The Kenyan Scholar

I still belief in a democracy in which all people participate. In which interests of all the people reign supreme. In which their country’s sovereignty, their country’s honor, is at the top. Within our neo-colonized state, no former European protectorate has enjoyed even a semblance of such democracy. But who is to blame?

An obvious place to start is to always follow the money, perhaps as a rule of thumb when in doubt. The resource curse, or the paradox of plenty, plagues the majority of African nations, making the natural-resource abundance that was supposed to be the foundation of our true democratic freedom, the reinforcement of our continued subjugation.

 There is the largest alluvial diamond ever found named, Star of Sierra Leone. It weighs almost a thousand carats, 969 to be precise. Discovered by miners in 1972, it ranks as the fourth-largest gem-quality diamond in addition to being the largest alluvial diamond ever discovered.

Africa is blessed with the real treasures the kings and the queens of this world desire. The spectacular 530.2-carat Cullinan I (or The Great Star of Africa) diamond, the largest colorless cut diamond in the world, is Queen Victoria’s jewelry. It was sourced from South Africa in 1905.

 Gold is found all over Africa and only differs in concentration of deposits. While alluvial gold can be mined even in people’s backyards, more deposits are extracted from the earth’s depths. Currently, the leading African gold producing country and sixth in the world is Ghana. Comprising roughly 90% of the West African country’s total mineral exports and 49% of its total export value, Ghana is considered one of the most prolific regions of gold discoveries in the world, with its Bibiani Shear Zone hosting multi-million-ounce gold deposits.

Besides gold and diamonds, African nations contain abundant deposits of about 20 precious minerals that have been discovered to date. Many regions have been extracting huge petroleum reserves, and continue discovering new deposits, ready for extraction. We have platinum; Ilmenite to make titanium; Rutile to coat jets; iron ore - with largest deposits in the world found in African region; Tantalite, also known as coltan, used in your mobile phones and computers; Bauxite for aluminum production; copper; zinc; chrome ore; coal; potassium; phosphates; lead; salt; asbestos; granite; nickel; and, zircon. Furthermore, we have exquisite timber like teak and mahogany.

So, of course, the West needs Africa’s resources most desperately, to power airplanes, computers, cell phones, and engines. And of course, they need gold and diamonds as a status symbol, to determine their powers by décor, and to give value to their currencies. For instance, most of the minerals needed by almost every electronic device in the world is found in DRC Congo. They include lithium, cobalt, coltan, and silicon, without which the manufacture of batteries and processor chipsets is impossible. Production of phones, computers, and electric cars will be fatally hampered should all mining operations in DRC come to a standstill.

It puzzles me then, as it should all sons and daughters of the motherland, why: One unit of the major Western currencies is worth over 100 units of any African currency on average; while, we are the ones with the actual gold reserves. So, why would one dollar be equal to 130 Kenyan Shillings or 465 Nigerian Naira?

After watching Maliha Chishti’s TEDx talk, “Are we really helping others or just ourselves?”, which tackles the subject of foreign aid titled, it is quite evident that aid is in fact not coming from the West to Africa, but from Africa to the Western world. The Western world depends on Africa in every possible way, since alternative resources are scarce out there. So how does the West ensure that the FREE aid keeps coming?

By systematically destabilizing the wealthiest African nations and their systems, and all that backed by huge PR campaigns, leaving the entire world under the impression that Africa is poor and dying, and merely surviving on the mercy of the West.

Well done! UNICEF, Red Cross, Life Aid, Oxfam, and all the other organizations that continuously run multimillion-dollar advertisement campaigns depicting charity porn, to sustain that image of Africa, globally. Ad campaigns paid for by innocent people under the impression to help with their donations.

Mallence Bart-Williams asserts that: “While one hand gives under the flashing lights of cameras, the other takes, in the shadows.” She delivers this statement so succinctly in her TEDx Talk presentation, “Change your Channel”.

 But, first, Africans must remember the truth of their history in reverence to the aphorism, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat.” The massacre of Namibians by Germans in pre-colonial era, the mass genocide of the Congolese people (more than 15 million) by King Leopold, to the incarceration, torture and murder of Maumau freedom fighters in Kenya, are some of the painful histories that should never have repeated. This is because even after post-colonial era, the massacre of the Biafran people of Nigeria (Biafra) and the Rwandan genocide reignited the circle of violence through the financing of the British.

