WHAT THE WEST DOESN'T WANT YOU TO KNOW

by: By Navaya ole Ndaskoi

September 27, 2007

I am responding to a putrid article on Zimbabwe by Dr. Richard E. Mshomba, Professor of Economics at La Salle University in Pennsylvania U.S.A., published in Arusha Times on July 14, 2007.

Professor Mshomba wrote, 'President Robert Mugabe has single-handedly ruined Zimbabwe with his mismanagement of the economy and his iron-fisted rule.' You do not mean it, Mshomba! One man cannot single-handedly ruin such a huge economy.

Mr. Professor, a fast rewind of history is inevitable if we are to fairly discuss the Zimbabwean predicament. In 1492, Columbus, the other Mshomba who doesn't ask for directions, got lost and 'discovered the New World.' He was soon followed by swarms of Europeans who could no longer withstand abject poverty, bitter winters and wars.

When these poverty driven Europeans arrived in America, they found Indians living on the land well endowed in all types of natural resources. The European cavemen gunned down Native Americans just like wild dogs. Europeans invasion of Africa was also followed by massive cruelty. Millions of Africans were enslaved, raped and murdered. The dimension of man-inhumanity-to-man in that era has had no equal anywhere since.

In Southern Africa, the pink men led by Cecil Rhodes invaded Zimbabwe. Zimbabweans fought against this beastly occupation. The British won only because of the superior gun. The unfortunate leaders of the Zimbabwean defense forces of the 1890s were hanged from treetops. That was how the British took land and 'ruined Zimbabwe.'

The fighters, led by a commandant called Gabriel Mugabe went to the bush and inflicted serious pain on Brits and their kin and kith in Zimbabwe. The British government got up from a deep good sleep and saw crystal clearly that they will never defeat the determined African liberation forces. Safe haven for the traumatized Brits? The Lancaster House Constitutional 'talks.' Thinking that Africans were fools the British government made evergreen promises. African heads of frontlines states made a technical retreat in Lancaster, especially on land. They knew the double standards of the British government.

Leaders of the African liberation movement knew that if they maintained their hard position that land must be fairly distributed to all Zimbabweans they could be making the liberation struggle in South Africa and Namibia very difficult. The 'whites' in those occupied territories would have appealed to their European and American allies to prevent another Zimbabwe. Obviously 'whites' must have thought that so long as they retained land and controlled all wealth in Africa, there is no problem if an African is President.

African leaders advised Mugabe to ignore the land question until when South Africa and Namibia were freed. The land issue was put to rest for a while. Without the wisdom of Nkurumah, Nyerere, Kaunda, Mugabe, Obote and millions of Africans, Mandela would have been hanged by Boers and today South Africa would still be under apartheid. That is why whenever I read Crusaders for Liberation by J.K. Nyerere my heart swells in anger, especially when I see Mandela, Nujoma, and all other South Africans, Namibians and Angolans not helping Zimbabwe out of economic hardships imposed by the UK and the US! The Kiswahili saying is correct after all, 'help a donkey and its thanks are kicks!'

On 16 October 1997, Nyerere addressed the South African Parliament in Cape Town. He reminded the parliamentarians: 'When we were struggling here, South Africa still under apartheid, and you being a destabiliser of your neighbours instead of working together with them to develop our continent, of course that was a different thing. It was a terrible thing. Here was a powerful South Africa, and this power was a curse to us. It was not a blessing for us. We wished it away, because it was not a blessing at all. It destroyed Angola with a combination of apartheid; it was a menace to Mozambique and a menace to its neighbours... When we had the Cold War, boy, I tell you, we couldn't breathe.'

History is a good subject Mr. 'Professor of Economics'! Namibia became independent in 1990. South Africa was also finally freed in 1994. Mugabe revived the land issue promptly. The conservative British government refused to honor its own promises.

By 1997, around 4,000 white commercial farmers still owned 70 percent of the best land in Zimbabwe leaving nothing to ten million Africans. In 1997, the Labor Party assumed power and Tony Blair became Prime Minister. Mugabe's actions were immediate. He reminded Blair of the vacuous promises made by the British government at Lancaster House. Clair Short, UK Secretary of State for International Development, wrote a poisonous letter in 1997 to the Zimbabwean government distancing Brits from the stinking mess created by their ancestors. Then the West declared Mugabe 'a dictator.'

