Come Back, Colonialism, All is Forgiven
By Alex Perry

Le Blanc and I are into our 500th kilometer on the river when he turns my view of modern African history on its head. "We should just give it all back to the whites," the riverboat captain says. "Even if you go 1,000 kilometers down this river, you won't see a single sign of development. When the whites left, we didn't just stay where we were. We went backwards."

Le Blanc earns his keep sailing the tributaries of the Congo River. He's 40 years old, and his real name is Malu-Ebonga Charles — he got his nickname, and his green eyes and dark honey skin, from a German grandfather who married a Congolese woman in what was then the Belgian Congo. If his unconventional genealogy gave him a unique view of the Congo's colonial past, it is his job on the river, piloting three dugouts lashed together with twine and mounted with outboards, that has informed his opinion of the Democratic Republic of Congo's present. "The river is the artery of Congo's economy," he says. "When the Belgians and the Portuguese were here, there were farms and plantations — cashews, peanuts, rubber, palm oil. There was industry and factories employing 3,000 people, 5,000 people. But since independence, no Congolese has succeeded. The plantations are abandoned." Using a French expression literally translated as "on the ground," he adds: "Everything is par terre."

It's true that our journey through 643 kilometers of rainforest to where the Maringa River joins the Congo at Mbandaka, has been an exploration of decline. An abandoned tug boat here; there, a beached paddle steamer stripped of its metal sides to a rusted skeleton; several abandoned palm oil factories, their roofs caved in, their walls disappearing into the engulfing forest, their giant storage tanks empty and rusted out. The palms now grow wild and untended on the riverbanks and in the villages we pass, the people dress in rags, hawk smoked black fish and bushmeat, and besiege us with requests for salt or soap. There are no schools here, no clinics, no electricity, no roads. It can take a year for basic necessities ordered from the capital, Kinshasa, nearly 2,000 kilometers downstream, to make it here — if they make it at all. At one point we pass a cargo barge that has taken three months to travel the same distance we will cover in two days. We stop in the hope of buying some gasoline, but all we get from the vessel are rats.

Even amid the morbid decay, it comes as a shock to hear Le Blanc mourn colonialism. The venal, racist scramble by Europeans to possess Africa and exploit its resources found its fullest expression in the Congo. In the late 19th century, Belgium's King Leopold made a personal fiefdom of the central African territory as large as all of Western Europe. From it, he extracted a fortune in ivory, rubber, coffee, cocoa, palm oil and minerals such as gold and diamonds. Unruly laborers working in conditions of de facto slavery had their hands chopped off; the cruelty of Belgian rule was premised on the idea that Congo and its peoples were a resource to be exploited as efficiently as possible. Leopold's absentee brutality set the tone for those that followed him in ruling the Congo — successive Belgian governments and even the independent government of Mobutu Sese Seko, who ruled from 1965 to 1997 and who, in a crowded field, still sets the standard for repression and corruption among African despots.

Le Blanc isn't much concerned with that history; he lives in the present, in a country where education is a luxury and death is everywhere. Around 45,000 people die each month in the DRC as a result of the social collapse brought on by civil war, according to a study released in January by the International Rescue Committee. It estimated the total loss of life between 1998 and April 2007 at 5.4 million. For many Congolese like Le Blanc, the difficulties of today blot out the cruelties of the past. "On this river, all that you see — the buildings, the boats — only whites did that. After the whites left, the Congolese did not work. We did not know how to. For the past 50 years, we've just declined." He pauses. "They took this country by force," he says, with more than a touch of admiration. "If they came back, this time we'd give them the country for free."

Source: Time

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It is absolutely silly and unproductive to have a funeral for the word nigger when the actions continue.
We need to have a movement to resurrect brothers and sisters, not a funeral for niggers, cause niggers dont die
Project Roach - Nas (feat Last Poets)

ignorant assholes like this drive me crazy, but he's hardly a unique case...

you can go all over the continent and find that this inherent lack of confidence and self-esteem amongst Africans is an epidemic much more widespread than malaria or AIDS.

I was shocked by this write-up... But there is indeed a stark realism of how Congo is wasting away....

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It is absolutely silly and unproductive to have a funeral for the word nigger when the actions continue.
We need to have a movement to resurrect brothers and sisters, not a funeral for niggers, cause niggers dont die
Project Roach - Nas (feat Last Poets)

Lol!Come back colonialism,and take "LOOTOCRACY" away from my dear nigeria!

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DS ON YOUTUBE.


The Ultimate
We Are Part And Parcel Of Everything
We Are The Cosmos
We Are Life
We Are Love
We Are All That Is
We Are The Creator Of The Dance,As Well As The Dancer

Bros,be mindful of what you wish for bcos Colonialism is all about "Lootocracy"

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IT IS BETTER TO DIE FOR A CAUSE THAT WOULD LIVE THAN TO LIVE FOR ONE THAT WOULD DIE

Two different types of lootocracy meet themselves head on,colonialist lootocracy and naija lootocracy.
Now weighing these two on a "lootocracy scale",which one of the two packed a heavier punch of devastation?
I will go for naija lootocracy,any day.
No matter how much we get looted by neocolonialists,they will never leave us in a decaying state of civilization that we find ourselves in,right now.
Naija lootocrats will loot 95% and leave only 5% for the nation to struggle over.
Neocolonialist lootocrats will most probably loot 40% to 50% and still leave us 60% to 50%.Oh happy days!