Africans must all, eventually come to a transformative awareness of the distortion and misrepresentation of TRUTH in the history of Africans, away from Western propaganda, misinformation, and disinformation.

A majority African population has become aware of and is finally coming to terms with the following facts surrounding our history with the U.S. and NATO signatories: –

First, they have supported colonial regimes and opposed our liberation by toppling governments and leading the assassinations of promising African leaders.

Second, they have been built on brutal force; enslavement of other human beings; humiliation of Africans; the exploitation of Africans; and the plunder of Africa.

Western powers supported white supremacists in Zimbabwe, the Portuguese colonial authority in Mozambique, Angola, and Cape Verde, and the apartheid regime in South Africa. Over the years, its intelligence and military apparatus have engineered a number of coups in Africa and elsewhere in the world, always to further Western objectives and often against the wishes of locals. This organization is responsible for the deaths of many of our world leaders, such as Abdel Nasser and Muammar Gaddafi.

Six African independence leaders, including the Congo's Patrice Lumumba, were killed by their ex-colonial powers between 1961 and 1973, including the one who was killed today, more than 62 years ago. Patrice Lumumba, the first prime minister of an independent Congo, was one of five African independence movement leaders assassinated in the 1960s by former colonial overlords or their agents. Seventh on the list, Amilcar Cabral, was assassinated in Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde in 1973 for spearheading the west African independence movement against Portugal. Sixth on the list, Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, was toppled in a coup sponsored by the West in 1966. Lumumba passed away in 1961 after the poisoning of Cameroon's opposition leader Felix Moumie in 1960. The president of Togo, Sylvanus Olympio, was killed in 1963. In 1965, the leader of the Moroccan opposition, Mehdi Ben Barka, was kidnapped and then vanished in France. Mozambican independence leader Eduardo Mondlane, who was leading the Frelimo campaign against the Portuguese, was killed by a parcel bomb in 1969. In the same year of his death, the bright and courageous Kenyan economist Tom Mboya was gunned down. Their deaths fifty years ago shook their countries and the African continent as a whole; these leaders knew one other and worked together on a political project based on national dignity. Consequences are still being felt now.

Thomas Sankara, one of Africa's most illustrious sons, died a similar death not too long ago. The then-leader of Burkina Faso and eleven other men were assassinated on October 15, 1987. The then-leader of Burkina Faso and eleven other men were murdered on October 15th, 1987. His age at the time was 37. He was one of Africa's most revered leaders and his achievements in bringing about pan-African wealth and the end of colonialism are still remembered fondly today. Sankara was a symbol for the hope of a revolutionary change brought about by the efforts of regular people. It was the last African revolution, and it was stifled in 1987, when it was finally beginning to bear fruit. Blaise Compaoré, the current president of Burkina Faso and a close friend and colleague of Sankara's, is said to have been ordered to shoot him dead by former Liberian ruler Charles Taylor, with the support of the French and American governments.

Yet, they hypocritically keep coming till to today to teach us about democracy. This is the arrogance. The imperialist arrogance. The racist arrogance that we have been subjected to.

Democracy is incompatible with the hegemony of the most powerful imperialist state. We cannot have democracy if another country controls a country's resources and its decisions. A nation cannot be democratic if it is ruled by another. Because a colony that transforms into a neo-colony cannot be democratic, neither can a nation devoid of sovereignty nor a people incapable of making their own decisions.

That's why having a sovereign government is a requirement for joining the United Nations. Colonies do not have the necessary degree of independence to qualify as full members of the United Nations. This was deliberate. This is not an oversight. Thankfully, most of us now realize that you cannot claim to be a champion of democracy if you do not respect the dignity of people or the sovereignty of other countries.

As a result, whereas it was previously claimed that all roads lead to Rome, we can today firmly assert that all roads to progress and all roads to what is best for humanity lead to Beijing. Here we have a nation and a people who have prospered economically without ever having colonized, plundered, or enslaved any other people or nation on Earth. A rising nation that honors the work of others, draws wisdom from the past, and celebrates cultural diversity like this one is exactly what the world needs right now.

