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Benghazi, Libya — African detainees sit against a wall inside a security complex now run by rebels. The opposition council governing eastern Libya brought foreign journalists to see the 50 African and Libyans alleged to have been fighting for Moammar Kadafi. (Photograph by Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)
It has been almost two months since the civil war in Libya started, and while Gaddafi has not yet been defeated it is clear that his chapter in the Book of History will end with his being toppled. With the US, West and Saudi Arabia openly supporting the rebels and providing political and military assistance it is only a matter of time until a new government takes over the oil-rich country. And even as the chapter still has a few pages left there are some twists and turns that seem to already be known, though largely untold.
For one, this will not end with, “And everyone lived happily ever after.” No story ever does. And for black Africans in Libya—or those who have fled or are still fleeing—this could not be anymore true. It is their story that underscores the tragedy of the Arab Revolution. For many, what has started as immigration to find work in order to feed their families, a story found on every continent, has quickly turned into a humanitarian crisis as they flee for their safety.
Libya, located in northern Africa, has a majority Arab population. It also has a racism problem. In a country of over 6 million people where a third of which are black Africans—the most oppressed group in the country—it would be completely appropriate to ask: Why aren’t they a part of the rebellion? Why is this an "Arab revolt"? It is very astonishing to see the most oppressed group not only uninvolved with a revolution but fleeing it in terror. Another interesting question is: If the rebels need foreign assistance to win, and to protect themselves from a massacre, then why have they not appealed to the black community to join their struggle in solidarity?
I have contacted the rebel leadership quite a few times (since March 28, 2011) now asking if they have any intention on speaking out against the abuses of black Africans and to call on them in solidarity to join their revolution, and to date I have not gotten a response. Now, the Interim National Council (INC) has recently issued announcements about their treatment of prisoners (which followed the highly critical report by Los Angeles Times mentioned below) and Al-Obaidi, but they have not said a word about the plight of their darker-skinned brothers and sisters. I do think it is a completely fair question to ask why human rights dissidents are not sticking up for the black underclass; they can speak out with specificity on the horrors visited upon an Arab woman, but don't seem to have it in them to stick up for blacks.
And while Arab racism towards blacks in Libya is nothing new it is not the fault of, as has been claimed, Gaddafi—who certainly has demonstrated his own racist tendencies as he did when he tried appealing to the world for support by saying that if he is removed from power “Europe will become black” because only he can stop the black hordes from their siege to the north.
The journalist Andrew Pervis has been in Libya for most of the uprising and keeping a diary and he has documented the racism:
The discrimination against blacks in Libya that helped propel much of the current exodus is shocking. In buses, it is not uncommon for Libyans of lighter skin to roll down the windows as an African is boarding to 'air' the place out … a kind of joke. Sub-Saharan Africans and Libyans of darker complexion are overcharged at stores, I am told. In the street, they are routinely referred to by the Arabic word for 'slave', abid. Gangs continue to roam the streets targeting blacks, stealing what they have, beating any who resist. For proud people who came to Libya to find money to support their families back home, it is a deep humiliation. When state media announced several weeks ago that black Africans were being hired as mercenaries in Ghaddafi's forces, the entire community knew that latent racism was in danger of becoming a pogrom so most went into hiding or fled for the border.
That last sentence is worth some consideration. The fear blacks feel are not just from Gaddafi’s forces but by the rebels too. The oppressed often have a keen sense of where things stand—having someone's boot on your neck can have that effect—and black Africans know that by Gaddafi announcing he has a “Coalition of the Willing” of his own that it is not his supporters who will visit abuse on them for the help of neighboring black soldiers (i.e. "mercenaries"), but the Arabs in the rebellion; a fear that has been born out as legitimate.
What we need now, probably more than anything, is for more journalists to go to the refugees in Egypt and Tunisia, to interview the black Africans who fled, and document their stories. I say this because considering the effects of the propaganda system we should expect that a narrow and politicized story against Gaddafi will get played out while other parts of the story will go ignored (so if we have any desire to know the whole story this would seem to be elementary). Already the UN has a group in Libya and they are documenting forced disappearances of hundreds of people they feel were critical of the Gaddafi regime. But what of the victims of the rebellion? And considering reports from earlier this month about abuses towards blacks by rebel forces (some of which ranged from harassment to complete massacres) it would be worth looking into how things are almost a month later. Andrew Pervis was recently in Egypt, but honestly, we don’t get much from his reports other than a lot of black Africans are there with no idea of what to do or where to go.
While black Africans in Libya are taking it from both sides it is their being a victim to the rebellion in particular that is a tragedy. No doubt many hoped this uprising would bring a better future, and for Arabs it may, this simply doesn’t look to be the case for blacks. Hopefully they will begin to get more attention and sympathy. For those who don’t escape before the rebels take Tripoli we should be very concerned about their fate.
As noted, racism has longed plague Libya and black Africans like most indigenous people have often been the victims of oppression. In October of 2000 BBC reported that “thousands of African immigrants living in Libya have been attacked by local residents. Some have had to take refuge in their respective embassies.”
A little more than a year ago UN Watch, a human rights arm of the international organization, issued a report on racism in Libya: “Libya must end its practices of racial discrimination against black Africans, particularly its racial persecution of two million black African migrant workers. There is substantial evidence of Libya’s pattern and practice of racial discrimination against migrant workers.”
Over at Monthly Review, one of their editors, Yoshie Furuhashi, wrote, “Al Jazeera reports that Black African workers now live in fear in the rebel-held territories in Libya. Some of them have been attacked by mobs, others have been imprisoned, and some of their homes and workshops have been torched. ‘Many African workers say they felt safer under the Gaddafi regime,’ says Al Jazeera's Jacky Rowland, reporting from Benghazi,” and that “It will probably take some time before the rest of the Left catches on to the counterfeit nature of the product sold to the world.”
