BS: If Africa had not suffered Colonialism

Subject: RE: BS: If Africa had not suffered Colonialism
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 09 Mar 18 - 02:58 PM

both very simplistic reductio ad absurdums.

we have some very poor people of all colours in my country , England.

some very rich people - all very determined to pay very little tax, and acknowledging no responsibility for the privileges they enjoy or the necessity to keep this a stable society.

India has more millionaires than any other country - so presumably they have the same problem in spades.

Cue for the usual chorus of right wing claptrappers to say - rich people pay more tax than us. no they don't. they pay more income tax. but most taxation is raised indirectly - and this inevitably falls on the poor.

Subject: RE: BS: If Africa had not suffered Colonialism
From: Senoufou
Date: 09 Mar 18 - 03:33 PM

I understand that you feel concern for the poor people in UK Al, but unless one has been to some 'Third World' countries and seen the extremes of poverty, disease, suffering and literal starvation (children and adults) one can't appreciate the difference. 'Poor' here is not the same as 'poor' over there.

I agree with Jackaroodave that 'White Privilege' is a good watchword. I am constantly aware of how fortunate I am, and try in an admittedly limited way to help as much as I can. But I don't personally feel responsible for colonisation, exploitation or enslavement that took place without my involvement or complicity.

Subject: RE: BS: If Africa had not suffered Colonialism
From: bobad
Date: 09 Mar 18 - 03:53 PM

I thank you for your absolution Father Al, my burden has been lifted.

Subject: RE: BS: If Africa had not suffered Colonialism
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 09 Mar 18 - 04:51 PM

Senoflou you wouldn't want the white privileges that exist in some corners of our land for a dog.

You're right. I haven't seen lots of third world places. The only place in Africa I've seen is Tunisia. Spent a week there once. Saw the townships of people living in cardboard boxes. saw the mausoleum with the solid gold roof for the head honcho.

You know if you've ever done a job like teaching in the inner ring of one of our great cities, and watched the tory party conference, you'd realise our problems and the solution to them aren't so different from those of third world countries.

Subject: RE: BS: If Africa had not suffered Colonialism
From: Senoufou
Date: 09 Mar 18 - 05:15 PM

In the early seventies, I taught in an extremely poor area of Glasgow called Bluevale, the wrong side of Duke Street. The pupils were malnourished, badly housed (some in condemned properties infested with rats and cockroaches) and had impetigo, scabies, head lice and so on. Their parent/s were often drunk or violent. They were showered once a week by a lady who brought clean towels and examined their skin. They were sent to Mugdock Residential School for six weeks' respite.
Their poverty was indeed heartbreaking (I truly loved those bairns) BUT I can assure anyone who hasn't been there that the things I've seen in Senegal, Gambia, Ivory Coast, Ghana and so on were MUCH WORSE.

Subject: RE: BS: If Africa had not suffered Colonialism
From: Mrrzy
Date: 09 Mar 18 - 11:31 PM

I am only white by most standards. Not white enough for the alt-right, but white enough to be supposed to have guilt according to many americans of partial african descent some of whose ancestors were slaves. Now, 3 out of 4 of my grandparents were foreign and so were not even descended from white American slave owners, and the 4th was Quaker so even though *some* of his white European-descended ancestors were in this country during slave times, they were either moving away from slave states or working the underground railroad. I have no guilt at all.

Subject: RE: BS: If Africa had not suffered Colonialism
From: robomatic
Date: 09 Mar 18 - 11:52 PM

I have felt 'white privilege' only if I were to put it in words in the context of work environment and place in which it occurred I would've called it 'Christian privilege'. In my own description at the time I described it as: "He tried to white-boy me." I didn't act on it because I am resistent to bringing things to law or HR. While it is for the most part visible as a kind of veneer, an attitude sensed, or a comment one is not sure one heard accurately, or a quote of something someone else heard. In one case a Mormon co-worker (a stand-up guy I would fight for) made the comment vis-a-vis my immigrant background that it was 'nice to have me here'. He meant well, but to my ears it sounded condescending.

A version of this visible to all is the so-called 'War on Christmas'. I don't really have a problem with being wished "Merry Christmas" by those who know no better, but there are those who definitely do know better.

This occurs even in multi-ethnic environments. Just ask Bernie Sanders. And I've been told of nasty anti-Semitic remarks passed by black co-workers in the presence of someone they knew was Jewish.

So I have no difficulty in believing in 'White Privilege' but I liked what comedian Louis C.K. did with it in one of his monologues.

Subject: RE: BS: If Africa had not suffered Colonialism
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 10 Mar 18 - 02:33 AM

okay. let's say we were privileged. and its because we're white. and because we lived in a country were the rich guys invested in the slave trade.

what in your opinion are the corollaries arising from that?

Subject: RE: BS: If Africa had not suffered Colonialism
From: Mrrzy
Date: 10 Mar 18 - 09:03 AM

We are privileged for being born American. What luck.

Corollary, we feel entitled to what we have since we were born to it, rather than seeing it as the privilege it actually is.

Those of us who lived in the Third World, sub-saharan west Africa in my case, see the luxuries. Standard americans see normalcy.

I used to teach my kids we were rich when we were on food stamps - We still had a washer and dryer in the house. I mean, really, that was not poverty.

Another corrolary is that when people don't have as much as others here in richdom USA, they (the poorer) think they are actually poor.

I had an Ivorian friend look around and say, Only in America are the poor FAT.

Subject: RE: BS: If Africa had not suffered Colonialism
From: Jackaroodave
Date: 10 Mar 18 - 11:05 AM

Mrrzy:"Corollary, we feel entitled to what we have since we were born to it, rather than seeing it as the privilege it actually is."

Yes! Or we don't even see it at all.

