Social Change: Part II- So Rich, yet so Poor

By Olivia A.P Abraham

Amazing aint it, how can a rich person be  poor. How did Africa find itself in such a predicament. How can we now be called underdeveloped when we are the source for all types of raw materials needed to develop any thing on earth. And so they call us Third world, becasue we are backward and uncivilised, we are poor and it is all our fault. How dare they have the courage to not worship us instead they bring us a Religion, and dare to teach us Politics and Economics and one sided Development theories, am upset really.

Our source of poverty is greed and deception. When our forefathers recieved the Whiteman, they were intriguged by the shiny beads, and other finished products that were not selleable in Europe amd were of no spefic value. Because of greed the chiefs easily made arrangements with the whitemen to give them portions of land, give them human beings as slaves, gave them rights that superceeded the natives, in the name of friendship and fair trade, but the whiteman had other intentions. As capitalists this was an opportunity to sell cheap products and get maximum profit and did not invest any knowledge or leave any equipment that would empower the natives.
The other deception was God, they used the idea of spreading the good news about salvation and converted our fore fathers into christianity which teaches submission. And before our forefathers knew anything they became servants of the whiteman and started paying him taxes to live on their land. Some people may think that our forefathers were stupid, but I beg to differ, they were greedy, they thought by aligning themselves to the whitemen who had guns and thought they would gain protection from their local enemies.

It is not only our forefathers but our Presidents of today  still out of greed make decisions that are not good for the people. An example of greed is explained by Sardanis in the Book A Venture into Africa....most african leaders who accept advice from multilateral institutions and donor countries(Former President of Zambia, Chiluba) and enthusiastically do so win favour from them (Donors) who in turn do not closely scrutinise too closely the rest of thier actions, especially self enrichment.

"First, the colonizers extracted gold, silver, furs, silks, and spices, then flax, hemp, timber, molasses, sugar, rum, rubber, tobacco, calico, cocoa, coffee, cotton, copper, coal, palm oil, tin, iron, ivory, ebony, and later on, oil, zinc, manganese, mercury, platinum, cobalt, bauxite, aluminum, and uranium. Not to be overlooked is that most hellish of all expropriations: the abduction of millions of human beings into slave labor."(Micheal Parent-Against the Empire)

Due to colonization we are now poor, we have lost our rights to our own property, we worship foreign Gods, hide under glodalization as a way of conforming to the wolrds expectations, we still continue to be greedy and manipulate each other under ther guise of leadership. So maybe we do deserve to be called backward because we are consistently repeating the same mistake, falling for the deception....and we are so gone that even if we chose not to trade with them they have now found synthetic alternatives to our resources.

Another thing Africans or Zambians need to do is to stop thinking that they are bad people with bad cultures. Yes I agree that some traditions should be cast away such as early marriages, sexual cleansing and genital mutitlation, but we have good manners and a clean social history. White people have exihbited the most gruesome cruelity known to man and their worst trait is exploitation of other human beings.

"From the fifteenth to nineteenth centuries Europe was "ahead" in a variety of things, such as the number of hangings, murders, and other violent crimes; instances of venereal disease, smallpox, typhoid, tuberculosis, plagues, and other bodily afflictions; social inequality and poverty (both urban and rural); mistreatment of women and children; and frequency of famines, slavery, prostitution, piracy, religious massacres, and inquisitional torture. Those who claim the West has been the most advanced civilization should keep such "achievements" in mind."(Micheal Parent-Against the Empire)

The solution is a revolution....as I mentioned in part one that we need people power, people will, we need to turn left, look the other way and find local solutions, we need to build our Africa or Zambia, instead of in-fighting and conducting corruption. Lets have a togetherness never seen before, let our leaders seat down and find better terms for our trade with the west, I know sanctions may come but how has Cuba managed. Personal sacrifice, thats all we need.
To be continued