By Victor Anazonwu
There is something fundamentally wrong with the current approach of the Black Lives Matter movement. It is marching the streets of the US and Europe asking the perpetrators and beneficiaries of racism to willingly give up their privileges. It is pressing for legislation and “reforms” to change human attitudes. Both are not likely to happen, however well-intentioned. It is like taking painkillers in the hope of treating a brain tumor.
This begs the question, what then? How, in practical terms, can Blacks be rid of the scourge of racism which questions their humanity? How is it that man is able to create the internet, travel in space and solve complex scientific and medical problems, yet struggles to overcome a patently false idea?
An old African proverb says, “To get to the root of a murder, you must go to the blacksmith.” The root of today’s prejudices against people of African descent goes back to the slave trades – both Trans-Saharan and Trans-Atlantic. For centuries, Negro persons were trafficked in large numbers from Sub-Saharan Africa to North Africa and the Americas respectively. In their new places of abode, burdened by the circumstances of their arrival, they settled at the bottom of the social and economic ladder as hewers of wood and drawers of water. New generations were born into this equation of White masters and Black slaves. Soon, this became hardwired into individual psyches and social consciousness – both of the perpetrators and the victims.
To change the situation, we cannot depend on those profiting from it. We have to systematically wipe off four centuries of codes written into brains worldwide. It is like reformatting an old computer system infected with a potent virus. it comes with significant effort, pains and sometimes losses. More importantly, the system cannot repair itself. That task must be done by someone else, usually one with a genuine interest in fixing it.
This is where the victim comes in, in this case Blacks and people of African descent worldwide. It is only natural that the greater burden of resetting or replacing mankind’s defective software on color falls on its biggest victims.
To accomplish this task, the Black community worldwide will do well to borrow a leaf from history. We are not the only ones to suffer conquest, oppression, slavery or prejudice. Practically every part of the human family has been at the receiving end of prejudice at one time or the other. How others overcame this malady offers a pathway to our own redemption.
The Jews have suffered slavery, exile, colonization and even dispossession several times. They spent 430 years of slavery in Egypt. They endured Assyrian and Babylonian exile, Roman occupation and the Holocaust in Europe. Biblical stories of the Exodus from Egypt, return from Babylonian captivity and the 1948 establishment of the Zionist state of Israel are among the more familiar narratives of their come back.
England and vast parts of the British Isle were once conquered and colonized by the Romans who destroyed some and assimilated what was left of the Celtic tribes. After them, the Angles, Saxons and a wing of the Germanic tribes took their turns to pillage the ancestors of today’s Britain.
Likewise, the French (then called Franks) were once terrorized and routed by the Vikings (a Danish group) under the warlord, Regnar. They occupied Paris and plundered the countryside until they extracted a hefty ransom in silver and gold from the Frankish King, Charles the Bald. Around that time, the French were looked upon with scorn and derision. The Germans repeated this humiliation of the French in both the 1870s and 1930s using military force.
The first set of European arrivals in America were mostly people escaping hardship and persecution in their countries of origin who sought refuge in the “New World.” There were also Irish slaves who were shipped over in their thousands even before Africans.
When North America became economically interesting, Britain then a global power, colonized the territory. For many years, England ran the show in much the same way as it did in Africa in the early 20th century, to the chagrin of the settlers. The founders of what we now call USA fought a bitter war of independence to win their freedom from Britain and endured many years of unfriendly, condescending relations thereafter. Eventually, they went into years of agricultural and industrial hibernation and emerged in the 1930s as a global powerhouse.
Turkey and Russia were once so backward and unstable that they were at various times called “The Sick Man of Europe.” It took the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 and the stringent political philosophy of Communism to build a formidable agricultural and military Soviet Union which earned global respect.
Japanese, Chinese, Koreans, Indians and other Asians were once derisively referred to in Europe, America and other parts of the world with words which are inappropriate on print. The Japanese painstakingly overrode their derision when they emerged as an economic superpower 30 years after suffering a crushing defeat in World War 2.
Chinese are the latest of the Asian groups to emerge from centuries of racism and sometimes even military occupation and humiliation. At some point, China was conquered and terrorized by Japan. Today, all thanks to a national transformational strategy anchored by the Communist Party, the Chinese are in pole position for global dominance. No one can afford to look down on them.
I have undertaken this brief historical excursion across time and space to underline the fallacy that any group or race is by nature superior to others or is inoculated against conquest, slavery, colonization or derision. We are all equally yoked by burdens from the past.
Indeed, just over a hundred years ago, Europe which is the home continent of the White race imploded all by itself during the First World War. After only a 20 year break, Europe erupted again during the Second World War, dragging the rest of humanity into its perennial conflicts. In the process, millions of its own people were slaughtered or lost to hunger and disease. If any race should be ashamed of its past, Europe eminently qualifies.
So, no race has truly earned the right to scorn another. Racism is a deliberate perversion of history. For too long Africa has accepted to be victimized by this falsehood.
What Black worldwide suffer today is simply bad Public Relations. In PR you do not change perceptions by lobbying or begging your audiences. You change your ways internally and let the world see a new, better you.
Black people are doing marvellous things in sports, music, business, science and every other sphere of life. Infact, we are far ahead of other races in certain areas where nature bestows comparative advantage. But no one talks about that; instead we have allowed ourselves to be defined by our past mistakes and current flaws. No other race is so unfairly profiled. No other race has permitted it.
The pathway to halting racism against Blacks and people of African descent is simple and historically validated. It lies in self-help. It is entirely up to us Black people to take that path or not.
Respect is not given. It is earned. The best revenge against insult is success. The best way to stop racism against Blacks is for Blacks worldwide to resolutely work their way out of an unfavorable group narrative dominated by lies, poverty, dependency and low self-esteem.
In addition to embracing a philosophy of self-liberation, we stop looting our own countries and dying to go to other lands or seeking their validation. When our politicians, intellectuals, military officers and businessmen stop colluding with neo-colonialist agents to short-change our own peoples, other races will take us more seriously. When we start doing business with ourselves first before doing business with others, people of other races will stop and take notice. When we reject and reconstruct the narrative that angels are White and the devil is Black, our children will take more pride in themselves. When statistics, movies and books show that in business, economics, entrepreneurship, innovation and nation-building we are as good or better than our traducers, racism will die a natural death.
The fate of Black people all around the world is inextricably linked to the fate of Africa, their home continent. If Africa cleans up its act and produces stable, prosperous nations, people of other races will crawl to visit and respect will follow. Our fate is in our own hands, not in the hands of benevolent American or European “reformers.”
In taking the initiative, we will do well to look closely in the mirror. Within many Black communities across Africa, North America and Europe, deep prejudices and petty jealousies persist. Black-on-Black violence is rampant. No man is respected abroad whose home is in disarray.
Victor Anazonwu is the author of The 8 Habits of Highly Ineffective People and two other books. He lives in Lagos.