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DS ON YOUTUBE.


The Ultimate
We Are Part And Parcel Of Everything
We Are The Cosmos
We Are Life
We Are Love
We Are All That Is
We Are The Creator Of The Dance,As Well As The Dancer

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UP ISI-EWU!! UP NIGERIA!!!

My friend get ya facts right.COM!
They will leave 1% and tell y'all to eat grass, after all it is healthy for the poor.COM!

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SKY has no limit


Holland RED LIGHT District
NR DRAMA CAMPUS LIFE & OMOTOLA'S IKEBE READ HERE.....

i so agree with the thread ......in fact i sometimes wish we didn't get our independent the time we got it..... it is one of the undoing of that country... ...by now Nigeria for resemble oyibo land ... we for they sure of electricity, road and water ....The white man will always take care of his environment but the black man will rather stack money and have no road to his mansion in the villa....(the igbo's in particular)

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SOMETIMES IT IS HARD TO SEE THE PLACE,GOD HAS CALLED YOU AS A PLACE OF BLESSING, BUT THATS WHEN YOU'VE GOT TO HOLD ON AND TRUST THE PROCESS
PEOPLE TEND TO DRAW OTHERS BACK FROM THINGS THEY SECRETLY WOULD HAVE LOVED TO DO BUT ARE NOT CAPABLE OR DARING ENOUGH TO DO
THEY WILL ALWAYS TALK BUT YOUR CHOICE IN WHO YOU LISTEN TO IS WHAT MATTERS......

Yeah Mr .Overconfident ...but u left the motherland and reside with the white man on his land(USA) ....take ur confidence and go and live in Naija with its independence !!!!

Talk is cheap !!!

Dont call him an asshole ....na person wey dey wear tight shoe no as e dey pain !!!

He drives you crazy ?????? ...go back now now ...pack ya load and go and teash dem confidence and self esteem .... why run to the white man's land ...shebi dem don give us independence ??? why we dey follow dem to their land .....come siddon for Africa now !!!!

Talk is cheap !!

do you have a point?

i don't think so.

yes, i live outside of Nigeria. part of the reason i live outside of Nigeria is because the situation in Nigeria is not particularly conducive to my current lifestyle.

but the problem with people like you is that it's your small-minded thinking that causes Africa to be in the situation that it currently is. the fact that people like you inherently have an inferiority complex... why WOULDN'T we be underdeveloped?

the fact that we've always had so many people like you would rather be like children, constantly looking up to the Almighty White Man to save you is a huge part of our problem.

Why is it not conducive to your lifestyle ???

Ok Im small minded and I have inferiority complex ...I sha'nt argue with you !

But we need people like you with open-mindedness and high self esteem to make Nigeria conducive for people like you ...we dont want to leave the motherland and look up to the white man who have made their own land conducive for for their own !!

Come and show folks back in Africa how to save ourselves ....come back and make things happen .....we need your energy overflowing with high self esteem and open-mindedness ....

If u practice an alternative lifestyle then go back and fight your cause in Africa ....leave the almighty white man's land and influence and come back to Africa and make things happen ...calling the man an asshole while maintaining a comfortable abode in the ALMIGHTY WHITE MAN'S LAND !
he has more self esteem to speak up about something he believes .....he could be just like u ....run abroad with his tail between his legs ....looking for a "conducive" life among the almighty white man !!!


You throw around the word "WE" ...... ...u are not part of "we" ...you are a diasporian .....u dont count ...you are not adding any value to Africa at the present time ......you are a third class citizen in the white man's land... many seas away...but of course you have high self esteem and confidence ....ha ha !!!!!!!

the funny thing, Obariba, is that you have no idea what i am doing or not doing to contribute to the cause of improving Nigeria and Africa.

likewise, you don't know whether as i type this right now, i am in the process of moving back home.

perhaps you should have asked me questions like that before you opened your mouth, y'think?

Maybe you should have gotten to the issues the man was addressing ...than concluding he is an asshole .....

....is he lying about the backwardness Africa is experiencing after colonialism ????

absolutely not !!!

If people long/yearn for a standard of living that existed before independence ...what has low self esteem got to do with it ???

Some people long for those days ...some just up and move to the white man land ....how are u any different from that man u call an asshole ???

Its not as if you are presently a resident African .....u are .....in the P......r....o...c...e...s....s of moving back home right ???

A lot of the infrastructure in place are from colonial rule .......there is a big problem .....nothing to boast off post colonialism !!

I dont have to know u to understand u referred to the man as an asshole ....while ur location on ure monker says USA ..... thats all that matters.