6 Comments
User's avatar
Caribbean Hawk's avatar

Well said Femi. As far as I am concerned Russians have bravely and resolutely refused western conquest and subjugation unlike us in Africa and the Caribbean. In my opinion if Russia had been conquered and the West obtained worldwide domination neither of us would be have a voice to defend our own countries culture and sovereignty, whatever of it still exists.

Expand full comment
Femi Akomolafe's avatar

Unfortunately, many of us, especially the formally educated ones, fail to make this connection.

Putin and Russia are the only thing standing between us and Berlin Conference 2.0!

That explains why some of us continue to wish Russia well in its Existential Battle with the Collective West!

Expand full comment
Caribbean Hawk's avatar

Our 'well educated' have been brainwashed into a western worldview. During colonial times our best students (those who could afford it) had to go to the UK or US for university education. Post independence the best of the best from our local universities trek off to said same western universities to be brainwashed. They then become the lecturers and instructors in our tertiary-level institutions perpetuating a vicious cycle. There are some exceptions to the rule but they only go to prove the general pattern. I suspect this is the same experience in most of Africa.

Expand full comment
Femi Akomolafe's avatar

Walter Rodney

Eric Chancellor

Chancellor Williams

Hilary Becklers

Are Conscious Intellectual Giants by any means!

Continental African scholarship pales in comparison😭

Expand full comment
Caribbean Hawk's avatar

By the way, in my formal education I never learnt of the Berlin Conference until there was a self-awakening during the Black Power era of the 60s and 70s. You have to go back to Marcus Garvey and his movement of the early 20th century who focussed the attention of his followers to the carve up of Africa in Berlin by European powers. To their credit the early Rastafarians, the main inheritors of the Garveyite movement, were very aware of the partition of Africa and as part of their veneration of Haile Selassie, idolized Ethiopia for never being colonized.

Expand full comment
Femi Akomolafe's avatar

Minus the misguided, IMO, worship of Haile Selassie, the Rastafarian Movement have played their part!

Expand full comment