Sure, African leaders have been unable 'to hold Mugabe accountable and pressure him to respect the rule of law and democratic processes.' The reason is that they have fresh memories of the criminal plunder of Zimbabwe and thousands of Zimbabweans killed by Smith, backed militarily and economically by the UK, the US and the West generally.

On December 15, 1965, Tanzania and many other African countries broke diplomatic relations with the UK because Britain refused categorically to look at its stinking history and she ignored treason committed by dictator Ian Smith. If you want you could read and understand this issue better in J.K. Nyerere's Crusades for Liberation.

You do not fairly accuse Mugabe of 'his iron-fisted rule.' Europeans would have pounded to pulp the skull of anybody that treated them the way Smith and his junta treated millions of Africans. He exiled and later imprisoned Mugabe, for eleven years! Sadly Mugabe has never even questioned him. Get me, if Hitler was resurrected today Europeans would send him straight to the gallows! Imagine Mugabe is a living Saint. Want proof? Remember the way Americans, Brits and the West humiliated President Saddam Hussein of Iraq. In 1990 Americans invaded Panama and overthrew President Manuel Noriega of Panama. Then jailed him! I could multiply these examples if I had space.

Did I read 'democratic processes'? Which democracy are you talking about? On June 28, 2007, I got up in the morning and heard that a certain Gordon Brown was Prime Minister of Britain. No elections! His friend, Tony Blair, just gave him the seat as if it was his personal horse. I did not see the Bushes, the Blairs and all the Mshombas jumping mad about this miscarriage of democracy happening at No.10 Downing Street!

In 2000, a-son-of-a-Bush called George and brother to the governor of Texas called Jeb Bush, rigged the elections and became President. I did not hear the ruckus of the Mshombas and all 'Professors of Economics' organizing to overthrow Baby Bush.

Now just because Hillary Clinton is a wife of another former American president, she might become president. Imagine what will happen to Mugabe if his wife or son declared today that they wanted to contest for presidency in Zimbabwe in 2008.

I have never heard Mugabe 'blaming the West for all the problems in Zimbabwe.' The Horn, East and Southern Africa were recently gravely hit by a series of droughts. Mugabe often speaks of these disasters and he does not manufacture droughts. Tanzania, a country with so many 'development partners' and which now depends on 'donors' more than ever before, was also hard hit towards the end of 2005. Power blackouts became our way of life. The country had to move the bowl around, like all beggars do, to ask for help.

The Bushes and the Blairs have for several years sanctioned Zimbabwe because of the honorable decision by Mugabe to give land to the landless. These sanctions are responsible for most problems in Zimbabwe. What would be of Tanzania without foreign aid, leave alone under economic sanctions? Interestingly, Zimbabwe has endured.

Many African leaders like Mugabe 'are also accused of corruption.' No system is perfect. The British government is accused for corruptly licensing British aerospace systems to sell jets and radars to free-spending countries like Tanzania and Saudi Arabia. Recently, a Bush appointed a Wolf, despite world protests, to head the World Bank. That Wolf was chased back to the Bush. At issue was the role Mr. Paul Wolfowitz played in securing a promotion and a substantial pay rise for his domestic partner, Ms. Shaha Riza in 2005.

You may be the author of Africa in the Global Economy which you gloat of being 'a Choice Outstanding Academic Book.' Having read your article, I presume that the book too might as well be one of those I read holding my nose with a handkerchief.

So Professor, if you deserve that respect, stop your squalid attempts at aping the Western-media style of reporting, which begets a bizarre, sadistic and pointless soap opera void of logic. In Detained: A Writers Prisons Diary, Ngugi wa Thiong'o argued that 'Intellectual slavery masquerading as sophistication is the worst form of slavery.'

Email: zimbabwecrisis@yahoo.com

BLACK/WHITE ALLIANCES

by: John Henrik Clark

If there is one thing that can be said about Black people that has caused a lot of pain, and yet is historically true, is that politically we are one of the most naive of people. We have been taken in by practically everything and everybody that has come to us. I think this taking in and this betrayal has something to do with both our weaknesses and our strengths. If you find the strengths of a people, you will find their weaknesses because the two are closely related.