On February 23, 2011, the UNHCR, said that the UN "has become increasingly concerned" about the many African migrants and asylum seekers in Libya. "We have no access at this time to the refugee community," according to Melissa Fleming, a UNHCR spokesperson. Since then they have gotten access to the refugees and thanked Egypt for their assistance while noting services are deteriorating as more and more refugees come in.
A couple of days after the February report mentioned above a journalist for UK’s Daily Mail was in Benghazi covering on the “mercenaries” when he reported:
The Africans I saw ranged from a 20-year-old to one in his late 40s with a grizzled beard. Most were wearing casual clothes. When they realised I spoke English they burst out in protest.
‘We did not do anything,’ one told me, before he was silenced. ‘We are all construction workers from Ghana. We harmed no one.’
Another of the accused, a man in green overalls, pointed at the paint on his sleeves and said: ‘This is my job. I do not know how to shoot a gun.’
Abdul Nasser, a 47-year-old, protested: ‘They are lying about us. We were taken from our house at night when we were sleeping.’ Still complaining, they were led away. It was hard to judge their guilt.
On the same day BBC reported: “One Turkish construction worker told the BBC: ‘We had 70-80 people from Chad working for our company. They were cut dead with pruning shears and axes, attackers saying: 'You are providing troops for Ghaddafi.' The Sudanese were also massacred. We saw it for ourselves.’"
Another example to highlight the race factor: There is a video of the protesters floating around the internet showing them chanting, "We are Arabs!" (at around 2:20)
The International Business Times carried a story on March 2 that said,
According to reports, more than 150 black Africans from at least a dozen different countries escaped Libya by plane and landed at the airport in Nairobi, Kenya with horrific tales of violence.
"We were being attacked by local people who said that we were mercenaries killing people. Let me say that they did not want to see black people," Julius Kiluu, a 60-year-old building supervisor, told Reuters.
Against this backdrop we can start to understand why blacks represent a large majority in the prisons being run by the rebellion, and an absence in the revolution.
The Los Angeles Times recently ran an article titled “Libyan rebels appear to take leaf from Kadafi's playbook," in which they said,
Opposition officials in Benghazi, whose wide sweeps to detain alleged Kadafi supporters have drawn criticism, take journalists on a tightly controlled tour of detention centers. Many detainees say they're immigrant workers and deny fighting for Kadafi.
And in another related article titled, “Journalists visit prisoners held by rebels in Libya,” we learn that, "The whole scene had an unsettling feel, as if these men had already been tried and convicted — and all that was left were their executions. In a strange twist, I learned that internal security officers of the Kadafi regime formerly used the facility to detain, torture and kill political dissidents.” (The image at the top of this article accompanies this story.)
From what we can gather in the press Gaddafi’s forces are largely Arab. This means some questions need to be asked. How come is it that when the press recently visited a rebellion-managed prison the prisoners were predominantly black? In the INC’s recent document announcing its “vision for a democratic society” it said they denounced racism. But in light of their silence on the plight of black Africans and the reports of attacks on them (including grisly videos showing two dead black men tied to the hood of a truck like they were hunted deer) and the disproportionate amount of their representation in rebel prisons, how much stock can we put in the claim? Are we to believe it is merely a coincidence, or that blacks have been easier to capture than Arabs? These questions hold significance for what we can expect to be in the next chapter on Libya.
For the most part the story of the Libyan civil war has had a good versus bad narrative of a dictator ruthlessly hanging onto his forty-year rule while spring has brought promise of an Arab revolt. Under this veneer is a darker story of the victims of the rebellion, and is a story that most be told if truth and justice is to prevail.
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MK my brother, I know that you will hate me for this, but I say, regarding the native Libyans, not the imported workers - Good!
Gaddafi and the Rebels, do what you wish with them. The fact that they allow you to exist in THEIR country, and abuse them no less, without a peep, well that indicates to me, that they are unworthy of my concern.
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Mike, In the larger picture of Africa's future, this episode is simply one of many small defeats that will in time see Africa's northern infiltration cascade south and envelop those other backward Africa nations who appear to be perfectly willing to survive short term by tucking their heads in the dirt and sucking a vacuum.
Regarding Gaddaffi. I rather much prefer him over any Israeli, Brit, or Albino American.
See Farrakhan's latest video regarding Gaddaffi and Libya.
(1)How the Jews approached him to reject the book, "The Secret Relationship between Blacks and Jews", and how they would clean up the smeared image they have created for him. (2) How the Jews punked America's largest Chicago black owned bank into withdrawing the NOI's $5M dollar deposit, giving it back to Farrakhan and informing him they could not take his business because of Jewish threats. (3) How the owner of Johnson Products was threatened by Jews to not produce NOI health products or be prepared for their complete product line being shut down to distribution by all Jewish distributors, shipper, and stores.
As expected, both of these so-called "black American multi-millionaires" crawled back to Farrakhan,, one with a check for over $5M dollars, and the other with an apology for why he could not assist Farrakhan in the creation of a new line of health care products aimed at African Americans.
It appears the most wealthy, old and prominent African Americans are completely controlled by Jews, same as the people of Egypt, Iraq, Kuwait, South Africa, Saudi and now Libya.
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Here is an opportunity and a reason for AAs to develop their OWN channels for distributing their produce. If they choose not to, well then, they are unworthy.
On the issue of NOI though: Here you are mixing issues as far as I am concerned. Though Farrakhan speaks wisdom at times, he is still an Islamist. To me Blacks must be weaned from these controlling religions of Islam and Christianity - the Black Judaic's, well they're hopeless.
Yes, these ALL STARTED out as Black religions, but they have been White controlled for over a thousand years. There is no longer anything there for Blacks.
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Rebels have overtaken much of the city of Tripoli, and the Libyan rebellion has all but entered the endgame. The home of Moammar Gadhafi, ruler of Libya for the past four decades, was put to the torch after being overrun by rebel forces. A bounty has been distributed for The Libyan dictator, dead or alive. Source for this article: Libyan rebels put bounty on Gadhafi as noose tightens.
