Africa in Black & White

The above photo clearly shows the division of equity still prevalent in South Africa.
We can assume whites live on the left, and blacks live in the ghetto on the right.

How is this inequality still so prevalent today in Africa? Why does nothing ever improve for black Africans? Is it all the fault of whites?

Arguing, as a white man

Once again, my arguing on Reddit has produced an interesting discussion, This time on the disparity between White and Black life in Africa (in as much as I can claim to know it).

It started with the picture above, showing a clear division between the ghetto of South Africa on the right, and the rich homes on the left that we can safely assume to be owned by whites. I do not deny it.

The Reddit argument was long, and I only know as much as I know, but I am every day trying to understand more and arguing helps me get better educated by those that know.

As a white man, and someone who does not live in Africa, one wonders what gives me the right to have an opinion. Apart from the fact that my Dad was born there, some of my family live there, and many of them died there, even if this was not true, I would still have a right to an opinion by virtue of being held responsible.

By nature of my white skin colour and familial association to Zimbabwe and South Africa, I feel very much responsible for the inequity, enslavement, abuse, and failure of black Africa to get ahead. It is a message we have all heard as white skinned people since birth. We constantly are told how we are responsible for slavery and the oppression of blacks.

Whites are silent, but about the wrong things

There is surely a certain duty that we talk about it. And yet, what really happens is that we never talk about it, in fact, we fear talking about it. White people remain silent, obediently accepting it is all their fault, but without argument. Why?

The white-guilt is strong, it is horrible to carry. We have been hearing how it is our fault ever since we were young and at the dinner table heard the immortal words, "think of the poor, starving, Ethiopians!" What a guilt-trip it has been to be white. To be six years old and carrying the weight of all African deaths on your small shoulders. That is the root of our white-guilt, right there.

It does not ever leave you, and you begin to try to make amends, of course you do, because you care about humanity. But there is no way to fix it. So you donate money, and apologise at every opportunity to any black person who demands it, and even if they don't. "It is the fault of our white privilege", we say, and then we try to do anything to make it better. Since we have thrown so much at fixing it over many decades, why has it not got any better?

The World Bank is a criminal enterprise

Sadly there is huge amounts of money to be made from this white-guilt trip. Easy money too, since no one dares ask questions. Our cultural media has made a point of targeting our white-guilt, as have hundreds of charities, and The World Bank co-ordinates the entire African effort. We are well trained to think Africa is our fault because we are white, and we donate accordingly without ever asking awkward questions. But is it all true?

I want to solve the poverty in Africa, we all want to solve it. I want to help blacks get ahead in life, if that is what is really the problem here. But Trillions upon trillions has been spent trying to solve it, and yet nothing has been solved at all. This makes no sense. It has been 80 years of charity giving, refugee invitation, and "white-saviours to the rescue". When is it all going to be fixed? Give me a certain date! You can't. Does that make any kind of sense to you? In fact, Africa looks a lot worse off than when we started donating!

How exactly am I personally to blame for this again?

If I am to take the blame for it, then I need to know why I am to blame for it.

Why has trillions of dollars thrown at Africa not worked? Where has it all gone? Why has 80 years of throwing money at impoverished black people, been an abject failure? Why is there a ghetto in the top right of the picture above? What the fuck has The World Bank been doing for 80 years?

Maybe, just maybe, it is time we looked in other places for the problem, and a solution, and maybe, just maybe, it will be uncomfortable to do that. I think it will.

When racially accused of being to blame, ask inconvenient questions

The discussion below is my response to someone who was accusing me of being white, privileged, and the cause of all black Africa's problems. I do not believe this to be true, and I have spent 40 years wondering about it almost daily so it is not my first discussion. I used to think it was all the fault of whites. But the more that I learnt, the less I was able to accept this accusation to be true at face value.

It seems like the most dangerous and offensive statement to utter, but... I now believe the REAL issue in Africa, and in America too for that matter, is that blacks are not letting other black lives improve.

Below is my post. If you (the reader) have updated information, more accurate truth, cited proof of it, and can educate me as to how I am very wrong about what I have written below, then please let me know. I would love to be wrong on this. If I thought for one minute that I could help solve any of the problems that blacks face, then I would do it. But I do not believe the solution lies with whites at all. Not even one bit, and here is why . . .

The Reddit post . . .

(I have tidied the below post for clarity and to make it more suitable for a blog. It is in response to someone, and their quoted questions are accentuated below, starting with my reply...)