We have been hospitable to strangers—nearly always to the wrong strangers! Nearly all of our relationships with non-African people began with a dinner invitation. More than anyone else in the world we repeatedly invited our future conquerors to dinner. I'm going to be dealing with Black-White alliances, going back 2,500 years.

I think that the nature of our betrayal by people who come among us, and who solicit our help and get it, tells us a lot. It tells us something that is quite frightening, i.e., we are totally an un-obligated people. We don't owe Christianity anything because we created the religion. The Jews bought it and sold it back to us and used it a basis for the slave trade. We created Islam; then, the Arabs after years of fruitful partnership with us, turned on us and used Islam to justify the Arab slave trade. We created the concept called socialism. This is established in the fact that an African king 1300 years before the Birth of Christ was preaching the same thing from the throne that Karl Marx thought he invented. When the newly found socialism used us, it turned on us.

In looking at alliances, we're looking at the Black man and his humanity and the manifestations of his humanity, in relationship to people in other parts of the world.

About 1600 years ago a group of people living in Asia, partly African, who had risen from their former status and were considered shepherd kings, put together an army and invaded Egypt. They stayed in Egypt for many years until the Egyptians could break the backs of these shepherd kings and drive then out. But many Egyptians (and I'm talking about a Black Egypt, at the time), feeling some disagreement with the prevailing status quo, took sides with the invader and permitted the invader to stay in Egypt much longer.

When the brilliant Queen Hatshepsut, one of the great women of history came to power, she drove the Hyksos out. Her mission was to remove the stamp of the invader from her country. This she managed to do. Subsequently, there were no more alliances, because the Africans went over and conquered the land of their former invaders, which caused a disruption within Africa itself. The Cushites invaded Egypt. The people of the Middle East (again, this tells you something about how we might miss certain points) were buying iron from the city of Meroe in Cush. These people made iron-tipped weapons while the magnificent army of Cush was using bronze-tipped weapons; bronze is softer than iron. With the iron bought from the Africans, they could drive the Africans out of the Middle East and begin the decline of Egypt. Once again, Africans had naively trusted an ally.

How is it that year after year over a period of 3000 years, people come into our house and manifest no loyalty to us. We are the only people who permit people to stay in our house without pledging their allegiance to us. One must be either loyal to the African house or leave it. The Greeks stayed in Africa, eating African food, sleeping in Africa's bed, eating Africa's bread for over 200 years, manifesting no loyalty to Africa. They went home and told Alexander, the so-called Great, how to come in there and conquer Africa—NO LOYALTY! All the Africans had to do was check those people out as to who they were.

Statement by His Excellency the President of the Republic of Zimbabwe

Comrade R. G. Mugabe,

on the occasion of the 62nd Session of the United Nations General Assembly,

New York, 26 September, 2007

Your Excellency, President of the 62nd Session of the United Nations General Assembly, Mr. Srgjan Kerim

Your Majesties

Your Excellencies, Heads of State and Government

Your Excellency the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Mr. Ban Ki-Moon

Distinguished Delegates

Ladies and Gentlemen.

Mr. President,

Allow me to congratulate you on your election to preside over this august assembly. We are confident that through your stewardship, issues on this 62nd Session agenda be dealt with in a balanced manner and to the satisfaction of all.

Let me also pay tribute to your predecessor, Madame Sheikha Haya Rashed Al Khalifa, who steered the work of the 61st Session in a very competent and impartial manner.

Her ability to identify the crucial issues facing the world today will be remembered as the hallmark of her presidency.

Mr. President,

We extend our hearty welcome to the new Secretary-General, Mr. Ban Ki-Moon, who has taken up this challenging job requiting dynamism in confronting the global challenges of the 21st Century. Balancing global interests and steering the United Nations in a direction that gives hope to the multitudes of the poor, the sick, the hungry and the marginalized, is indeed a mammoth task. We would like to assure him that Zimbabwe will continue to support an open, transparent and all-inclusive multilateral approach in dealing with these global challenges.

Mr. President,

Climate change is one of the most pressing global issues of our time. Its negative impact is greatest in developing countries, particularly those on the African continent. We believe that if the international community is going to seriously address the challenges of climate change, then we need to get our priorities right. In Zimbabwe, the effects of climate change have become more evident in the past decade as we have witnessed increased and recurrent droughts as well as occasional floods, leading to enormous humanitarian challenges.