We were only taught one form of civilization. We were only availed one form of modernization. The Western way, that is. Western-ness became a measure of how civilized you are. The measure of how modern you are. We reject that. We reject it because it is not correct. We reject it because it is undemocratic. We reject it because it is uncivilized to think of the world and of other people in that way.

They are unable to accept the truth that China has caught up to them now. In many fields of human endeavor, China is about to become dominant. Their imperialist pride prevents them from seeing things as they really are. The racist arrogance is impeding them from relenting to that reality. But the world is changing. The changes we are witnessing today as President Xi Jinping said in Moscow recently, “they have never been seen in 100 years!”

They have shaped a world that they themselves today are scared of. They have shaped a world that is not sustainable. Democracy, human development is not sustainable on the basis of plunder. It is not on the basis of enslavement. It is not on the basis of humiliating other people every day. This is a system they are now ACUTELY aware of. It is a system that will not survive if a plunder is eliminated. If subjugation of other people, other nations is eliminated; if inequality in the world is eliminated, this system will disappear.

A system founded on mutual benefit, win-win relationships, mutual respect, mutual accommodation and tolerance, and fraternal love for all humanity is the only system that can exist and endure long. This is the situation in modern-day China. The Chinese model demonstrates this. Each individual is unique. Each route has its own unique qualities, even if they all ultimately go to the same place. Today, with China, we are witnessing, learning, and experiencing just that.

In a truly fair, free, and peaceful world, democracy takes different forms of expression. President Xi Jinping said:

“No system of governance is universal. No civilization is superior to another. And no one country can dictate to the world.”

But, the masters of war refuse to acknowledge this. They brag about how wonderful they are and how manifest destiny is all about them. They proudly display their democratic system. Threatening others with the sale of their warships, they make a profit. They deploy their armaments, military bases, and war-mongering rhetoric and threats against others. Western nations have a surfeit of the form of democracy, but a form which is increasingly devoid of the content of democracy. The British Parliament, which likes to call itself the mother of parliaments sits in its August Hall lots of flummery and wigs, and rules and regulations, but what is the achievement of this democracy.

The proverbial "evidence of the pudding" can only be seen while eating. What are the democratic West's citizens eating? As for the first response, "less and less" is the most obvious conclusion. The Western world is regressing while China is progressing. The Chinese economy is lifting millions out of poverty, while the Western economic model is pushing many into it.

France has been burning. The pension reform that was enacted by Macron's administration was met with widespread outcry because it was passed by executive order instead of being voted on by representatives. After Macron's proposal to increase the retirement age from 62 to 64 was widely met with opposition last week, burning roadways have become regular in the affected region of France. Earlier, anti-change protesters in Bordeaux burned down the ancient town hall and several police vehicles.

 The cold has left Britain shivering. This is in spite of the fact that the average household's annual heating costs have quadrupled over the past year. In the year leading up to February 2023, the cost of electricity in the United Kingdom increased by 66.7% while the cost of gas increased by 129.4%. The following graph is a projection of the rising cost of energy.

 Thirty million people in the United States do not have access to health care. When asked why they do not have health insurance, most people would say that the rates are too expensive. If you don't have health insurance, unexpected medical care could be very expensive. Some American corporations have threatened to withdraw tax payments after a surge in street photography brought the gravity of San Francisco's longstanding homelessness situation into harsh focus. Photographs revealed rows of tents set up in front of shops, with shoppers' belongings strewn across the sidewalk. Every three years, the government conducts an official count of the homeless population, and the most recent one, in February, estimated the number of San Francisco's homeless at about 8,000, the second highest number since 2005. Massive tent encampments have sprung up along the American River and under highway overpasses as the number of homeless in California's capital has risen by approximately 70% in only two years.

 Yet these Western economies talk about human rights but where is the human rights to a job in these Western countries? Where is the human right to a house? Ask the growing number of people living in tents in San Francisco and in many other parts of United States. Where is human right to health?

China’s system is the one that is moving forward. Therefore, to what extend is the Western form governance actually superior?

