Friends, you just can't go wrong doing whatever Ray tells you to. Seriously! Let's name him King-Emperor of Western Civilization, shall we? There -- my vote is cast... (I may write my own name in for "Pope". I feel like I'd get more chicks that way...)
Following Ray's sage counsel, I watched a great 70s adventure film set in southern Africa, "The Wild Geese". Here's what I took away from it:
1. Roger Moore + Richard Burton = Excitement!
2. Never jump into bed with a merchant banker.
3. Heroin is not the same as pop rocks. Don't confuse them.
4. Africans soldiers are brave. Unfortunately, that concludes their list of virtues.
5. Africa's best possible future in the 70s would have relied on teamwork between whites and blacks. Africa's nightmare in the 70s and 80s was its failure to achieve such teamwork, and its eviction of most whites and Asians instead.
6. Rhodesian airports were extremely hospitable.
7. Sometimes it's better to be shot by your own commander than it is to be captured by the enemy.
8. People with advanced heart failure are easy to beat in a footrace.
9. If you're visiting southern Africa, don't forget to pack your sunscreen.
10. And finally...no one, and I mean no one, has more panache than Roger Moore!
All in all, it's a neat film. I also enjoyed the fact that parts were set in London circa the early years of the Nick Waddy epoch. It brought back fond memories of when I'd visit the Old Country as a wee lad. Check it out!
What? Black Africans evicting Whites and Asians? Yep, racism knows no bounds. Blacks can be racists (BLM?) just like everyone else on this planet. The Japanese hated the Chinese which enabled them to invade China in 1937 and commit many atrocities. We can see Africans doing genocide on other Africans such as Rwanda/Burundi. The Turks exterminating Armenians during WW 1, and the list goes on and on and on and on. But apparently, White Americans are born as racists. It's in our DNA isn't it. Just a hop skip and jump to getting rid of all Whites in the future?
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy: Have never seen that movie. Did see one from the "70's I think entitled something like The Long Bet or The Long Chance or something like that. It had Stephen Boyd, a radiant French woman and a typically skilled Brit character actor ( I've seen him play an American good ole boy with complete credibility). THey took a trek across equatorial Africa which impressed upon one the primitive nature of the territory they were crossing (sorry, you of political correctness, it was a fact). At one point an "old Africa hand", a type familiar to those who have gone beyond the African or Asian littoral,says to these naive but willing Europeans "You can't do that to Africa" when they attempt a desperate route. He KNEW what he was talking about.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy: OK, lets imagine Africa sans European colonialism. Why, the Garden of Eden yes? No! For one thing murderously forceful tribes such as the Zulu did enact corporal force against other "indigenous" peoples. Their primitive weaponry, tactics and expression,used successfully against other African foes ( or they would not have used them) were used to the death against the modern Brits.
ReplyDeleteNo, had Europe sank beneath the waves in 1400, Africa would have witnessed increasing centralization reflecting the reality of the strong over the weak. And sans Europe, would they have languished in Edenic bliss? Probably not, due to the threat of Islam from the North and China (consider the Ming voyages with ships far bigger than Nina and Santa Maria)). At any rate, circa 1 AD African civilizations would have fallen. And then what? Something worse than European colonialization? Unlikely!
JACK
ReplyDeleteA lot of these imaginary empires and civilizations that Africa (south of the Sahara) were supposed to have had were invented by White historians, and perpetuated by them. Except for Ancient Egypt (which was not racially Black by the way) most of really civilized Africa was always in North Africa, first under the Carthaginians, and later under transplanted Romans, and then Arabs.
West Africa is supposed to have had all these fabulous civilizations and so on, but the evidence is not really there. So what do we have, geographically speaking that is: Wildlife, lots and lots of Sahara sand, Gold for sure, slaves regrettably.
But modern Africa is a product of European colonization for better or worse. Lots of Black Africans trying to go to South Africa even when the Whites were in control. Now the place is a damn mess.
Don't see any castles or cathedrals down Africa way. How come Africa is more dangerous now years and years after the White colonizers left? But guess who some Black African scholars studying at European universities are blaming this on. You got it, it's all the White man's fault!
