Various international suspicions that political analysts blamed the United States of America they want, in fact, the invasion of Afghanistan and of natural learning (about the huge numbers traveling in small circles), are about to be confirmed. Some estimated that the underground riches beyond astronomical sum of $ 1 trillion. It is said that wars and money share the same smell. War in Afghanistan carry a dizzying aroma of over 1000 billion …

A simple press release

How many can say or how many may hide a simple press release? May especially when it is submitted with the official endorsement of the Pentagon and over the major news agencies in the world? The subject is highly sensitive and present: the war against terrorism, peacekeeping in Afghanistan , hunting the Taliban, destroy Al-Qaeda, the normalization of life in a country that has not known peace for more than 30 years and, last but not least, rush precious metals and natural gas, both at great prices today.

Back to press the case , it went almost unnoticed even in the international press. He left behind only comments acidic or resigned coming from analysts specializing in international politics, global economy and the distribution areas of influence. In November last year, sources inside the Pentagon declared anonymously that several US-Afghan geological expedition claimed that the results obtained to date indicate the presence of large mineral deposits in the deep heart of this country in Asia.

Is hidden it in one of the Afghan mountains in May greatest treasures of the world?

However, the rush for riches a poor country (!), Began much earlier. In January of 1984, Afghan director of Geology published a report indicating that the basement has a country wide variety of mineral resources, including iron, chromium, gold, silver, sulfur, talc, magnesium, marble and la pis lazuli. It was only a superficial estimate, not having Afghan geologists at the time of performance equipment with which to evaluate all the minerals in the basement or even the size of deposits in the cause . Information to the Afghan geologists had already reached the ears of Soviet, which from their establishment in Afghanistan , suspected hide this arid country and other treasures out of the huge natural gas deposits, which the Kremlin was aware since 1957, when Russian geologists investigating natural gas reserves near the river Amu Daria.

War against terrorism or for “security” underground riches? *

Afghan Government in that period was a puppet of the Soviet Union supported: therefore the authorities in Kabul preparing to develop and exploit the mineral resources extraction and processing technology Soviet Moscow with trained engineers. Obviously, the USSR wanted to keep the lion itself.Another treasure long sought after that yearned Soviet eyes, consists of uranium reserves Afghan acclaimed worldwide as material supplied first nuclear weapon whose development was at its peak to mid 80s. Plans over the Soviet-Afghan dust was laid, but after the defeat of the USSR by mujaheddin, which ends the shameful flight of Russia in 1989.

How to steal a trillion?

On June 13, 2010, the New York Post front page headline event of major importance for geo-political world. With a few days ago, researchers from the U.S. Geological Survey (supreme forum of American geology and mining), protected by U.S. Army soldiers and guided CIA, discovered mostly in Afghanistan prospecting. At a first estimate of geologists, Afghan deposits worth over $ 1 trillion. A trillion! That is a train of 25 wagons loaded from floor to roof eye with papers of one hundred dollars!

Currently, Afghanistan is faced with abject poverty

Washington glass greedy eyes and hands would gather with joy. In Moscow, hiding impassive eyes new strategies. In Tehran, concerns and fears were to new heights. In Beijing, strategy went into emergency session, while Brussels was fully mistress and her sisters surprise – outrage and frustration.

Only Afghan tribal chiefs had no idea what happens. Impassive and apparently absent, Afghans saw their own business and their ancient customs. Life of wealth as owners of land under their ancestors continue undisturbed. In fact, 99% of Afghan citizens have been no discovery today that can change lives. Definitely.

Kabul – a capital of corruption and poverty

Money results here could change the ground Afghanistan, if course is like that … which, according to most political analysts, is unlikely to ever happen. Even a quarter of the huge amount of money would be enough to build a modern 21st century infrastructure, providing foundations for sustainable local economy, with the development of effective education and health systems.

The Afghan government and the incumbent president, Hamid Karzai, were announced last discovery, a U.S. official in Afghanistan ironically commenting that there was less and the Afghan Government was news from CNN, instead of receiving information directly from the “friends” of Washington. In an end, Afghan and U.S. officials agreed to talk about new discoveries that change the total data geopolitical games.

Hamid Karzai, a powerless president

Despite exacerbation of armed conflicts fueled by Taliban offensive and despite supplementation with U.S. troops since last year announced by President Barrack Obama, U.S. troops launched the offensive on margin, in southern Afghanistan, headway, despite the overwhelming superiority of the technique American battle. Beats, allegations of corruption and favoritism continue to flow to the head Karzai government members. Given the situation, U.S. officials are forced to consider that new treasure is about to turn into a multi-edged weapon.

Instead hoped to bring more peace and prosperity, new natural wealth can determine the Taliban to engage with even more fury in battle with another reason to do everything possible to regain control of Afghanistan. Corruption, which was already on an upward trend among members of the Karzai government, is likely to be full of temptation fueled tremendous new wealth. With so much as a handful of oligarchs current local and tribal warrior chiefs rule over the lands that are already hiding fabulous riches.

War against terrorism headway. whole regions are still controlled by the Taliban

Story Treasure

As recently as last year, Afghan Minister of Mines was accused by U.S. officials that he accepted a bribe worth 30 million dollars from some Chinese businessmen who granted the right to exploit its copper mine. The minister was dismissed.

