By Tochukwu Ezukanma
In his Philosophy of History, the 19th Century German philosopher, Friedrich Hegel, wrote so disparagingly about Africans, “The African exhibits the natural man in his wild and untamed state; there is nothing harmonious with humanity to be found in his character”.
And “the undervaluing of humanity among them reaches an incredible degree of intensity: cannibalism is looked upon as quite customary and proper. The devouring of human flesh is altogether consonant with the general principles of the African race.” We can disregard Hegel on the grounds that, as of the 19th Century, the Europeans’ prejudiced and inadequate knowledge of Africa could not have given an accurate and objective account of Africans.
In the late18th Century, Thomas Jefferson wrote, “People of African descent are inferior to whites in mental aptitude; emancipation policy permitting racial interaction was a criminal injustice to the freed slaves as well as a biological travesty against the distinction that nature has made”. In the early 20th Century, a Harvard University student, Franklin Roosevelt, spoke about Americans solving the Negro problem by making “a man out of a semi-beast”.
We
can also dismiss these derogatory opinions of Africans by two White Americans
because, unlike no other nation in history, slavery tortured the American
conscience. It was very hard to justify slavery in a country founded on the
creed that “all men are created equal” So, the justification for slavery in
America was found in sweeping racial theories that held that Blacks were not
really human, but beasts that happen to look human.
In the 1980s, the then Apartheid South African president, Peter Botha said, “Black people cannot rule themselves because they don’t have the brain and mental capacity to govern society. Give them guns, they will kill themselves. Give them power, they will steal all the government money. Give them independence and democracy, they will use it to promote tribalism, bigotry, hatred, killings and wars”. We can argue that Botha needed to defend the Apartheid system in South Africa by reinforcing the false, but prevailing, notion of the genetic superiority of the White races. Understandably, he blamed the social and political handicaps of Africans squarely on their racial inferiority.
While we can excuse away so much for Africans, there are a number
of irrefutable worrisome facts about Africa that we must inescapably confront.
For example, in January 1943, on his way to a meeting with the British Prime
Minister, Winston Churchill, in Casablanca, the American president, Franklin
Roosevelt, passed through Bathurst, Gambia. He called Gambia a “pestiferous
hole”, and predicated that Africa will remain a major source of problems and
setback for the entire world for many years to come. Is Gambia, like many other
African countries, including Nigeria, not a pestiferous hole, and has Africa
not remained a major source of problems and setback for the entire world?
And,
even, as we impugn the motivations for Botha’s deprecating statements about
Africans, the political and economic realities of Nigeria and many African
countries validate his summation. Have we not used the guns designated for the
maintenance of law and order, and defense of the country to kill ourselves in
coups, civil war, terrorism and banditry? Are those in power not notorious for
stealing government money? And have we not used our independence and democracy
to promote tribalism, bigotry, hatred, killings and wars?
What is
wrong with Africans? Are we genetically inferior to the other races of the
world, and consequently, lack the “brain and mental capacity to govern
society”, and inevitably, populate “pestiferous holes” that invariably remain
“major sources of problems and setback to the entire world”? The answer is no, absolutely no. The problems of the Black man are
not genetic; we are not genetically inferior to any human race. Like any other
human race, we have the brain and mental capacity to govern societies and build
great countries, and earn the respect and admiration of the other peoples of
the world.
Our
problems are attitudinal and cultural. As Harry Barnes rightfully noted in his
Intellectual and Cultural History of the Western World, “All efforts to prove
the superiority of one race or sub-race of man over another turned out
unsuccessful”. It is not race, but culture, cultural skills and attitudinal
disposition that are most significant in determining human development. The
differences in social accomplishment and human development between races, for
example, White and Black, are more cultural and attitudinal than genetic. “Race
is strictly a physical matter that has no relation to intelligence and cultural
attainment.”
In the
age, when the Greeks and the Romans held sway over the civilized world, the
Nordic tribes of Europe – the ancestors of the Germans, English, Danish, etc –
were “not civilized into an orderly community”. They were barbarians: the most
primitive, barbarous and ferocious Europeans. Although
their genetic and racial make-up remained the same, today, they are the most
advanced, enlightened, and progressive of all Europeans. What brought the
dramatic change in their social accomplishment and human development? It was
their culture, traditions, cultural skills and mindset that changed over the
centuries.
Despite
their dazzling achievements in science, literature, administration and
jurisprudence, and reign over the civilized world up till the early centuries
of the Christian era, the Romans (Italians), had by the 19th Century
degenerated to the point where Napoleon Bonaparte considered them, “ill-suited
for freedom, and incapable of self-government.” And “His many contemptuous
utterances about Italians are crude and (deprecating) to a point that any
historian (will be) embarrassed to quote them.” Their subsequent backwardness
was not a result of change in genetic or racial make-up, but culture and
mindset.
The
problems of Africans are not racial, but historical, cultural and attitudinal.
Thus, like other races that, over historical ages, broke out of their barbarian
and crude ways, and into enlightenment and progress, we are muddling our way
through a historical phase that pre-stages our evolution of progressive
cultures, and cultivation of progressive attitudes, which will propel us to
join in the social, political and scientific advancement of the other races of
the world. When and
how this will happen is up for conjecture.
*Ezukanma writes from Lagos,
Nigeria (via maciln18@yahoo.com)
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