Research, experience, and introspection have convinced me that we tend to look to circumstances to help explain our shortcomings but to attribute our successes to our abilities.

(Friends, please interpret "we" and "our" as non-inclusive if that's appropriate.)

Subject: RE: BS: If Africa had not suffered Colonialism
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 10 Mar 18 - 12:22 PM

its not actually a sense of entitlement. its more to with the fact that my parents physically starved as children in the 1920's and 30's. THey fought a war. made a contract with a post war government, and paid huge taxes on tiny wages all their lives, which resulted in lifetimes of poverty - poverty of hope, poverty of ambition for their children.

I've seen tory and labour governments tear up the agreements they made, dishonour the promises made - steal as much as they could of the pittances they had managed to save.

I just wonder where and when the reward comes for the basic decency of the English people.

They didn't fish their seas to extinction like the Spanish. They didn't award themselves the right to own sub machine guns. THey reformed and liberalised the legal system and purged gory executions and legitimised previously illegal sexual practices. They financed with the aforessaid taxes a NHS and social security service, which is pillaged and exploited, and the only regrets of the party who created seems to be that we don't throw it open to the whole world.

perhaps our mistake was not to be as rapacious, reactionary and greedy as the top layer of our society.

Subject: RE: BS: If Africa had not suffered Colonialism
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 10 Mar 18 - 12:23 PM

after all if we're going to confession - let's have something to confess!

Subject: RE: BS: If Africa had not suffered Colonialism
From: robomatic
Date: 10 Mar 18 - 01:47 PM

That reminds me of a Pickles cartoon. Pickles and her husband are in church and the speech bubble, obviously from the minister giving the homily, is asking: "And what do we have to do before we obtain forgiveness for our sins?"
Next panel: Another speech bubble from way back in the congregation: "SIN!"

My thoughts in approval of white privilege will come later should this thread survive and not be closed by a nervous nelly mod.

Subject: RE: BS: If Africa had not suffered Colonialism
From: Mrrzy
Date: 10 Mar 18 - 04:39 PM

Yeah, Mom knew starvation, as did our Ivorian friend.

Subject: RE: BS: If Africa had not suffered Colonialism
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 11 Mar 18 - 06:08 AM

of course poor people in third world countries will be worse off than poor people in relatively prosperous countries.

And in a way - you can blame the 'devil take the hindmost' discipline that economics seems to impose on us.

I say seems, because its very short sighted. Just as the southern states in the antebellum America saw slavery as being the basis of their economy, when it was in fact slavery that was keeping them poor - thus it is with the third world. We will all be better off if Africa becomes full of wage earning consumers buying the goods we produce.

however what hope do they truly have. the engine of change must come from within.
And if we cannot help our own poor - despite having ruthless secular logic applied by teams of government think tanks - what chance do countries with all manner of outlandish beliefs - both social and spiritual.

Subject: RE: BS: If Africa had not suffered Colonialism
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 11 Mar 18 - 07:18 AM

Subjunctively speaking, if Africa had not been colonised, I would not have had to do an essay on "the scramble for Africa" for which I got A+ at school!!!

Subject: RE: BS: If Africa had not suffered Colonialism
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 11 Mar 18 - 08:17 AM

its an ill wind...

Subject: RE: BS: If Africa had not suffered Colonialism
From: robomatic
Date: 11 Mar 18 - 02:47 PM

I've just been listening to "A World Lit Only by Fire" by William Manchester. It's the story of Europe in the Middle Ages and it's progressive march of various peoples, kicked out of one domain and settling another, typically obliterating the population it comes upon. What little civilization is left is pretty shabby, and the legal system knows neither justice nor mercy.

Subject: RE: BS: If Africa had not suffered Colonialism
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 12 Mar 18 - 07:08 AM

A highly educated neighbour from Siera Leone considers that had Africa not been colonised up to 50% of the population would have been killed/tortured etc during inter tribal wars!!!

Subject: RE: BS: If Africa had not suffered Colonialism
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 12 Mar 18 - 07:23 AM

Tell us where he was educated. They could urgently do with a visit from Ofsted.

Subject: RE: BS: If Africa had not suffered Colonialism
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 12 Mar 18 - 08:09 AM

Ha ha!!

Subject: RE: BS: If Africa had not suffered Colonialism
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 12 Mar 18 - 12:57 PM

One of the top schools in Africa I believe, where they teach common sense and not lefty gibberish!

Subject: RE: BS: If Africa had not suffered Colonialism
From: robomatic
Date: 12 Mar 18 - 02:30 PM

University of Wakonda?

Subject: RE: BS: If Africa had not suffered Colonialism
From: Mrrzy
Date: 12 Mar 18 - 11:08 PM

I do wonder what would be different about humanity if we had stayed on our various continents long enough to speciate... not just not colonize Africa.

Subject: RE: BS: If Africa had not suffered Colonialism
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 13 Mar 18 - 06:02 AM

You may be assuming there that Homo sapiens had multiple origins on different continents. You can only "speciate" if you're there in the first place. That means you either arose in several places independently or you migrated there.

Subject: RE: BS: If Africa had not suffered Colonialism
From: Mrrzy
Date: 13 Mar 18 - 08:09 AM

We were in different places long enough to evolve the different skin colors and fat distributions etc - though we all came from Africa. The different what-we-perceive-as-race-today did evolve separately after migrating to where what had been africans evolved into the "races" - is what I meant.

Subject: RE: BS: If Africa had not suffered Colonialism
From: robomatic
Date: 13 Mar 18 - 10:14 PM

I think James Blish made a noble effort with "The Seedling Stars"

If the OT is anything to go by, mankind was not made to settle down. We were kicked out of the Garden of Eden for a reason.