Endless battles between the army and Afghan tribal leaders continue unabated even the possibility of concluding a peace agreement in the short term. Afghanistan has a national mining law, prepared by World Bank advisors, with the observation that in a country like Afghanistan law is simply inapplicable in the present context.

Observation Deputy Undersecretary for Defense and Commerce and leader of the team that discovered deposits Pentagon, Paul A. Brinkley, is more than eloquence: “This country’s laws do not matter, no one can predict the reaction of people when a clash between Afghan government supported by new and tribal chiefs who control the provinces where we have made discoveries. Minister of Mines is not ready to handle the situation. It is our duty to help him in this regard “.

At this point, Afghans exploit their wealth in the most rudimentary way underground

In 2004, American geologists sent to Afghanistan as part of a reconstruction team, have discovered a strange series of maps deposit Afghan Geological Office in Kabul. At first assessment, the maps presented new data on mineral deposits of the country. American team learned later that the data were collected by Russian mining experts seconded here during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.

Hastily withdrawn in 1989, all maps and materials prepared by the Russians were abandoned. During the chaos of the ’90s, when Afghanistan has been crushed by endless civil war and Taliban regime iron, a small group of Afghan geologists managed to protect maps, hiding them in their homes.Geologists Afghans have returned Afghan Geological Office only after the U.S. invasion and overthrow the Taliban in 2001.

The geological map above you can see very clearly riches Afghan: desert marked with yellow and arid. The remaining colors are mineral resources that lie buried here

“Maps have been made long ago, places were known, but mining development was nonexistent in those 30-35 years of wars”, reinforces Hujabre Ahmad, an Afghan engineer who worked in the early ‘79 in the Ministry of Mines .

Armed with old maps Russian, U.S. Geological Survey began in 2006 a high number of bombing runs over Afghanistan. American specialists have used the latest equipment based on magnetic and gravity measurements. The equipment was attached to a plane P-3 Orion Navy guy who flew so over 70% of the country. Data were obtained in both the manufacturing Washington hopes, that, one year later, the team of geologists returned to study and sophisticated, this time aboard a British bomber aircraft equipped with instruments that offer three-dimensional images mineral deposits of small and deep. It was the most detailed and advanced study of Afghan basement ever.

Mining capital of the world

The results were – apparently – forgotten, that in November 2009, a Pentagon task force delegated the task to find the final data on wealth to set up emergency Afghan “theater of operations against terrorism”.

So far, according to Pentagon data, the largest natural deposits investigated contain major deposits of iron and copper. Deposits are so bulky that are theoretically Afghanistan that currently hold the largest reserves of copper and iron in the world. Other findings include large deposits of niobium, a metal easily, rarely used in obtaining superconducting properties of steels.

Afghanistan’s natural gas reserves contain about 150 billion cubic meters. Deposits of coal in this country totals, too, enormous figure of 400 million tons.

In 1983, Khwaja Rawash mountains north of Kabul, Soviet experts were in ecstasy: had identified one of the largest deposits of uranium in the world. In 2009, Americans basically tasted even greater rapture: it discovered that Afghanistan still had similar deposits of uranium in Koh Mir Daoud, near Herat and Kharkiz in Khandahar province.

Khwaja Rawash Mountains containing a huge uranium deposit is located in the vicinity of Kabul international airport.

Also, poor Asian country holds significant deposits of natural asbestos, gold, silver, nickel, zinc, mercury, bauxite, potash, graphite, tourmaline, emeralds, sapphires and rubies. But great wealth consists of deposits of subsoil Afghan its unparalleled purity iron. At a first estimate, iron deposits contain about 2 billion tons of mixtures of hematite and tycoons, blends containing 62% iron.

The largest copper deposit in Afghanistan, anywhere from 50 km north of the capital Kabul, in Aynak valley. Deposits contain over 300 million tons of copper ore with a purity of 0.7 to 1.5%.

No less than 80% of the world’s lapis lazuli, a semi-precious stones, are still untapped, hidden in the basement of Afghanistan. Before the 1979 Soviet invasion, Afghan miners extracted annually about 6,000 tons of lapis lazuli, a tiny amount compared to bulk deposits.

Lithium is a precious metal that is rare … less in Afghanistan

But perhaps the most coveted treasure in Afghanistan consists of huge deposits of lithium found the U.S. last autumn. Alone, only lithium reserves could remove Afghanistan from brutal poverty today and – theoretically – would make a country richer than all Eastern European countries entered the EU at the last wave of enlargement. Is the raw material for lithium batteries and some components of laptops, mobile phones and other devices, from pocket to shuttle cosmic!

Worldwide, demand for lithium is so great that Afghanistan could reach in the future “Saudi Arabia of lithium” as U.S. experts say the U.S. Geological Survey.

No gold deposits in Afghanistan are not modest. Rather, some experts estimate that you will move to exploit all gold deposits in Afghanistan, the global market for gold will drop by 50% in just the first month of operation.

With these new data before, it seems that American goals in Afghanistan are more “nuanced” and not targeting only terrorists, fanatics Nestle Muslims or Osama bin Laden.

Ok, what do the Chinese and Russians?

“Oh, Lord, is an absolutely huge potential here. Basically this country stands on the treasure,” exclaimed recently in an interview, Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, and he stunned the grandeur of the data presented in the report geologists Americans. How poor Afghan economy consists, in fact, grazing and subsistence agriculture, gross domestic product here is among the lowest in the world. Based on the latest discoveries, some Afghan officials, tired of war, daydreaming rebuild the country.