It could be assumed that polarization is growing in developed-world democracies. The reality, on the other hand, is quite the opposite. In Western democracies, they have two cheeks of the same backside. Two sides of the same coin. Sure, you can vote for this party, or that party, but both parties stand for the same thing. Essentially, the have the same program of neoliberal economics. The same program of imperialism abroad. What kind of choice is that?

In China, the party cannot be changed, but policies can be altered. In Western democracies, it is possible to change the party but not the policies. Since more than two decades, the type of development we have witnessed in China, especially in recent decades, has served as a lesson for other so-called democracies. We live in a world where some countries arrogate to themselves the power of dictate. What a contrast with China!

China succeeded in bringing together Saudi Arabia and Iran in the last few months. The schools of Shia and Sunni branches of Islam, who have always been sworn enemies, broke bread together, and made a pact to forge a more peaceful future for factions of Islam. China has achieved more in the last few decades than decades of Western domination.

To put this into perspective, this year marks the 20th anniversary of a completely illegal invasion of a sovereign UN member (Iraq), which posed no threat to any other UN member and violated the UN charter and international law. Many millions perished, were injured, or were forced to flee their homes. The spread of extremist fanaticism is another fallout from this invasion. Al-Qaeda, HAMAS, Hezbollah, Isis, and the alphabet soup of fanatic radicalization rippled all over the world.

These are the things that people who consider themselves exceptional have achieved. So basically, what we're seeing is the success of people who try to make us think that we either have to do things their way or not at all. We need to explain to them what this whole process of people's democracy means, because they don't really understand what democracy is all about. They might not be aware of it yet, but their democracy is causing more than just disagreement. It's also creating feelings of hate, violence, and even leading to wars in different parts of the world.

It's funny how the people who lecture us on justice are often the ones who commit the worst offenses. They told us about how our society became regulated. So basically, it's the rules they've put in place for us and keep telling us to obey. This time is almost over. Yeah, there are some major changes going on right now that haven't been seen in the last hundred years. Yeah, it's true that sometimes not much happens for decades, but other times there can be a lot going on. This period might be the first of many similar ones in the future.

We now know, ESPECIALLY in the current times, that the dollar is worthless, while the Euro is merely charged with German intellect and technology. So, how can one expect donations from nations that have so little? Wow, it's really nice of the Western countries to offer their colorful paper in return for our valuable gold and diamonds. Instead of bringing anything with them, they should arrive with honesty and respect. We want to share our wealth with them and also invite them to share their wealth with us.

Many of us Africans now understand the West’s perception that a healthy and striving Africa would not disperse its resources as freely and cheaply, which is logical. Of course. It would instead sell its resources at world market prices, which in turn would destabilize and weaken Western economies, established on the post-colonial free-meal system. Before this injustice is corrected, the IMF has already reported that 6 out of 10 of the world’s fastest growing economies are in Africa as of 2015, measured by their GDP growth.

On the other hand, due to the colonial debt that France imposed on African countries, France's treasury has been receiving roughly $500 billion annually in foreign exchange reserves from African countries. During an interview, ex-French president Jacques Chirac made the following claims:

 “We have to be honest and acknowledge that a big part of the money in our banks comes precisely from the exploitation of the African continent. Without Africa, France will slide down in the rank of a Third World Power”

This is how life works in the real world; here, in the world we've made. But have you ever pondered the mysteries of nature and how they operate?

One would assume that in evolution, the fittest survives. However, in nature, any species that is overhunting, overexploiting the resources they depend on as nourishment, natural selection would sooner or later take the predator out, because it off-sets the balance. The time of reckoning is nigh. The rest of the human species, the majority, is finally putting the fate of this destructive ‘species’ to judgement.

There are many things that need to be done to get the world that we want. A more just, a fairer, and a more peaceful world is possible. But it won’t simply fall into our laps. We have to struggle for it. If we all strive first for ideological emancipation, Africa will begin to establish a permanent foundation for self-actualizing its full potential as the world’s most prominent economic powerhouse.

So, I'm inviting you to try and see things from a different point of view today. Take ownership of your vision and keep hoping for a better world. Instead of focusing on what you don't have, try to see the abundance that surrounds you at all times. Believe that the universe is working in your favor. Instead of dwelling on the problem, let's shift our attention towards finding a solution. Just keep in mind that how we perceive a situation is what ultimately decides how it turns out.