#colonialism in Africa

[sayruq]

[lightdancer1]

Looping back to wrap up today with another look at the Congo Free State:

The Congo Free State, again, is the archetypal embodiment of imperialism as it actually was, versus myth, for a great many reasons. The symbolism of the book Heart of Darkness, which will be discussed along with the various wars of the Scramble tomorrow, that it was a thing condemned even in a much more overtly horrid and less squeamish time, and that it had such vivid documentation of its evils account for this. In the myth the King of Belgium intentionally took this great area in hopes of making Belgium wealthy, in reality King Leopold II didn't make it his own private domain of barbarism for the sake of Belgium, he did it for himself.

He had no real idea of the sheer mammoth amount of resources in the future Democratic Republic of the Congo, nor was there any way he could have based on the earlier probes of missionaries and the Portuguese. 10 million people would be killed by the Congo Free State when he deliberately established and demanded mass amounts of rubber and palm oil, but he equally had no idea, nor could he have done, that the region he conquered included the one known natural nuclear reactor and with it the most valuable uranium reserves in the world, let alone what uranium is capable of doing in other contexts.

The reality of conquest was that for the people conquered it wrought horrifying levels of destruction and doom not for reasons that had even the more repellent mercenary logic of the Spanish Empire in the Americas, but for the simple reason of 'we can do it, so we will, and now that we've got our git, we're gonna exploit the Hell out of it because who's gonna tell us no.'

It was not that African states, the ones overthrown by the Congo Free State, did not have perfectly clear understandings of all this, it's that the Europe of the late 19th Century ignored it and did what it pleased and claimed that its own ignorance that because the conquerors neither knew nor cared nobody else did either.

[fresh-snow]

Nelson Mandela was in USA's terror watchlist until *2008. The guy who fought against apartheid state of South Africa, won a Nobel peace prize, became a president, a beloved character across the globe was in the terror watchlist of USA. So I wouldn't actually take murica's opinion about labeling a person or group of people as terrorists. Chances are they're actually fighting for the freedom of their country.

That's why they call Hamas terrorists instead of freedom fighters. In their eyes The Nelson Mandela was a terrorist.

Anyways as Nelson Mandela said

Free Palestine 🇵🇸🍉

[la7ma-mafrooma]

ENGLISH TRANSLATION:

I don't know who they are [the people buried]. Every time I pass by here, I stop and say hello. We found them weeks ago lying and covered in their own blood in the middle of the road, two young men in the flower of their youth seemed as if they are sleeping. We buried them in the eastern region of Al Saraya.

I am sorry to all the unidentified martyrs. I am sorry to every martyr we did not bury till now. I am sorry to all the martyrs we couldn't register the names of or save their pictures. I am sorry to every martyr who offered his soul for the land [Gaza/Palestine] and wasn't given his own grave to rest in. I am sorry to my friend Refaat @/itranslate123 who has been under the rubble for 40 days and still is. I am sorry once to the martyrs we know, and a thousand times for those we don't.

END OF TRANSLATION

The idea of having a loved one killed and buried without my knowledge is terrifying. However, it is the reality of many Palestinians who bury unidentified martyrs, and the Palestinians who cannot find their family members and do not know whether they're still alive or not. We must keep talking about Palestine, and we must keep exposing the crimes of the Israeli occupation!

[fursasaida]

This article is from 2022, but it came up in the context of Palestine:

Here are some striking passages, relevant to all colonial aftermaths but certainly also to the forms we see Zionist reaction taking at the moment:

Over the decade I lived in South Africa, I became fascinated by this white minority [i.e. the whole white population post-apartheid as a minority in the country], particularly its members who considered themselves progressive. They reminded me of my liberal peers in America, who had an apparently self-assured enthusiasm about the coming of a so-called majority-minority nation. As with white South Africans who had celebrated the end of apartheid, their enthusiasm often belied, just beneath the surface, a striking degree of fear, bewilderment, disillusionment, and dread.

[...]

Yet these progressives’ response to the end of apartheid was ambivalent. Contemplating South Africa after apartheid, an Economist correspondent observed that “the lives of many whites exude sadness.” The phenomenon perplexed him. In so many ways, white life remained more or less untouched, or had even improved. Despite apartheid’s horrors—and the regime’s violence against those who worked to dismantle it—the ANC encouraged an attitude of forgiveness. It left statues of Afrikaner heroes standing and helped institute the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which granted amnesty to some perpetrators of apartheid-era political crimes.