Gen. David H. Petraeus, the man who knows what it is

“This time, will become the backbone of fresh Afghan economy. Will become the stone that we will rebuild the country,” said Jalil Jumriany excited, an adviser to the Afghan Minister of Mining. It is, however, unlikely that clear assumptions of Afghans will soon turn into reality.

United States of America have already been accused of imposing a monopoly on economic and financial feeble Afghan state. In addition, the two great rivals of Uncle Sam, Russia and China, not at all reconciled to the situation and already lurk on the horizon. Especially with how the world is not divided into clear spheres of influence, as was the Cold War era and the great powers struggle to establish new hierarchies. China and Russia is trying to take advantage of the crisis that still haunts an America led by Barack Obama a President (still) popular but – until now – poorly.

Hu Jintao, Chinese president, looks forward to Afghanistan

Despite massive investment in the region and the presence of U.S. troops, some U.S. officials fear China – the only country that has not felt the global economic crisis, even more than that: more than ever prospered in the last two years . The new economic colossus of the world cares not too much of sentiments and interests of Americans. Hunger is growing Chinese economy and the natural riches of Afghanistan and Iran, lying close to China, the only thing that can quench. And now, China does not have any reason to fear the U.S. Today, the U.S. has come to borrow in dollars to the Bank of China, and 90% of consumer goods from the U.S. market are manufactured in China. Grand Dragon of the Eastern influence is so great that even parts of the arms of U.S. Army came to be manufactured in China.

Beijing did not state much thought. Earlier this year, the Chinese have already bought from tribal chiefs, valuable copper mine in Aynak, Logar province. The situation is increasingly tense in. Beijing is nascent Washington to apply pressure of the most diverse.

.

Russians pack (sic) , in 1989, when Soviet troops withdrew from Afghanistan after a grueling guerrilla war. Today, the duo from the Kremlin tries to regain influence in former Soviet Asia. Given that information about the underground riches of Afghanistan are true, it is the main contender for the title of tsar crown jewel in Moscow.

Neither Moscow is not limited to the role of observer. Former owner of the treasure still knows many secrets. Recent disturbances in Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kirghistan, resulting in pro-American regimes fall, suggesting a discrete approach, but the insistence of Russia. In addition, unprecedented near Russia and China, with more clear can foreshadow a united Eurasia, not only stick to put American Project in Afghanistan.

Unfortunately, as we can today to prefigure the future, there is little hope that the Afghans, as owners of the treasure, to enjoy the heritage of their homeland basement.

                Kenya is a country located in East Africa, over 4,000 miles away from its Imperialistic controller (Britain).  Britain had force in the community, but did not rule Kenya during the early nineteenth century.  Britain officially gained control of Kenya in the 1920s.  This rule led until to the mid twentieth century. Britain wanted to gain control of Kenya to obtain Fertile Lands, Good Markets, Rich Resources, and Cheap Labor.  All in all, Kenya had a nice chunk of land that would be beneficial during this Industrialization time period.  Main events that occurred during the Imperialistic rule of Britain were: Kikuyu and Kenyatta rebellions.  The Kikuyu rebellion took place in 1921 and the main goal of this was to gain back the rights the British had taken away from them.  The British suppressed it quickly and nothing happened from it.  In 1930, Kenyatta’s tried to gain their rights back, but this made little or no progress till World War II.  The final rebellion that gained independence for Kenya was the Mau Mau rebellion.  In this rebellion the members killed white settlers, trying to force Britain to back down, which eventually they did.

Deutsch: Jomo Kenyatta, Präsident von Kenia. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Britain had many colonies all throughout Africa, Kenya was a place given to Britain.  Britain ruled Kenya with the thought of Social Darwinism, which made them think that because they were white and from Europe, they were Stronger and Better than natives from African countries.  Using Social Darwinism, Britain ruled with force, taking natives’ rights away, taking their resources, and taking more and more land, which changed the borders.  Some colonial policies consisted of Forced labor, which took rights away.  One example of this is when the first tea plantation was founded. There was a law that made it so only European settlers could make a profit from growing coffee and tea.   It also consisted of budget laws, which took away from Kenyans economic role.  These policies were carried out by Britain using force on the Kenyans.  Once their rights were taken away, they had no say in what Britain did or did not do.

                Kenya made a final push for Independence in 1963 by a rebellion by the Mau Mau.  The Mau Mau Rebellion was the pushing point for Kenya to finally reach Independence.  The Mau Mau rebellion was a group of militant African Nationalists that wanted to remove Britain from their country.  The Major leader of the push for independence was Jomo Kenyatta, who at the time of the rebellions in 1952 was the president of the Kenya African Union.  The main “tribe” contributing to the rebellion was the Kikuyu.  Major events that happened during the rebellions include; the rebellion itself, the arrest of Jomo Kenyatta, the soon to be president, and the independence of Kenya.    

