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Abstract by Darwin Leon

BLACK AFRICAN UNITY BY

DAVID ARTHUR WALTERS



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The Impossible Dream

Is the notion of Black African unity an impossible dream? Not according

to the late Cheikh Anta Diop (1923-1986), a Senegalese physicist, linguist,anthropologist and ethnocentric historian well known throughout the world as"the modern pharaoh of African studies", and "the pharaoh of thought.”

Professor Diop’s worldwide fame followed the elaboration of hiscontroversial 1951 doctorate thesis, that the pharaohs of old were Black

Africans. Since the ancient Pharaonic culture nourished the Jewish, Greek, andRoman cultures, he reasoned that the roots of our modern civilization areessentially Black African. This thesis – dismissed in prejudiced precincts as adeliberate insult to the white race – was based on select historical facts.

Historical activism condones the use of carefully selected historical factsor what are believed to be facts to support current political agendas. In any event, Africa is regarded as the common cradle of the human race. We may believe that race, as a biological or physical justification for racism, does notreally exist. Yet that scientific and politically correct notion has done little toimprove so-called race relations – racial prejudice is built into the phrase.

Therefore whatever the first father of the human race looked like, we are wontto pray that he shall forgive his children for their obsession with superficialcharacteristics, for such physiognomic nonsense really should not make a racialdifference according to the declarations of scientists published in the most

recent editions of popular encyclopedias. Nevertheless, superficial details areserious matters to those who would fight over them at the drop of a hat;

wherefore we may refrain from denigrating anyone by making too much sportof their prejudices.

In any case, the gravity African influence on Western civilization isdebatable even thought we cannot deny its profound and somewhatrevolutionary influence on contemporary Western culture. But what isspecifically African? And who is influencing whom? Professor Diop’ssuggestions for establishing a modern Black Africa resembles apartheidprejudices. The Western argument, that white was originally black, does not suit

his objective: a pure Black Africa. We know the black versus white story well: Ignorant and ungrateful

descendents of Mother Africa eventually returned to the cradle as whitebarbarians and ruthlessly exploited black resources, robbing black folk of theirheritage, handing out Western junk in exchange – only one chief spat upon theofferings and said, “We have our own stuff!” Thus little remains of the Africanculture that inspired classical culture in its infancy. The black man has been



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virtually freed and whites have relinquished their African empires; but now thecrusading neo-barbarians, doing business as usual while taking the glittering names of god and democracy in vain, would plunder Africa’s natural resourcesyet again, to the very hilt, and even worse, make low-wage slaves of its residents

while violently stamping out resistance (so-called terrorism) to its neo-fascistcorporate lifestyle. To that end the unelected corporate executives and theirpurchased political prostitutes would get rid of the remnants of the nativelifestyles that are incompatible with Western-style corporate commerce.

Wherefore beware of Western executives bearing laptops. If Africa is to saveitself, it must return to its primal scene and scream out loud: Mother Africamust have and hold her own Ebonic Zion, her very own landed means of production. And needless to say, non-Zionist Africans dispersed all over the

world should virtually follow suit wherever Black Power can be seized andsaluted with clenched black fists; say, in the Americas. If blacks do not want to

return to Africa and if their souls are truly black, they should at least embracethe symbols of African culture and call each other, in America for example,

African Americans, not American Africans – the generic term, blacks, wouldnot suffice to the purpose.

Professor Diop advocated a federal, Afro-centric approach to the Black Africa unification movement. Diverse cultures developed in Africa even beforeits inhabitants peopled Earth; there are many different types of Africans to thisday, he recounted. His prospective African federation would welcome whitepeople but would forbid the existence of White States on Black Soil.

In Black Africa, The Economic and Cultural Basis for a Federated State, Diop

set forth several principles for Black African Unity: increased consciousness of historical, linguistic, and federal unity; black repopulation of Africa; femalerepresentation in its own chamber in a bicameral legislature; prohibition of therise of an industrial bourgeoisie - "one of the fundamental ills of capitalism";full employment; equalization of salaries; creation of a powerful army;development of powerful state industries, including state farms; developmentof production cooperatives; creation of technological institutes. And theprofessor of Black Africa often emphasized the development and coordinationof Africa's diverse energy resources and recommended the development of atomic and thermonuclear power generation.

Thus it seems that the original Africans who ruled Egypt and enthusedthe West were socialists if not Bolsheviks, with a ten-percent tendency todevelop weapons of mass destruction.

In any case, Black Africans can rightfully take pride in the fact that theirmother country was the cradle of the Wise Man; i.e. homosapiens. Indeed,today's Black Africans purportedly have the deepest prehistoric cultural roots:



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"In prehistoric times, it was they who created the Nilotic Sudanese civilizationand what we know as Egypt. The first Black civilizations were the firstcivilizations in the world." Furthermore, Diop awarded honorable mention tothe first Nigerian civilization, dubbed the Nok civilization, of the first

millennium B.C.E.; and to the Empire of Ghana of the eight century C.E.; andto Ethiopia, home of the Isis cult and the oldest state in the world. Ethiopianpharaohs ruled Egypt for a century at least, and that Egyptians consideredEthiopian women to be the most beautiful in the world. Swahili tradition refersto cities of five-story stone buildings, with silver staircases leading to beds of ivory, peopled by "authentic jet-black Africans. Their women had shaven headsas in Ghana."

Examination of pre-colonial African social institutions "reveals aconsistent cultural unity, resulting from similar adaptations to the same materialand physical conditions of life.... There is also a common linguistic background.

The African languages constitute one linguistic family." African empires hadtheir own imperial languages; those languages waned after the arrival of theforeign imperialists with mother tongues from other "mother countries". If

Africa is to be reunified as Black Africa, in the form of a federated state, thefederation must have its own, African language.

