Page 52 - Msingi Afrika Magazine Issue 22

Re-Education

against their brethren, you have to them a profit and used to bring the foreigners’ policies against them and
know that anywhere there was some slave owners a profit. People were all with utmost cruelty and short-
form of slave trade taking place bought to serve as labor, to increase sightedness.
in Afrika, the local people were productivity and outputs for planta-
involved. Ask yourself, how did the tion owners. To the depraved minds No matter the era in which the en-
slavers get access to the hinterland of our ancestors’ captors, this was a abler operated (slavery, colonialism),
to gather up people to take to their perfectly acceptable business. This each one was tremendously suc-
ships? Even if they took over later, is why they persisted in it. It made cessful at condemning their people
who led them there on their very sound business sense to them to to fates that were often worse than
first incursion? It would have been capture people and take them away death and the repercussions of their
impossible without some form of forcefully and use them as mere actions continue to resound through
local knowledge being supplied to tools and profit from the whole time and space, centuries later, be-
them to guide them to their intend- thing in the process. cause the state of Afrika is a reflec-
ed targets. Having said that, reports tion of the compromised positions
from the east and west coasts of But let me tell you about the en- that they took then. And the reason
Afrika indicate that there were com- abler. The one who was the slaver’s why these effects continue to speak
munities that specialized in the slave enabler was himself engaged in in our lands and in the lives of our
trade. It happened. Our people sold robust trade and movement of people is that they have not been
us out. We must just deal with that people for purposes of profit. Just dealt with, but rather, new enablers
head-on. Because if we do that and like the one who was the colonizer’s have been raised up who support
face the fact that traitors have exist- enabler. These individuals, groups the investments and interventions
ed in our midst for millennia, then and communities were crucial to the made by the neo-colonizers into the
it becomes easier to accept that Afri- success of the commercial ambi- land and continent of Afrika.
kans were not perfect little angels tions of those whose needs and These enablers see themselves not
who were just taken advantage of whims they supplied and supported. as facilitators of wickedness, but as
by slavers or colonizers… they were They were the perfect balance of trade facilitators, employees, busi-
not hapless victims who were just selfishness, treachery, and callous- ness partners, consultants, financiers
minding their own business when ness because they had to consider of modern trade and industry or
the wicked white man came by. No. their own interests for profit and charitable and development pro-
They played a serious hand in their glory first above the interests of grams. These enablers are the PhD,
own downfall. And that is important the communities that they raided to Masters, Undergraduate degree and
to know and to teach and to address get slaves to trade with. They had Diploma holders who work for mul-
in our hearts. to betray their own Afrikan people tinational corporations helping the
Why? Because personal responsi- for purposes of personal profit and foreign investor, government official
bility is key in ending and breaking they had to be heartless in order or development organization to find
out of cycles of trauma, self-abuse to do it. And they did it, again and solid and secure footing in their
and denial… and in beginning the again, and again. With regard to the countries or regions. They are the
process of rebuilding the culture colonizer’s enabler, these Afrikans CEO front men of foreign-owned
and society that we want and need found their desire for personal gain companies, diligently navigating the
to have. And it is critical for those met in self-preservation, personal corporate world on their behalf,
who would otherwise aid and abet aggrandizement and strategic ap- never for once believing that they
the slaver/colonizer to be fully pointments. They did not care that are simply being used to do in their
rehabilitated. millions of their brethren across the skin color what the other skin color
continent were in dire straits simply would never be able to do with such
Why? So that we can finally end because the white man wanted to ease. Their presence as the local
the era of the slaver’s/colonizer’s take over their lands and livelihood business leaders makes it easier for
enabler in Afrika. no matter the cost. They wanted to the multinational spear to yet again
Koutonin states, right at the end of ensure that they (the enablers) and pierce the side of their nation and
his article, that the white slave trad- their interests were secure. And so, extract from their lands much-need-
ers were investors. To their minds, they turned into the worst form of ed resources that would otherwise
the people that they bought and sold traitor, even became their broth- have been used for local purposes.
and shipped around the world were ers’ oppressors, spying on them, They are the heads of the regional
goods that would be used to bring overseeing and implementing the or local branch of an international

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