Jomo Kenyatta Statue in front of Kenya High Court, Nairobi, Kenya Русский: Памятник Джомо Кениате, Найроби, Кения (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

               All in all, the most important points of colonial rule are to expand.  In Kenya, Britain both expanded its economic market, and its land based expansion.  Imperialism in general is an important topic because we can see how this idea of rule has affected so many different countries, either for the better, but in most cases the worst.  In Kenya’s case, Imperialism played out to have a bad effect on Kenya as a whole.  Britain took resources, which to date, has left Kenya in ruins, resources wise.

Are these values of “civilizations”? The term has known a big success in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, especially in opposition to “barbarism”, and used to justify such operations as slave trade, colonial or expansionist wars in the name of the superiority of a civilization on another. Superiority claimed by the States, but denied by historians and ethnologists. Marcel Mauss wrote: “There are no uncivilized people. There are only people of different civilizations.” Belied particularly by the facts: these defeated civilizations were sometimes very brilliant, and the Spaniards have shown themselves more barbarous than the Aztecs or the Mayans, Americans more savage than Indians and Christians more than Muslims.

Yes, of course, someone will say, but all this is history! Yet at that time precisely, those who already claimed to be the most civilized, committed the greatest acts of barbarism.

While looking over the recent period, the last sixty years, for example, European civilization has sent millions of people in gas chambers. It was not the Middle-Ages, but at the time of the parents of Claude Guéant! It was the same civilization of which he is proud!

Is it a question of culture, as Claude Guéant paraphrased his own words? Culture has replaced civilization in language teaching textbooks, precisely because of the imperialist connotations of the term civilization, but covers roughly the same content. What characterizes a civilization or culture over another is a set of parameters: arts, politics, language, technology, religion, social organization … and culture-civilizations are like languages, equal in dignity.

No, what sends women to be stoned, or Jews, communists and homosexuals in the gas chamber, is not civilization, it is ideology. It may be political, religious, philosophical (blacks have no souls, they said in the seventeenth century to justify slave trade). Ideologies are not of the same dignity in terms of universal values, those that support humanity. European civilization may be, according to the ideology that leads it, of unusual barbarity. And nothing says that this is history (completely passed over).

The progress of civilization was an illusion of the eighteenth century, the belief that the natural “savagery” of man could be mitigated by reason and society. But horrible facts show us the opposite every day. Much worse, the functioning of the Western world today, based on the hoarding of money by a minority, causing isolation of the individual, the decline of social ties, insecurity, this world can produce only violence on violence. There is also an ideology at the base of this functioning, which weakens the weak and strengthens the strong.

Policy goes through words, so it is important to be vigilant on vocabulary.

Conflating civilization and ideology is rooting in people’s minds that some civilizations, considered inferior or bad, must be combated and even eradicated. Why not one day by a war in the name of saving the superiority of civilization, as in colonial times? a war that would have the advantage of re-launching economies weakened by twenty years of unbridled liberalism? We are not immune to such manipulation, which will go first through language.

Civilized, Mr. Guéant? No doubt, with all the arrogance, since the word is in vogue, the one who, under cover in the certainty of his superiority, denies at the same time, history, sociology, ethnology, culture and equity. Civilized? Yes, but arrogant.

By M. Oudina

Image via Wikipedia

One particular issue results from the condition of post-colonialism: nostalgia in this situation can affect both the former colonial masters and the subordinate classes who were suppressed and dispossessed in their own country. The former is common in former imperial states which want to conceal the outrages that gave them power of life and death over much larger numbers of the colonized. It is also used by the peddlers of such disgusting lies as the ‘white man’s burden’ and the right wing’s attempts to demonise and belittle the efforts and achievements of people from other parts of the world as a pretext for not making proper contributions to multilateral international funds and projects.

A second issue is political in nature. Nostalgia can be used to convince people that things were really better in the past and that people in the current time are falling short of the standards of those who have gone before us. Clearly, although no doubt people in the past did the best they could in the circumstances they faced, they lacked the knowledge and resources that are available to us today. Their lives were less convenient and rewarding because of the constant threat of death by disease or ignorance of scientific facts and the absence of labour-saving devices that has revolutionized the lives of billions of working people and, particularly, women. No woman would wish to live in the past with its so much higher rate of death for children and for childbirth. Above all, it is very clear that human nature has not changed over the ages – people were just as heroic or disreputable as they are today. The past had its share of hypocrites, exploiters and abusers just as we are obliged to tolerate such people today.

People who claim that we should live our lives today according to laws and traditions created in the past really want obedience to the existing power structures now existing and to the rich, powerful and probably elderly power who control them.

The initial British interest in the Indian subcontinent revolved around trade.4 The moneymaking opportunities that India provided attracted the attention of British businessmen looking to make their fortune and motivated by a desire for adventure. They would decide to leave England to live out their lives in untamed and barbaric India. Not only were they motivated by the prospect of creating a fortune, but also by the responsibility that they believed they had as Christians and members of the “British race”. Rudyard Kipling wrote his essay The White Man’s Burden; in which he outlinedthe British mentality regarding their racial superiority. “The responsibility for governing India” Kipling claimed, “has been placed by the inscrutable decree of providence upon the shoulders of the British race.”2 This statement represents the general understanding of the British people regarding their right to rule. It was this mentality that allowed the colonial governments to treat the indigenous people like savages that had to be controlled. The response to the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857, during which Hindu and Muslim soldiers rose up against their British commanding officers, consisted of strapping the imprisoned mutineers to the muzzles of loaded cannons and touching the guns off, a particularly barbaric method of execution by British standards. These killings illustrate the disdain with which the colonial rulers dealt with the ruled.5 As a result of what are now considered by many to be British atrocities, the academic analysis of this period is often focused on British wrongdoing as well as the oppressed colonized without taking a close look at the Britons who were living out their lives and doing business in the colonies. For them, especially in the period from 1850 to 1914, India was not a place to make a fortune, but instead to escape the safe and somewhat dull lives in England in favor of a hazardous and alien playground where a well-to-do Englishman and his family could live a life of indulgence and danger all for the glory of Great Britain.