". . . you never replied to my last comment. I want to discuss some of this, because I think you are wrong. This is an opportunity for you to educate me on how I am wrong, or maybe both of us learn something, so let us talk about your questions since you ignored me the last time…

"white people in africa hold up about 72 PERCENT of the land that can be used for farming"

Let's consider Zimbabwe, they took the land off white farmers there, Mugabe made it a law that white farmers either leave the country or give some of the land to "selected" blacks. This happened. The end result? The blacks did nothing with the land. So Mugabe next said that white farmers had to give money to the blacks. The blacks did not take advantage of the opportunity, they did not try to learn farming, they did not try to work their way to make use of the land, many of them just sat in their new homes on the land and complained. They then (in the same way Mugabe took millions from The World Bank), demanded more free handouts for nothing. They still blamed the white farmers despite all this gifting. This is why it failed, and why Zimbabwe is still a disaster. If black people are given land and money, and the country leaders are too, then why did it fail in Zimbabwe? Who was responsible? The Whites?

How do you see this same land reparation working out better in South Africa exactly? Do please explain.

"how your racist ass would feel if someone marched into your nation, took almost ~75% of your greenland, sold it off to companies that do nothing for your nation, pushed you into the ghetto, and profited off of your young to make more money for themselves, while nothing goes into your community."

I assume you are not talking about what my family and many other whites experienced in Zimbabwe, but again, I think you are wrong about this, but you are wrong about this in 3 different ways.

When white man entered Africa, what was happening in Africa at the time? I can tell you what, and history bears this out, Egypt and Nubian tribes had been pushing down through Africa for years, stealing land off the indigenous tribes and killing the Bushmen who lived there and possessed nothing other than hunting skills. They were taking them as slaves, claiming the land, and then there was a lot of tribal war and fighting for power too. When Europeans arrived in South Africa & Zimbabwe, the Zulu were in the midst of killing the last of the Sans and pushing them south, through into South Africa. This ended when Europeans arrived. They still hate on each other to this day, the Zulu and the tribes there, how do I know this? I traveled there a few years ago and they are happy to tell you how much they hate the Zulu and vice versa. So, you are wrong about "Uptopian" Africa before whites showed up. It was violent and bloody, and slavery was rife. Today in EVERY SINGLE black country there is corruption, civil war, tribal war, and poverty. Why? You cannot blame whites if black Africans have the opportunity to change all that, but never do. Why does change and improvement NEVER happen in Africa? It is not the whites stopping it.

When whites showed up in Africa 400 years ago, they brought technology and education, and, unfortunately for Africa, God. But it was already a place of problems, war, tribes abusing each other and most important, slavery was already going on, brought in by Egyptians and Muslims for hundreds of years before. Africa had been doing far better as a country of hunter-gatherer Bushmen, but then the black Nubian tribes, Egyptian slave trading, Muslim slavers and the Zulu and other aggressive tribes started killing the Bushmen and claiming the land for themselves. When whites showed up, they brought new ways and even peace, and over time many black people actually thrived, got jobs, had homes and started to embrace those new ways themselves, but this was not always accepted by the black community, or the white community either for that matter. I do not say there was no white racism, it was and is rife, but it is not the real root of the problem. You may not like to admit it, but you can read Dambisa Moyo's book, Dead Aid, and you will see that she agrees. For instance, financially speaking, blacks on average were better off in S Africa during Apartheid than they have been since SA was handed back to black leadership. This is a fact. You want to blame whites, because you have ignored the history of what black Africa was already like. And you also choose to ignore the other reasons that black communities struggle to change - themselves. Whites brought segregation and racial abuse, that is very true, but you ignore the fact they also brought opportunity and tech advancement. So you are half right, but also very wrong for ignoring the advantages. You cannot paint whites as evil, without also looking at the evil in blacks when whites are not around. Africa was, and is still, a very cruel continent. Just look at child-soldiering, or any number of wars in black-run countries, and show me the white man involved in any of that! Show me one black-ruled country in Africa that is doing well. One? So, maybe it is time to stop blaming whites and look elsewhere to find out what the real problem is that is creating the issue we see in the image above.

And finally, the money does not reach the communities because of who it passes through to get there (blacks). And the people in the companies that are abusing the blacks are most always corrupt black managers and not corrupt whites. This is also being proven by history, and can be seen in every black government-run country in Africa the same. For our part, as eternally guilt-ridden whites brought up to think everything black's experience is our fault, we have our own issues to deal with in seeing our complicity for giving handouts endlessly, while failing to achieve a solution. For example, The World Bank has been throwing Charity money at every country in Africa since 1940. Trillions upon trillions of dollars have been spent trying to improve life in Africa, and where has it gone? I can tell you - it has gone to corrupt black African governments, and corrupt black community leaders. THAT IS WHY IT NEVER GETS TO THE PEOPLE. Very little of that has gone to white people, all of it has gone to blacks who did not then let it reach their community. So we need to start to put the blame for that where it rightly belongs, and to stop blaming white people for all black peoples problems.