Linguistic Unity

A foreign colonial language such as French simply will not do; first of all,ordinary people do not speak it: "The major part of the population in any

territory is still totally without knowledge of French." The "high strategy" of the French under General de Gaulle, was "intended to atrophy our nationalconsciousness, to reduce it and render it assimilable of all sorts of mixes."European magnates, whatever their language might be, want to create a nativebourgeoisie "whose class interests would thenceforth coincide with those of international high finance. Such capitalist bourgeoisification "can only be fatalto the political health of our country." Africa will never be allowed to select apolitical and social regime of its own without a fight. The imperialist Westbelieves its civilization depends on control of Africa; thus Africa is the lastbastion against – shall we conclude the sentence for our professor, and say, theGreat White Satan and The Forces of Darkness of Corporate Board Tribalism?

As for the English language, the language of Free Trade: "We mustremain circumspect about subtle efforts to Anglo-Americanize Africa ....Linguistic unity based on a foreign language, however one may look at it, iscultural abortion. It would irremediably eventuate in the death of the authenticnational culture, the end of our deeper intellectual and spiritual life and reduce



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us to perpetual copycats, having missed out on our historical mission in this world.... One might say that it makes no difference to a Wolof-speaking African whether he adopts Zulu or English or Portuguese. This is just not so ...."

In any event, "Linguistic unity dominates all national life. Without it,

national cultural unity is but fragile and illusory. The wrangling within abilingual country, such as Belgium, illustrate this point." Therefore Africanintellectuals should experiment with linguistic unity in Senegal, where Wolof isthe obvious choice of language, because "all minorities are nearly bilingual,speaking Wolof in addition to their primary language: cultivate Wolof as thelanguage of government.” Furthermore, "When our demonstrations in Wolof have gone far enough, they will have proved that in due time it will be possibleappropriately to choose one of the major African tongues and promote it to thelevel of sole governmental and cultural language for the entire continent. It willcover all territorial languages in the same way that Russian is overlaid on the

languages of each Socialist Republic within the Soviet Union." In any case,"The selection of a single language for the continent - one which any foreigner... would have to learn to communicate with any African on our Black Continent - would thus obviously lead to simplification of our intercourse withthe outside world: International relations, far from becoming morecomplicated, would become much easier."

Although an official language is indispensable for efficient bureaucraticfunctioning, too much top-down efficiency can be a great evil to those whohave no love for totalitarian states and their tendency to war. Yet Diop wantedto achieve African unity by incorporating it in a single language and thereby

setting Africa solidly apart from and opposed to the world. Black Africa couldtherefore love itself by virtue of a single language suitable for the conveyanceof intellectual abstractions. The choice of the language would be arbitrary butfor the fact that many people already speak it. When outsiders showed up totrade, they would have to speak that language. Otherwise, the situation wouldbe as if Walmart opened a store in an enormous Hispanic neighborhood anddemanded that its customers speak English in order to do business. Of coursemoney and all it buys moves people: wherefore bilingual employees would behired, and business would be brisk; for example, many businesses in andaround Miami, Florida require employees to speak Spanish because many U.S.citizens there do not speak English nor do they have to speak a word of it tosucceed, even though “No English” is an insult to English-only speakers intheir own country.

Still, to be literate and on the same page at the same time might beconvenient as we progress to Totalitaria – the color issue might be resolved

with free bleaches and government tanning salons; genetic planning and plastic



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surgery could deal with other visible distinctions. If global unity is wanted forpolitical-economic intercourse, an artificial language might be contrived toovercome factional objections to the use of an existing, natural language.

We recall that such an international language, Esperanto, was devised in

1887 by L. I. Zamenhof, a Polish oculist. Of course Black Africans might rejectEsperanto because of its European, Romantic-language roots. However thatmay be, the world now enjoys 100,000 Esperanto speakers, who have availablefor their edification 30,000 Esperanto books. Perhaps, if called upon,Esperantists might endeavor to integrate the globe if not Africa. What would itmatter if most of us did not speak the elite language, providing that the elite

who speak it do their job well and force it down our throats?Professor Diop appreciated the overlaying of the Russian language on

the diverse peoples of the former Soviet Union. In 1917, czarist doctrine heldthe Russian language to be "the cement of the empire." We are not surprised

that both Lenin and Stalin adhered at first to the cultural relativist doctrine, that"all voices are equal." Yet from 1930 on, Stalin wanted a homogenous languagefor the Union, and declared that the 150 regional languages were "the opiate of the nations." The immobility of the populations and restrictions onimmigration from without tended to cement those languages in place. Those

who could not speak Russian well had limited access to the benefits of unity. Inshort, Russian was the language of the power elite: the Russian-speaking intellectuals, the intelligentsia and their dictator, dominated the Soviet Union.

We recall here that the Ottoman elite employed an ambiguous and artificial,Persian-Arabic script to maintain its domination over Turkish people for

centuries until Ataturk’s Latinized alphabet reform was imposed after therevolution, obliterating the Ottoman language in merely two decades so thattoday only a few dozen people can understand it. Note well that Latin itself isobsolete today.

Stalin's universal methodology is repugnant to the relatively liberalculture we enjoy today despite the recent revolt of anti-intellectualneoconservatives, whose inclinations incline to so called Friendly Fascism, and,ultimately, to another, perhaps dystopian Totalitaria. The central tenet of multiculturalism or cultural relativism is the ideal postulate of liberal culture: allcultures are equal - no culture is better or worse than another. This relativisticattitude is reflected by the doctrine of postmodern contemporary anti-arttaught to children in America - "There is nothing right or wrong about any

work of art." And, ultimately, there is nothing essentially right or wrong aboutany deed whatsoever, even if it is prohibited by law. Either/Or distinctions areartificial, flimsy impositions on brutish nature, which, like the primitive gods, isbeyond good and evil, wherefore human ethics are artificial. The "universal



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good man" does not and can not exist. The New Man is a pipedream. Thesociety that does not tolerate murder, rape, incest, and theft is only relatively good, not absolutely good. The only universal value flowing from universalhuman needs is the will to power, to survive by any means available; the

survival of a group may require murder, rape, incest and theft. We may believe otherwise; indeed, untold millions have faith in thepower of love to overcome animosity and thereby fulfill divine law and order.