To the young Britons who lived in India, the colony was more than just a source of money. India represented all that was great and good about British colonial rule. Their interest was not only monetary, but nationalistic; they wanted to be a part of the history of England in all of its greatness. The young European men who elected to spend their lives in India were not driven by money, but by glory and adventure.

The India of the Victorian Era was what Disraeli called the “brightest jewel of the British Crown”.3 The Crown Jewel India was highly romanticized in the minds of the English and this image appealed especially to England’s young men. These men were usually well-bred and well educated and their decision to move to India was informed by an education dedicated to “manly pursuits” and, perhaps foremost, by the influence of their fathers and grandfathers who had spent their youthful years serving the Crown in the Subcontinent who encouraged them to join the military and serve as officers commanding sepoys. The romantic India of these young men, write Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre,

was the India of gentleman officers in plumed shakos riding and the head of their turbaned sepoys; of district magistrates lost in the torrid wastes of the Deccan; of sumptuous imperial balls in the Himalayan summer capital of Simla; cricket matches on the manicured lawns of Calcutta’s Bengal Club; polo games on the sunburnt plains of Rajasthan; tiger hunts in Assam; young men sitting down to dinner in black ties in a tent in the middle of the jungle, solemnly proposing their toast in port to the King Emperor while jackals howled in the wild around them; officers in scarlet tunics pursuing rebellious Pathan tribesman in the sleet or unbearable heat of the Frontier; the India of a caste unassailably certain of its superiority, sipping whiskies and soda on the veranda of its Europeans Only Clubs.2

This India was the India that drove men to give up prosperous lives in England for adventure and danger.

After bidding goodbye to home and family the young soldier would embark on a months-long voyage to the other side of the world. The first taste of the place these men would spend the next thirty-five to forty years was in their arrival at India’s primary port city of Mumbai (Bombay). Here they were greeted by a bustling crowd of travelers in Bombay’s Victoria Station where they would make their way to trains to send them throughout the country. In the first-class cabins of the Indian railroads they received their first taste of the organization of European and Indian relations. The cars were luxurious and clean, and the only Indians to be seen were servants who poured champagne and changed linens, which they never had to interact with. This pseudo-segregation characterized the colonial experience in India.2

The romanticized India did not come to life in the form of the poverty and squalor of local, and wherever the colonizers went, they did their best to separate themselves from the local populace. The Europeans Only Clubs were a phenomenon that appeared wherever more than two Englishmen gathered. At the clubs they were waited on by Indian servants and passed the time drinking, eating, and playing games of cricket, polo, tennis, squash, and hockey. In these clubs they were able to live out the Jewel of the Crown India which had inspired them to make the trip. Not only were these clubs luxurious, they also served an important social capacity. They were the center of the European-Indian disconnect and the most visible symbol of English superiority. By always asserting the might of the Crown and the superiority of the British race the colonists were able to easily control and govern the indigenous population, which hugely outnumbered them.2

The ratio of rulers to locals is an important one. For his first assignment, these men usually found themselves in “…remote posts…inhabited…by only a few Europeans. By the time they were twenty-four or twenty-five, they often found themselves with the sole responsibility for handing down justice to and administering the lives of a million or more human beings, in an area sometimes larger than Scotland.”2 In a situation such as this, the motivation for colonial rule cannot be attributed to monetary gain. The honor and glory of serving the Empire proved to be a far more enticing motivator.

So too was the case among women. In fact, the social separation in Victorian India could be attributed to the wives of British officers. Collins and Lapierre in Freedom at Midnight suggest that this can be attributed to a desire to keep their husbands away from Indian women, though this was not always effective and the first few generations in India fathered an Anglo-Indian society that fit into neither world. There may also have been, however a glorified image of India in the minds of the British wives, known by the locals as memsahibs. Their hand in the segregation may have been due to a sense that they were there to help the local savages, not to become one of them. These women, unlike the missionary women in the region, were not interested in interaction with Indians.2

Women played an important and somewhat unseen role in the lives of their husbands. Though in the first volume of his memoir Forty-One Years in India published in 1897 Field Marshal Lord Roberts does not mention his wife, he dedicates the book as follows:

TO THE COUNTRY TO WHICH I AM SO PROUD OF BELONGING,

TO THE ARMY TO WHICH I AM SO DEEPLY INDEBTED,

AND TO MY WIFE,

WITHOUT WHOSE LOVING HELP

MY ‘FORTY-ONE YEARS IN INDIA’

COULD NO BE THE HAPPY RETROSPECT IT IS,

I DEDICATE THIS BOOK.1

Though she was never at the forefront of his Indian experience, Roberts’ wife played an important role in his coming to terms with his experiences and organizing them to produce his memoir.

