THE WHITE MEN'S HELL RULE through their Education
lado:
THE WHITE MEN'S HELL RULE through their Education system IN AFRICA AND TILL TODATE : What was and which still REFLECTS today the purpose of this colonial Education and Schools ?
The purpose of colonial education was to train some Black African clerks, a few technicians to administer the colonial apparatus in the colonized countries. These clerks recorded things so that the colonial officials (in the case of the British) could take the right decisions and send them to the colonial office in Britain.
The other side of the education system was the training of the military which went under the name of the Kings African Rifles (KAR). The headquaters was in Nairobi East Africa, the other branch was in South Africa and the office responsible for the boundaries was in Sierra Leone, Free Town.
In brief colonial education was meant to transform the colonized peoples into British or incase of other Europeans as their subjects.
As for the British well known to the Ladoans , The British had what they called the British Tropical Africa Education System. That was the base of it. The first step was use of the British Language . In order to erase in peoples minds their culture, traditions and ways of life. The Program of learning was in 2 parts. The first part was primary education which was 6 years.
You were taught in your mother tongue which was called the ”vernacular”. You where taught this from primary 1 to primary 4. The last part which was primary 5 and primary 6 was called Full Primary. This was taught in English. Preparing you for the Junior Secondary Education which was always boarding school. There you would go for 3 years after which you would go for Senior Secondary Education. This was an ordinary level. After that you would take a Cambridge School Certificate.
The teachers, lessons etc all came from England and it was also combined with religion. The leaders of the colonized had to be Anglican and Protestant, legal issues could be handled by a Catholic. In the case of Uganda, you could not be Prime Minister, Minister of Finance or Foreign Affairs if you were not Anglican Protestant.
To be considered educated, to pass full primary to go to Junior Secondary School and Senior, you had to pass English. If you failed English, you failed everything. It did not matter whether you got 100% in mathematics, to be educated was to speak English.
So you can see for 6 years you were Brainwashed, then you spent an additional 3 years in Junior Secondary School and 3 in Senior Secondary School, 12 years in all. On top of that you are seperated from your tribal ethnic group and kept in a boarding school. After 12 years of this a person is left with practically no respect for his culture. Some do not even speak their own language.
For example in Protestant schools the girls were taught that to make native beer was sinful yet they could drink coca cola and British beer which was not sinful. So you will find, almost all protestant educated women of my age do not know how to make beer. Yet in Lugbari culture where I come from it is an industry. A young women can make beer, sell it and get money.
Now they are not doing it, then what will they get ? Nothing.
So you will find, using English Language as an instrument for Brainwashing and being taught in all Secondary Education by white teachers (predominantly English) with only primary 1 to 4 or maybe 6 taught in an African Language what can you expect. Allow this to go on for a generation and what can you expect ?
You have been oppressed, insulted, taught to respect the British adore them and if you do not, you don`t pass and therefore you are not educated. We have to clear this, we have to introduce our own languages. There is no African University today in Africa which uses a native language. Everything is either in English, French, Italian, Portugeese or Spanish. So the Brainwashing is still going on today.
The first thing we have to do to counter this is to go back to our primitive African Languages whether they are called ”vernacular”, ”ethnic”, it does not matter. Language is the identity of a people. It makes you think. It is an instrument of culture, to carry culure, to preserve culture, to think about your way of life.
Subjects like Economics or Law were not taught in the British Education System. You had to go to England, there was nothing in Africa. So when they said they are teaching you they will teach you History,Geography, Mathematics and maybe Medicine.
Another thing in the case of Uganda was that the brightest children in Junior or Senior Secondary were all taken to England so that they finish Secondary Education in England. So what can you expect of such persons, trained by foreigners, educated by foreigners what can you expect of them ? Stupid dogs only !
So I do not blame the present so - called educated Africans, because they are not educated they are Brainwashed.
Colonialism had 3 stages the first was what they called influence. Where you see through missionaries explorers they came pretending to be friends. They were the NGO`s of the day. The NGO`s replaced the missionaries and the explorers.
So the missionaries where instruments of the Colonial Administration. Another group was the anthropologists. You find they came pretending to live among villagers distorting and twisting their culture in their writings. You then had the administration starting with the lowest ranking the district commissioners, then came the provincial comissioners who was the link between the District and the Protectorate, take Uganda as an example, which was a typical Colonial Protectorate compared to Kenya which was a Colony.
