‘When we planted our flag in the place where we built the city of Salisbury, in 1877, we planned for this time. We planned for the time when the African would rise up against us, and perhaps defeat us by sheer numbers and insurrection. When that time came, we decided, the African should not be in a position to rule his newly-found country without taking his cue from us. We should continue to rule, even after political power has been snatched from us, Mr. Bopela.’
‘How did you plan to do that my dear Superintendent,’ I mocked.
‘Very simple, Mr. Bopela, very simple,’ Peters told me.
”We started by changing the country we took from you to a country that you will find, many centuries later, when you gain political power. It would be totally unlike the country your ancestors lived in; it would be a new country. Let us start with agriculture. We introduced methods of farming that were not known I Africa, where people dug a hole in the ground, covered it up with soil and went to sleep under a tree in the shade. We made agriculture a science.
To farm our way, an African needed to understand soil types, the fertilizers that type of soil required, and which crops to plant on what type of soil. We kept this knowledge from the African, how to farm scientifically and on a scale big enough to contribute strongly to the national economy. We did this so that when the African demands and gets his land back, he should not be able to farm it like we do. He would then be obliged to beg us to teach him how. Is that not power, Mr. Bopela?’
‘We industrialized the country, factories, mines, together with agricultural output, became the mainstay of the new economy, but controlled and understood only by us. We kept the knowledge of all this from you people, the skills required to run such a country successfully. It is not because Africans are stupid because they do not know what to do with an industrialized country. We just excluded the African from this knowledge and kept him in the dark. This exercise can be compared to that of a man whose house was taken away from him by a stronger person. The stronger person would then change all the locks so that when the real owner returned, he would not know how to enter his own house.’
We then introduced a financial system – money (currency), banks, the stock market and linked it with other stock markets in the world. We are aware that your country may have valuable minerals, which you may be able to extract….but where would you sell them? We would push their value to next-to-nothing in our stock markets. You may have diamonds or oil in your country Mr. Bopela, but we are in possession of the formulas how they may be refined and made into a product ready for sale on the stock markets, which we control. You cannot eat diamonds and drink oil even if you have these valuable commodities. You have to bring them to our stock markets.’
Continued next page
(3127 VIEWS)
This post was last modified on August 7, 2020 8:08 am
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what vthe zim wite man told me
The core issue is this: when we abandon our own governance and cultural systems in favor of borrowed colonial models, we inherit problems that don’t serve Africa’s needs. Europe’s system - now struggling with economic crises, proxy wars, and foreign pressure-are hardly perfect. Why should we assume they’ll work for us?
Zimbabwe’s history shows this tension. Western-backed opposition, sanctions, and imposed economic models disrupted self-determination. Yet, African resilience persists - whether in land reforms, wartime victories and a little further north, Capt. Koki (She flies Boeing 777s) and Chege wa Gachamba who flew his home-made plane in Karatina in the early 60’s.aviation feats.
Agriculture is another example: Africans mastered soil and farming long before Europe was a recognizable society. Why must we follow European methods instead of adapting our own?
The solution isn’t blind imitation but sovereignty—in politics, economics, and culture. BRICS offers an alternative financial model, and our history proves we thrive when we think for ourselves.
There are many other holes that can be blown in this white man’s arguments which are based on moral solitude and sour grapes. We just don’t have time to get into them
Our quest is this - How can Africa build systems rooted in its own wisdom, not colonial leftovers? The future belongs to those who define it—not those chasing validation from abroad.