywhere on the continent, but it is generally unorganized and, therefore, has seldom had an organized priesthood with a single recognized creed or body of prescribed beliefs . Yet just about every African society known believed in one Almighty God, no matter by what name he was called or how many lesser gods there might be . In Monomotapa he was called Mwari-the Vakaranga version and contribution toward national unity . But would there be unity now that the last of the two great personalities around whom unity revolved had silently stolen away in the shadows of the Great Zimbabwe, gone forever? The question arises whenever a great leader passes ; political psychology and mass psychology are crucially combined . Whether a great state survives after the death of the leader who made it great and held its disparate parts together by his charisma, alone, would depend upon the good fortune of having a successor of equal greatness, or the miracle of having developed a strong spirit of national community, of oneness, of a loyalty and a sense of belonging to the nation that transcend the tribe . There were unifying factors which Matope left behind in his great empire . One was that same organized religion led by a highly advanced and literate priesthood . (Religious temples at the Great Zimbabwe was[/b] |
| Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(m): 6:47pm On Mar 10, 2012 |
[b]certainly the national center of religion .) The other important factor that should have made unity imperative was the greater prosperity that would flow from economic interdependence and close commercial relations between the constituent states and provinces . The great system of roads and highways, instead of being recaptured by the bush and forests after serving their initial military purpose, could have been converted into permanent national highways, crisscrossing the Empire, and thus serving as the indispensable communication links for administration, trade, travels by the people and, in short, unification . Other factors that should have been a solid foundation for black unity were the similarity of their social institutions and the absolute sameness of their constitutional system . Yet, with Matope's death the Empire began to break up. Why? Notwithstanding all the forces mentioned above that should have made for unity and stability, the actual fact is that the traditional African political system was fundamentally and structurally anti-empire . The very circumstance of the endless process of segmentation, of forever splintering off to form little independent mini-states, developed a built-in disunity, reinforced by the attending growth of different languages . But selfgovernment or chiefdom was a way of life, not a theory . Chiefs and Elders, as we have seen, were leaders, advisors and representatives of the people, and not their rulers . The same operating principle prevailed when a group of states united to form a kingdom and kingdoms united to form an empire, but with a disturbing difference : Centralization tended to erode local autonomy, transfering chiefs from the control of their people to the control of the central government . In the case of conquered territories this change was abrupt and painful . And it was one of the principal reasons for later rebellions and the break-up of kingdoms and empires . Therefore, let us say again, to say that Arabs and Europeans were solely or even mainly responsible for the destruction for the destruction of all great African states would be glossing over or attempting to ignore the principal internal factor : disunity . What the whites did, Asians and Europeans, was to appraise this continent-wide disunity and "cash in" on it to the fullest extent possible . They did not have to divide and conquer even, for the Blacks were already divided, just as though they were waiting for the foreign conquerors to come .[/b] |
| Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(m): 6:49pm On Mar 10, 2012 |
[b]The foreigners' role was to intensify the disunity, to promote the suspicions and hatred that developed from it, and to check any tendency or movement toward unity among the Blacks .' All the Arabs had to do in Monomotapa was to move swiftly during the period of mourning, confusion and uncertainty following Matope's death . "Advisors" would surely be needed at the various provincial capitals more than ever. From these key bases they actively furthered the destruction of an empire, the very existence of which was a threat to their own power position within it . It was more than a threat, for had not Matope's sweep to the Indian Ocean reduced their control there, leaving them with only three trading stations? The Africans, already having the "every-province-for-itself" psychology, were simply urged to do more speedily what they were doing more slowly in their own way . Of Changa and Togwa it must be said to their honor that devoted servants, able generals, governors of two of the most important provinces, remained loyal to Mutota and Matope throughout their lifetime, a period of devoted service extending over forty years . Now, however, there appeared to be no reason or even a possibility for transfering the same loyalty and love to Nyahuma, weak son and successor to the great King. The Arabs hastened to exploit this in Guniuswa where Changa was king with aspirations to become emperor . Togwa, King of Mbire, supported his long-time friend and colleague in the imperial venture . Both occupied the most favorable position for rallying support, for they held the southern region which was the first center of Karanga power, the center from which the expansion spread, and