In a Colony the whites would just come sit on the land, drive the Africans away and use them as slaves to work the Land. South Africa and Zimbabwe where other examples of this. You don`t move they kill you. In case of Uganda was considered different, it was a protectorate.
Here you were cautious, you had to move like a snake. You only bite when necessary. You started by influence, missionaries bringing Christianity, Education and all this, so that people have a better life. The people feel they are loved and all the havoc is then done through that.
Then there was the Military. When a Tribe or Chief was resisting the British Administration a military expedition would be sent. Some of the Chiefs would be executed publicly like in Acholi Land where some Chiefs were hanged in Public in 1910-11. Some where deported commonly to the Seychelles Islands in the Indian Ocean.
Now the Chiefs had to work under the district commissioner. This was called indirect rule. Ruling people through their own Chiefs which is exactly what happens today when they rule Africans through their Presidents. There is no difference. Back then they were Chiefs today they are called Presidents.
So, who made the rules ? For British Colonies they were made in England, for the french in Paris and for the Portugeese in Lissabon etc. Egypt (in 1517), Sudan (in 1821) and Lado(1871) were occupied initially by the Ottoman empire and therefore the method here was different at the time.
So the British used the Church missionary society to do all their ground work whereas the french used the Catholic Church as did the Portugeese. There is no difference as to whether it was Catholic or Protestant. For example in Uganda there was fight between Britain and France over the Kingdom of Uganda. The Protestants fought for Britain and the Catholics for France. In the Local language it became baenglesa and bafrance (the English and the French) but they were not English or French. Except they were Catholics and Protestants.
It was even on the application form when joining the military that you must show your religion. You were given jobs according to your religion.
There was no Central Bank, all banks were controlled by the British. In administration from Executive position up to permanent Secretary it was the British, or Canadians, or Australians, or New Zealanders and sometimes South Africans, some of the Boers were brought to work there.
No black man was above even an Asian. The clerks, the big clerks were Asians from Indian, Pakistan – at this time Bangladesh was known as East Pakistan. The Asians were above the blacks. They were between the whites who were top and Africans who were on the bottom.
The military was used always to subdue the people, the Chiefs who refused people who didn`t want to obey the British. It was worse than what they are pretendig to say about Zimbabwe today. There was no Democracy, no Elections, no Political parties.
I remember a situation in Western Uganda around 1958 – 1961, the Colonial Secretary of Uganda Peagram – this was in 61 - ordered the drinking water of the Catholics to be poisoned so that on election day the Catholics would be sick and would not vote. Fortunately somebody saw this and alerted me. I was the Captain commanding in the Western Area. We tested the water and we found there was enough poison not only to make people sick but to kill.
Another example of this was in Bunyoro. An election took place for Prime Minister, what they call Katikiro but a Catholic man won. The British said no, we are not going to appoint a Catholic to be Prime minster. Elections are irrelevant. And today we find the British Prime Minister Gordon Brown shouting about Justice and Elections. And in 1961 Democracy did not exist. How can it exist today ?
The same thing happened in a district called Toro. Bunyoro is a Kingdom, Toro is a Kingdom, Ankole is a Kingdom and Buganda is a Kingdom. These where all kingdoms which were messed about and made one through the of Agreement 26th December 1890, then alot of other agreements where done ending with the agreement of 10th March, 1900 – the Uganda Kingdom Agreement.
For Ankole it was 1891, for Toro it was 1893. But Bunyoro refused. King Kabarega of the Bunyoro was therefore deported to the Seychelles Islands until 1923 and was brought back and died the same year. Whether natural or poisoned nobody spoke of it.
They then forced his son to sign to become part of Uganda 10 years later (1933). In the case of Lado , Lado never signed to become part of anybody ,and that is why we in Lado are fighting, up to today. You will find in that unfortunate fight we fought with the British the five years war (1914 – 1919) .
The next war we fought was from 1931 – 1937 was called the Kakua war. The final war we fought with the British was when the King ( Agofe ) of Lado was killed 1948. The war was fought from 1948-1952 until the Soviet Union under Stalin told Churchhill if he did not stop the Red Army would intervene in Lado. That is how the war stopped.
