[kictanet] Interesting Piece ...

Mon Jan 23 17:04:52 EAT 2012

I'd hoped you'd cite Chinua Achebe's "Things Fall Apart" which in
essence touches on issues of inferiority/superiority. Okonkwo, the
wrestler, the go to guy, one of the mainstays of his community vs the
white missionaries and colonialists (and broadly those villagers who
pandered to their whims). But sadly he elected to give in at the end.

There are also other literary giants - pls bear with me - and lets
puts History books aside for a moment (especially because, "Until
lions start writing down their own stories, the hunters will always be
the heroes") ...So literature was one way through which writers like
Achebe, Soyinka, Meja Mwangi, Ngugi wa Thiongo, could create a vehicle
to challenge African thinking, sometimes creating stereotypical
characters (that reflect who we are or how we are perceived) to help
bring about changes in people's thinking.   Its not really about
technology, production, etc - its about attitude (there was a movement
of francophone writers who coined the phrase "negritude").

In the US Obama broadly blasted African Americans who always have the
"victim" mentality and therefore always seek reparation rather than
improving their own lot and stopping whining about how they have
always been historically disadvantaged.   He epitomises that positive
thinking  - and he is not even an African American, rather an American
with an African father.

On 23 January 2012 16:30, Daniel Waweru <daniel.waweru at gmail.com> wrote:
> There doesn't appear to be a valid arguments in the piece.
>
> Walter argues as follows:
>
> (1) Africans are inferior.
>
> (The criterion for inferiority is White opinion. If White
> people think you're inferior, then you are. Walter clearly thinks Africans
> are inferior, and the listener, idiot that he is, accepts the thought.)
>
> (2) Africans are inferior not because they live in a world whose rules are
> set by people hostile to their interests, and have inherited a legacy of
> colonialism, slavery, apartheid and the like.
>
> (3) Africans are inferior because they don't make stuff.
>
> (Sub-argument: Africans don't make stuff because their intellectuals are
> stupid and lazy.)
>
> (4) Therefore, if Africans start making stuff, they'll stop being inferior.
>
> The argument neatly destroys itself. Walter tells us that if Africans made
> stuff, they would no longer be inferior. Now, the test of inferiority is
> White opinion, as both Walter and his listener make clear. So, all we have
> to do to test the argument is to look for examples of what White people
> think of non-White people who make things. The evidence is not far to seek,
> since in the very same piece, Walter claims that White people have contempt
> for Asians (I assume he means Indians and Chinese). Asians make things, yes,
> but, in the White view, according to Walter, they stole the technology for
> making it. Therefore, they remain inferior.
>
> Similar arguments can be found in the comments of any right-wing newspaper
> in English. Even where the industrial achievements of China or India are
> commended, White commentators will argue that Chinese, Indians or other East
> Asians are incapable of original thought. Their achievements are simply a
> copy of White achievement. There is no reason to think that making things
> will cause Africans to stop being regarded as inferior.
>
> The basic move here is the basic move in lots of colonial arguments. In
> virtue of being human, Africans are the equal of anyone else. The
> colonialist wants inequality. He has then to find a way to convince himself
> and others either that Africans are not human, or that equality rests on
> something other than humanity. Walter tells us that equality rests on the
> ability to make things. In the distant past, (see the concluding chapter of
> Johnston's A history of the colonisation of Africa by alien races), we were
> told that Africans were inferior because they had been unable to find a form
> of racial unity. Since they were unable to find a form of racial unity, they
> were doomed to be the servants of superior races from Africa and Asia. In
> the slightly less distant past (see Christopher Wilson's Kenya's Warning:
> The Challenge to White Supremacy in Our Colony) we were told that Africans
> were inferior, because their cultures were inferior, they circumcised their
> women and they were polygamous, therefore they had not earned the right to
> rule themselves. Examples could be multiplied. It's bad enough to have to
> read this shit from defenders of colonialism in the past and present, but I
> was not expecting to have to put up with it from Africans themselves.
>
> Daniel Waweru
> www.kenyaimagine.com
> Art and analysis; debate and opinion.
>
>
> On 22 January 2012 19:13, Francis Hook <francis.hook at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> If we look beyond the effrontery there are very valid arguements
>> there. Look at India - they manufacture many things - and yes they
>> still have poverty but they are slowly clawing their way out of an
>> abyss.
>>
>> I hear we have a bullet factory in eldoret - why can we not make
>> bicycles? We had the nyayo pioneer car and I would like to hear a
>> valid arguement why that could not have taken off and why we have
>> become a nation of ex-Japan cars. We used to have a good textile
>> industry but someone saw fit to allow containers of used clothes into
>> the country - now we have decently dressed, hungry and jobless people.
>>
>> I think the tone is harsh but sometimes we need to take bitter pills.
>> There is a generation growing up in Kenya who will start asking these
>> same questions - and we cannot wish away the problem and either have
>> to find credible answers or bring about some change.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On 22/01/2012, Daniel Waweru <daniel.waweru at gmail.com> wrote:
>> > Astonishingly stupid piece. I wouldn't have been surprised had it turned
>> > out that Ewart Grogan had written it. This part, in particular, is
>> > exceptionally stupid:
>> >
>> > Knowing well that King Cobra will not embody innovation at Walter’s
>> > level
>> >> let’s begin to look for a technologically active-positive leader who
>> >> can
>> >> succeed him after a term or two. That way we can make our own stone
>> >> crushers, water filters, water pumps, razor blades, and harvesters.
>> >> Let’s
>> >> dream big and make tractors, cars, and planes, or, like Walter said,
>> >> forever remain inferior.
>> >
>> >
>> > since it *fully* accepts the colonial premiss that the human value of
>> > people depends on their level of technological advancement. The author
>> > proves his point about African intellectuals, if not in quite the way he
>> > expects.
>> >
>> >
>> > Daniel Waweru
>> > www.kenyaimagine.com
>> > Art and analysis; debate and opinion.
>> >
>> >
>> > On 22 January 2012 17:30, Agosta Liko <agostal at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> http://mindofmalaka.wordpress.com/2012/01/18/you-lazy-intellectual-african-scum/
>> >>
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>>
>> --
>> Francis Hook
>> +254 733 504561
>
>

-- 
Francis Hook
+254 733 504561