Mr. President,

We are for a United Nations that recognises the equality of sovereign nations and peoples whether big or small. We are averse to a body in which the economically and militarily powerful behave like bullies, trampling on the rights of weak and smaller states as sadly happened in Iraq. In the light of these inauspicious developments, this Organisation must surely examine the essence of its authority and the extent of its power when challenged in this manner.

Such challenges to the authority of the UN and its Charter underpin our repeated call for the revitalisation of the United Nations General Assembly, itself the most representative organ of the UN. The General Assembly should be more active in all areas including those of peace and security. The encroachment of some U.N. organs upon the work of the General Assembly is of great concern to us. Thus any process of revitalizing or strengthening of the General Assembly should necessarily avoid eroding the principle of the accountability of all principal and subsidiary organs to the General Assembly.

Mr. President,

Once again we reiterate our position that the Security Council as presently constituted is not democratic. In its present configuration, the Council has shown that it is not in a position to protect the weaker states who find themselves at loggerheads with a marauding super-power. Most importantly, justice demands that any Security Council reform redresses the fact that Africa is the only continent without a permanent seat and veto power in the Security Council. Africa's demands are known and enunciated in the Ezulwini consensus.

Mr. President,

We further call for the U.N. system to refrain from interfering in matters that are clearly the domain of member states and are not a threat to international peace and security. Development at country level should continue to be country-led, and not subject to the whims of powerful donor states.

Mr President,

Zimbabwe won its independence on 18th April, 1980, after a protracted war against British colonial imperialism which denied us human rights and democracy. That colonial system which suppressed and oppressed us enjoyed the support of many countries of the West who were signatories to the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Even after 1945, it would appear that the Berlin Conference of 1884, through which Africa was parcelled to colonial European powers, remained stronger than the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It is therefore clear that for the West, vested economic interests, racial and ethnocentric considerations proved stronger than their adherence to principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The West still negates our sovereignties by way of control of our resources, in the process making us mere chattels in out own lands, mere minders of its trans-national interests. In my own country and other sister states in Southern Africa, the most visible form of this control has been over land despoiled from us at the onset of British colonialism.

That control largely persists, although it stands firmly challenged in Zimbabwe, thereby triggering the current stand-off between us and Britain, supported by her cousin states, most notably the United States and Australia. Mr Bush, Mr. Blair and now Mr Brown's sense of human rights precludes our people's right to their God-given resources, which in their view must be controlled by their kith and kin. I am termed dictator because I have rejected this supremacist view and frustrated the neo-colonialists.

Mr President,

Clearly the history of the struggle for out own national and people's rights is unknown to the president of the United States of America. He thinks the Declaration of Human Rights starts with his last term in office! He thinks she can introduce to us, who bore the brunt of fighting for the freedoms of our peoples, the virtues of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. What rank hypocrisy!

Mr President,

I lost eleven precious years of my life in the jail of a white man whose freedom and well- being I have assured from the first day of Zimbabwe's Independence. I lost a further fifteen years fighting white injustice in my country.

Ian Smith is responsible for the death of well over 50 000 of my people. I bear scars of his tyranny which Britain and America condoned. I meet his victims everyday. Yet he walks free. He farms free. He talks freely, associates freely under a black Government.

We taught him democracy. We gave him back his humanity.

He would have faced a different fate here and in Europe if the 50 000 he killed were Europeans. Africa has not called for a Nuremberg trial against the white world which committed heinous crimes against its own humanity. It has not hunted perpetrators of this genocide, many of whom live to this day, nor has it got reparations from those who offended against it. Instead it is Africa which is in the dock, facing trial from the same world that persecuted it for centuries.

Let Mr. Bush read history correctly. Let him realise that both personally and in his representative capacity as the current President of the United States, he stands for this "civilisation" which occupied, which colonised, which incarcerated, which killed. He has much to atone for and very little to lecture us on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. His hands drip with innocent blood of many nationalities.

He still kills.

He kills in Iraq. He kills in Afghanistan. And this is supposed to be out master on human rights?

He imprisons.

