Dawn Ritch, Contributor
"WE CONGRATULATE ourselves on having given him (the black man) freedom from tribal raids and security of life and property, on having mitigated the effects of bad harvests by providing food which can be carried to distressed areas by ship, road or rail, and, on the whole, on substantially increasing his material welfare. But the British Empire, with other states which dominate equatorial lands, has a great responsibility in interfering with existing conditions and in ordering things in a black man's land in a way he would certainly never have ordered them himself.
"It is a question how far law, order and discipline are, in themselves, progress, and in West Africa, even what we consider good in British influence is not without certain disturbing effects; the very peace and material prosperity which has accompanied British rule has, for instance, allowed of an increase in population much beyond what would otherwise have been normal. Perhaps the rightful duty of the British in Africa, in the West as in the East, is merely to regard themselves as trustees for the black inhabitants, their helpers and counsellors in making the best of a rich region of the world. This is now the official British view. The object is to leave administration as far as possible in the hands of native authorities where they exist, under the supervision of the government, starting from things as it finds them, putting its veto on what is dangerous and unjust, and supporting what is fair and equitable in the usage of the natives (Report on Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, 1923)."
"For good or for ill, largely as the result of the actions of our fathers and his, the white man is at present responsible for the black man, and the responsibility rests not merely on government officials and missionaries, but upon every white man and woman in Africa, on all who depend, in any way, on native labour in that continent for cotton or cocoa, soap or rubber, and, finally, on every man and woman of European race. This is the real 'white man's burden' and the British Empire has its full share of the load."
SUBJUGATED PEOPLE
The above comes from Volume two of Fairgrieve & Young's Human Geog-raphy The Imperial Commonwealth.
It was published in 1931 by British Books Ltd. with colour plates, maps, and over 300 black & white photographs. One of the photographs is of a railway cutting in the forest, with a black labour force at work laying the tracks.
The caption reads as follows: "RAILWAY CONSTRUCTION IN THE FOREST. The construction of railways through the forest is of special importance. The transformation of tattooed cannibals into railway passengers marks a solid advance."
This contemporaneous account is shocking, mainly because it presents colonization, (and, by extension, British chattel slavery) as a highly beneficial institution in general to the black race.
The 1950s had not yet arrived. Colonialism was not yet seen as black exploitation even by white people. Not a whiff of national independence was in the air. Apartheid had not yet been invented in South Africa.
In many ways, it was a more innocent time. It was before black people were called to the Inns of Court in London and became lawyers, or white women were generally accepted for training as medical practitioners. And it was certainly long before "Black Power" became a rallying cry for anyone.
In those days, it was thought terribly progressive to express, as it does elsewhere in the book that "The negro is not wanting in intelligence or in ability."
The authors are long dead and gone, but I wonder if they would still think so today.
Today the former subjugated peoples whether Black, Indian or Chinese, are sovereign nation-states. Recently a United Nations-backed court in Sierra Leone indicted Charles Taylor, president of neighbouring Liberia for war crimes. He is "accused of having supported a Sierra Leonean rebel group notorious for hacking off hands".
BRUTE FORCE
In Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe uses brute force as the solution to most problems, and is even worse to his people than the white racist Ian Smith, whom he replaced. Somalia has been torn apart by civil war. The Congo is plundered at will by surrounding African states.
One man has ruled Togo for 37 years. His main rival lives in exile for fear of being murdered. Indeed another African state has called back the former French colonial power to come and attempt to restore order. In all of Africa only Botswana is a model of good order and prosperity.
In South Africa, Winnie Mandela, who did more than any other single individual black or white, male or female, to secure the freedom of Nelson Mandela and the fall of apartheid, has been convicted of criminal charges by the new Black South African Government. All the male revolutionaries who were just as criminal as she, have been rehabilitated and hailed as "freedom fighters".
"BLACK MAN TIME NOW"
Here in Jamaica, we like to talk a lot of foolishness about "Black Man Time Now", but it must be said that it has done precious little for Africa.
Nor have the last 12 years here in Jamaica under what is widely held to be our first black Prime Minister, been an inspiration to the race.
This is the same P. J. Patterson who, while addressing a political meeting, said that if he were to come down off the platform and go into the crowd he wouldn't stand out.
Mr. Patterson is saying that he is a black man, the majority of Jamaicans are black and that he looks just like them. This is apparently his primary credential to govern the country...the colour of his skin.
But the people who generally defend black people frequently don't look like them. Invariably it is the white man who defends them, while the black people are all busy carrying down each other. More specifically it is the white woman who protects, nurtures and defends black people. It was missionaries' wives who invariably taught them to read and write.
In our own time it is Dr. Carolyn Gomes who is founder and head of Jamaicans for Justice. She could easily have continued to make money in her private medical practice. Instead she chose to defend the rights of poor, black people which authorities blacker than themselves routinely traduce.
Diana McCaulay founded and is head of Jamaica Environment Trust, a watchdog to ensure that the land of our birth is not reduced to a wasteland, but will support the generations of Jamaicans yet to come.
And Addiction Alert is headed by Sonita Abrahams, and dedicated to those who find themselves overwhelmed by drugs.
STILL THE "WHITE MAN'S BURDEN"
The thing each of these ladies have in common is not only their defence of the defenceless. It is also that they are all Jamaican white women from upper-middle-class backgrounds. And if it comes to that Mary Seacole wasn't black either, and neither is Father Richard Ho Lung.
Whether past or present, the people who have stood up for the rights of black people in this country are invariably brown-skinned, Chinese or white, and many have been of the female gender.
Paul Bogle and Sam Sharpe are black men who stood up for us and died for it. After that it seems only members of the other races could muster the courage to do so again. They are the ones sticking their necks out for us.
We are still "the white man's burden" it seems, despite all the rhetoric to the contrary.
FOOTNOTE
These Bible-thumping people who quote the scriptures at the drop of a hat, live in another world. They are blithely unconcerned that the inappropriate conduct of their priests and religious authorities imperils the health and happiness of their parishioners.
When I read their letters to the Editor, it's hardly a surprise that congregations in traditional churches are dwindling at a rapid rate worldwide.