the location of the first Zimbabwe capital . The Arab strategy must not be overlooked . Beyond the consideration of greater concessions from the winning side, they did not care which side won. They worked for and supported all sides, each against the other . None wanted a strong empire, but they wanted Changa to launch a war against the existing empire under the pretext of building a greater one than was possible under the new Emperor Nyahuma . The Arabs in the north, of course, would urge Nyahuma to crush the pretensions of the upstart Changa in the south . Arabs in both regions did more than ---------------------------------------------- Notes 2 . This strategy of the whites is as clear and unmistakable today as it was centuries ago . It is an aspect of what I have referred to as the "Grand Caucasian Consensus ." Yet Blacks appear to be heedless of it .[/b] |
| Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(m): 6:50pm On Mar 10, 2012 |
[b]just advise . They backed the respective rulers with money and materials and men-black men, that is-the Arabs' own private armies of black troops . Thus the Arabs, and later the Europeans, were always able to send into battle still more Blacks against Blacks . Now Changa, grown old and uncertain, was given an entirely new vision'of greatness : He could not only capture the Empire and become as great an emperor as he was a general, but, in doing so, he could create a great brotherhood of Arabs and Africans, a brotherhood in which Arabs would be his faithful servants as citizens . To crown it all, and in testimony thereof, he was given the "unprecedented honor" of the Arab title of Amir, so that, as in the case of the immortal Caesar, his very name, Changamire, would mean "emperor" forever . This flattery was too much for the old man to withstand . The new Changamire concluded his war against the central government with victory and the death of Nyahuma in battle in 1490. It was again the same old story of the wars that followed, the internal chaos during the rise and fall of one section of . the empire after another, and the murder of Changamire or, in short, the fragmentation of the empire until what remained was the much reduced northern region and about 600 miles along the Indian Ocean to an inland depth of between two and three hundred miles. In this much reduced and weakened state, Monomotapa had to meet a still more ruthless enemy when the Portuguese arrived in 1505 . They were aggressive . Their original aim to replace the Arabs first, to break and take over their commercial and political power in all of the now disunited kingdoms was ruthlessly pursued . This, it will be recalled, was implementing the original "Grand Design" that began in Kongo and Angola. Within fifty years they had penetrated all of these kingdoms, securing concessions of land, establishing trading posts and missions throughout the interior as well as along the Zambezi and the Indian Ocean coast and islands . The Arabs did not take all this without a fierce struggle, largely centered around attempting to incite the Blacks against the Portuguese, and thus creating further chaotic situations out of which they hoped somehow to emerge on top . The murder of a Portuguese priest at the court of the Monomotapan Emperor in 1561 was just what the Portuguese needed as a reason for open intervention with eventual Portuguese sovereignty over the entire region . It was an old trick, well known and practiced by the secret agents of great powers : To sacrifice one's own fellow citizens in a foreign land, if by so doing, the larger ends of the state might be served . The Portuguese version that[/b] |
| Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(m): 6:51pm On Mar 10, 2012 |
[b]the priest's death was "engineered by Muhammadans of Mozambique" may or may not have been true . The Portuguese themselves may have done it. This death, then, meant that the honor of Portugal had been challenged . Instead of attacking the Arabs charged with the crime, however, they directed their pretended outrage at the tottering Black Empire with military intervention . In 1575 an ultimatum, disguised as a treaty, required the Emperor to expel all Arabs from the country, grant more land concessions for Portuguese gold mining operations, more trading posts and missions and, finally in 1629 the great objective was reached when the Emperor Mauura acknowledged the King of Portugal as his Overlord and became his vassal . Portuguese Caucasianization of the Blacks had begun early by having all chiefs, kings and emperors replace their African names with Portuguese names . There was, therefore, a long line of Emperors Sebastiaos, Philippes, Domingos, and Affonsos, here as in Kongo and Angola . ; The Portuguese land-grabs all over the region meant that they were not content with political overlordship and commercial supremacy but were physically taking over the absolute ownership of the lands of the people in all areas. When, in 1663, the Emperor Domingos summoned up enough courage to resist the onslaught, he was murdered . This was the year Queen Nzinga died and Portugal now felt unchallenged . Meanwhile, the Portuguese were riding so high and mighty that they had set up their own capitals in the interior at Masapa and in Manyika, centers of general administration and commerce . The Great Zimbabwe capital city of the Empire became a mere shadow of Portuguese power ; useful only in carrying out their orders and, as was the case with the other towns and cities, began to disintegrate toward a state of ruins as the gold wealth of the nation was taken over and depopulation of the country by the slave trade spread . The highly organized African religion, under a priesthood that had been so powerful that it had blocked the spread of Islam for over 200 years, was now swept aside by the aggressively pushed Christian missions in almost every village . --------------------------------------------- Notes 3 . 1 have been referring to name changing throughout the book ; yet I doubt whether Blacks in general fully realize the role this played in loss of the sense of self worth .[/b] |
| Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(m): 6:53pm On Mar 10, 2012 |
[b]In 1693 the seemingly all-powerful Portuguese were amazed by the rapid development of an unexpected phenomenon : the revival of black unity in the southern provinces which were the original center of the Empire, now still under the leadership of a continuing line of Changamires . Other formerly separatist kingdoms united under the Changamire's leadership and opened a full-scale war against the Portuguese, aiming at driving them out of the land . The successful military tactics of Matope and his generals were remembered and followed : careful, unrushed training and organization ; the secret movement of troops in small groups in different directions, all assembling en masse at a stated time and place near the enemy strongholds ; then the swift-moving and generally surprise attacks by different armies on different Portuguese centers at the same time . These operations took two years of desperate fighting because, of course, the Portuguese forces were better armed . According to the oral records of the Blacks, the real reason for the series of victories over the Portuguese was that their black troops only put up token resistance, often not even that, but whole companies deserting to join their black brothers . With their black shield thus removed, the . Portuguese themselves were now exposed to danger . The number killed was frightening . They fled the country to zones of comparative safety . The Changamire armies reconquered most of Monomotapa and a vigorous anti-Portuguese policy was adopted . This not only aimed at their total exclusion from the interior but also at ending their influence in what remained of the old Empire which did not come directly under the Changamire rule . Even trade relations with the whites and other contacts . had to be carried on through Blacks and Mulattoes . The greatly reduced Monomotapa continued to be further destroyed by the endless internal strife among the Blacks, frustrated by the state of decline and helplessness, but, yet unwilling to join forces with the stronger southern kingdoms which were united under the Changamires . Decade after decade the same story of chaos, social disorganization and decline repeated itself . This time, however, neither Portuguese nor Arabs were able to reestablish their former power position throughout the region . For while all this was going on during 17th, 18th and into the 19th centuries, three other threatening storm centers had been rising in South Africa . Two of these, the British and the Dutch, had moved inland from the Cape, establishing "republics," and thereby completing the encirclement of the Blacks of Africa-a most significant development to which I have [/b] |
| Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(m): 6:54pm On Mar 10, 2012 |
[b]referred several times . The third threat, insofar as Monomotapa was concerned, was the rapid rise and expansion of the Zulu Empire under Shaka, an empire which developed from a small village state . We have seen that the great migrations over the continent developed from many different causes, taking many different forms, and went in all directions . And we have seen that whole black communities fled before incoming black conquerors just as they did when whites invaded their land . The great Zulu Emperor-King, Shaka, became more ruthless in his onslaughts to unify the Blacks in an empire that would be greater and stronger than the undisciplined and, therefore, falling Monomotapa . An empire, unlike Monomotapa, that would not only serve as one vast and impregnable fortress against the shrewdly scheming whites swarming up from the Cape, but a fortress from which they could be attacked and destroyed. Shaka and his people, like the other countries we have studied, had never seen a white face before the invasions. But he had learned about them more and more as they approached the borders of his country . To resist he had to unify the Blacks first. Kings and chiefs who could not see the danger in so many little independent states had better prepare to meet their maker . Countless thousands fled en masse before Shaka's mighty armies . A swelling tide at many tribal states under powerful kings and chiefs moved-a wild and merciless rampage that expressed their anger ovet Shaka on all the people in their path . The leading groups that struck the Changamire kingdoms first were the Ndebele, Swazi and the Shangana . They crossed the Limpopo in 1830 and swept on to the Zambezi, spreading terror as they moved northward . This left the few Portuguese centers that remained in the unconquered territory exposed to the new danger . That strip of territory was once again all that was left of the former Empire of Monomotapa . The overall scene was one of British-Dutch pressures on the black empire in South Africa, the pressure of the migrating Blacks from that empire on other Blacks and their destruction of what remained of still another black empire ; while the British and the Dutch, in fierce competition with each other, moved steadily forward to take over the whole southern region . The Portuguese still held on to their strongly fortified posts, especially along the Zambezi, and were able to reach a partition agreement with the British in 1890 . Thus, the Portuguese in gaining Mozambique still held a vast black empire . The Blacks who had fled from Shaka's armies and had entered the land before the British,[/b] |
| Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(m): 6:55pm On Mar 10, 2012 |
[b]general leadership of the Matabele invaders who, therefore, could expect no support from the general population . They were defeated by the British . In 1902, the Blacks of another important kingdom in the old empire, Barwe, rose in rebellion . By then British power was so firmly established that the outcome was predictable . The last black empire had become white-ruled Rhodesia and its southernmost territory was now under the iron rule of the Dutch invaders of South Africa . This marked the close of still another tragic era . The last emperor of the last black-ruled empire on the African continent, Chioko Dambamupute, knew no more how to deal with the engulfing tides of conquest than most of the black leaders who preceded him . Like Kot a Pe, the Bakuba king when the Belgians took over the Congo, none seemed to have had sufficient insights for the white situation, to have just enough sense of race to enable them to realize that the destiny of a whole people was at stake, and not just their personal well-being or even the fortunes of a single state . The black queen of Angola remains the outstanding leader who read the white man straight from A to Z and mapped strategies for the confrontations . When she died, she was still Queen of the Blacks, and her people were still free .[/b] |
| Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(m): 6:59pm On Mar 10, 2012 |
And the bridge was suspended between the two eternities Arched so high up there that the Watchman Could from his tower see all that had gone before And all that was to come. And that is why the anxious, helpless peoples of this crazy world Continue to look up in despair and cry O Watchman, tell us in this endless night Just what the signs of promise are! [b]A View from the Bridge THE SUMMING UP THIS HAS BEEN AN INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY . I HAVE swept across 6,000 years with the story of the African people, touching here and there on prehistoric' beginnings, such as at Wo'se, and selectively spotlighting the "blackout" areas in that history in my broad sweep through the milleniums. My own field studies in just about every region on the continent and my interpretation even of the data of many of the scholars appearing in the bibliography often led to quite different conclusions than theirs . Indeed, these modern Westerners either ignore or contradict some of the best evidence of the ancient writers on Africa . The conflict of viewpoints on the history of the Africa people develops as issues in the work, and I suppose that at the present level of civilization, such a conflict should be expected between those who represent the masters of the globe and those who are in rebellion against them as the writers of the history of the people they oppress . Invariably there is a deeply felt need to present the dominated people as child-like creatures, inferior by an ordinance of nature and, therefore, helpless without the permanent rule and guiding hand of the master race . ------------------------------------------ Notes 1 . "Prehistory" is another improper term we are stuck with. Its very origin reflects the self-glorification of those who had learned to write, the written records becoming sacred and the principal source of truth . There is actually no such thing as "prehistory ." Man was leaving historical records millions of years before he began to write them .[/b] |
| Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(m): 7:01pm On Mar 10, 2012 |
[b]Perhaps the highlights in the hisory of the Blacks-which is all this work claims to be-would be even more clearly understood if I had written backward, beginning with the present . For one thing, less documentation would be required, for by focusing on predominantly black South Africa, Zimbabwe anc the presentday Sudan, the whole world could see, almost at a glance, exactly what happened to Black Egypt many centuries ago . The s:ript of the play, "Whites against Blacks," is the same . The eternal drive glorifying "white blood" is the same, finding direct expression in ill Caucasian controlled social and economic systems: In South Africa the Dutch offsprings by black women are classified "Coloureds" and ranked as a separate ethnic group below the Dutch in social and economic status, but far above the Africans . In Egypt the "Coloureds' gradually became the majority as more and more whites came in aid more and more Blacks moved southward . The name "Egyptian" was taken over by the whites and their northern "Coloureds" as applyng to themselves alone . The Blacks who were the original Egyptians were no longer called Egyptians, just as the Blacks in Africa today are no bnger called South Africans there, only the whites are South Africans . Both in Egypt and South Africa the scheme was to make the Mulattoes a separate ethnic group, superior tt the Blacks because of Caucasian blood, thus creating mutual hatred, that would make unity difficult if not impossible . By giving all Mukttoes privileges and opportunities denied to Blacks, the scheme wor':ed not only in South Africa and ancient Egypt, but it was successful throughout the world and still operates in the closing years of the 20th century. The white man has every reason to proudly view his handiwork in managing people and pronounce it good . In the Sudan thewhite Arabs were so successful that their "Coloureds" there consider tlemselves Arabs, not Africans, and look down contemptuously on the Blacks in the Southern Sudan exactly the same as the Egyptian Cobureds regarded this same once all- Black region (Ethiopia) centuries ,go . The picture in the Northern Sudan today, then, is exactly the sane as the picture was in Northern Ethiopia (Egypt) after it became predominantly Afro-Asian and Afro- European; and the picture in the Southern Sudan today is the same all- Black picture Southern Ethiopia (the Sudan itself) presented over two thousand years ago . And just as their ancient forefathers battled then against the Egyptian Coloureds, the Blacks in the Southern Sudan at the very hour these lines were being vritten were still arrayed in battle[/b] |
| Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(m): 7:02pm On Mar 10, 2012 |
[b]against the Arabs, now predominantly "Coloured"-and for the same ancient reasons . Does anyone wonder why this all-important white-created color factor is skipped over by white historians? If they were scientific in their approach and objective in their methods, they would deal with the Mulatto role in black history, even though it was a major source of white power and the white man's most effective agent in helping to destroy black civilizations everywhere they were found . White historians would really grown in stature if they themselves wrote the story-wrote it as it was. This will never happen, of course . For they would be recording how the increasing number of "Coloureds" after each white invasion made it easy to credit them with all the great advances the Blacks themselves had made . They, the white writers, would be telling how these half-Blacks came to be classified as "Caucasoids" and how helpful this was in obliterating Black Egypt from the pages of history . By this master stroke, through their own sexual creations, they were able to erase the Blacks as the first builders of a great civilization and deliberately rob them of that honor . The long-drawn out process by which all this was accomplished has been detailed in this work . It had to be dealt with along with other factors and forces, because the inferior status of black people throughout the world today tends to confirm the white man's doctrine that they are inferior in fact . His whole system, universally applied, was designed to make them inferior and keep them so . Who, then, in the 20th century, would believe that these same Blacks were of the race that had built great cities, developed writing, the arts and sciences when the whites of Europe were still roaming tribes of barbarian warriors? This being a well-known (though not publicized) fact of history, how, then, explain the descent of the Blacks from the heights reached by their forefathers to the depths in which they find themselves today? This was the central question in all of our research . Most of the important answers are given in preceding chapters . Future research, especially field research, will reveal an even more amazing story . A study of the general history of mankind reveals no people who have suffered so much in every area of life and survived . One thinks immediately of the Jews and the systematic oppression which they have encountered in every land . But they were not enslaved-not since the days when whites were generally enslaved everywhere and slavery had nothing to do with race . We have seen that[/b] |
| Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(m): 7:03pm On Mar 10, 2012 |
[b]white slavery ended, after the murderous revolt of white slaves in the 13th century, white slavery ended and thereafter the concentration was on Blacks, alone . The Jews, being white, and tenaciously clinging to their own heritage, were able to find escape routes not open to Blacks anywhere: business, finance and science . They were free to study, and study they did, surpassing almost all other peoples in the resulting intellectual supremacy . Learning became a second religion . They had seen that two of the certain ways to overcome their oppressors were the mastery of wealth and intellectual excellence . They, therefore, became moneylenders to emperors, kings and popes . Meanwhile, the Blacks were still being hunted down and enslaved and, when free, they were kept as close to the status of slaves as such efforts could achieve . Yet today we are beginning, just beginning, to learn about the heights from which they were , driven. One of the highly important things this study revealed was how the very color of black came to mean "slave," and, therefore equated with bad luck, inferiority and shame . We have dared to go beyond the limits and the guidelines set for us by the czars of history and geography to discover that Ancient Ethiopia covered North Africa to the Mediterranean Sea, that Egypt was the northeastern division of that empire, and that even as late as 3100 B .C . when white Asians held Lower Egypt, Ethiopians still held most of their homeland in Upper Egypt . In short, almost all of Egypt was as black as late as 3100 B .C . I say "as late as 3100 B .C ." to emphasize the fact again that all this is well known to white historians concerned with Africa . They know because when the earliest Greek and Roman writers studied in the land, Egypt was still Black Egypt, they knew what the history was and they left the records . Even when Herodotus arrived, black civilization was known to be so ancient that its beginning was lost in a distant past beyond memory . But when he arrived he found a very mixed Egyptian population of whites, browns, yellows and blacks ; the first three groups now drawing a line between themselves as Egyptians while giving to the Blacks the lowest class status along with their original name of Ethiopians (original as Greek term) . There may have been some justice in this since when Herodotus was in Egypt, the masses of non-integrating Blacks had themselves rejected both Egypt and the Egyptian names as the Asians and Afro-Asians became the majority, and they had concentrated below a new borderline as Ethiopians in an Ethiopian empire that no longer included Egypt .[/b] |
| Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(m): 7:04pm On Mar 10, 2012 |
[b]The most important fact here, is that the Greeks were the first Europeans to know that the most advanced civilization of the ancient world was in Africa, the first Europeans to study and be directly influenced by it, and to proclaim it to the world boldly and without reservations . Indeed, it is from Greek history, including their myths and legends, that we get some of the best insights into the early history of the Blacks . They drew upon the Land of the Blacks for architectural designs, city planning, sculpture, science and even religion . These they reshaped and made Greek . The Greeks were the best traveling students in the world . In their relations with Africa, they exemplified, as no other people had, the eclectic process of civilization and progress-the readiness to borrow from other peoples the best in their culture, to be reshaped or made over to suit one's own ideals and needs . Having lost most of our own written records through destruction, endless displacement, and the gradual loss of African scribes, the black world owes the debt of everlasting thanks to those early Greek and Roman writers, but mostly Greek, who had included much of our ancient history with their own and passed it down through the centuries . We salute them! The early disruption of African civilization, as we have seen, was followed by a long series of absolute blockades to progress . These included the combined forces of nature : Ever expanding deserts, scarity of water, hostile climate and the ravages of disease arising largely from conditions of famine . And yet while the primary causes of disaster had, from the earliest times, set in motion the dispersions of peoples searching for survival sites, through it all kingdoms and empires were built, destroyed, and built again . These were the slow-moving voluntary migrations from which so many of the small and large societies developed with different languages and dialects . The invaders raiding into the continent from Asia and Europe formed the second centuries-long battlefronts against which the Blacks had to fight for survival . These wars spanned several thousand years, and in an earlier chapter I "wondered out loud," and still wonder, how any people, weakened by perpetual hunger and disease, could possibly carry on wars of resistance to the white invaders for over 5,000 years . This they did, and this their descendants must know and remember with pride : that black resistance to white domination covered over 5,000 years . When the enslavers pressed in upon them from the north, the east, the west and from the south, they continued the fight ; the[/b] |
| Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(m): 7:04pm On Mar 10, 2012 |
[b]resistance to slavery continued while the continent was being depopulated by it with the active participation of many black chiefs and kings seeking wealth and the white man's promise of security from all of their black fores . The third battle lines for survival were, therefore, internal, and points up one of the main contributions they made towards their domination by other peoples . As time went on they became so preoccupied with warring against each other that they seemed to regard the whites as friends by comparison . This seeming contradiction is baffling . For while there is nothing new about a people fighting among themselves, they generally stop if outsiders attack, forget their differences and join united ranks against the common foes . Caucasians will wage frightful wars against other Caucasians, but will quickly unite, as though by instinct, against non-whites, not only in wars but in international policies . They have developed a kind of built-in solidarity in their relations with non- Caucasian peoples . This fact, as much as anything else, helps to explain their position as masters of the world . On the other hand, and in glaring contrast, disunity and noncooperation have been characteristic of black societies . And this fact, more than anything else, helps in the understanding not only why the Blacks eventually lost in their battles against the whites, but also why even today they are still unable to deal with the white world . This situation of antagonism, self-hatred and attending disunity in the race is a matter of such grave concern that I have returned to it again and again throughout these discussions . The only reason for dealing with the role played by the Mulattoes in black history, for example, was to show how baffling and complex the problem is . For they were used not only to help disguise the most significant achievements of Blacks, but they were also effectively used to further enhance and perpetuate the already existing conflicts and divisions among them . Now they had just as much right to be classified as white as they did to be classified as black . But they found it expedient to operate in both worlds, exploiting the Blacks while serving the interests of the whites . There could never be any clear-cut judgment or defense against internal subversion along anv color line, because in almost every black society it was possible to find any Mulattoes who were as loyal to the race as anyone could be, and, as well, pure Blacks who might be paid agents of the Arabs or Europeans . The state of Black Africa, then, was a state of perpetual fears, fears of being hunted down and attacked[/b] |
| Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(m): 7:05pm On Mar 10, 2012 |
[b]from without, fears of betrayals by unknown followers from within, fears of attacks by other migrating Blacks who were themselves fleeing from danger, fears of hunger, ever-mounting disease and of the alarming number of deaths . These fears of all kinds were a disease-.all producing an alarming source of mutual suspicions and distrust . Centuries of this produced the amazing outcome : Blacks became their own worst enemies and, therefore, increasingly a helpless people . The migrations were the moving phenomena in the tragedy . For while we have seen that many of them ended with the rebirth of new states from one end of the continent to the other, states that stood until Arabs and Europeans delivered the final deathblows, millions of other Blacks were unable to achieve this temporary glory . These were the Africans whose daily task was sheer survival-nothing less, nothing more. Every one of their communities had four to six months of each year which everyone knew as "Starving Times"-the period when children ate dirt and the bark from trees ; when it was a great occasion if food enough could be found for two or three meals a week ; when to find a water hole or a little stream that had not completely dried up was even more joyful than finding something to eat, and a time, when some mothers would steal away into the bush with their little skeleton-like children with swollen bellies to die quietly in the shade-this was "Starving Times ." During this awful period of hell on earth even the better-off cattle-raising groups outside of the tsetse fly regions suffered great losses in herds as they wandered far and wide in the frantic search of unparched grassland and water . In none of this are we dealing with the merely unusual misfortunes which are occasionally visited upon almost every people . No . We are dealing here with the unusual, something quite different in the general experience of mankind, for we are reviewing here a permanent situation which, in combination with the forces outlined in foregoing pages, destroyed the civilization of an entire race, checked progress, and forced countless thousands into barbarism . These were the people who sought freedom and security in the forests, swamps and caves . Some, unable to advance under these conditions, nevertheless battled against sinking to the level of savages ; some rebuilt their states even in the vast forests and still others, famine-crazed, became savages or semi-barbarians . Many of the groups that descended to this lowest state of existence were isolated in areas where "Starving Times" was not a period of months but of years .[/b] |
| Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(m): 7:06pm On Mar 10, 2012 |
[b]The worst outcome from the forced migrations all over Africa in the long search for places of refuge and freedom were the endless splintering off of societies into countless little isolated states . Overall, it is difficult to see how it could have been otherwise . They had to split up . Unity, in terms of keeping a very large group together, was impossible . Seldom could 10,000 people move en masse, not to mention 100,000 . And 100,000 would be a small number if it was a great state that was being disorganized and destroyed . If they were being attacked by invaders, not only expediency but life itself dictated that they split up into small groups, each under an elected leader . In this way both the chances of escape from the enemy and of finding food and water somewhere were better than would be the case if they moved in one vast body . Some of these separated groups did indeed meet again by chance before they had become total strangers to each other. These often settled in the same general region and near enough to each other to maintain the same language . Others met again, generations after the original segmentations, as strangers speaking in different tongues and with different patterns of culture- "strangers," yet all descendants from the same society . Worse still, the Blacks have been so busy being "different" through all these years that they have been unable to see that underlying all of their cultural varieties is the compelling evidence that they are all members of the same race and have the same common origin . The most remarkable outcome of the migrations, with their fragmentations, disunities and interminable turmoil and crises is that they held on, tenaciously, to the same democratic and political systems and the same social institutions maintained from one end of Africa to the other, just as though they were still members of one and the same vast African society . This fact was immediately reflected in the institutions and political structure of every new state that emerged during all those centuries of migrations . Just as the Council told Ethiopian kings what they could and could not do, the same remained true throughout the continent where black rule prevailed according to tradition . This was why, 3,000 years later and 3,000 miles farther south, a Shaka could complain bitterly because the Zulu Council of "yes men" failed to check him in his excesses . Finding himself an absolute autocrat, he was surprised to find that he had been allowed to get away with it .[/b] |
| Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(m): 7:07pm On Mar 10, 2012 |
[b]A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE What, then, is "the view from the bridge"? The outlook is grim . For the black people of the world there is no bright tomorrow . The Blacks may continue to live in their dream world of singing, dancing, marching, praying and hoping, because of the deluding signs of what looks like victories-still trusting in the ultimate justice of the white man ; but a thousand years hence their descendants will be substantially where the race was a thousand years before . For the white people, still masters of the world, do not have to yield . They have never changed their real attitude toward black people during all the passing centuries, and there is absolutely nothing upon which to base the belief that they will change in the centuries to come . Concessions on some demands, yes . Expediency dictates this . Noting that the black masses accept as leaders any and all "Negroes" who hold important positions, the whites, who control these positions directly or indirectly, actually determine who the leaders of Blacks shall be as independent black organizations emerge . The dangling attractions of government and foundation grants are there to quiet the outspoken but money-hungry "leaders ." Indeed, some of these leaders were quick in discovering that the most certin route to a handsome grant or "loan" is pretended outrage and shouting "militancy ." The whites know this all too well . They are quite willing to pour millions of dollars into all kinds of black community projects precisely because they know that these phony leaders will do nothing that will really improve the conditions under which the black masses live . Blacks are still hopelessly naive if they do not yet understand that the whites never did, and do not now, intend to include Blacks in the doctrine of human equality, equal justice or anything else that means real equality . The white determination to keep Blacks in an inferior position is so deep that they will battle against the enactment of civil rights laws even when they know there will be no real enforcement . The opposition is to the very idea of equality . Those Negroes who are so frantically fighting to escape from the African race by way of "integration" and amalgamation will continue to meet everlasting and universal opposition from the whites . The Negro drive to be with whites in every situation is equalled by the white determination to prevent it . Yet the whites must truly feel a deep sense of pride in seeing this Negro leadership so clearly validating their own belief in white superiority . Their pretended "Quality Education" objec-[/b] |
| Re: The Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams by Tochi3(m): 7:09pm On Mar 10, 2012 |
[b]tive actually collapses under the wheels of buses for "racial balance ." They are proclaiming to all the world that, regardless of general desegregation, in any all-black or predominantly black population, the Blacks themselves are utterly incapable of achieving or maintaining high standards of excellence in education or, indeed, anything else . Here we have, Within the race, the intolerable situation of an anti-black group proclaiming the race's inherent inferiority more effectively than the whites ever could, precisely because this group is regarded as "black ." Furthermore, and even of greater importance, the amalgamationist Negroes generally hold most of the administrative and key teaching posts in the educational system . Through sheer indifference, therefore, they can block the development of the quality education in black schools while, at the same time, sending their own children to white private schools . Their remaining interest in the black schools is the money derived from their supervisory and teaching positions . Meanwhile, black students in the so-called integrated schools and colleges throughout the United States continue to tell the world that they are as segregated within as they were without. Far from being accepted, daily insults of various kinds occur inside the classrooms, in the halls, and on the outside . When fights break out, as they inevitably do, and the police are called in, -they generally arrest the black students, not the white students, no matter who started the trouble . A press report, September 15, 1972, simply read : "During. the recess hour a black male student was called an offensive name by two white boys and pushed against the wall . A general fight broke out between black and white students . Police were called . Thirteen black students were arrested and jailed ." Now, of course, all this is public information, and is news to no one . But some of the salient facts that seem to stand out clearly are as follows : 1 . White America is definitely and unalterably opposed to the integration and amalgamation of the two races . 2 , Black America, the masses, are equally opposed to the integration and amalgamation of the races . 3 . The drive for more and more amalgamation is, and always has been spearheaded by those "coloureds" who maintain a separatist society within the black race, and who are not, and never have been, identified with the black masses . 4. Since everybody knows that there are millions of light-skinned members of the race, some as white as any Caucasian, who are as[/b] |
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Saraki: The Man Who Dug His Own Grave / Amaechi Reveals The Amount Of Money Jonathan Left In Government Coffers / Anambra Election: Police Officers Protest Over Non-Payment Of Feeding Allowance
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