|
The URL for this article is:
www.rastaspeaks.com/articles/2004/0205.html
"Send a thief to catch a thief"!
Posted By: PatriotWarrior
May 02, 2004
Rastafari Speaks Message Board
In Response To: is this racism? (Ras_Naphtali_Jaïr)
Greetings!
I think some of you (guys) make the very bad mistake of equating "DISCUSSING …" with "reverse racism". The REAL racism is out in the REAL world, (apparently) not here in cyberspace to be found … My suggestion is that if anyone here would really like to DISCUSS "reverse racism" that they faced in the REAL world, or that they see as a menacing problem to them in the REAL world, then I dare challenge: "Why not?" The only problem is that there's hardly anything called "reverse racism" in the REAL world (at least NOT in this context)!! Mind you, I say only "hardly", in a comparative sense … (without wishing to jump on someone's nerves).
I think people are afraid to discuss, but we all already know the reason why: I think part of it is because some people (even here!) think/feel there's nothing of importance to discuss in the real modern world that they grew up in, it seems; for some, it seems nothing other than shouting "One Love!" and quoting Bible Scripture. But what is "One Love" when the majority of BLACKS -- [mind you, I didn't even say "Rastafarians"] -- KNOW the world out there is hard? … When they know racism is found in the REAL hard world, not in cyberspace!
I personally have nothing against the (idea of) non-Afrikan Rastafarians, but people should ACCEPT that Rasta is originally a *Black Trod* (to borrow someone's words I read here), a *Movement*, dynamic: meaning it is *us Rastafarians*, ALL of us, to seek out what is there to be talked about (or done/ continued with) in the MODERN world, NOT TO BE TOLD WHAT TO DO! It is for us to push the trod forward (b'cause NO-ONE will!!), to deal with what we have to deal with in the world … I believe we can also do it in words!!
You're right somehow that you "keep seeing more topics about white rastas and white people being mean and evil, white priveledge, etc." In fact, that's part of the poli-tricks going on around [that keep going around, keeping people -- at least Afrikans -- blind in the REAL world (NOT here!)]: that's what people are speaking out against. For example, the land issue in Zimbabwe is a good example of a *purely political IMPERIALIST game* (in fact, IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN!), and that is even why the song "Zimbabwe" -- (on "Survival") -- hardly has anything to do with Rastafari teachings of "peace" or "One Love". "Zimbabwe" is a political song -- and rightly so! The situation in Zimbabwe those days, when the freedom fighters were *really* fighting (around 1977, 1978, 1979, in case you never heard), was hot, cruel, peculiar, terrible: people were *being killed* like flies (and someone wants to tell me about "peace"? Whose "peace"???). Bob was pragmatic enough to know that *the only way out* was to FIGHT! {That's how "their" political world operates!!}. I think you guys take Bob's sayings out of context. What Bob sings in one situation will be taken to imply another, or made "universal". Not always, my brother! Yes, Bob sang and said a lot about "peace", or about "One Love", but so also did he sing about "Babylon", "Rebellion", "Revolution" … (but maybe always means "passive rebellion" to some of you guys!).
What is happening to Afrika is a political game; what is happening in Zimbabwe is also a political game … NOT for Mugabe to stay in power (when he repeatedly won the elections, anyway!), but for Zimbabwe's *posterity*, Afrikans ... Though nothing goes perfect, Mugabe is right on course and, if you guys don't know, he is doing what many Afrikan leaders wish they could start doing now, but they are still afraid (like little "Uncle Toms", hiding away in their cabins!).
I guess you're ALSO not an Afrikan … Excuse me if I'm wrong. Please just remember that Bob sang *mainly* for the powerless, the downtrodden, the weak, the maim, the hungry and the poor ... but also for those *comfortable ones* in the Western world. We all tend to judge things on grounds of where we grew up, where we come from; I for one am an Afrikan and yes, I have even been to Zimbabwe many times (though I don't come from there). What VERY much surprises me is why so many people -- on this board -- apparently don't take the suffering and oppression of other people (e.g. … black people in Zimbabwe) serious(!). That's my own opinion.
My suspicion is that people forget to judge REAL matters *fairly*, morally, realistically, or they're doing so deliberately (with pretence!): Not a single word of sympathy for my people being treated like slaves in the land Jah gave to them!!! What about that? Whose side are you on? If you yourself were a black Zimbabwean, would you close your eyes and pray?
In case you guys never knew, the struggle for freedom in Zimbabwe was about the *bloodiest* in Afrika!!! True! Ask, and an INFORMED Afrikan will confirm! The indigenous -- black! -- people of Zimbabwe waged that brutal war for freedom mainly because of land, their land. When Zimbabwe signed for its independence at Lancaster House, London, in 1979, the land issue was inevitably central to the independence negotiations. It became a major stumbling-block and the talks were repeatedly deadlocked over the issue. The British -- (and their ever-present American friends) -- finally accepted that the land should be given back to its rightful Afrikan owners, and they *pledged* to pay off the white settler-farmers for their gradual relocation (a kind of "collateral payment for peace"). Yet successive British governments … Thatcher … Major … Blair … step-by-step derailed (until finally around 1997) the land-reform programme, stopped paying (and instead chose to court international sympathy -- of course through propaganda! -- to publicly demonise President Mugabe and his government) ... WE, Afrikans, don't like this … In about 1999, the Zimbabwean government then chose to take steps to resolve the land question once and for all -- on their own terms! … {NOTE: Zimbabwe's leaders [such as Foreign Minister Dr. I.S.G. Mudenge, Justice Minister P.A. Chinamasa, Agricultural Minister J.M. Made & Information Minister Jonathan Moyo], who travelled to Brussels on 11 January 2002 to meet with European Union functionaries to discuss the land issue, were *not* treated with respect at all! The arrogant EU bureaucrats they met behaved themselves like imperial judges (and expected the Zimbabwean delegation to act like their puppets!). NO!!!}
{… That was just one very good example of points of contention I find discussable on this forum …}
Bob isn't a saint (as some people claim), but a *Revolutionary* … (he said so on many occasions, too!). I could quote Bob in words that mirror that Bob could not support such immoral cheating whites are carrying out in Zimbabwe (and elsewhere!). I therefore choose to think that Bob would even support so-called "rebellion", if needs be … [the *VERY LYRICS* of "Zimbabwe" are the evidence!] … Does Bob sing about closing his eyes there??? No, he calls to arms to fight and, if needs be, "chase those crazy baldheads out of town!", coz "that's the only way we can overcome this little trouble" and "I don't want my people to be tricked by mercenaries"!
The same English people say: "Send a thief to catch a thief"; so my own (unforgiving) opinion is that those white guys there, as arrogant as they seem to be, are just getting a taste of their own medicine.
Message Boards | Articles | Black Africans | Homepage
|  |