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quote:Originally posted by Mike111: ^But it's possibly a GOOD thing!
Here is an opportunity and a reason for AAs to develop their OWN channels for distributing their produce. If they choose not to, well then, they are unworthy.
On the issue of NOI though: Here you are mixing issues as far as I am concerned. Though Farrakhan speaks wisdom at times, he is still an Islamist. To me Blacks must be weaned from these controlling religions of Islam and Christianity - the Black Judaic's, well they're hopeless.
Yes, these ALL STARTED out as Black religions, but they have been White controlled for over a thousand years. There is no longer anything there for Blacks.
You make things appear simple when they are not. Starting a distribution system is hard when everything is controled by outsiders.
Yet you are right about AAs supporting their own businesses if AAs want them to be a success.
Lets look at the two best promoters of africalogy; J.A. Rogers and Ivan van Sertima. Rogers was a Pullman porter. This gave him the ability to travel throughout the U.S. and sell his research. Overtime he was able to write history related newspaper articles.
Sertima was unknown until they published a review of his book in the New York times. people read the review and invited him to speak about the book. Overtime he developed a number of connections throughout the U.S.. As a result of these connections he was able to distribute his books and the Journal of African Civilization.
You might ask what do they have in common. The common feature is that both were successful because whites allowed them to be recognized.
By Rogers working as a porter he was able to find people to support his work. This would have been impossible if he would have been an author in Chicago waiting for people to publish his work and distribute it.
Ivan became a success because the NY Times said he was someone that should be recognized. This made people aware of his work who were interested in his work and the rest is history.
It is obvious that most Blacks ignore you until you are blessed by Euros. The recent example is Keita. He's saying nothing more than what was said by DuBois and Diop, but people respect his work because some establishment Euros say it's okay.
Mike this means that in most cases you can't make money and a name for yourself among AAs until whites acknowledge you. This is why many AAs feel they need Euros to be a success.
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Clyde, I believe that Dubois, Sertima, Diop, etc. became known publicly because whutes saw that what they were saying ran against the grain of their dominant Eurocentric paradigm. So some of their ideas had to be attacked. But not exclusively so, since such authors spoke before black intellectuals long before the whites noticed them.
In the case of Keita(and Kittles), they did some good scientific research that dotted the i's and crossed the t's so they work had to be published eventually.
Note that one way Eurocentrism deals with critique is to absorb both the originator of the ideas and the ideas themselves.
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Sooner or later, this civil war will spread to Southern region and border, and Libya will be balkanized.
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Btw there seem to be darker skinned rebels too, but probably native Libyans I guess.
Why is Chad joining anyway? They don't want the Refugees either? Or is it kind of a Humanitarian thing (I know, sounds dumb )?
Posts: 5555 | From: Tha 5th Dimension. | Registered: Apr 2006
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quote:'Libyans don't like people with dark skin, but some are innocent'
Any black African can expect arrest without proof he was[1] part of Gaddafi's forces.
Patrick Cockburn reports from Tripoli Tuesday, 30 August 2011
Yassin Bahr, a tall thin Senegalese in torn blue jeans, volubly denies that he was ever a mercenary or fought for Muammar Gaddafi.
Speaking in quick nervous sentences, Mr Bahr tries to convince a suspicious local militia leader in charge of the police station in the Faraj district of Tripoli, that he is a building worker who has been arrested simply because of his colour. "I liked Gaddafi, but I never fought for him," Mr Bahr says, adding that he had worked in Libya for three years laying tiles.
But the Libyan rebels are hostile to black Africans in general. One of the militiamen, who have been in control of the police station since the police fled, said simply: "Libyan people don't like people with dark skins, though some of them may be innocent."
Going by Mr Bahr's experience, any black African in Libya is open to summary arrest unless he can prove that he was not a member of Colonel Gaddafi's forces.
Fathi, a building contractor who did not want to give his full name and was temporarily running the police station, wanted to know why Mr Bahr had a special residence permit that an immigrant worker would not normally obtain. "You must have been fighting for Gaddafi to have a permit like this," he said. Mr Bahr said that three years earlier he had walked through the Sahara and crossed the Libyan border illegally with other West Africans looking for work. They had been picked up by the Libyan police, but he had eventually bribed them to get a residence permit. He had been watching television with nine other African immigrants when they were arrested, though no arms were found in the house.
Racism against black Africans and Libyans with dark skin has long simmered in Libya. Before the war there were estimated to be a million illegal immigrants in the country, which has a population of six million and a workforce of 1.7 million.
In 2000 there were anti-immigrant riots in which dozens of workers from countries like Ghana, Cameroon, Niger, Chad, Nigeria and Burkina Faso were killed. The war has deepened racial hostility. The rebels claim that many of Colonel Gaddafi's soldiers were black African mercenaries. Amnesty International says these allegations are largely unproven and, from the beginning of the conflict, many of those arrested or, in some cases, executed by the rebels were undocumented labourers caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.
But there is no doubt that all black Africans are now under suspicion. The head of the militia in Faraj, a short bearded man in a brown robe named Issam, explained how well-prepared local insurgents had taken over the area on 19 August, telling Colonel Gaddafi's supporters to hand over their weapons and stay at home. There was almost no resistance from the demoralised regime and few people had been arrested. Then Issam added, as an aside, that his men had also detained "tens of Africans whom we sent off to prison". He did not explain why they had been jailed.
Black African immigrants in the past benefited from Gaddafi's aspiration to be a pan-African leader. The position of illegal immigrants was always uncertain, but they were essential to the economy. With the fall of Gaddafi, those who have not already fled face persecution or even murder. Last weekend 30 bodies of mostly black men, several of them handcuffed and others already wounded, were found after an apparent mass execution at a roundabout near Gaddafi's Bab al-Aziziya headquarters.
