© Numero Unoma
Today, August 31 2022 is the second time ever that we have observed International Day for People of African Descent. Please note the choice of words in this excerpt as you read through to the end of my piece.
“Through this Observance the United Nations aims to promote the extraordinary contributions of the African diaspora around the world and to eliminate all forms of discrimination against people of African descent.
The United Nations strongly condemns the continuing violent practices and excessive use of force by law enforcement agencies against Africans and people of African descent and condemns structural racism in criminal justice systems around the world. The Organization further acknowledges the Transatlantic Slave Trade as one of the darkest chapters in our human history and upholds human dignity and equality for the victims of slavery, the slave trade and colonialism, in particular people of African descent in the African diaspora.” (Source: un.org)
Ok listen up Africans, apparently this one’s not for you, errm, us. That is, unless you don japa. Like me. I am the queen of japa. I have been ping-ponging between our beautiful continent and various other parts of the world since I was an infant. Consequently, my perspectives on life are like a kaleidoscope, which the Cambridge dictionary defines as a changing and enjoyable mixture or pattern. Yeah sure, there have been enjoyable parts, but me, I like balance, and the less enjoyable parts also add to the variety and colours. Dare one say some are darker, or would that be considered politically incorrect self-hate? A balanced view provides contrast, and most importantly learning and growth opportunities. But Cambridge dictionary definitions aside, a kaleidoscope is all about reflection and refraction, the bouncing and bending of light, respectively.
Let’s start by throwing some light on pertinent issues, before we get around to the bouncing and bending bit. Hmm, is it just me, or does that last part of the sentence sound just a little bit naughty? Anywayyyyy. Light. Light is what I want my baby to come on and do to my fire, let’s get the naughty bits out the way.
Light is that thing that we Africans have more of than any other people in the world. Sunlight, that is. Light is paradoxically also that thing that we have less of than any other people in the world. I’m talking electricity this time. Light is what people out there are having liposuction and gastric by-passes to become, as opposed to staying heavy. Light is also the shade that too many women (and men!) chemically poison themselves to force their skin into being. To stay that light shade, they keep out of the sun, and stay in the shade.
You cannot have light without shade, and sometimes the only way to throw light on things is to throw shade, so I hope the French don’t take it personally when I tell you, my people, light is also the reason why France has military bases in Niger. Niger o, whose southern border is less than 20km from our president’s home town of Katsina. My work has taken me to Katsina on more than one occasion, and I have seen how the people of Niger freely bring their camels across the border to feed on Nigerian trees.
Anyway, not to digress, light is what the French want to keep the skin colour of its population, hence their gall (I almost expected autocorrect to change that to Gaul, but maybe it isn’t an old Asterix comic book fan like me) anyway, hence the gall of the French in their autonomous and audacious extension of the southern European border to Niger. Yes, those cheapskates are also there policing, to keep Africans from joining the diaspora, and being celebrated today. Another reason for their military presence there is that the Yellowcake that lights up 75% of French households comes from Niger. The following abstract from a 22-year old academic paper from the University of Illinois Department of Nuclear Engineering summarises it thus:
“France is a country that has an enormous need for uranium to run both its commercial nuclear power plants and provide material for its military nuclear weapons program. France would not purchase the uranium it needs on the global market because Charles de Gaulle and other French leaders wanted France to be independent both militarily and economically. Foreign sources of uranium such as Canada and Australia were either seen as being under the influence of the United States or as an unreliable source. France also had extensive influence in Africa because of colonies it held there. De Gaulle used methods such as creating new ministry offices, proposing military defence and technical agreements, and creating a special monetary zone to retain French authority when these colonies became independent. When uranium was discovered in Niger and Gabon, both former French colonies, France now had a reliable and controllable source of uranium. France intervened militarily in these countries whenever the French leaders felt their supply of uranium was in danger. French policy towards her former African colonies was affected by the French need for uranium.” (keep scrolling) >>>>
BTW, France was also responsible in 2011, in cahoots with Obama and under the disingenuous auspices of NATO, for undermining and preventing the African Union’s peace mission into Libya, and for killing Gaddafi and bombing the amazing infrastructure of the country to smithereens. Not only had there been no prior attack by Libya on another territory, as per NATO prerequisites to use force, but Libya was, and Africa still is today, referred to as ‘out-of-area’, meaning none of your beeswax, France! Or NATO.