Thinking and its expression are contextual and inclined to variety given theflexibility or freedom required for survival under varying circumstances; hencefor the sake of unity we would have Africans of whatever shade speak the sameemotional language, the universal language of love. Any other language, even

Wolof, English, Spanish, Arabic, or Russian, simply would not suffice for theunification of diverse peoples. Yes, a common verbal language is an importantfactor in the social unity of speakers, yet any anthropologist worthy of her man

will tell us that the correlation between sect, language, and community is oftenambiguous; for instance, people belonging to different language groups may identify with each other and discriminate against peoples speaking otherdialects of their languages. Arbitrarily dividing diverse people into two groups,calling one orange and the other green, will result in discriminatory behavioraccording to their Orange and Green revolutions.

If the Dark Continent wants to unite in opposition to Westerncorporatism and its gangster underbelly instead of panhandling for almighty dollars, it might be better off resolving its differences by returning to theslavery of ‘Islam’ (“to submit”) originally voiced by the Arabic language for its

jihad. Still, it might seem that a common language is essential to closecooperation, since much might be lost in translation. It is human nature tocategorize, and then to fight about the categories; as native English-speakersrecently learned from alien Arab terrorists, nothing unites a back-biting competitive people like war with a common enemy. Indeed, the behavior of sports teams and their fans, as well as the conduct of informally organizedjuvenile gangs, demonstrate that people will identify with and fight overartificial coloring and arbitrary naming; sociological studies show that if half thesubjects are called the Blues and the other half the Reds, they will discriminateaccording to that distinction, and even have at it in a most vicious manner. Thepleasure is not in the end or goal, but in the fight itself.

It matters not whether the difference is physiognomic or linguistic, forsomeone speaking and writing a curious language may be wrongly suspected asa mortal enemy. Ultimately the threat to unity shall come from within, from theseemingly nice people next door who might look and sound just like us, but arecooperating with extremists of one ilk or another, including native breeds.



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There exists within universal Islam a never-ending tug-of-war between Araband non-Arab Muslims. An influential theoretician of modern Arabnationalism, Sati al-Husri, propounded on the importance of a universallanguage to Arab unity and on what must be done by intellectuals to inculcate

the docile masses and bring them fully into the fold of umma al-arabiyya (Arabnation) to partake of uruba (Arabism):"Every person who speaks Arabic is an Arab. Everyone affiliated with

those people is an Arab. If he does not know this or if he does not cherish his Arabism, then we must study the reasons for his position. It may be a result of ignorance - then we must teach him the truth. It may be because he is unawareor deceived - then we must waken him and reassure him. It may be a result of selfishness - then we must work to limit his selfishness."

As for mere affiliation with Arabs, non-Arabic-speaking students in thetaliban schools of Afghanistan and Pakistan memorized Arabic scripture by

rote, depending on their radical masters for interpretation of its meaning. Thusit is said that Islam is overdue for a protest or protestant revolution against itsmasters both spiritual and secular. So it is again made apparent that language,although an important factor for the unification of a people, is not the crucialfactor. In any event, many Muslims do not speak Arabic, and in fact they mightresent the Arab inclination to dominate Islam; the dream of pan-Arab unity, orat least the Arab supremacy advocated, for instance, by the socialistic Ba'athfaction, despite its foundational expression of universal toleration, has failed tocapture the hearts of all Muslims simply because of its emphasis on Arabicmastery of the faith.

Notwithstanding the internal squabbles over the particulars of Islam,Islam has earned substantial credit for its enduring universalism despite the factthat Muslims were prominent slave traders in Africa. Black Africans, despitetheir cultural and linguistic predilections, may want to look to Islam for theirunity. That is precisely what the West is afraid of, for Islam, given its history, isperceived as a threat to the cult of gilded individualism. Therefore the proudegoism and ethnic partiality of a black African man should in any case beconverted to white Protestantism, become a black WASP, and educated to

work for The Man, whose rationalized corporate gangsterism or corporateboard tribalism has been legalized and is far more productive in terms grossnational product. Once liberated from white denigration and black pride, onceinured to techno-niggerism, virtual slaves may even govern the fascistic statefrom time to time, just as black pharaohs government Egypt for a brief time..

Criminal gangs are the underbelly of private capitalism. To further the vested interests of its power elite, the United States has supported gangs of ruthless thugs everywhere. In Africa, the U.S. government currently supports



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the sort of warlord gangs who murdered the valiant peacekeepers of Blackhawk Down fame. Relatively informal alliances of Muslim families and clans armedthemselves, established Sharia, and managed to run the outlaws and their

warlords out of town, establishing the first peace in decades. Yet despite its

profession of family values, the U.S. pseudo-conservative government, by andfor the power elite, is opposed to such a peace, which it associates with theterrorism that is in part spawned by its arrogant assumption that its ownnational federalist civilization, based on the war of all against all for moremoney and property and other forms of power, is superior to the enemies itneeds to overcharge in order to exist. So we may opine that Islamism in Africa

will rise in proportion to the paranoiac repression of Islam, that Black PowerIslamism shall be far more troubling to U.S. imperialism than the intelligenceagencies expect.

Perhaps human universality may depend on a loosely knit "folkish" or

popular culture, and not on the imposition of a particular language andmonetary system from high political authority. After all, the virtue of acommon language depends on common experiences. Human nature,notwithstanding the various cultural and natural circumstances, has itsuniversality. Music, for instance, is deemed a universal language despite the

various forms it takes, for all are moved to a better understanding of differentfolks by its modes. Music expresses a wide variety of feelings. Particular verballanguages may be incidental to but not essential to cultural unity. Each languagehas its musicality; certain language groups may convey a different way of feeling and thinking than others. And the language of love is the best music of all; love

is not nonsense: it is the most sensible course to harmonious intercourse andpeace of mind.