Roberts’ memoir allows for a unique look into the mind of a colonizer with a very typical Indian experience. He treats his experience as execution of duty, but relays his story to the reader with relish, as though his time in India was the great adventure of his lifetime. Roberts’ India was the British India which characterized the romantic Victorian vision. Not only that, but he describes a certain respect of the natives and a need to respect their traditions and customs. He writes about British governance and understanding of the native populace, saying

It is difficult for people who know nothing of Natives to understand and appreciate the value the set on cherished customs, peculiar idiosyncrasies, and fixed prejudices, all of which must be carefully studied by those who are placed in a position of their Rulers, if the suzerain Power is to keep their respect and gain their gratitude and affection.1

In this passage Roberts shows his passion for his Indian experience. Not only does he tell his story, but he also communicates that cleverness and courage are needed to fully serve the Empire. He treats the natives as one might treat children. He seems to find them somewhat humorous and immature. Roberts clearly communicates his understanding of how they need to be governed and controlled. To Roberts, the indigenous people are not human, instead he sees them as a pleasant attraction, something to be viewed and wondered at.

The India of the Victorian age was a cash cow for the British Empire, but it was not money that motivated ordinary Britons to leave home and risk life and limb. Rather it was the adventure and danger that India presented. To them it was a place of glory and beauty and adventure. It was a playground, and provided an escape from normal lives in England to lives of combat, adventure, and Europeans Only Clubs. The danger was very real, and the death toll among the English was astronomical. But even in death the country retained its exciting mystique. English headstones list causes of death such as “…gored by a bison”, “…died of wounds received from a panther”, “…eaten by a tiger.”2 These causes of death are characteristic of India’s legends, but one cannot help but think that these lives were lost in the pursuit of adventure and that, even though the English subdued and mistreated the people they colonized, they gave many lives in pursuit of what they believed to be the right thing to do. It is important to remember that these people were not evil, but a product of their times, and when looked at this way one comes to appreciate the bravery and dedication required to carry out what the British did for 300 years, however twisted their reasoning.

Endnotes

1. Field Marshal Lord Roberts, Forty-One Years in India (London: Richard Bentley and Son, 1897), vii-10.

2. Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre, Freedom at Midnight (Delhi: Vikas Publishing House, 1975), 12-17.

3. Michael Edwardes, The Last Years of British India (New York: The World Publishing Company, 1963), 1-5.

4. R. J. Minney, India Marches Past (New York: D Appleton and Company, 1933), 65.

Bibliography

1. Field Marshal Lord Roberts, Forty-One Years in India (London: Richard Bentley and Son, 1897), vii-10.

2. Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre, Freedom at Midnight (Delhi: Vikas Publishing House, 1975), 12-17.

3. Michael Edwardes, The Last Years of British India (New York: The World Publishing Company, 1963), 1-5.

4. R. J. Minney, India Marches Past (New York: D Appleton and Company, 1933), 65.

5. R. P. Masani, Britain in India (Bombay: Oxford University Press, 1960), 1-6.

6. P. E. Roberts, History of British India (London: Oxford University Press, 1967), 643-650.

Finally, an important U.S. representative has visited Myanmar (Burma) where she is presently meeting with members of that country’s military dictatorship, as well as with Aung San Suu Kyi,  the opposition leader and Nobelist, with the hope that the illegitimacy of that administration be terminated and a new dawn of freedom ushered in the light of a long-nursed democracy. One has to wonder as to why it took so long to get involved in Myanmar’s nightmare which seems to be gradually giving way toward perhaps a brighter future. There seems to be a faint light at the “end of the tunnel,” with the possibility that, after years of tyranny, the turn to a new chapter might be in the offing.

I happened to be born in Burma when it was a British Colony, but after World War II when the rest of the world had celebrated an exhilarating victory, as well as freedom from fascism, Burma had lapsed into a nightmarish military dictatorship which is still clinging to power. Ironically, it seemed as if the rest of the world cared less about the intolerable condition of that country’s much-maligned subjects, as if they belonged to a different planet.

Prior to the military takeover of Burma, there were leaders that dreamed of freedom from colonialism, hoping to establish its independence at the end of World War II, after the Japanese occupation of that country, but it wasn’t meant to be when it was suddenly overwhelmed by yet another calamity that continues to this day.

Perhaps, the visit of our Secretary of State will open a new chapter in Myanmar’s long struggle to establish its true independence on the groundwork of democracy.

The teaching of a second and/ or foreign language has come a long way. Early approaches (i.e. grammar-translation) put emphasis on “knowing” or “understanding” the language and not necessarily “speaking” it or expressing one’s self using it. The shortcomings of this type of approach may be exemplified by the dying out of Spanish in the Philippines. Though we cannot disregard the political events which favored the spread of the English language throughout the Philippines in the first half of the 20th century, it must be noted how fast English took the place that Spanish occupied.

The demise of Spanish speaking and the success of English usage for many Filipinos lie in how the former was taught and made available and in the variety of ways in which the latter seeped into Philippine society and popular culture. Whereas Spanish was available only to a privileged few and it was not necessary for Filipinos then to be competent in using the language, the colonial ways of the Americans, on the other hand, differed from those of their predecessors. Thus, English was systematically introduced to Filipinos. While the art of manipulating the Spanish language was limited to the elite in the earlier era, the opportunity to gain fair to good command of the English language was given to more Filipinos in the 20th century.