He imprisons and tortures at Guantanamo. He imprisoned and tortured at Abu Ghraib. He has secret torture chambers in Europe. Yes, he imprisons even here in the United States, with his jails carrying more blacks than his universities can ever enroll. He even suspends the provisions of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights. Take Guantanamo for example; at that concentration camp international law does not apply. The national laws of the people there do not apply. Laws of the United States of America do not apply. Only Bush's law applies. Can the international community accept being lectured by this man on the provisions of the universal declaration of human rights? Definitely not!

Mr President, We are alarmed that under his leadership, basic rights of his own people and those of the rest of the world have summarily been rolled back. America is primarily responsible for rewriting core tenets of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We seem all guilty for 9/11. Mr. Bush thinks he stands above all structures of governance, whether national or international.

At home, he apparently does not need the Congress. Abroad, he does not need the UN, international law and opinion. This forum did not sanction Blair and Bush's misadventures in Iraq. The two rode roughshod over the UN and international opinion. Almighty Bush is now coming back to the UN for a rescue package because his nose is bloodied! Yet he dares lecture us on tyranny. Indeed, he wants us to praise him! We say No to him and encourage him to get out of Iraq. Indeed he should mend his ways before he clambers up the pulpit to deliver pieties of democracy.

Mr President,

The British and the Americans have gone on a relentless campaign of destabilising and vilifying my country. They have sponsored surrogate forces to challenge lawful authority in my country. They seek regime change, placing themselves in the role of the Zimbabwean people in whose collective will democracy places the right to define and change regimes.

Let these sinister governments be told here and now that Zimbabwe will not allow a regime change authored by outsiders. We do not interfere with their own systems in America and Britain. Mr Bush and Mr Brown have no role to play in our national affairs. They are outsiders and mischievous outsiders and should therefore keep out! The colonial sun set a long time ago; in 1980 in the case of Zimbabwe, and hence Zimbabwe will never be a colony again. Never!

We do not deserve sanctions. We are Zimbabweans and we know how to deal with our problems. We have done so in the past, well before Bush and Brown were known politically. We have our own regional and continental organizations and communities.

In that vein, I wish to express my country's gratitude to President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa who, on behalf of SADC, successfully facilitated the dialogue between the Ruling Party and the Opposition Parties, which yielded the agreement that has now resulted in the constitutional provisions being finally adopted. Consequently, we will be holding multiple democratic elections in March 2008. Indeed we have always had timely general and presidential elections since our independence.

Mr. President,

In conclusion, let me stress once more that the strength of the United Nations lies in its universality and impartiality as it implements its mandate to promote peace and security, economic and social development, human rights and international law as outlined in the Charter. Zimbabwe stands ready to play its part in all efforts and programmes aimed at achieving these noble goals.

I thank you.

THE REVOLT OF THE BLACKS

By RUNOKO RASHIDI

The subject of African bondage anywhere is one of the most sensitive historical issues, and all to often it is asserted that most, if not all, of the great international movements of African people occurred only under the guise of slavery and servitude. Obviously, as we are seeing, this has not at all been the case. The period of bondage is in fact dwarfed by the ages of magnificent African civilizations, glory and splendor, not just in Africa itself but throughout the Global African Community.

It was in early Iraq where the largest African slave rebellions occurred. Here were gathered tens of thousands of East African slave laborers called Zanj. These Blacks worked in the humid salt marshes in conditions of extreme misery. Conscious of their large numbers and oppressive working conditions the Zanj rebelled on at least three occasions between the seventh and ninth centuries. The largest of these rebellions lasted for fifteen years, from 868 to 883, during which time our people inflicted defeat after defeat upon the Arab armies sent to suppress the revolt.

This rebellion is known historically as the "Revolt of the Zanj" or the "Revolt of the Blacks." It is significant to point out that the Zanj forces were rapidly augmented by large-scale defections of Black soldiers under the employ of the Abbassid Caliphate at Baghdad. The rebels themselves, hardened by years of brutal treatment, repaid their former masters in kind, and are said to have been responsible for great slaughters in the areas that came under their sway.

At its height the Zanj rebellion spread to Iran and advanced to within seventy miles of Baghdad itself. The Zanj even built their own capital, called Moktara (the Elect City), which covered a large area and flourished for several years. The Zanj rebellion was ultimately only suppressed with the intervention of large Arab armies and the lucrative offer of amnesty and rewards to any rebels who might choose to surrender.