Professor Diop dreamed an impossible dream. Compassionateconservatives of all stripes aver that needy people need to help themselves; forexample, in August 2006 Democratic Illinois Senator Barrack Obamaembarked on a five-nation tour of Africa, his father’s fatherland, carrying thisimportant message: “Ultimately, Africa is responsible for helping itself.” They must take action against “a lack of basic rule of law and accountability that hashampered the ability of countries with enormous natural resources.”

Nevertheless, skeptics presume that Africa will always be backwards if left to its own primitive devices, drums and spears and tribal culture; that itshall always ridden with famine, disease, criminality and violent dissensionunless the White Man's Burden is taken up again, so that the dark continent canbe made safe for democracy. That is, free for exploitation by American-stylecorporate capitalism; which is naturally dominated by a greedy, English-speaking power elite which has blind faith in Free Markets and the sacred



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power of the Almighty Dollar. Indeed, the no-account democratic one-god wasreplaced long ago by what really counts for U.S. Americans, a hermeticabstraction reflected by the privately owned, concrete particulars it canpurchase: money.

Visitors to the American colonies noted the obsession with money early on: “The only principle of life propagated among the young people is to getmoney,” reported Cadwaller Colden in 1784, “and men are only esteemedaccording to what they are worth – that is, the money they are possesses of.”

Alexis de Tocqueville mused on the American’s pursuit of property instead of happiness: “In America then everyone finds facilities, unknownelsewhere, for making or increasing his fortune. The spirit of gain is always onthe stretch, and the human mind, constantly diverted from pleasures of imagination and the pursuit of the intellect, is there swayed by no impulse butthe pursuit of wealth.”

It was as if the American Protestants were in fact the so-called greedy Jews that they and the Jewish prophets before them were so fond of denouncing on behalf of their guilty conscience represented by YHWY. Butforgive them for they knew not what they did. Having set afoot in thePromised Land, very few can resist the allure of the new golden calf and theabstracted currency cult, of the treasure box invented by Africans, stolen fromEgypt by Hebrew outlaws, repossessed by the Queen of Sheba during her greatpotlatch competition with Solomon, swiped from her temple beside the traderoute in Yemen, and then deposited in the Western bank vault. All hail! We

worship Power in the abstract, Money, mONEy, My One: if everyone shall

overcharge everyone, everyone shall profit. We doubt Africans can outdothemselves and come up with a Black Baal or common linguistic coin to crack the safe, and Professor Diop knew it:

"Because of the huge difficulties to be overcome in mastering the African linguistic mosaic, some observers in Europe are convinced that we willnot be up to the challenge.... They are... sure that the drive for African culturalunity will fail.... None of what makes for the greatness of modern nations (will)ever exist among us, they assume."

Intellectual Colonization Incorporated

A growing number of respectable Westerners, particularly productive workers who believe they are being bled to death by neoliberal corporate vampires, sympathize with the biases if not prejudices of Black Africa's author;and even the more so since Professor Diop’s manner of thinking if not hislanguage corresponds to our systematic way of thinking. We are fashioned by



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our enemies: Fight fire with fire. Use the rational system and its technologicaldevelopments against the system. Use the techniques of the colonialists againstthem. Misery loves company and there is safety in numbers; forget Small isBeautiful; remember: Big is Better. GNP must always be on the rise. The only

solution to corporatism, it seems, is another form of corporatism.Communism, for instance, is an ideal corporation once state capitalism withersaway, leaving social utopia in its wake. On the other hand, certain low-browedmagnates have sworn that Fascism is the perfect form of capitalism, forFascism does not renounce private property nor repudiate big corporateprofits, and knows well that might makes it right.

It seems that the ultimate goal of competition is to eliminate competition while praising it to no end, as if General Electric and the like are small family businesses. What else can black fish do but obey natural law and cruise in the

wake of the predominately white killer whales? Let black folk form their own

do-it-yourself, black corporations. Given the colonial experience withimperialists, no doubt a federal incorporation of partially owned subsidiaries

would be better than a central state headquartered in a capitol – the illusion orlegal fiction of federation, such as that employed in the United States of

America, can be maintained for the appearance of pluralistic propriety, yet no“state” in the federation will rebel against the national federal government afterthe civil war. The confederation is dead: may the federation live forever.

Therefore let the local folk say good bye to the occupiers; call in the locallawyers, enlist the aid of intelligentsia to devise a federal constitution and get itapproved by the People, and/or the Supreme Being via his incorporate

representative on Earth. That is, we should colonize ourselves instead of being farmed by

foreigners. We must systematically oppose the Western System, taking advantage of its technology. Yes, Black Africans can use the colonial techniquesto throw out the colonial occupiers while installing their own Black Power eliteand intelligentsia, all highly educated by the imperialists. Of course we mustconvince ourselves that our Black Africa intellectuals are better than the ones

we would replace – black African natives had already grown cynical of the Western intellectual colonization of Black Africa homosapiens by the timeProfessor Diop drafted his Western-style academic book, waxing eloquent onelite intellectualism instead of general intelligence.

"In order to counter the budding anti-intellectualism evident throughoutBlack Africa among those in political power," quoth our professor, "as if this

were a defense mechanism, intellectuals have to be able to present perspectivesfor Africa, solutions to problems on a national scale which allow no otherpossible ways out. The intellectuals must gain respect at the same time through



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their efficiency, their taste for unselfish work on behalf of the people, and theirclarity. They must be sincere, and to do that they must truly feel themselvesanimated by an ideal that will stand come what may. They must set themselvesapart from those minds which shine only with a deceptive light, as artificial as it

is sterile, the flashy pseudo-intelligences that so readily prove to beinsignificant. Self-defense anti-intellectualism would spell a new loss of Africa if it were to become general. We cannot afford the luxury of rejecting what wehave most been missing during these last three centuries."