Ray, you are absolutely right that people of ANY race can harbor racial prejudice. The Left's conceit that only conservatives can be biased or racist/sexist/homophobic, etc. is the purest nonsense. The only people I've ever met who've called for and looked forward to the elimination of a whole race of people (whites) have been "progressives". The bias against whites on the Left is RAMPANT, moreover. It is also shameless. But I guess we can compliment the leftists on their consistency. They are almost always guilty of the sins they attempt to pin on others. How do you know someone is a true racist? The second they call themselves an "anti-racist", that's your first big hint!!!
ReplyDeleteJack, you're absolutely right that Africa today owes MUCH to Europeans. Whatever it owes, though, we can be fairly sure that the debt will never be paid, much less acknowledged. Too many Africans have bought into the victimology that, sadly, we taught them, along with so many useful disciplines. The simplest way to put it? Sans Western medicine, the vast majority of Africans alive today would never have been born. Africa's overall population would be way lower. And, lest anyone forget, the Islamic slave trade extracted more Africans from Africa than the Atlantic slave trade. Granted, both slave trades did tremendous harm to Africa -- but it was harm that many Africans partook in and profited from. That's a fact.
Ray, much of what you say about modern Africa is true, but the good news is that considerable progress has been made since the 80s. Democracy and capitalism took root, to some degree, after the end of the Cold War and the mischief-making of the Eastern Bloc. Africa hit rock bottom in the 70s, I would say. That's not to suggest that your typical middle class African doesn't still pine for emigration to the West, but Africa is not the chamber of horrors it once was.
Dr. Waddy and Ray What I meant to say at the end of my last comment was "yes quite possible". It is impossible for a tribal culture to achieve the kind of concentrated technological and economic enterprise which yields prosperity and the power to defend one's culture from the incursions of organized nation states. Perhaps today there are for the first time international sanctions which can concentrate moral opprobrium against this evil but they did not exist prior to the late 20th century.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy and Ray: So how would Africa have fared under Chinese or Muslim hegemony. Lets look at some places which have been so tasked: Tibet, Sinkiang? The Middle East? Somalia? Egypt? I'd say the jury is out and I would note the relatively strong democracy of long British dominated India (not Pakistan)and the obviously western inspired aspirations to very unChinese freedom we see in doomed Hong Kong.
ReplyDeleteJACK
DeleteDon't forget that it was the Arab Muslims who started and maintained the Slave Trade in Africa many centuries before The Europeans arrived.
In addition, The Chinese have been screwing around in Africa for several decades now after Africa decolonized, and all of course to see how much they can suck out of the place.
So, there is no doubt that Black Africa has been jerked around internally and externally. My understanding is that The Congo is still a mess. (Not Congo Brazzaville, but the other Congo, the one the Belgians screwed up).
Dr. Waddy and Ray: The existence and , often prevalence of "imperialistic" tribes in Africa and the Americas cannot be credibly dismissed (as most certainly would be attempted in the disgracefully totalitarian present day western academy). I'd say to their apologists and incipient modern beneficiaries: "the Europeans were just better at it than you and they do not suffer in moral comparison to your murderous depredations (eg. the African slave trade within the Old World). Deny it all you want; you cannot disprove it. You might try reading Orlando Patterson with something suggesting an academically sound and principled mien.
ReplyDeleteJack, you opined: "It is impossible for a tribal culture to achieve the kind of concentrated technological and economic enterprise which yields prosperity and the power to defend one's culture from the incursions of organized nation states."
ReplyDeleteWise words, but it occurs to me that our own society is becoming increasingly tribal: contentious, territorial, and narrow-minded. Will we be able to sustain economic and technological progress, let alone democracy and human rights? It seems to me that the achievements of Western Civilization are exceptional...and that which is exceptional may also be fragile and short-lived. Food for thought.
Ray is right that Africa's dysfunctions have been abetted by outside interference, but personally I think leaning on that crutch will only get the Africans so far. What part of the world HASN'T been victimized in one sense or another? Some societies rise above their challenges, and others don't.
Jack, yes! There is NO meaningful moral distinction between the Europeans involved with the slave trade and the acquisitive, cruel Africans who participated in the same trade. The idea that evil springs only from white hearts is, let's face it, RACISM. As such, it is also nonsense.