France clearly doesn’t see it that way, and one possible ‘explanation’ for this can be deduced from a 2016 Reuters article: “‘Your ancestors are the Gauls’ is an old maxim which French school children used to parrot in history class and which became a symbol of France’s empire when recited by pupils across francophone Africa.” Is the G5 Sahel the French-led NATO occupation of Africa? Should we continue to be obsequious enough to allow their impunity on our soil, indeed could we conceivably still be naive enough believe they have our good at heart?
Can somebody please turn on the gen, I need light to continue. In reflecting all this light thrown upon the French through my global japa kaleidoscope, let’s refract it back to the observation of August 31, by turning the spotlight on the poster boy of people of African descent in the diaspora, Toussaint L’Ouverture. Incidentally, he also directs our gaze toward France again, because Toussaint led the world’s first successful slave rebellion in history, and took back from France what was described in a University of Oregon thesis as “the wealthiest, most profitable colony in the world”, Haiti. In a New York Times article this May, the story is told of a Haitian woman Adrienne, roasting, grinding, and cooking her morning coffee manually and on coals. “Electricity has never come to her patch of northern Haiti.” It also tells of how “Coffee has been the fulcrum of life [t]here for almost three centuries, since enslaved people cut the first French coffee plantations into the mountainsides. Back then, this was not Haiti, but Saint-Domingue — the biggest supplier of coffee and sugar consumed in Parisian kitchens and Hamburg coffee houses. The colony made many French families fabulously rich.” So why is Haiti still so wretchedly poor today? Because, narrates the NYT “The first people in the modern world to free themselves from slavery and create their own nation were forced to pay for their freedom yet again — in cash.”
“With that,” continues the article, “Haiti set another precedent: It became the world’s first and only country where the descendants of enslaved people paid reparations to the descendants of their masters — for generations.” In 2003, Haiti’s president Jean-Bertrand Aristide denounced this debt and called for reparations for Haiti, and a year later was ousted by the French and the Americans.
So you see, my play of throwing light and shade in this week’s essay, is to hopefully connect some dots for those naive ones among us, who might believe the words on the UN website, or that their disingenuous observation of August 31 will have much, if any impact on people of African descent, whether in diaspora or not. Where was the UN when America and France killed Sankara and Gaddafi, causing tens of thousands of Africans to flee for the diaspora? And what is the UN doing about America and France’s heinous involvement in the impoverishing of Haiti, also causing economic and political migration?
Let me join some more dots for you. The only reason that there are any people to celebrate on the UN’s perfunctory International Day for People of African Descent is because the West stole them from Africa, and have since continued to plunder the continent and kill off our good leaders. The only reason the UN created this date was as an act of throwing meat to the dogs. Recent calls for reparations to be paid to those taken away from Africa, as well as to Africa from which millions of our youngest, strongest and most talented and skilled were taken, have become louder as previously hidden historical facts are revealed. What would it mean for the world economy if the West is made to pay reparations in the same way they made slave colonies pay reparations to former slave holders when slavery was abolished?
As much as I, as an African, and one with very close personal ties to the diaspora people of African descent (and I don’t mean the japas) want with all my heart to celebrate my people in the Caribbean and the Americas, I feel deeply insulted by this hypocritical and paltry gesture of the UN. That’s it? That’s what we all get for our trouble? It is too little too late. We want reparations. We’ll accept monthly instalments, dw.
The UN needs to take a long hard look in the mirror of my kaleidoscope. The Cambridge Dictionary defines the meaning of the prefix ‘un’ as “not, or the opposite of”.
UN-real. UN-acceptable.
It is what it is.