We need our intellectuals, but intellectuals invariable sell out when they are embraced by the powers-that-be. There is little respect for intellectuals insome quarters of Africa to this very day; for example, the youth in Liberia whoin 2006 supported the presidential candidacy of former soccer star George

Weah expressed contempt for intellectuals. Millions of idle and uneducatedyouth in Liberia were fed up with violence as a career; they decided to give

democracy a try, despite democracy's long history of imperial wars, which they are unaware of. At least democracy does not require schooling as a prerequisiteof voting; as we know very well in America, everyone of a certain age iscompetent to vote, no matter how ignorant they might be.

'Mr. Weah's lack of political experience and formal education,' reportedthe New York Times (10/29/05) 'is seen as an asset by many of his supporters."He no book, he no know book, I'll vote for him," is a popular slogan, a twiston the chilling campaign cry for Mr. (Charles) Taylor, who dragged the country through so much bloodshed: "He killed my ma, he killed my pa, I'll vote forhim."'

Weah lost the election 40:60 to Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, a Harvard-educated economist and former World Bank official, and now the first femalepresident of an African nation. Intellectuals do have cause for hope today, atleast according to a recent global poll released by the British Broadcasting Corporation in September 2005: "When asked what type of people they wouldlike to give more power to in their country, 35 percent of respondents choseintellectuals, putting them above every other group. Religious leaders came nexton 25 percent, while military leaders, business leaders and journalists all had 20percent. Only 16 percent said politicians should have more power." The pollshowed that 65 percent of respondents worldwide believe their countries arenot governed by the will of the people. In Africa, only about a quarter of West

Africans believed their elections were free and fair. South Africans, incidentally,had the greatest contrary opinion, with 59 percent maintaining they aregoverned by the people's will.

Send the neoconservative morons home and bring in the liberalintellectuals. Our Black Studies professor is obviously one of the latter, a



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member of a disgruntled lot – misery loves company. Yet, regardless of Professor Diop's enduring stature, we must beware of intellectuals lest they setup their own imperial colony at home. Eric Hoffer, in The Ordeal of Change(1963), points out that intellectuals have been traditionally aligned with the

powers-that-be; they seldom take up the interest of the masses unless they become frustrated or lose their status. Their love for the People is soon lost when irrational people get in the way of their rational plans. Where the exerciseof power is concerned, they differ little from their former bosses: pharaohs,kings, presidents, generals, directors, executives, and so on.

"It is by eliminating man from their equation that the makers of history can predict the future," declared Hoffer. "There is an element of misanthropy in all determinists. To all of them man as he really is is a nuisance, and they strive to prove by various means that there is no such thing as human nature.Even in the freest society power is charged with the impulse to turn men into

precise, predictable automata. When watching men of power in action it mustalways be kept in mind that, whether they know it or not, their main purpose isthe elimination or neutralization of the independent individual.... Every devicethey employ aims at turning man into a manipulable 'animated instrument,'

which is Aristotle's definition of a slave."Intellectuals such as the scribes of ancient Nubia and Egypt were

traditionally at the top of the social pyramid; but the spread of literacy and freepublic education now produces far too many of them for bureaucracies toabsorb. Practical men armed by high technology have rendered many anintellectual, particularly secular intelligentsia and religious clerics, virtually

useless, explained Hoffer, an intellectual longshoreman and social critic.Intellectuals vainly struggle to regain their historical status; they flail about,search for support from the masses, foment revolts, usually from the moreintelligent, left side of politics. However, according to Hoffer, the "antagonismbetween the intellectual and the powers that be" is a good thing: it "serves amore vital purpose than the advancement of the masses: it keeps the socialorder from stagnating."

Professor Diop might have been pleased to read this statement by Hoffer: "We also see that the first step in the awakening of a stagnant society isthe estrangement of the educated minority from the prevailing dispensation....

The change in the relations between the educated and governing class has beena factor in almost every renascence...." Hoffer carefully noted that, althoughradical changes are pioneered by intellectuals, they in turn are eventually elbowed out by practical men; for action takes precedence over words whensomething must be done. Yet now men of words alone can win the battle forsouls: "Only they can get around the roadblock which bars our way to the



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dispirited millions everywhere," he wrote. "There must be general awareness of the vital role the intellectuals have to play in our struggle for survival. And they must be given a limited share in the shaping and execution of policies whichthey will be called upon to expound and defend." Hence enter "poets,

philosophers, writers, artists, scientists and professors" to make the new policies "heard."

Journey to Nowhere

It would behoove intellectuals to transcend Professor Diop's Black African Union in its conceptual stage. It smacks of the prejudice he apparently abhors. As intellectuals ascend to transcendental unity, they should pause ateach level to behold and tolerate all the dirty details below, neither condemning nor approving the categories beneath their noses – if only it were not human

nature to categorize things in the first place! As we know so well from our politically correct, compulsory free-

education system, intolerance is a symptom of ethnocentrism, racism, andnationalism, the uncritical prejudices favoring one's own cultural values.Individuals have to conform to social prejudices and even become bigots tosurvive; it is discomfiting to challenge ethnic prejudices, and easier to makethem matters of habit. Still, self-proclaimed cultural relativists are beyond allthat. Cultural relativism allows them to suspend value judgments. Thatsuspension is itself a value judgment; but it is purportedly best one of allbecause it is based on the assumption that individuals are free and able to

rationally analyze empirical data and act rationally instead of prejudicially praising and blaming whatever comes to their attention. If it were not for theability to suspend judgment and maintain a critical attitude towards all absolutepropositions, we would be victims and prisoners of our culture, and might as

well espouse cultural determinism.Indeed, it is tempting to forever refrain from arriving at a definite moral

conclusion about any particular culture, or any other particular object, for thatmatter, that might beckon for an Either/Or decision. Why bother? It is best toremain skeptical, to suspend judgment while mulling things over ad infinitum.

We may jest about this, but there is truth in humor. It is best not to act whenonly mixed results may be obtained. When action runs too far ahead of thinking, let not theory lead to practice: let us think for the sake of thinking alone, for that will distract us from the ultimate reality that, whatever we do, noone can really live forever. Abstract thinking is one of the most powerfulanesthetics ever conceived. As we rise by virtue of the intellectual fumes thatfill our lead zeppelin, we ideally look down and love all cultural excretions



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equally in our transcendental balloon. Unadulterated, amoral ideality is theprecious cargo borne by our alienated dirigible. If we happen to land in animaginary promised land, no harm shall be done.