But as time wore on, even wealthy white South Africans began to radiate a degree of fear and frustration that did not match any simple economic analysis of their situation. A startling number of formerly anti-apartheid white people began to voice bitter criticisms of post-apartheid society. An Afrikaner poet who did prison time under apartheid for aiding the Black-liberation cause wrote an essay denouncing the new Black-led country as “a sewer of betrayed expectations and thievery, fear and unbridled greed.”

What accounted for this disillusionment? Many white South Africans told me that Black forgiveness felt like a slap on the face. By not acting toward you as you acted toward us, we’re showing you up, white South Africans seemed to hear. You’ll owe us a debt of gratitude forever.

The article goes on to discuss:

"Mau Mau anxiety," or the fear among whites of violent repercussions, and how this shows up in reported vs confirmed crime stats - possibly to the point of false memories of home invasion

A sense of irrelevance and alienation among this white population, leading to another anxiety: "do we still belong here?"

The sublimation of this anxiety into self-identification as a marginalized minority group, featuring such incredible statements as "I wanted to fight for Afrikaners, but I came to think of myself as a ‘liberal internationalist,’ not a white racist...I found such inspiration from the struggles of the Catalonians and the Basques. Even Tibet" and "[Martin Luther] King [Jr.] also fought for a people without much political representation … That’s why I consider him one of my most important forebears and heroes,” from a self-declared liberal environmentalist who also thinks Afrikaaners should take back government control because they are "naturally good" at governance

Some discussion of the dynamics underlying these reactions, particularly the fact that "admitting past sins seem[ed] to become harder even as they receded into history," and US parallels

And finally, in closing:

The Afrikaner journalist Rian Malan, who opposed apartheid, has written that, by most measures, its aftermath went better than almost any white person could have imagined. But, as with most white progressives, his experience of post-1994 South Africa has been complicated. [...]

He just couldn’t forgive Black people for forgiving him. Paradoxically, being left undisturbed served as an ever-present reminder of his guilt, of how wrongly he had treated his maid and other Black people under apartheid. “The Bible was right about a thing or two,” he wrote. “It is infinitely worse to receive than to give, especially if … the gift is mercy.”

[totallynotcensorship]

[kropotkindersurprise]

November 24/25/26, 2023 - Despite the temporary ceasefire the people of the world are still taking to the streets everywhere in huge numbers to demand an enduring end to Israel's occupation and genocide of the Palestinian people. Here is a small selection of the solidarity demonstrations this past weekend. People are not letting themselves be tired out or distracted, Palestine is not alone!

Havana, Cuba

Durban, South Africa

Ottawa, Canada

Tokyo, Japan

Jakarta, Indonesia / Doha, Qatar

Tangier, Morocco

Copenhagen, Denmark / Sydney, Australia

Nicosia, Cyprus / Paris, France

New York City, USA / London, UK

[hussyknee]

Freedom for Sudan! 🇸🇩

Freedom for The Congo! 🇨🇩

Freedom for Armenia! 🇦🇲

From River To The Sea, Palestine Will Be Free! 🇵🇸🇵🇸🇵🇸

[seohyun0306]

Today, April 27th, marks 30 years since the official end of South African apartheid and the first democratic election ever held in the republic. Like Nelson Mandela said, our freedom is still incomplete without the freedom of Palestine. Just as the South African apartheid regime was crushed, so shall Israel.

[nezreblogz]

i got 12/20

[dayinadream]

2021 : South African diplomat Lesiba Machaba argues with an Israeli soldier attempting to stop Palestinian farmers harvesting olives near AlKhaleel (Hebron) occupied West Bank

[sol1562]

They showed their own colors

[la7ma-mafrooma]

ENGLISH TRANSLATION:

Just now, the electricity has been cut off in the ICU and for newborn babies in Shuhada' Al Aqsa Hospital [Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital]. The place is being lit using mobile phones' flashlights.

Everything is being repeated in the same way, but with less reactions.

END OF TRANSLATION

KEEP TALKING ABOUT PALESTINE AND KEEP EXPOSING ISRAEL'S CRIMES!

[sayruq]

[totallynotcensorship]

tags update:

palestine, free palestine, south africa, yemen, icj hearing, international court of justice, israel, social justice, gaza strip, free gaza are all trending

DON'T STOP TALKING ABOUT PALESTINE, ISRAEL IS STILL BOMBING THEM DURING THE TRIAL

[unbfacts]