This was because Lado had an agreement with Russia, Prussia and Austria in 1815 before the British came.
The method to subdue people was on 3 levels. The first was through influence using explorers and missionaries (who are now replaced by NGO´s) the second stage was occupation. The military was brought tribes were attacked, their leaders killed to terrorise the society into accepting the authority of Britain.
Occupation means military force. Like they did in Iraq recently. Where they went overthrew the President Sadam, hanged him and said OK ”you people you are under us, there is freedom.” There is no difference.
The final stage was what they called colonization. Which means after you had killed the people, subdued them you captured their leader (King or Chief), in the case of the Baganda the king was called the Kabaka, in Bunyoro it was the Omukama, in Toro OmuKama and for Ankole Omugabe. In Lado it was the Agofe.
He had to sign he was under the British with his thumb print. The British Administrator would then sign as evidence to be shown in Berlin that the territory was now under the British. Without that fingerprint according to the Berlin Treaty of 26th February 1885 the other European countries would not recognize your authority. The whole issue had an international connotation.
This was in article 6 and 15 of the Berlin treaty. Once you signed you became a European Colony or Protectorate.
This is the problem for us the in the whole of middle Africa, Black Africa. We have to come together and help each other. Not to be taken by what they hear such as talk about human rights. Human rights never existed. The first time I heard about it was 1990. It never existed before. Election never existed before.
Even in Parliament you had to be nominated. Approved by the colonial authorities. How do you expect people who have been treated like this for 2 generations, 70 years to run themselves.
The Africans were not allowed even to make a needle, a knife or a hoe of their own. In the early days if you were found making something your hand was cut off.
If a people are not allowed to do anything, not by mistake, not because they are lazy but intentionally like today when the US says ”Oh Iran, North Korea you are not allowed to develop nuclear enrichment”.
I am not surprised that Africans cannot even produce a pen. As they were not allowed to. You were now a defeated race you couldn`t do anything. This is the reality people do not know in Africa. Even the young Africans. Because they did not live in it. I lived in it. It is nothing strange to me. Maybe what makes Mugabe to be considered what he is today is the truth he lived with. 10 years in prison, being beaten, he himself knows what torture is in prison.
These are the kind of things when put together when written correctly for our future we shall understand things more clearly. Africa from 1870 up to 1920 was a period of hell. Many of our people died and suffered, let their soul be in peace the Struggle must continue
Motingwa I:
Greetings my Elder!
I man am a thirty-something youth living in Botswana and as soon as I began reading what you wrote about brainwash mis-education I wanted to reply. It is striking how the things you say are almost identical to the education system in my country which was also a British protectorate. Protectorate was you felt like the oppressor was protecting you rather than colonising you like in the colonies.
Our own education system today is 7 years primary and then junior secondary and then senior. You have to pass English. Even the private schools use the same number of years for primary and high school equivalent. The education you describe sounds much like what our parents talk about. We have almost no knowledge of what life was like for our grandparents. My own elder siblings had to go through the same enforced boarding school.
Even for I whose parents were educated and lived and worked in a town, although I went to a private secondary school, the teaching faculty was mostly European and as a matter of fact we were even forced to speak English even among ourselves. From primary school at around 4 years of age you were judged according to how well you could speak the english language and you were either put in an english medium or a Setswana medium school. The English medium was supposed to be better and more privileged and I guess it was in terms of education but it was a lot of lies anyway so you were just better at regurgitating what the opressor feed you! I think the youths who went to English medium make some of the worst human beings in our country today, a lot of them not being able to fully express themselves in terms of their own language and culture but they cannot be blamed. Such segregation has caused a wide gap between better off and poor Blacks, the latter being sometimes bitter towards the leiutenants of the white master.
Religion for my generation wasn't so much enforced but government forms still have the 'What is your religion?' Isn't that a private matter?
Iniko Ujaama:
Give thanks elder
It is important for us to hear these aspects of the history. I live in the "Caribbean" aka the "West Indies" where the issue of colonialism was different but with many similar aspects. First, we lost much of our vocabulary so we speak what people call creoles with a French, English or other lexicon. I would like to get to know more about the commonalities in the structure of for instance the St. Lucian french-lexicon Creole and languages in West Africa. However the language issue operates in the very same way. English mediates success, justice, democracy, privilege and such(of course it is more complex but this is a major factor). And the nature of our education here still creates puppets of neo-colonialism or ardent supporters of its various aspects because they can figure in a personal benefit.
