This quote has also been ascribed to the first President of Kenya, Jomo Kenyatta.
Going back to history is of no use here, it will simply be too trite and and banal because the world is not blind to the twin facts of slavery and colonialism. Africans continue to live in what can be termed the slavery-colonial world of self-destruction. The continent has taken on this banner copiously with ignorance and 'natural gullibility'. Whilst the Arabs upon making contacts with Africa realised the blessings nature has bequeathed to Africa and made all necessary attempts to tap from them, Africans were indoctrinated into a belief that would come to hunt, haunt and hurt them later.
Arabs bought goods and in a bid to maintain an upper hand, they enforced what would later be used to continuously control the minds of Africans. While the Dogon people of Mali had mastered the art of astronomy a very long time, they were mentally relaxed with the blessings of nature and it was not projected beyond their frontiers. This was true of most African ingenious knowledge and accomplishments. This was due to the relatively peaceful and tranquil environmental conditions where nutritional needs were rightly met on a daily basis. Though that was somehow the nature of the world ab initio, that of Africa was exceptional because of the extreme fertility its land had and still has.
From the stone age to the present era, food has always been the most important in the lives of man but man shall not live by bread alone, hence man needs to think of how to develop and advance. The African writing system was localised; serving only Africans but with the contact of the Arabs and the apparent 'brutal' conversion to Islam, Africans began to lose some of its indigenous contents. The Arabs were trading as well as forcing religion down the throats of Africans. They also took slaves down to the Mediterranean, castrated the men and they died with almost no traces as documented by the Tarikhs. While they were growing with the trade, Africans were studying the religion of Islam.
Then came the Europeans who dared nature and moved beyond their frontiers. They defiled all hurdles and mounted great audacity to conquer challenges and whatever barriers nature imposed on them. They learnt and stole. They ventured into Africa and other parts of the globe beginning from Amerigo Vespucci down to Columbus and the Conquistadors. What followed was the enslavement of Africans. While Africans were being enslaved which had the blessing of the Pope and other notable adherents of Christianity, Europeans also forced religion down their throats.
Africans were made to accept a new master. The apparent peace they witnessed using Africans as slaves and stealing from the ingenuity and discoveries of the slaves gave birth to the industrial revolution. One who has less worry of what to eat and work not will be equipped with the utmost mental capacity to think and project; hence they were growing while Africa was plundered. Now, they have given us alternatives to development which are the religions. The religions ensure we die today; killing one another in religious competition. The religions ensure we blame some supernatural forces like the days of our forebears who offered sacrifices to gods but they were better than us because they never depended on foreigners for solutions and they created civilisations that the world continues to bow for.Africa was not made to evolve; its development and advancement was brutally, inhumanly and inhumanely truncated. Its worldview was replaced by another superstructure hinged on respecting the masters who gave Africans religions and took away vital and viable elements of growth and advancement. African parents teach children to read the Bible and the Quran in order to conquer heaven while it does not matter to them how miserable their existence is on planet earth. On the other hand the 'masters' teach their children to study the sciences, conquer self first, then their environment and the Universe far into space. In the end one remains a slave forever and the other the master eternally. Ironically, the same African parents are ready to spend huge sums to train their children in the masters' lands.
Even when the 'slave' is a bit polished to make him or her look near a master, being a master can never really be possible because the brain has been underdeveloped from childhood. There is lack of concept for and of the environment but that of heaven. The wealth is to be stored in heaven while begging is the only means to survive on planet earth. Today, some religious fundamentalists can wake to bomb people in Somalia, Central African Republic, Mali, Nigeria, Kenya and host of other places using the umbrella of a concept that was sold to Africa around the 9th century by the Arabs while the other, while trying to curb the activities of the so-called terrorists, would rush to the 'masters', the Europeans who imposed the second religious concept beginning from the 15th century.
Teresa Brennan captured this well in her treatise Globalization and its Terrors; Daily Life in the West. She said the brains of the South (Africans majorly) have been decimated and desecrated because they are malnourished; not eating properly and combated my extreme poverty while the bodies of the North are useless; obesity and weakness because of much affluence and extreme good life conditions. The good life of the North depends on the hunger and poverty of the South.
Thus, the brains of the North will always enslave the bodies of the South. Not that the people of the South have no brains but they are functioning below capacity. Not that the people of the North have no bodies too but they are rendered really useless because goodies of life. This brings to mind the rush to be in foreign lands by Africans which equals modern slavery. Brain drain. Africans believe in trying to walk through the valley of the shadow of death without fear of evil while their mates in other climes are walking in Space; moon and Mars. Today, Africans export clergies while they import technology.