From our ivory-tower safari perspective, what goes on in Africa seems

surreal – Africa is a dream to those of us who have not set foot on thecontinent. If black cannot reflect white, Professor Diop’s Black Africa,influenced as it is by his white academic perspective, is an impossible dream.But if our professorial Pharaoh of Black Culture is correct; that is, IF the white,First World perspective does in fact have its roots in Black Africa, white mightbecome black again. Still, his ebony world might require a century or more of centralized federal violence or organized mass terrorism for its realization, notto mention the violent imposition of his universal Black African language onthe black intellectual power elite to conform them into intelligentsia at theexpense of the creative-destructive intelligence. Furthermore, if black is truly

beautiful in the concrete instantiation of its Ebonics ideal, the black elite musthave black souls to begin with.

Of course the dream of a civilized, peaceful and prosperous Black Africais a state of mind that does not require one's actual presence in Africa: Zioncan be anywhere. We may merely return to Africa virtually, from wherever wehappen to be, without setting foot on the continent of that name, and then doour best to realize Africa wherever we put our foot down. No doubt there shallbe impediments to overcome for our own good, but with a little cooperationfrom the white man, whose racial unconscious knows our plight because hisprimitive forebears were black, we shall someday overcome our evil

distinctions, to the end that we might all be gray skinned and earning $10 perhour in paradise. But first of all, we must be pure black again, the color of theobscure origin of humankind. But black is the absence of color, without whichnothing in particular can be perceived; from pure blackness came forth fromlight; therefore things came from nothing somewhere in the beginning, henceNothing really is perfect; wherefore black is most beautiful of all.

Shiva Naipaul, in the first chapters of Journey To Nowhere - A New World Tragedy , traced the influence of the Black African and Black Power movementsand the rise of criminality and corruption subsequent to the decolonization of the Caribbean territories, particularly in Guyana, where he ventured on theheels of other journalists to cover the mass suicide at Jonestown – a white manby the name of Jim Jones (James Warren Jones), following the rhetorical lead of Father Divine, referred to Guyana as "the Promised Land," and led his peopleto their demise there.

"Everywhere in the region (Caribbean territories)," wrote Naipaul,"society was in disarray and men seemed to be decaying - Third Worldhood has



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bred regression, and that regression was ending in personal and politicalcatastrophe. 'You is a princess,' a slum girl was assured again and again in alocal play. 'You is a princess.' "

"As imperialist ties and restraints dissolved, one reality, one self was

lost," Naipaul observed, during a visit to his native Trinidad. "Something snapped. Wild dreams rushed in to fill the vacuum. 'Call me Ata Kujifi!' says abig headline in a Trinidad newspaper. The article is about a lawyer described asa top Port of Spain barrister. He has decided to change his name from ArthurFleming Lawrence to Atta Khufu Obafemi Kujifi. 'You see,' he explained tothe interviewer, 'once you start thinking African then a name like ArthurFleming Lawrence is a plain embarrassment....' It was Africa which had giventhe world law, philosophy, medicine, religion, astronomy, music, magic andscience; it was Africa which had civilized Europe, and not the other way around, as the white man had been misleadingly teaching the world."

Black Power was imported into the region from the United States.Stokely Carmichael, Black Power's main theorist, equated Black Power withbeing African and learning how to kill. In any case, the burden was on black people to remake themselves: they must become more Third-Worldish.Negritude was the thing. Just being black skinned was not good enough: their

very souls of black people must be black; it was not long before black people were warring on black people to make all souls black.

Naipaul noted that Forbes Burnham, head of the Cooperative Republicof Guyana, sometimes dressed up in flowing white robes and called himself 'Kabaka' - the Big Black Chief of Uganda's Baganda tribe. Burnham's eclectic

concoction of Kabakhood, Communism and Corruption set the tone for thenation. A legislator by the name of Eusi Kwayana - 'black man in Guyana',formerly known as Sydney King - who had fallen out with Burnham's ruling faction, remarked that, in Guyana, "black people believe they have a right stealand cheat and rob in order to get rich."

Confronted with such disguises, Naipaul was moved to ask the big question: "Could a country like Guyana have any genuine existence on itsown?" That sort of Black Africana, which arose with a vengeance in many countries when the white man handed down his abused burden to blacks,obviously could not save the oppressed black man in Africa nor abroad. Blacks,despite their political and economic progress in the First World, have sufferedone horror after another at the hands of their brothers since Dr. Diop firstconceived his utopian scheme for a Black Africa. Hence many Africans long for the return of the rule of law of the white man, their great white hope. Butbeware of Americans and Europeans bearing Trojan laptops, for they tend totake more than they leave; nature is ravaged and free labor imprisoned in



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ghettos. The white man’s burdensome cargo is poison for the soul. Do not bedeceived by the promises of prosperity nor by the color of their skin; black

WASPs exist now, and at the highest imperial levels, where they worship Powerunsullied by ethical considerations; as far as they are concerned, their might is

right, for God told them so. In any case, your elected black leaders will mostlikely sell you and yours out for more cargo. Thankfully, not all White Anglo-Saxon Protestants are completely alike.