Strangely today I was reading a lecture delivered by Ngugi Wa Thiongo where he was addressing this same issue of language. It was entitled "Europhonism. Universities and the Magic Fountain: the future of African Literature and Scholarship"(http://www.kasc.ku.edu/programs/conferences/archive/1999_2/theme2/transcript/index.shtml - a lot of mistakes in this transcript but it is readable) he has addressed this issue profoundly in his book "decolonizing the mind"(I posted some excerpts from the first chapter of this book in another post). His own move toward writing in his local Gikuyu is a good example set. I read of another Kenyan scholar who wrote his Masters and Doctoral theses in both English and Gikuyu. The attempt being among other things, to increase the scope of use of the language and make more information available in that language. The UN/ UNESCO has also shown through some of their work how pivotal language democratization is to things such as health, democracy, justice etc. Issues which certain persons are looking at even in our case here in St. Lucia because it is very much an issue. The great African scholar Dr. Cheikh Anta Diop also saw the importance of this issue of language in pushing African forward and the people being empowered and benefiting the "development"(which is essentially about people. http://www.proudfleshjournal.com/vol1.1/makalela-sistrunk.html Although these words can be very empty when spoken in certain circles.
I am learning much as I have begun actively seeking the discourse with the continent. There is much more to learn from the continent and I look forward.
Can I have your permission lado to share your article on the internet of course with proper credit?
Motingwa thanks for that input as well. I have been doing a little bit of reading on Botswana language policy as well and I see strides beyond what we have here but you have put it in perspective beautifully. One of the things some linguists from this part have been advocating is the teaching of English through the method of second language acquisition but the governments have not heeded.
Against deepest thanks to you both for sharing this reality.
bless
iniko ujaama
Alafia87:
This makes me think that we need to get rid of the colonial governments as they now stand
and go forward to our own cultural governments that were operating before the Berlin Conference.
It's going to take a lot of coordination, but it seems possible.
lado:
Quote from: Alafia87 on June 05, 2009, 02:10:52 PM
This makes me think that we need to get rid of the colonial governments as they now stand
and go forward to our own cultural governments that were operating before the Berlin Conference.
It's going to take a lot of coordination, but it seems possible.
The Driving force towards Accptence please :
Just Often as humans we are confronted with situations or realities which we do not like, do not want and would pay far more than a pound of flesh to avoid. A great deal of human energy goes into constructing a “safe” life in which we protect ourselves from the possibilities of these unwanted elements in our life.
More often than not, all the things we do, whether it is our work, our interests, our hobbies, our lifestyles and even our inter - human relationships, are shields we put up in defence of what we fear. Once the crisis occurs, or rather whatever one is fleeing from enters ones life, we tend to spend even greater amounts of energy either denying this reality or lamenting its presence.
We can only act in a manner that redresses whatever is wrong with our lives as individuals and societies once we accept the realities of our predicament. Once we accept the losses we have suffered, admit the failures and defeats we have undergone, digest the mistakes or misperceptions that might have caused the situation in question.
All these actions are acceptance or if one likes the process of letting go of what was. This is what allows us as individuals and as societies to renew ourselves, to continue living and give birth to new visions. Even after, the collapse of what one previously had hoped for.
All we do in life must be that which we wish to do from an inner urge or drive. Not out of some external sense of meaning, search for material gain, etc. If our endeavours are based on this we will always be challenged by life as we are not living but putting up shields against a feeling of meaninglessness, a fear of being without material means, etc.
We must accept whatever hole we are in, whatever demon we fear, whatever state we seek to escape. Only here can we begin to be free and act as free human beings.
A point of caution though, acceptance is not the same as resignation.
Resignation is to give up. To renounce responsibility of ones life and ones power to shape ones life. It is a refusal to let go of what is lost that leads to a stubborn refusal to live within the full range of ones human dignity. Acceptance is looking the truth in the eye, opening ones heart, mind and body to it and then seizing firm control over the reins of ones life. It is an act of responsibility. It is an aspect of our human dignity.
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