Antihero, Legend of Tomorrow, The Immortal, The Blameless African, Pan-African | Igbo-African, here to learn, listen and have fun, Walk good brethren!!😊🙂
Eternity
Joined October 2009
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We're all Villains here retweeted
Dear Africans, Are You Protecting Your Interests?
It's 2026 and the world has seen an indicted war criminal with an outstanding ICC arrest warrant address the UN General Assembly, months after a country's military invaded another country, kidnapped its sitting president and his wife, and locked them up like criminals in a prison in New York where they face trumped up charges.
The state of geopolitics and international relations in the 21st century has never left less room for doubt about the fact that interests and power - not rules - are the true animating force behind how the world works. In this commentary, @big_mck asks Africans the obvious question - who is protecting African interests?
We're all Villains here retweeted
I chose to compare American and East African workers, and US dollars with silver Thalers, because the two economies were more intertwined than you'd expect
Much of East Africa's cloth trade (imports) was conducted by American traders (hence the name; merekani for the cloth)
We're all Villains here retweeted
Many of Africa's largest monuments were built by skilled, paid labourers, not slaves.
This is as true for the ancient pyramids (contrary to common misconception!) as it is for the palaces, churches, mosques, fortifications, etc., that are scattered across the continent
We're all Villains here retweeted
Using a colonial language such as English or French as a measure of intelligence in Africa should actually qualify as treason, if we are being serious.
“Mock” people for how they speak if you will (if that makes you sleep better at night), but enshrining a colonial language as our continent’s cognitive testing system is something we should never accept.
If the Oyibo demands “IELTS” from us for migration purposes, that is their prerogative. We have no business imposing the same standard on ourselves simply to exist or contribute ideas within our own continent.
We're all Villains here retweeted
“The construction of substantial monuments created a demand for specialised groups of builders,
Many of whom were paid for their labour.”
“Wage labour existed in pre-colonial Africa,
contrary to popular claims that work was performed almost exclusively within the household or through slave labour.”
africanhistoryextra.com/p/di…
We're all Villains here retweeted
Teaching and scribal work were among the earliest forms of wage labour in Africa
“Wage labour existed in pre-colonial Africa,
contrary to popular claims that work was performed almost exclusively within the household or through slave labour.”
africanhistoryextra.com/p/di…
We're all Villains here retweeted
That a single porter could cost as much as a railroad conductor explains why colonial authorities wanted to get rid of them as soon as they could
For the porters, losing this lucrative job, being forced to pay "head tax", and moving to colonial plantations must have been devastating
We're all Villains here retweeted
"All too often, comparisons between Africa and Europe in this time period both understate the strength of the African economy and overstate the modernity and productivity of the European economy."
africanhistoryextra.com/p/ac…
We're all Villains here retweeted
The real wages of workers in the 17th-century Gold Coast (Ghana) approached those paid in many parts of Europe at the time, and were considerably higher than those paid in many parts of Asia.
africanhistoryextra.com/p/di…
We're all Villains here retweeted
“Wage labour existed in pre-colonial Africa,
contrary to popular claims that work was performed almost exclusively within the household or through slave labour.”
africanhistoryextra.com/p/di…
We're all Villains here retweeted
Medieval citations of non-Muslim/pagan Blacks as inhumane and uncivilized cannibals are not attested by real explorers, and should not be taken seriously.
You definitely have read of Ibn Khaldun saying that blacks below Sahelians are all kinds of things, or other random arab historians despising the “zanj” (usually used for Sub-Sahel blacks).
All these claims however come from Sahelian (especially Mande) merchants who took advantage of their ignorance of the African interior & sought to prevent foreigners from finding alternative access to these sources of their wealth. Stories of cannibals and monsters inhabiting the goldfields may therefore have served to discourage outsiders, successfully exploiting North African credulity and cultural prejudices.
I’d say that this was successful until Europeans like Portuguese & Danes started trading directly with the coasts. It was incredibly detrimental for the Western Sahel.
We're all Villains here retweeted
This what former French Economy Minister Thierry Breton said that has already came through pass :
"It was Emmanuel Macron's stupidity that opened the eyes of Africans. One thing is certain if France loses its colonies our children and grandchildren will go to Africa in search of their livelihoods. Immigration will change direction. Macron needs to go or France will suffer. Europe need to unite to fight this new African vision Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso and other countries will follow suit. If one of the puschists' heads falls, the others will abandon the vision. Africa has no history therefore, Africa cannot run the world.”
We're all Villains here retweeted
Before “Afrobeats” was colonized by the usual suspects, a student association can raise money through association levy and invite an A-List artist for performance.
In University, I remember my faculty pulling the likes of 2face Idibia, Edris Abdulkareem, and P-Square, Nigeria’s biggest artists at the time for faculty nights.
Nowadays, you dare not, unless with the backing of a strong brand sponsorship.
That is what happens when your industry is hijacked by the global capital structure. Gentrification is inevitable.
You might say, “well but the artists are now worth more and it’s a good thing.” Actually it’s not. It bad thing for the industry, because majority of the artists are squeezed out so that a few of them can make those big bucks. An industry where less than 1% of the players are flourishing is not a thriving industry.
Na me talk am.
We're all Villains here retweeted
This is a feminist tendency in general. Reappropriating racist caricatures by using women’s advocacy as a shield.
We're all Villains here retweeted
Throughout history Black men have been narrated into whatever caricature the moment calls for. Childlike, feminine, hypermasculine, not real men because they can’t be patriarchs, patriarchs because they oppress women. This is what it means to exist as fungible.
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The discourse isn't even about the biracial child specifically... it's just Divester theology that both dick-rides white men and also indirectly says that Black women that date out are essentially more pro-Black than a Black couple
This quoted post is unavailable.
We're all Villains here retweeted
The fact that people believe it’s progressive to disparage Black males speaks to the counterinsurgent role of Black feminism in normalizing this rhetoric and enmity.
Women across the Global South have produced a plethora of scholarship observing the function of feminism in reinforcing stereotypes of racialized men as misogynistic brutes, which is then used to morally justify imperialism. But in the West, these narratives have been successful. We have largely bought into the racist mythos that Black men are dumb, criminal brutes who oppress women and children because they want to feel powerful like white men.
None of our movements will move forward until we reconcile with this.