Take Jim Jones for instance, or rather the hypothesis that he really had goodintentions, and that the white and black devils drove him to madness and theplanning and execution of a mass suicide. The related conspiracy theory positsthat many of his followers fled into the jungle to avoid the mass killing, wherethey were murdered by American and British commandos; the bodies werehauled back to the camp, deposited with the others, and allowed to badly decompose, and then the bodies were flown to secretive U.S. morgues where

autopsies were deliberately botched. Members of Jim Jones’ security force wereallegedly CIA operatives, whose covert mission was to obliterate the communalthreat to the Western lifestyle in the middle of nowhere – as it was said of

Arabs during the Crusades, it was said of suspected Reds; since they are going to Hell anyway, kill them now before they corrupt others; better dead than Red.In any event, Jim Jones grew increasingly paranoid as the negative publicity about the goings on at People's Temple at Jonestown mounted. Seriousallegations, characterized as preposterous attacks by People's Temple, had beenmade by former members and concerned relatives. Jim Jones felt that he andhis organization were being persecuted because of his grand attempt to save the

impoverished world regardless of color. Naipaul summarized their defense:"People's Temple was only one of a number of progressive groups

marked down for destruction because they were bringing together the poor andthe working-class and defying racial barriers. The fact that they had highlightedthe failure of the free-enterprise system; the fact that they had been able tocreate successful survival programs providing food, medical care, jobs and

vocational training; the fact that they had demonstrated the corporate powerand solidarity of the dispossessed - a corporate power and solidarity that racistforces seemed to regard as their unique birthright; the fact that they had beenable to generate wealth from a 'cooperative life-style' rather than from a dog-eat-dog ethic of capitalism; the fact that they had distributed a free newspaperattacking all manifestations of injustice ... these were the real reasons behindtheir persecution."

We do not believe the conspiracy theory enjoyed by People’s Temple. Inany case, the very notion that the super-powerful leader of world civilization,upon whom an attack is an attack on civilization itself, would go out of its way



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to destroy a communal alternative to the American Way, seems awfully absurdto Americans whose prejudices and functional illiteracy prevent them fromgrasping the meaning of the daily news, that the United States has been doing just that for many years, that its very health as a nation depends on having

enemies, that its “Judeo-Christian” love for its own kind is rooted in hatred of other kinds, that if it were not for external enemies, the people of the UnitedStates would be at each others throats. That is to say that the civilization of organized greed bred by Anglo-Saxon-Americans needs another civilization toclash with for its very existence. Without massive resistance, it would collapseunder its own weight, for it has built its house on sand, on the idea that aselfish war of all against all will bring peace to all. If only everyone wouldovercharge everyone else, everyone will get rich. If only everyone would do asthey please, everyone will be happy in the long run.

Islamic Africa

Jim Jones was certainly paranoid, but his delusions of grandeur andpersecution pale beside those of the neoconservative leaders of the UnitedStates, whose Secretary of Defense conceived the current “Ten PercentSolution” policy of barely mitigated paranoia now followed – if there is a ten-percent chance of being attacked by foreigners, take the war to them and killthem first. The Cold War is over; another enemy is vital to the health of theUnited States. A war is needed to support the military-industrial-energy complex. Take that war to those who are jealous of our freedom and wealth.

Destroy whole countries in the process of apprehending and killing a few killers; the collateral damage alone will give millions of people sufficient causeto hate the United States; how convenient: a numerically worthy enemy shall beproduced to wage a world war with. The Evil Empire is dead! Long live the

Axis of Evil! But let Asia take care of Korea and communism; the select enemy of the American Way, the civilization with which it would fain clash in a finalCrusade, is the civilization of Islam, or rather the remnant of Islam which stillsubmits to Allah instead of greed for the Almighty Dollar – as long as Muslimsgo along with the American Way and keep to themselves in their ghettos, they are as good as the other People of the Book to whom Muhammad was sent to

warn them against their backsliding into ignorance, violence, and selfishness. The so-called world war against terrorism is being taken to Africa, where

the United States is financing alliances of ruthless gangs of thugs, rapists,arsonists, thieves and murderers to fight the advance of family-, tribe-, andclan-oriented Islam, a civilization that might, as can be seen in Somalia, bring some semblance of law and order to much of the continent – no doubt the



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salvation would entail the enthusiastic use of force. The First World standsopposed to total religious pacification because its own totalitarian system needsa certain degree of criminality for its existence – a thief is a capitalist withoutcapital. Private capitalism is inherently selfish; the true nature its feel-good

religious and self-flattering ethical professions are exposed by the fact, forexample, that the amount spent on producing perfume in America andEngland could feed the hungry of the world and provide them withpreventative hygienic health care. As for Red communism, it is simply anotherorganization of greed based on zealous jealousy and resentment, and it isbankrupt.

Italian Fascism and German Nazism arose and ran rampant the last timecommunism and capitalism were widely perceived as inherently incompetent,hence President Bush’s inept speechwriters have recently renamed the so-calledterrorists and extremists and fanatics, “Muslim Fascists.” Of course there were

Muslim Fascists and Muslim Nazis during the war, but the president’sapplication of the term is inappropriate and applies more to the underlying Germanic ideology of his court, although it is far more compassionate than the“New Conservative” ideology of the Germans who inspired the AmericanNeoconservative movement. The Prussian thinkers put their own spin onHobbes and Machiavelli – Jesus by the way, became a Greek instead of a Jew.

Fascism is the perfection of capitalism; the end game of free competitionis the merger and consolidation of companies into a few corporations whoseleaders are unelected and whose direct and indirect rule over the globe is Total.

Again, the neoconservative movement of the United States has its roots

in German National Socialism and Nazism. Despite its professed faith in thehuman family, in fatherhood and motherhood, it works the ruin of families, thecore-value of traditional cultures that is still evidenced by Islamic culture.Despite the promise that the so-called world war on terrorism is not thecontinuation of the traditional crusade against Islam, the deeds of the paranoidFirst World indicate that Islam is indeed the targeted civilization with which the“Party of War” – the cult of ignorance, violence, and self-interest – would fainclash to the death of one or the other or both – when going to war, dig twograves. Muslim immigrants are becoming increasingly aware of thedisconcerting fact that so-called Christians, whose propensity to unconditionalforgiveness sanctifies sinful conduct, have little love for them except as morelabor to manipulate for private profit. As for Islam itself, Christians and Jewishcitizens of the Superpower generally albeit privately consider the religion of Submission to Allah to be a perverse and evil religion, one that should be“reformed” – bribed and stamped out of effective existence, that it too mightbecome a feel-good religion, one that justifies doing as one pleases.