More can be written and said when comparing the fates of the Spanish and English speaking or the usage of these two languages in the Philippines. Causes point to complex social, political, and technological factors. However, when one strips away these factors, the phenomena of “abandonment” and “acceptance” of these two languages may simply be explained by the very different approaches employed when the languages were introduced and taught.

At the age of 3 he was a day boarder to the only boarding school in that village at that period.  The school was run by two English Headmistresses for pupils whose parents could afford to pay the fees for their children’s education.  He was sent to this school to learn to speak fluent English and English grammar.  The school was for preparing ones child to enter the school at the age of seven.  He attended the school  for four years where he gained a certificate for Elocution.

Because of virtue of his birth (most of his parents were of English and German extraction) he was sent to Cornwall College in Montego Bay for further education.

On leaving College at 17 he was employed by the Jamaican Nationalist Party, headed by Norman Manley as a Social Worker looking after the problems of the membership, he spoke in Sabina Park as the Voice of Young Jamaica at the age of 12.

He came to England in 1947 with the intention of studying law, owing to the climatic situation at the time this was impossible.  The conditions were so bad he was unable to get accommodation because of his colour and was forced to live in bombed houses for some time in the freezing winter and live in Hostels fit for destitutes, the conditions were so dirty that when he woke his body was covered in lice he had to burn all his clothes.

He joined the Colonial Service 15 Victoria Street, London W1, between the years of 1950-1956 and worked under Mr Ivor De Souza as a volunteer assisting with the settlement of the newly arrived West Indians in this country.  He used to meet them at Victoria Railway Station, when they arrived in from the islands with only their few menial possessions.

Between the years of 1950-1960 he spoke in Hyde Park as this was the only voice the black people had at the time there were no black newspapers, he spoke about the racialist conditions in the country and for the freedom of Africa, 7 days a week.  Every evening after work he would go to Hyde Park to speak all through the cold Winter evenings.

He was also a dancer.  In order to earn some money he became a demonstration dancer for Mecca Ballroom.  He used to dance freestyle dancing and the popular dances of the time at many of the Ballrooms.  He achieved such notoriety for his prowess in the dance-halls of London that after first being banned from the Lyceum, The Astoria, the Locarno and the Hammer-smith and Wimbledon Palais, he was hired by the management to perform exhibitions of jiving and jitterbugging to the delight of the white working-class crowds.  This employment took him to ballrooms throughout the south of England and earned him £25 per week for three nights work.  Unable to find a black woman to be his partner, he took a white partner, but discovered dancing with white women provoked intense hostility from the management and sometimes violence.  He and his white partner were contracted to leave immediately, their exemplary performances ended lest other white women asked him to dance.  Operating under the name Sugar he and other young black dancers congregated at the Paramount Ballroom in London’s Tottenham Court Road.   The Paramount rapidly became known as the dance-hall for black teenagers.  ‘Sugar’ and other dance-floor hustlers working under names like The Magic Boots and ‘The Gladiator quickly achieved a monopoly of the dance competitions organized by the ballroom owners.

It was ironic to see in an area of white people you could not find one white male dancing.  At the Paramount the atmosphere was always electric as the Big Bands jostled  to play for us…  At these moments they could really enjoy their playing and by seeing  the black people enjoying themselves to the full it gave them more room for improvisation… Alas there were no black women, but the Paramount was packed with young ladies coming in from the stockbroker belt of Surrey, Essex and Hampshire and  other small villages and towns within a 60 mile radius of London.

Enrico’s account of the ballroom scenes of the early 1950s is particularly valuable if read in conjunction with the autobiography of Leslie Thompson a black musician who worked in many of the biggest dance-bands during this period.  Both testify to the ambiguous penetration of blacks into mainstream working-class leisure space.

The contradictory nature of the black presence in those institutions is exemplified by Enrico’s tale of the ways in which racial hostility was tempered by the high status that derived from black pre-eminence on the dance floor.

He was also a dancer in the ‘Bertha Berzouca Ballet’ called ‘Tobacco Road’ and appeared in a play called ‘How Deep Are the Root’s.’

In 1948 he was the founder of an organisation in Wimbledon, London called the ‘Cosmopolitan Social Association.’  The emblem of this Association was created by Mr Stennett of a black hand shaking a white hand which was used throughout Community Relations.  Through this Association he worked amongst West Indians and Africans assisting in all social problems.  Locating employment through the Trade Unions, assisting new arrivals from the West Indies to find accommodation, aiding both West Indians and Africans when in trouble with the Police.

In 1951 he was co-founder with Mr E Brewar of the African League who became Judge Advocate in Nigeria and Mr W Longmore of Ghana.  This organization was political and social, he was responsible for the protest meetings held in London, in respect of Jagan of Guyana and Ceretsi Kharma of Botswana.   This organisation had branches in Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, Nottingham and London.  He was a Lecturer for this organisation speaking to Co-operative Societies throughout the country, Trade Unions and Labour Party meetings on social problems which confronted the West Indians and Africans in England.

He founded the first black Newspaper to be printed in this country called the ‘African Voice’ this was a monthly paper sold to the public on street corners.  His work also entailed the organization of house to house meetings in the Brixton area and other areas of London.  He explained to the West Indian and African population the necessity to assimilate themselves in the community, to join the Trade Union Movement, the Labour Party and to take part in all social and political activities.