African people have always defied subjugation, and the Revolt of the Blacks is in and of itself a glorious page in African history and Black resistance movements. Through the Revolt of the Blacks, a now relatively little known episode in a part of the world that many of us regard as foreign and strange, we see African people doing what we have always done--asserting our essential dignity and standing up and demanding our inalienable human rights.

IN THE MAGICAL LAND OF GHANA, WEST AFRICA

By RUNOKO RASHIDI

I always knew that I would go to Ghana. As a youth and growing into manhood I was very much influenced by the speeches and writings of Osayefo Kwame Nkrumah. I read just about everything on and by Nkrumah that I could get my hands, and I still regard him along with Marcus Garvey and Malcolm X as one of the greatest Africans of the twentieth century. So I knew that I would go to Ghana; I just did not know when. And up to recently only two factors, but major factors, kept me away.

The first factor was the personal belief that when I started to travel to Africa on a regular basis (I have already made six trips to Egypt and enjoyed an extended lecture and research tour to Namibia, Zimbabwe and Zambia) that I might forget about the rest of the global African community and just confine all of my time and research to Africa itself. The other factor was the fear of going into the European slave dungeons. Going into these torture chambers was just an experience that I did not care to undertake. So the plan was to wait until after my fiftieth birthday (August 2004) and then go for it. But apparently the Ancestors decided differently, and so away I went on the Asou Mankran Tour III (Spirit of the River) with one of my favorite scholars and teachers Dr. Asa G. Hilliard III.

We flew from New York's JFK airport to Zurich, Switzerland, and from there to Accra via Lagos, Nigeria. I must confess that when we checked into the Novotel Hotel in Accra, I did not get the sense that I was even in Africa. Indeed, being in the hotel gave me the feeling that I could have just as easily been in Kingston, Jamaica or Manhattan, New York or London, England. In truth, it was just hard for me to relate to my surroundings.

That first full day in Ghana we toured, to begin with, the Dr. W.E.B. DuBois Center for Pan-African Studies. As I understood it, this was the house where Dr. DuBois lived in Africa while spending the last years of his life working on the Encyclopedia Africana, and I was able to glance at the great doctor's personal library. Indeed, the Center houses the body of Dr. DuBois. Following the DuBois Center we visited the Kwame Nkrumah Memorial, which houses Dr. Nkrumah's body and contains a small museum with excellent photos illuminating Osayefo's many achievements. This was followed by a general tour of the city including Black Star Square and James Town--an impoverished area of Accra that Dr. John Henrik Clarke once resided in and where Kwame Nkrumah began his political career.

That evening, I gave a slide presentation-lecture at the DuBois Center. This was a grand experience to begin with but it was particularly special in that I was hosted and introduced by Dr. Sekou Nkrumah--Kwame Nkrumah's youngest son and the director of the DuBois Center. Brother Sekou and I hit it off from the very beginning, and before long we were laughing and talking like we had known each other all of our lives.

The presentation itself was very good, and I was very emotional and got choked up a few times before I got my bearings. I showed a number of visuals including my photo of the Black Christ that I photographed in Egypt's Coptic Museum. I also showed a number of images of Africoid figurines from pre-Columbian America just to reiterate that Africans were in America before the European intrusions of the fifteenth century. The audience really seemed to appreciate it, and I am particularly grateful to brother John Ghansah and Dr. Maulana Hamid. I was also able to engage the audience, and this was particularly important to me, as I wanted to get a very good feeling for the thoughts going through the minds of the attendees. I consider this presentation to be one of the great honors of my life, and the audience was delighted when I presented to the Center a copy of John G. Jackson's Introduction to African Civilizations.

We spent the next four nights in the Elmina/Cape Coast area. This is a hauntingly beautiful area marked by pristine beaches and the large dungeons where the captive Africans were held and brutalized before being placed in the floating coffins and on to the Americas. Strangely enough, it was here that I really fell in love with Ghana for the first time. From the beginning of the trip, I was glad that I had come, but I felt no sense of connectedness. Perhaps it was only after overcoming some of the dread that I felt before going into the Elmina Dungeon that I could really enjoy finally being at home. After that, looking at it in hindsight, I realize that I was probably able to relax a little bit more and appreciate more fully being in the land of my African Ancestors.