Issam, the temporary chief of police, insisted that Mr Bahr had not been mistreated and was being fed well. Any interview with a prisoner must come with a health warning, since he or she are unlikely to speak freely about their treatment while still under arrest. Mr Bahr confirmed that he was being well treated, but he did look very frightened.
[1] The original actually incorrectly read:
Any black African can expect arrest without proof he was not part of Gaddafi's forces, but I edited so as to not bring the wrath of the picky readers.
Posts: 3446 | From: U.S. by way of JA by way of Africa | Registered: Jan 2010
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August 29, 2011 -- The assault on Libya by a coalition of mostly Western nations begs the question: Is colonialism making some sort of a comeback? While their economies are collapsing in slow motion, it is hard to picture Western countries prospecting for real estate across the globe, as they did 300 years ago. But as unreal as it seems, it is happening.
Few will shed tears for Gaddafi because it was his impetuosity that cost Libya its freedom; of more concern is the fact that after 40 years the country's considerable oil wealth has reverted to Western control. Iraqi oil too is flowing west. Iran could very well be the next target of American and British warplanes.
Ironically, it is when the West is weak that the emergent nations of Asia and Africa have reason to worry. Colonialism 2.0 isn't just a catchphrase; it is simple economics: the wealthy will always need to be vigilant against the desperate.
In the 18th and 19th centuries when the world was being colonized by the likes of Spain, Britain, France, Belgium, Portugal and the Dutch, India and China were the two richest countries in the world, together accounting for over 50 per cent of world GDP. And yet the two giant Asian nations ended up under colonial jackboots.
If you think colonization happened when the East was decadent and the West was rising or that India and China neglected their militaries and ignored the foreign threats lurking at their shores, you couldn't be more wrong. Both countries had very powerful armies and naval flotillas led by able commanders.
Military edge In the early 1700's, India's legendary Admiral of the Fleet, Kanhoji Angre, routed the British, Dutch and Portuguese navies on the high seas. For 33 years until his death in 1729, the Indian remained undefeated. The British were so pissed they called him a pirate. Indian ships of that time were so advanced in design and durability that the British inducted them into their fleet. In the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, Horatio Nelson's flagship HMS Victory was an Indian built vessel.
According to the Indian Navy's website, "This so agitated British shipbuilders on the River Thames that they protested against the use of Indian built ships to carry trade from England. Consequently, active measures were adopted to cripple the Indian shipbuilding industries."
The southern Indian kingdom of Mysore was the first in modern history to use rockets in war, and they used it with deadly effect against the British in the Battle of Guntur in 1780. The literally shell-shocked British army fled from the battlefield. A few unexploded rockets were later shipped to the Royal Arsenal in London, where William Congreve, the British weapons expert, reverse engineered them to launch modern rocketry in Europe.
Most Indian rulers also possessed keen geopolitical awareness. For instance, they did not allow European merchants to keep garrisons or conduct inland trade. When Thomas Roe, the British monarch's emissary, landed in western India in 1616, he was made to wait a year before the Indian emperor granted him an audience. Three years later, Roe despite many entreaties and considerable bowing before the grandees at Delhi, returned without a trade treaty because the emperor saw no point in trading with a country that had not one product or commodity to offer India.
Thin end of the wedge However, one slip-up by a weak emperor let in the hordes. A hundred years after Roe's exit, an English embassy had a stroke of luck when one of its members, William Hamilton, a physician of questionable medical skills, managed to relieve the figurehead emperor of severe pain in his groin. The emperor gratefully signed a decree giving the British inland trading rights, customs duty exemptions, and the right to keep a garrison. The rest as they say is history.
According to professor Rajesh Kochhar, emeritus scientist at the Indian Institute of Science Education & Research, Chandigarh, "These exemptions gave the English traders commercial advantages not only over other European companies but also over Indian traders. More importantly, the various official orders granting trade concessions gave the British a cause to defend, with military strength if needed." Does that sound familiar?
Return of the East Today, the east is rising once again. Economists are stunned by the unprecedented flow of manufacturing, finance and wealth to the east. Magid Igbaria, former professor of management information systems at Tel Aviv University, wrote in The Virtual Workplace: "For all but the last 500 years of human history, the world's wealth measured in human capital and in goods was concentrated in Asia. During the past five centuries, the world's wealth has been concentrated in the West. This era is coming to an end. Today, the great concentrations of human capital, financial power, manufacturing power, and informated power are once again accumulating in the East."
Indeed, in 30 years India is predicted to overtake the US, even though it is only one-fourteenth the size of the US economy now. That is an incredible rate of wealth accretion. The question is will the US and Europe simply watch the world go past? On the contrary, there is a concerted effort by a US-led coalition to stop this trend. Here are a few ways the West is trying to stay on top:
Base instincts: Today the US-led coalition has over 750 military bases across the globe. Despite the huge costs, this extension of military power is essential to their hegemony. A slew of European nationalities has followed the American military in its misadventures around the world. No empire in history has attempted such sweeping control. In Pliny's days the Roman, Indian and Chinese empires co-existed in their spheres of influence and never attempted to destabilise each other. The good old days.
Divide and rule: The Americans are playing up India as a major "regional" power allied with the West. This is not only insulting to the Indians (why should India only be a regional power?), it also scares the hell out of the Chinese. The communists in Beijing, therefore, come out with kneejerk statements calling for India's breakup, which in turn makes the Indians consider China a natural enemy. Amazingly, in the past 2500 years, China and India never had even a skirmish, until the British arrived on the scene and planted the seeds of border problems.
Climate bogey: After polluting the environment for more than a century, the West now wants India and China to reduce emissions. It's a thinly disguised attempt to slow these rapidly growing economies. India's Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh has done an about turn and now his views seem to align with Western interests, which led to key Indian negotiators quitting in disgust. Newsweek, the Pentagon mouthpiece masquerading as journalism, was sufficiently pleased with Ramesh to label him the "global rock star of climate change".