If I am wrong on any of this, and you can prove it, please be my guest…

"PLEASE explain to me how I’m lying."

Maybe you are not lying, but if you are not lying, then you are either being blind or ignorant.

The biggest problem facing blacks today is not whites, it is the blacks that will not allow other blacks to improve their lives. The problem today, certainly appears to be down to corrupt blacks and officials in government, then the next layer is corrupt blacks in the black community. Where is all that World Bank money going? ffs.

If blacks take handouts, are given farms, are given money, given land for free, and offered education too, and if they then do nothing with it, you cannot keep coming back to white people and telling them it is all their fault!

Whites have been trained to assume guilt since a very young age, our cultural message for 40 years has been designed to shame us into parting with money and not asking inconvenient questions about where it then goes. If we need to de-fund anything, we need to Defund The World Bank. 500,000 related jobs that are wasting money and not fixing Africa for 80 years, is a god-damn travesty!

But you cannot blame the whites alone for the problems we see in the picture above. We need to look at better solutions than just robbing the white people who have been born, grown up, worked, lived, and in many cases died in Africa. They are African too, by the way, and Zimbabwe already proved that this method does not work. Julius Molema (S African politician calling to "kill all whites") is a racist, militant, crook who is looking out for no one but himself and epitomises the very problem we have just discussed. Black men like him are the real problem lying in the way of change, and not the whites."

Links and citations

FORIEGN AID, THE WORLD BANK & THE LONG-TERM DAMAGE IT HAS DONE IN AFRICA:

World-famous black economist Dambisa Moyo explaining the issue with Aid handouts including a suggestion to help fix it -
https://ssir.org/books/reviews/entry/dead_aid_dambisa_moyo

From The World Bank, agreeing with the larger scope of the implication -
https://blogs.worldbank.org/africacan/a-partial-defense-of-dambisa-moyo-s-dead-aid

Angelle Kwemo CEO & Author of "Believe in Africa", on the need to reduce "Aid Dependency" hand-out culture in Africa -
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/africa-in-focus/2017/04/20/making-africa-great-again-reducing-aid-dependency/

Africans on the failure of Aid, known about as far back as 2005
https://www.cato.org/publications/economic-development-bulletin/african-perspectives-aid-foreign-assistance-will-not-pull-africa-out-poverty

The damage being caused by long-term Aid in Sub-Saharan Africa & how it leads to corruption and dependance -
https://www.lejournalinternational.fr/Foreign-aid-is-hurting-not-helping-Sub-Saharan-Africa_a2085.html

PRE-COLONIAL AFRICA:

Plenty of information on pre-colonial African tribal war, global trade, slavery, et al from here -
https://www.blackhistorymonth.org.uk/section/pre-colonial-history/

Nubians indigenous to North Sudan and Egypt (7000 BC) -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nubians

Pre-colonial "domestication" of Zimbabwe through tribal wars and political control of gold and ivory trade (pre-colonial) -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Zimbabwe

Zulu warrior tribes forced their way down the East coast and into southern africa displacing indigenous tribes & bushmen as they went -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zulu_people

AFRICAN SLAVERY AND PRE-COLONIAL SLAVE HISTORY -

Martin Henry, University Professor, Jamaica on Africa's complicity in Slavery -
http://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/focus/20151025/africas-role-slavery

The 1833 abolition of slave trade across all white countries (to-date very few non-white countries have addressed it) -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_Abolition_Act_1833

Ivory Coast-born director Roger Gnoan M'Bala's film "Adanggaman", lifting the lid on African involvement in slave trade
https://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/11/movies/film-review-africans-making-slaves-of-africans.html

Ancient Egyptian slavery in Africa (1,550 BC) -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_ancient_Egypt

The Muslim slave trade in Pre-colonial Africa (7th to 15th Century) -
https://www.blackhistorymonth.org.uk/article/section/history-of-slavery/africa-before-transatlantic-enslavement/

Slavery in Sudan past and present (Muslim Slave Trade and still going on today, all non-white run)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Sudan

MODERN DAY CONCERNS IN NON-WHITE AFRICA

(pick a country and do a search, takes five seconds to reveal just how bad it is compared to first-world equivalent here are just a few but pretty much every African country is struggling with it)

The modern ongoing displacement and land theft from Sans bushmen by non-white governments in southern Africa
https://www.survivalinternational.org/tribes/bushmen

more than 140,000 people adbucted into slavery in Sudan between 1986 and 2002
https://humanrightshouse.org/articles/sudan-and-modern-slavery

Child soldiers exploited in Africa, Sudan, Central Africa, Nigeria and other countries. (all non-white)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_soldiers_in_Africa