What was it like in the dungeons? These are horrible places, and they dot the coasts of Ghana. Indeed, of the more than forty dungeons (sometimes called castles) along the west coast of Africa, more than thirty of them are in Ghana. I always feared that I would go into one of these dungeons and have a really bad emotional experience. However, what I really felt as we went to the Elmina dungeon was anger and indignation. I could not take the tour that was offered us but I did go into some of the individual cells and the large male dungeon. That was all that I could stomach on that particular day.

By the time I got to the Cape Coast dungeon, only a short distance from Elmina, I was a bit more prepared, and I did take the tour. I went into the putrid male dungeon and saw where my Ancestors were packed in. I visited the female dungeon and saw where my Ancestors were held and raped by their white slave catchers. Believe me when I say that it did nothing to endear white people to me, and it is a very good thing that none of the white tourists wandering quietly around the courtyard dared even look at me, otherwise I fear that the results certainly would have been perilous for them. I then walked through the door of no return and back through the door of return, and I felt some of the burden lifted from my soul. I guess that you could say that I am glad that I finally had the experience as I now know a little more about what my Ancestors endured in the greatest crime against humanity that the world has yet witnessed.

One of the precious highlights of the Elmina/Cape Coast visit was the traditional marriage of Anthony and Janice Browder. I first met Tony in the late 1980s shortly after my first visit to India. Tony is a dynamic African brother, a great organizer, a genius at marketing, and a real scholar in his own right. Over the years we have maintained a good and steady relationship, and so it was with tremendous satisfaction that I received an official wedding invitation. It was quite a ceremony, and among the other attendees were James Small, Leonard and Rosalind Jeffries, and Asa G. Hillard. All of us were seated in the front row along with the traditional elders and chiefs. We enjoyed ourselves immensely, and we were all very happy at the new union. Janice Browder seems like a really good sister, and we wish them the very best that life has to offer.

It was also in Elmina/Cape Coast that most of the Panafest activities were held. Panafest is a celebration for both continental Africans and Africans in the diaspora designed to bring us together in recognition of our common history, needs and aspirations. Dr. Leonard Jeffries gave a rousing address and summed up my feelings for the entire trip when he pointed out that Ghana is probably our best chance for the salvation of Africa.

My love affair with Ghana really began at Elmina/Cape Coast. I relished the wonderful Ghanaian cuisine and spent a lot of time at the beach. I even engaged in a libation ceremony at the seashore and gave thanks to our Ancestors for allowing me to return to my African homeland and called on them to bless our trip. There were also a number of other African-American tour groups in the area including a large contingent from Philadelphia and a wonderful group led by Dr. Wade Nobles.

From Elmina/Cape Coast we headed north to the bustling metropolis of Kumasi--Ghana's second largest city. Along the way we stopped at Assin Manso where the captured Africans were allowed to take a final bath before being marched into the coastal dungeons.

From our base in Kumasi, we journeyed to Mankranso, the adopted village of Nana Baffour Amankwatia II (Dr. Hilliard), where we were well received and ordered to come back the following day for a grand durbar (procession) and a reception with the governor of the Kumasi region. This turned out to be a really big event, and somewhat to my dismay I was compelled to disrobe and forced to put on the traditional dress and sandals of an Ashanti chief! Indeed, based on Nana Baffour's introduction, I was told that I would soon be enstooled as a chief in my own right! Can you believe it? There I was on my first trip to West Africa, and I am told that I would soon be a chief! Well, anyway, it is a great honor and nothing to be taken lightly, and after some discussion and a lot of deliberation with Nana Baffour, I have pretty much decided to accept the direct responsibility of trying to uplift Africa.

Another wonderful experience in the Kumasi region was visiting with the direct descendants of Queen Mother Yaa Asantewa of Ejisu--a great African woman who led an army to fight the British. The regal character and dignity of these sisters and brothers was written all over them. We relished this wonderful visit, and the people seem to have enjoyed us also.

We also visited the Ashanti royal palace of Prempeh II, and I was informed that based on physical appearance alone, I could easily have found my place there.