Dollar gambit: Wouldn't you feel almighty if you obtained a license to print US dollars off your home printer? While the rest of the world has to earn a living the hard way, the Americans just print dollars to pay their bills. Need a few hundred billion dollars to pay for the war in Iraq? Want to buy Venezuelan oil? Russian titanium? No problem. The US mint cranks the lever and billions of dollars start rolling off the presses. In fact, in recent years even that pretense has been given the heave-ho - now trillions of dollars are generated electronically in the accounts of the US Federal Reserves. It's as simple as that.
There is another way the dollar trade works against the interests of non-Western countries. Countries like China and Russia invest their earnings in US treasury bonds; these dollars are used by the Americans to maintain their global military supremacy, build increasingly modern weapons, and reward their allies with cash, weapons, and security umbrellas.
WTO: Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has called it "archaic, undemocratic and inflexible" and dominated by a small group of developed countries which indulge in protectionism. One of its aims is to pry open the agricultural markets of Asia, including India. Incidentally, India has the highest number of farmer suicides in the world.
Nixing nuclear tech: The 11th commandment: Thou shall not acquire nuclear technology. Indian and Japanese nuclear scientists perfected the fast breeder reactor (which generates more nuclear fuel than it uses) so they never have to look outside for hard-to-get uranium). However, most likely under US pressure, both nations have quietly shelved their technologies.
Space crunch: America's space ambitions are currently grounded because of deep cuts. India has the world's largest number (177) of satellites in space. NASA is aware of it; it is looking at joint ventures with the Indian Space Research Organisation which has reliable rockets and something like 20,000 engineers and scientists. Few are aware that during the 1990s, India requested the Russians for a role in the International Space Station, but the Americans said no. Now NASA wants a free ride on Indian rockets, and India's feckless politicians are happy to oblige.
General Manuel Noriega was once upon a time in Panama, the CIA's most valuable asset, doing their dirty work: drug trafficking, racketeering, money laundering, murdering. However, the Agency wanted total control of Panama and so in 1989 the US invaded the country, and accused him of doing precisely what they had ordered him to do. While serving a 20-year sentence in an American prison, Noriega wrote this memorable line: "If there is someone willing to buy a country, there is someone willing to sell it." For many countries in the East, their biggest worry is like Noriega there are plenty of collaborators in high places willing to sell their country for a few million dollars wired into a Swiss bank, along with US green cards for their families.
In the first era of colonialism, the then dominant Eastern nations opened up their economies and territories to comparatively backward Western nations over a span of several decades, finally ending up as their colonies. Under the guise of globalization and 'free' trade, Colonialism 2.0 could happen in much the same way. Rakesh Krishnan Simha is New Zealand-based writer.
-------------------- "TRUTH IS LIKE LIGHTNING WITH ITS ERRAND DONE BEFORE YOU HEAR THE THUNDER" - Gerald Massey "TRUTH IS FINAL" -Mumia Abu-Jamal Posts: 3446 | From: U.S. by way of JA by way of Africa | Registered: Jan 2010
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Who cares about acceptance from White people
I jam with my Guys and that's that. Any White people don't like me can eat a dick ad infinitum. Posts: 1819 | From: odesco baba | Registered: Feb 2005
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More interventions to come for Africa. Libya was not first,Ivory Coast was. Notice how ALL opposition parties in Africa depend support from the West, in similar the 1885 Berlin conference:
quote: Those with a historical bent may want to think of a time over a century ago, in the decade that followed the Berlin conference, when outside powers sliced up the continent. Our predicament today may give us a more realistic appreciation of the real choices faced and made by the generations that went before us. Could it have been that those who then welcomed external intervention did so because they saw it as the only way of getting rid of domestic oppression?
The link is from Aljazeera English, which has been a propaganda tool for the war, but I could not find an alternative link or official website of Mahmood Mamdani.
Posts: 2198 | Registered: Jun 2006
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libya is 50% black. The blacks are NATIVE. Do we forget blacks are the indigenous and the arabs/white berbers are the new comers so to speak. What is to say outside of the propaganda piece in the OP that those black people in that picture are not natives?
Posts: 1296 | From: the planet | Registered: May 2011
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I wonder what happened to Amazigh?? I hope he is o.k...
quote:Originally posted by typeZeiss: libya is 50% black. The blacks are NATIVE. Do we forget blacks are the indigenous and the arabs/white berbers are the new comers so to speak. What is to say outside of the propaganda piece in the OP that those black people in that picture are not natives?
Posts: 8804 | From: The fear of his majesty had entered their hearts, they were powerless | Registered: Nov 2007
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Mazigh explicitly wished death to any Black American repatriating to Africa and you wish him well? I hope he is dead and tortured in hell (along with all enemies of the blacks).
Posts: 8014 | From: the Tekrur in the Western Sahel | Registered: Feb 2006
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In the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, Horatio Nelson's flagship HMS Victory was an Indian built vessel.
^^This is bogus. HMS Victory was laid down in a British shipyard in Woolwich.
# Lavery, Brian (2003) The Ship of the Line - Volume 1: The development of the battlefleet 1650-1850. Conway Maritime Press. ISBN 0-85177-252-8. # Winfield, Rif (2007) British Warships in the Age of Sail 1714-1792: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates. Seaforth Publishing
-------------------- Note: I am not an "Egyptologist" as claimed by some still bitter, defeated, trolls creating fake profiles and posts elsewhere. Hapless losers, you still fail. My output of hard data debunking racist nonsense has actually INCREASED since you began.. Posts: 5905 | From: The Hammer | Registered: Aug 2008
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First, Al Jazeera is no more than a pro-white imperialism mouthpiece in the Arabian Gulf. That corrupt and despotic family that runs the place as a monarchy is just too much in love with alcohol and white whores to rock the boat. They are are always somewhere in the West or some hidden hideaway in Doha with their booze and pink whores. OK, it's all haram, but who cares. When the NATO boys showed up looking for some help, what,s wrong with a little help to teach that Gaddafi guy that Pan Africanism is just verboten. Hence the total BS they pâss of as news.