Children working in Congo mines for the smartphone industry of the First-world -
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-01/tech-companies-rely-child-labour-abuse-to-mine-coltan-in-congo/11855258

Gold miners exploited in Zimbabwe, Malawi, Mozambique and S AFrica -
https://www.equaltimes.org/south-africa-s-gold-slaves#.XwpxqygzYdU

Slavery today in Congo, Ghana, Senegal -
https://www.freetheslaves.net/our-model-for-freedom/slavery-today/

ZIMBABWE LAND REFORM & WHITE FARMERS:

"In the ten-year period from 1980 to 1990 approximately two thirds of the white population left Zimbabwe."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_people_in_Zimbabwe

"Twenty years after independence, there were 21,000 commercial farmers in the country of whom 4,000 were white and 17,000 were black."
https://sarpn.org/documents/d0000015/index.php

"In 1999 the government initiated a "fast track land reform" programme. The means used to implement the programme were ad-hoc and involved forcible seizure in many cases."
https://www.hrw.org/reports/2002/zimbabwe/ZimLand0302-02.htm#P112_20168

"By mid-2006 only 500 of the original 5,000 white farms were still fully operational…The land confiscated from white owners has been redistributed to black peasant farmers and smallholders, acquired by commercial land companies, or persons connected to the regime."
https://web.archive.org/web/20070615023739/http://www.zwnews.com/3-Main%20Body.pdf

"While the expropriated white farmers themselves have generally moved on to other things, this has not been the case for some of their employees. Former white farm workers from the chargehand/foreman bracket have found themselves in much reduced circumstances" . . . "By June 2008, it was reported that only 280 white farmers remained and all of their farms were invaded."
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/zimbabwe/2196135/Zimbabwes-last-white-farmer-forced-to-quit.html

"Land reform has had a serious negative effect on the Zimbabwe's economy and heavily contributed to its collapse."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_reform_in_Zimbabwe

"The [land reform] programme also left another 200,000 farmworkers displaced and homeless, with just under 5% receiving compensation in the form of land expropriated from their ousted employers."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_reform_in_Zimbabwe

After finally admitting Mugabe's land reforms ruined Zimbabwe - "After close to two decades, Zimbabwe has started the process of returning back land to farmers whose farms were controversially taken over by the government of the late Robert Mugabe."
https://www.pulselive.co.ke/bi/politics/zimbabwe-now-moves-to-return-back-land-taken-over-by-mugabe-to-white-farmers/z3mgn06

"In 1975 The Land Tenure Act had reserved 30% of agricultural land for White ownership" (Not 70% as later claimed, though that 30% may well have been largely made up of some of the most fertile Arable land.)
https://web.archive.org/web/20040501103309/http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/africa/land/gp_zimbabwe.html

ZIMBABWES ECONOMY UNDER MUGABE & MNANGAGWE PRESIDENTS (1980 to present) -

"after coming second to Morgan Tsvangirai, Mr Mugabe displayed more characteristic defiance, swearing that "only God" could remove him from office. And just to be sure, violence was unleashed to preserve his grip on power."
https://bulawayo24.com/index-id-opinion-sc-columnist-byo-122114.html

Charles Ray - US Ambassador to Zimbabwe (2009-2012), Article on Mugabe and his 2017 coup -
https://www.afsa.org/zimbabwe-after-mugabe-dark-dawn

"Even after 37 years in power, Mr Mugabe still maintained the same worldview - the patriotic socialist forces of his Zanu-PF party were still fighting the twin evils of capitalism and colonialism. Any critics were dismissed as "traitors and sell-outs" He always blamed Zimbabwe's economic problems on a plot by Western countries, led by the UK, to oust him because of his seizure of white-owned farms."
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-23431534

Who is to blame for Zimbabwes collapse? "The notion that sanctions are primarily responsible for the economic collapse in Zimbabwe is a useful fiction promoted by that country’s authoritarian elite. . . Zimbabwe has the highest inflation rate in the world . . ."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/10/24/sorry-west-isnt-responsible-zimbabwes-continuing-economic-collapse/

"the crisis is driven by the government’s failed leadership, economic mismanagement and corruption. When Mnangagwa came to power via a military coup in 2017 he promised a new dispensation and warming relations with the West. But his government employs the same brutal tactics used by his predecessor, Robert Mugabe, including violence against political opponents, human rights defenders and civil society activists."

“there is a serious deterioration of the political, economic and social environment since August 2018 [the date of the most recent elections] resulting in fear, frustration and anxiety among a large number of Zimbabweans.”
http://zw.one.un.org/newsroom/news/end-mission-statement-united-nations-special-rapporteur-rights-freedom-peaceful

Posted from my blog at The Temple Space : https://www.thetemplespace.com/2020/africa-in-black-white/