In Kumasi, I took a full day away from the group and visited Bonwire, home of the world famous Kente cloth and from there to Lake Bosomtwe, a place that I did not even know existed until the day that I went there. Lake Bosomtwe is, like most of Ghana, an enchantingly beautiful and serene place and I only regret that my time was so limited there.

The final leg of the tour took us to Akosombo in the Volta region. I suppose that it was appropriate that we should go there towards the end of the trip or we may have never gotten much further. It was just that nice. The following morning, I had a leisurely breakfast with a magnificent view of Lake Volta. The sheer beauty of the lake brought me to the verge of tears, and on this last day in Ghana I began to dread returning to Europe and the United States.

On the return to Accra, the Novotel Hotel and the trip to the airport, we stopped at the Akonedi Shrine at Larteh, described as "one of the oldest traditional shrines in Ghana. Long before Islam and Christianity arrived in Africa, Africans had been practicing their own traditional spiritual system with a belief in a supreme being for thousands of years." It was a fitting way for us to end our tour to the magical land of Ghana.

Why do I make reference to the magical land of Ghana? Because it cast a spell on me, and I shall never be the same. I adore Ghana and place my visit there with my greatest trips to Egypt, India, and Australia. I will never be the same, and I can't wait to go back. While in Ghana I realized as never before that the future of Africa hangs in the balance. Europe wants Africa, but we shall not give her up without a fight, and surely Ghana will be a major battlefield.

For the success of the trip, I have to express my sincere appreciation to Sister Zawadi, Nias, and Beverly Harris, Nana Ekow Butweiku I, John Ghansah, Dr. Maulana Hamid, Peter Clark, Earl Sheperd, Marie Bradley, Andy Mensah, Cris Clay, James Small, Leonard Jeffries, Sister Leah, Nana Baffour, and so many others. I owe each of you a debt that I can never fully repay. Medasi pa.

THE IMPORTANCE OF HISTORY TO AFRICAN LIBERATION

By RUNOKO RASHIDI

"Until the lion has his historian, the hunter will always be a hero."--African Proverb

I would contend that not nearly enough energy is expended upon the history of African people in antiquity or modern times. Not nearly enough. All strong peoples emphasize their history all the time; weak peoples do not. Not only must intellectuals do their work, they must give the information to the masses. I believe that as Black people, if we are to be a strong people again on a global scale, we must continually clarify who we are and where we are, and constantly emphasize the things that made us great in the past. Some peoples have gone as far as to essentially make their history sacred. No one questions the right of a people to engage in this process. Europeans, Chinese, etc., do it all the time as a matter of course.

Even Malcolm X said, "Of all our studies, it is history that is most qualified to reward our research." And this is not just ancient history that Malcolm X was talking about, but history ancient and modern. Our greatest leaders and intellectuals, including David Walker, Martin Robison Delany, Edward Wilmot Blyden, Marcus Garvey, J.A. Rogers, Drusilla Dunjee Houston, Carter G. Woodson, W.E.B. DuBois, Kwame Nkrumah, Kwame Ture, Cheikh Anta Diop, Chancellor Williams, John Henrik Clarke, and many, many more were clear on this.

Nkrumah, however, took it a step further and clarified the matter unmistakably when he said that "Thought without practice is empty, and action without thought is blind." I believe that we must use our history, not just for intellectual purposes, but to galvanize our people into action to solve our current problems. In other words, we must use our history as a springboard for struggle. I do not pretend to speak for everyone on this matter, but I do feel quite strongly about it. Nobody in their right mind would argue that we can simply return to the past.

But certainly we must look at the past in another light. I say that history is a light that illuminates the past and key that unlocks the door to the future. We need that light and we need that key. If anyone can suggest a way to get around this I would love to hear it. Not only must we emphasize our historical greatness as a people, as well as the mistakes that we have made, we must inject it into the minds of the masses of the people and build upon it. This is a fundamental step in our liberation process.

I believe that we must all, each of us, see ourselves as endowed with a sacred mission in regards to African liberation. Mine, as a conscious African historian, is to help make Africans proud of themselves, to help change the image of Africa in the world, and through the use of history and culture to seek to clarify our identity as a people and help reunite a family of people that has been separated far too long. Obviously, our missions will vary. But I am clear on mine. I believe that Ancestors have given me my mission and I do not intend to flunk it.