Mahmmod Mamdani is an Asian Indian from Uganda--courtesy British colonialism which imported thosands of Indians during colonial times then giving them more enhanced status than the indigenous Africans. The Indians believed in and practiced that racist BS until Idi Amin kicked them out. Amin's immortal words: "they milk the cow but don't feed it".
Mamdani is just another of those resident Asians and Europeans in Africa who are often selected before Africans to speak for Africans.
Posts: 5492 | Registered: Nov 2004
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Mammdani is off base when he compared Nkrumah's government to Nyrere's in favour of the former.
Nyrere's Ujama thing was a total failure and it was under strong criticism from the West. For the capitalist West anything that mentions "socialism" must be attacked and crushed. For the Soviets, only socialism as dictated by Soviet ideology was correct. Anything founded on the principle of "African socialism" must be attacked from the other side. In the end, Nyrere was just seen as a harmless dreamer. Today, Tanzania is just another helpless begging bowl state with weak almost ignorant leaders.
Nkrumah proved to be a much bigger threat to Western interests. He had to be eliminated. Same for Gaddafi: the only African government that tried to implement some of Nkrumah's Pan African ideas. For the West, a Mubarak or Bongo is much preferable to a Gaddafi.
Posts: 5492 | Registered: Nov 2004
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Mammdani is off base when he compared Nkrumah's government to Nyrere's in favour of the former.
Nyrere's Ujama thing was a total failure and it was under strong criticism from the West. For the capitalist West anything that mentions "socialism" must be attacked and crushed. For the Soviets, only socialism as dictated by Soviet ideology was correct. Anything founded on the principle of "African socialism" must be attacked from the other side. In the end, Nyrere was just seen as a harmless dreamer. Today, Tanzania is just another helpless begging bowl state with weak almost ignorant leaders.
Nkrumah proved to be a much bigger threat to Western interests. He had to be eliminated. Same for Gaddafi: the only African government that tried to implement some of Nkrumah's Pan African ideas. For the West, a Mubarak or Bongo is much preferable to a Gaddafi.
Posts: 5492 | Registered: Nov 2004
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posted
Mamdani quoting an oppostion newspaper in Kampala on the quirt in Kampala. Well, what else? Whose fault--except the lazy, narrow-minded fools who manage to trick their way into the Bantustan-like presidencies of Africa's carved out states.
Libya with less than 1% of Africa's population funded 15% of the AU's budget--the most. Oil rich states like Angola, Gabon(tiny population), Equatorial Guinea, South Africa, Congo, Nigeria, etc. could have more than matched Libya's contribution, but these sorry excuses for African states did no such thing. That would have put a dent into their favourite sport of stealing money and hiding it in European banks. What a disgraceful lot.
Here you have a white cabal of states--now joined by Russia--tagging along a bunch of slave Arab and African states gleefully bombing on behalf of a fascist and racist group of degenerate--NATO bombs anything that moves to clear the way, then calls up the so-called rebels and the embedded white reporter cameras--West Asian settlers. And the rest of Africa just cowers and hides.
And it began with dumb behaviour on the part of South Africa and Nigeria at the Security Council. The near illiterate Zuma--it's a fact, the man hardly went to school and is just clueless on international politics and Pan Africanism-- along with equally naive on international politics Goodluck Jonathan just rolled over after that fraud--for blacks--at the U.S. White House called them up and demanded a vote. The weak-willed jackasses just complied.
Posts: 5492 | Registered: Nov 2004
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And note that this "acclaimed expert" on Africa does not even whisper a word about Nkrumah's Pan Africanism and Gaddafi's attempt to implement such.
And ironically, it is the "collective security"--much like what NATO stands for withe Europe--that has been ignored by the nonsense boys that run Africa's states that is much in need now.
Again, their stupid fault for allowing 77% of the AU's budget to be funded by the white governments of Europe and North America. Just pricelessly shameful!
The fact that Euro-America funds 77% of the AU budget just shows how much the white Euro collective is obsessed with controlling African agency in terms thought and action.
Posts: 5492 | Registered: Nov 2004
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quote:Originally posted by lamin: Gaddafi: the only African government that tried to implement some of Nkrumah's Pan African ideas.
Attacking Chad to try to get their uranium? and then on to Sudan if that worked out
The Libyan paramilitary force called Islamic Legion, aka Pan-African Legion aka Libayn "Pan Africanism" = arab cultural supremacy? aka Gaddifi's dream : "the Great Islamic State of the Sahel" Gaddafi to drive the Toubou of Libya, who were considered 'black', off Fezzan and across the Chadian border. Gaddafi supported the Sudanese government of Gaafar Nimeiry, referring to it as an "Arab Nationalist Revolutionary Movement", and even offered to merge the two countries at a meeting in late 1971. Gérard Prunier called the Legion "a militantly racist and pan-Arabist organization which stressed the 'Arab' character of the province." Some of the Janjaweed leaders were among those said to have been trained in Libya, as many Darfuri followers of the Umma Party were forced in exile in the 1970s and 1980s
I suggest you read Mamdani's works before you start to criticize him. His has not been silence about South Asian racism toward Africans, and in fact, he understood why they got kicked out of the country, and that he chose to stay in Uganda shows, where his alliance lies.
Without his strong vocal against Darfur groupies (I do not know other African scholars who went the same length to expose Darfur propaganda as him, and he should have credit for that!), Sudan would have been the first country in Africa, bombarded by Nato, and not Libya).
That said, there are many things I do not agree with his works, but exposing South Asians racism in Africa is not one of them.
Be careful what you google, and be careful being selective with your arguments. Read his books.
Posts: 2198 | Registered: Jun 2006
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Show us one member on this forum who supports Gadafi.