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In any event, Professor Diop’s left-winged dream of a secular Black Africa is obviously passé today and would be a subject of small historicalinterest if the subsequent events had not taught us that superficial color-consciousness, no matter what language is currency, is inadequate for the

achievement of continental unity – in this case a Black African confederacy wasexpected. Pure black simply defined, as the Russian Suprematists illustrated, isthe revolutionary colorist’s symbol of anarchy or chaos. That has its time andplace when and where the slate needs to be wiped clean of white graffiti.

Not that birds of the same feather should not flock together if they soprefer, but let them be at peace. If a diverse and relatively cooperative culture isdesired in Africa, the imposition of red communism or white capitalism willnot serve the purpose nearly as well as a moderate Islamic civilization of thecurrent discontent. Traditional Islam has suffered its internal conflicts, yet it isbest known for its adaptation to the particularistic tendencies of time and place,

incorporating all sorts of cultures and languages; at the same time, moderatereformist Islam emphasizes the universalistic aspects, which are notincompatible with Western influences and institutions provided they areharnessed in service to Islam; that is, a law-abiding, devout, ethical life of submission to Allah, a life far more honorable and much less vicious thanChristianity as it is nominally practiced in the United States.

Since the universalistic tendency left to its own devices might overrideparticularistic concerns and be taken to the extreme of totalitarian theocracy,the Islamism of the Islamic Confederacy of African States must be moderatedby a uniform set of basic political and civil rights. As was once evident in

Somalia, an Islamic network of alliances of African peoples, established ad hocfor the local establishment of Sharia, can be much more effective than

Western-trained African police forces for curbing the gangland corruption and violence that pernicious Western influences do more to aggravate thanameliorate. Indeed, the United States is notorious for its support of criminalgangs and political thuggery throughout the world as part of its effort to freemarkets from local control and make the world safe for corporate America’sdomination and exploitation of the world’s natural resources.

As for the natural tendency of human beings to conceptually categorizeand organize themselves into hierarchically ordered kinds and to discriminateagainst each other according to such artificial or superficial groupings; trueIslam, as amply demonstrated during its golden period, is essentially democraticand tolerant of categories, particularly the black-and-white categorization.Despite the apparent progress in “race relations” in the United States, all theso-called races, including the brainwashed portion of the black race, seemconvinced that, notwithstanding a few glaring exceptions, black-skinned people



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are of inferior stock, are most likely impoverished, incompetent, ignorant, andcriminally inclined – hence prime candidates for Christianity. A nation withinthe United States, the Nation of Islam, begs to disagree and has takencommendable steps towards extirpating the denigrating perspective from its

black members; unfortunately, too many brothers have fostered white hatredand blackened it for their own use. But that is not the path of the faithfulpilgrim. Malcolm X recognized the righteous path during his pilgrimage toMecca, when he was immediately accepted as a brother pilgrim instead of discriminated against. He was astonished to see that tens of thousands of pilgrims “were of all colors, from blue-eyed blondes to black-skinned Africans.But we were all participating in the same ritual, displaying a spirit of unity andbrotherhood that my experiences in America had led me to believe could neverexist.”

Malcolm X observed patterns in the Muslim crowds; he saw birds of a

feather flocking together, but concluded that “true brotherhood” existed, forthe patterns in themselves implied no hierarchies of superiority and inferiority.His subsequent belief, that such a brotherhood could exist in the United States,led to his assassination. Likewise, the belief of a growing number of people thatIslam is a viable alternative to a life of ignorance, arrogance, greed, lust, andpre-emptive violence, has led to their general persecution by hypocritical bigots

who are jealous of and resent their pious lifestyle, who covet their naturalresources as well, and therefore project their own faults on Muslims. Thereforethe establishment of the Islamic Federation of African States would probably be violently resisted by the state sponsors of massively organized terrorism.

The Quran obligates Muslims to retaliate instead of turning the other cheek asadvised by Jesus Christ; lip-service adherents to the ‘feel good no matter whatyou do’ religion have regressed to being, like many Muslims, frustratedHebrews, inasmuch as they embrace the talion principle instead of love-thine-enemy: tallying up eyes for eyes, teeth for teeth, with the difference that the

Judeo-Christian imposters demand at least a ten-to-one body count under thepresumption their kind at the bare minimum is ten times better than all otherkinds, hence genocidal collateral damage and massive population displacementsare divinely ordained by the brutal arbitrary lord of lost paradise, the high-techomnipotent god of the neo-barbarian super-power - the Terrorist Almighty.

But as Solomon said ever so wisely, do not count on your riches forsuccess in war. The tables shall be turned and the tallies brought into balance if the principle of retaliation is pursued to its just solution in a worldwidebloodbath. The Judeo-Christian-Muslim “Semites” are at self-contemptuous,anti-Semitic odds with each other; in the their self-contempt they want to seeeach other dead. In death all are at one in equality and peace, but that is not the



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sort unity we should advance. If only the People of the Book would find or write a loving page to dwell upon, the Islamic Federation of African States would be a glorious instantiation of the most divine principle of humankind,for love transcends and embraces all superficial differences such as skin colors,

languages spoken, and cultures enjoyed.

Miami Beach 2005

Quoted:

Black Africa, The Economic and Cultural Basis for a Federated State, by Cheikh AntaDiop, Translated by Harold J. Salemson, Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books 1987(Copyright 1974)

Journey To Nowhere - A New World Tragedy , by Shiva Naipaul, c1980

Biographical Note:

The author is an independent author without portfolio, currently anchored inMiami Beach. He is not a Muslim nor is he a member of any other organizedreligion. He is not affiliated with any terrorist organization, nor is he affiliated

with any organization committed to violently overthrowing the presentgovernment of the United States. He enjoys the cosmopolitan privileges of

being a citizen of the United States of America, and he is grateful to all people who augment and safeguard those privileges.

black african unity

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