He was a very active member of the Westminster Labour Party and the National Union of the Furniture Trade Operators.  He was on the B list for the Parliamentary Candidacy for the Labour Party.  He was one of the joint secretaries of the ‘Movement for Colonial Freedom’ led by Fenner Brockway, Member of Parliament in the middle 1950’s.

Working among the immigrant population equipped him for his job in the early Seventies in Coventry, London and High Wycombe in his work in Community Relations.

Even in sadness, one must feel pride in the legacy left by someone so special.  His spirit will continue to shine, lighting the way for others, leaving all of us an example to follow and a remarkable life to remember with grateful hearts.  The heart is comforted by a life well lived.

Let us not mourn, but give thanks for his life as we all would be much poorer in many ways had we not met him.

His spirit and youthfulness made him seem almost invincible.  He had a great integrity and tenacity, never afraid to speak the truth, to stand up for what was right.

His constant efforts to create new opportunities for young people through Education and the Youth Service.  His ideas were ambitious but appropriate if the aim of Social Justice was to be achieved.

He never gave up, courage and determination were his trademarks. 

He was one of our most distinguished elderly statesmen with a mountain of knowledge regarding black history and issues around Race Relations, Trade Unions, Community Cohesion and Empowerment, the effects of Colonialism and Imperialism.

Enrico’s story is a truly remarkable and distinguished experience.

Enrico Stennett, a Leader, an Ally, a Voice for Justice, a Writer, a Dancer, a man with light, humour and kindness in his eyes.

Enrico Stennett the sweetest man who ever lived, you will remain in our hearts forever. 

Why did you have to die? 

I loved you so much.  We all loved you.  

You have left behind so many broken hearts until the end of time.  

European Colonialisation of Africa

The marauding colonialists raped, exploited and abandoned Africa and her peoples. One may erroneously claim that this is ancient history, which in a sense it is, but the ripple effect is still being felt; especially as the powers are introducing the New World Order. Being a South African, I have experienced a lot of what has happened in Africa over the past fourty years, including the 1994 election of Mr. Nelson Mandela (Madiba), and the subsequent democratic government. This has been wonderful, however the African people, i.e. the actual black African people, in the rural areas of Africa have been abandoned.

Consider the following:

- In the 1600’s European explorers arrived on African soil.

- Within fifty years, horrific crimes and human rights violations were committed against the people of Africa. They were enslaved, transported all over the world, sold and abused, whilst their families and fellow African people’s land was taken and masses were trapped in encampments.

- These are facts, based on factual historical accounts.

- Soon their country’s natural resources, like gold, copper, silver, oil, etc., were mined and “sold” back to the European countries, such as England, at huge profits to the Europeans.

- Agriculture boomed, vast areas of the land flourished under crops and livestock.

- Cities and towns developed and the population, whose land and country this was, were offered work on farms and in the cities, for an absolute pittance.

-The Africans were put to live in townships, outside the towns and cities, and in tiny
apartments in compounds aside the mines.

- The African people were introduced, or forced rather, into the Western lifestyle and economic way of life, and the Christian religion.

- Life remained this way for hundreds of years.

- Eventually separatism, or Apartheid, was formally introduced in South Africa, by law, and informally in most other colonialised African countries; and the people suffered even further under what was formally termed Separate Development.

I will not cover the facts about who benefited most from all of this in this note, but later in the series I will do so. The only benefits to these African people have been a Western, or civilized and formalised system of education and better health care. Some might say they have benefited from becoming Christian. In every other sense they were abused, exploited in terms of cheap labour, and they have been abused and abandoned.

Take special note here: the African people were not given an option to continue their cultural lives as they had lived before; they were literally taken hostage, their land and counties stolen from them, all in the name of autocracy, and eventually religiosity. This genocide and humanitarian abuse is akin to a horror story; invade, kill, capture, control, send in the missionaries to heal and preach, exploit the people and their economic resources, and then withdraw completely 300 to 400 years later.

New World Order. Aid?

Now that The New World Order is almost entrenched and the G8 countries are funding the poorer countries, the Global Economic Forum is in tow with the World Bank and World Monitory Fund, a new World Government is currently being shuffled into place, prospects are seemingly looking up for these impoverished African people. One wonders whether this will ever fully recompense for the sins of the British and European forefathers who colonialized Africa back then. Not true, I’m afraid. The people might receive handouts, on which they might survive for a number of years, but they do not have a clue about, and will not be able to benefit from Global Trade, or function prosperously within the Global Economy. The people of Africa have been left “high and dry”.

Rural Economic Project throughout Africa

This is why I am starting a Rural Economic Project throughout Africa, which will develop local economies within rural communities, teaching the people how to run their own businesses, thereby keeping their money circulating within their own people’s hands far longer, which will grow their own economies and support infrastructures. Thus also enabling them to develop social support groups for the children, the sick and the elderly so that they may all live happy, secure and prosperous lives.

Once these local economies are active and bedded down, we will gradually introduce the people to the benefits of international trade within the Global Economy and set them up to benefit from it; but only under the condition that they first have a sustainable economic, social and civil infrastructure -  up front.

Kindly visit our Causes page and our website to contribute moral support, your time, ideas, and finances. Your valuable input and support, in whatever form, will be greatly appreciated.