I certainly do not share tears that he is gone. He caused so much bad things, by supporting different arms groups, and prolonged many civil wars in Africa. His records in the continent are clear, but that is not the issue here. The issue here is African sovereignty. What is the purpose of NATO? Is Libya in European soil?
The lesson on this war campaign is, unless African countries do not solve their internal political problems, we are forced to suffer by external powers.
Posts: 2198 | Registered: Jun 2006
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quote:Originally posted by Arwa: To "the lioness ",
(I am must be on drugs responding to you).
Show us one member on this forum who supports Gadafi.
I certainly do not share tears that he is gone. He caused so much bad things, by supporting different arms groups, and prolonged many civil wars in Africa. His records in the continent are clear, but that is not the issue here. The issue here is African sovereignty. What is the purpose of NATO? Is Libya in European soil?
The lesson on this war campaign is, unless African countries do not solve their internal political problems, we are forced to suffer by external powers.
You are sooo right, Arwa. I wish Jari and gang could read this and get more educated.
Posts: 7419 | From: North America | Registered: Mar 2009
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Arwa, Mamdani was working at Columbia university in the U.S for many years. He was head of the African Studies Institute there. Columbia in New York city is a Jewish academic enclave so there is no way they would have hired a truly radical scholar to that top position. So he was not in Uganda all the time.
And Darfur was just another Zionist pet project over years. As you know the Save Darfur movement was essentially a Jewish thing. Check it out. Darfur was just another part of the geopolitical game played by the U.S. and Israel. Not that I have any regard for the fake Arab jackasses that run Northern Sudan. The leadership is so inferiority-complexed that they brought all the nonsense that they pursued on themselves.
Posts: 5492 | Registered: Nov 2004
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Yo don't seem to have a good memory. Try some memory and brain exercises it would help.
I mentioned to you that when the French reluctantly granted independence to its African colonies they(French)refused to leave. They continued causing neo-colonial trouble in places like Chad. Gadaffi fought them on just those grounds. But be careful of what you read. The French historians and political analysts are notorious liars and prevaricators. In fact, the whole West lies when it comes to protecting its interests. For most Wetsren governments a lie is just a strategic move. So be careful of what you read. Caveat Lector.
Posts: 5492 | Registered: Nov 2004
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Arwa, You seem to think that at independence in the 1960s colonialism came to a dead end. Colonialism never ended. The old imperialists were always up to their dirty tricks and murders. Who murdere and chopped up Lumumba? Was it the CIA that sent Mandela to jail? Who killed Laurent Kabila? Who stated the slaughters in Chad?, etc.,
Gadaffi was only the game on his own terms too. Are you against that? And Somalai?
Posts: 5492 | Registered: Nov 2004
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[Talltha van der Zon: ex-model and friend of Motassim Khadafy]
From a Dutch perspective. She was stranded in Libya, a friend of Motassim. She allegedly jumped from a hotel balcony to escape rapist: Black Libyans, and bruised her arm. She was in Libya to get money for her Alzheimer patient father. But a friend who she brought along is suing her for human traffic because she was raped by some Libyan. According to the media the secret service AIVD is investigating her, that she would strangely visit Libya in the middle of a civil war.
Posts: 5454 | From: Holland | Registered: Aug 2008
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quote:Originally posted by lamin: Clyde, I believe that Dubois, Sertima, Diop, etc. became known publicly because whutes saw that what they were saying ran against the grain of their dominant Eurocentric paradigm. So some of their ideas had to be attacked. But not exclusively so, since such authors spoke before black intellectuals long before the whites noticed them.
In the case of Keita(and Kittles), they did some good scientific research that dotted the i's and crossed the t's so they work had to be published eventually.
Note that one way Eurocentrism deals with critique is to absorb both the originator of the ideas and the ideas themselves.
quote:Originally posted by lamin: Some footnotes re Mahmdani,
First, Al Jazeera is no more than a pro-white imperialism mouthpiece in the Arabian Gulf. That corrupt and despotic family that runs the place as a monarchy is just too much in love with alcohol and white whores to rock the boat. They are are always somewhere in the West or some hidden hideaway in Doha with their booze and pink whores. OK, it's all haram, but who cares. When the NATO boys showed up looking for some help, what,s wrong with a little help to teach that Gaddafi guy that Pan Africanism is just verboten. Hence the total BS they pâss of as news.
Mahmmod Mamdani is an Asian Indian from Uganda--courtesy British colonialism which imported thosands of Indians during colonial times then giving them more enhanced status than the indigenous Africans. The Indians believed in and practiced that racist BS until Idi Amin kicked them out. Amin's immortal words: "they milk the cow but don't feed it".
Mamdani is just another of those resident Asians and Europeans in Africa who are often selected before Africans to speak for Africans.
Your making a lot of sense here lamin. How to get Blacks to understand how they are being brainwashed and oppressed. I'm really result oriented and want to see a change during my lifetime. I have no budget and frequently have to defend myself against the very Blacks I'm out to liberate. But I do not complain and just keep on going. You speak to anyone who wants to listen and form a little group and the idea will spread.
I hate the idea that they want to present Libyans as whites.
And Al Jazeerais a kind of Black BBC, were they dump Black and coloured journalist they will not promote to senior positions. Only the first five minutes of Al-Jazeera they actually offered a different perspective.
Posts: 5454 | From: Holland | Registered: Aug 2008
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Ironlion let me make it clear I don't support Gadaffi or see him as a saint. He had his problems with Africans even discriminated against our brothers the Berbers his own people. What I am saying and still uphold is that the West had no right to intervene. The Rebels were armed looters from the beggining unlike in Tunisia and Egypt this was not a peaceful revolution. If people in America took up to the streets with Guns would NATO recognize these crazed looters as a legitimate gov. Would the U.N put sanctions on America if it(and it would) took these crazed looters down with violent force as Gaddafi did. We all know the answer...
Lybia had a booming economy, its Arab population lived like Kings compared to other African people. The Western Media is trying to spin it like Most Lybians lived under the Taliban is severe poverty.
Im not shedding a tear for Gaddafi but at least give us a balanced approach to the News, Tell the full story.
BTW, Your Black Mulatto Moorish King just bowed his head in submission(Once again) to the Albino Speaker of the House Boener with the support of Rush Limbauh over his Jobs debate. At this point it obvious the Conservatives Run Obama, I honestly don't see why whites hate him so much, They always get what they want and get to see a spineless black man going..."Yessa Massa...How High Masss" everytime they say Jump. If I was a white person Id get a kick out of Obama...LOL
quote:Originally posted by IronLion:
quote:Originally posted by Arwa: To "the lioness ",
(I am must be on drugs responding to you).
Show us one member on this forum who supports Gadafi.
I certainly do not share tears that he is gone. He caused so much bad things, by supporting different arms groups, and prolonged many civil wars in Africa. His records in the continent are clear, but that is not the issue here. The issue here is African sovereignty. What is the purpose of NATO? Is Libya in European soil?
The lesson on this war campaign is, unless African countries do not solve their internal political problems, we are forced to suffer by external powers.
You are sooo right, Arwa. I wish Jari and gang could read this and get more educated.
Posts: 8804 | From: The fear of his majesty had entered their hearts, they were powerless | Registered: Nov 2007
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posted
IronLion Blacks have plenty of REAL men who broke the Seals...
Imhotep, Tuthmosis the 3rd, Ahmose, Taraqo, King Lalibella, King Menelik and Ras Tafari HIM Hallie Selassie, MLK, Malcolm x...etc. etc.
These men were real men, they did'nt bow their head in submisssion they forced whites and Arabs/Hyksos to bow their heads in Submission.
As Lamin said the A. Egyptians left a clear record in stone what to do with degenerate Mongoloid yellow monkeys in Africa..
Posts: 8804 | From: The fear of his majesty had entered their hearts, they were powerless | Registered: Nov 2007
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quote:Originally posted by -Just Call Me Jari-: IronLion Blacks have plenty of REAL men who broke the Seals...
Imhotep, Tuthmosis the 3rd, Ahmose, Taraqo, King Lalibella, King Menelik and Ras Tafari HIM Hallie Selassie, MLK, Malcolm x...etc. etc.
These men were real men, they did'nt bow their head in submisssion they forced whites and Arabs/Hyksos to bow their heads in Submission.
As Lamin said the A. Egyptians left a clear record in stone what to do with degenerate Mongoloid yellow monkeys in Africa..
True enough Jari.
We honour the past leaders just like we honour the present ones.
The lives of great men all remind us, that we could live our lives sublime.
President Obama is a reminder to all little Muurish youths, that they can be what they want to be, do what they want to do and get anywhere they want to get...in this America, racism or not!
Posts: 7419 | From: North America | Registered: Mar 2009
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I don't know how, but the native Libyans (Blacks) seem to have taken power in Libya. So is the rebels they're fighting, the coastal Whites and Mulattoes? .
Libya's Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thani speaks during a press conference on June 3, 2014 in Tripoli.Posts: 22721 | Registered: Oct 2005
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President Obama has declared war on ISIS, the renegade jihadists that have turned on their former masters in NATO and the royal courts of Arabia. Nearly four decades ago, the U.S., Saudi Arabia and Pakistan spent billions to create, from scratch, an international jihadist network to torment a leftwing government in Afghanistan. The rag tag feudal Islamist raiders that once delighted in beheading young Afghan leftists who were sent to the countryside to carry out land reform and teach village girls to read, now yearn to detach the skulls of Saudi kings and princes from their obscenely rich bodies, and to methodically drive the western infidels from all Muslim territories. This is, indeed, some deep poetry.
Until the advent of ISIS, Saudi Arabia led the world in executions by beheading, often leaving the decapitated bodies on display in public squares. The Saudis have hired American public relations outfits to plant articles in the U.S. corporate press, disavowing any connection between the royal family and its wayward children in ISIS and other al Qaida off-shoots – while, at the same time, stepping up the pace of their own beheadings. In the New York Times, no less, two front men for the Saudi royal family wrote that the King’s regime is best suited to drive ISIS into oblivion – which is yet more proof that the Saudi royals are feeling the nearness of cold steel to their own necks. The logic of jihad inevitably calls for a caliphate and, for the believer, a caliphate trumps a fat king and his 5,000 corrupt little princes, any day. Emirs in the United Arab Emirates also shake in their well-crafted boots, fearing the wrath of the faithful.
The Saudis and Egypt’s military dictator Abdel al-Sisi are arrayed against the Emir of Qatar and aristocrats in Kuwait, who continue to fund the renegade jihadists. The United States has sided with their long term partners, the Saudis – who have more oil – and are pressuring Qatar and Kuwait to stop funding ISIS and its friends.
posted
^I was merely commenting on the advent of Blacks once again ruling even a part of North Africa, that hasn't happened since Mukhtar in 1931.
For those who enjoy irony;
It was Albino European invasion and power over the last 2,000 years, which created and maintained Albino and Mulatto rule in North Africa. And now it is Albino European action which allows Black rule once again.
As to Islam in Africa and elsewhere; it's up to the people themselves, if they like it, they can keep it. Just like I have the right to not be involved with it.
Posts: 22721 | Registered: Oct 2005
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^I do admit to a certain curiosity about Blacks under Islam. Do they interact with it the same as the Turk mulattoes? Anyone that knows can answer.
It's said that Albanians mostly ignore it, I can confirm that by the Albanians that I know.
They say that the Indonesians practice a milder form, but I recently read that Indonesians, at least some, want to live under sharia.
I just heard about a survey that was recently done among Muslims, I was amazed that many supported what the west regards as Barbarity:
Stoning to death Adulterers. Beheading people. Killing people who leave Islam. Living under sharia.
It's kind of scary really, that' why I like to keep my distance.
Posts: 22721 | Registered: Oct 2005
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