Kanye West recently put the world, or should I say the internet in a tantrum after voicing his opinion that slavery was or is a choice. Some would claim he was not thinking in what he claimed was a stream of free thought. Well, some of us will recall when the entire black community championed him for saying “George Bush doesn’t care about black people” in reaction to the biased treatment of the black community in New Orleans by aid relief bodies and the media.
Now we are so quick to forget how much he has done to uplift the black man throughout his career. Art is creation and that is something that for long has been considered to be a skill only the white man can possess. That Kanye West has been able to fight for him to be crowned one of the greatest artists of all time is a big win for the black community. You can go ahead and call Micheal Jackson but look at what he did. The man never felt like he was black. He was no doubt a good hearted person with love for the world and its people but he felt like he had to be white to be great.
I’m not going to play the nobody is perfect card here because in my opinion, Kanye even in this supposed ‘break down’ state is still more perfect than many who are quick to call him a villain for saying what, with all delusion aside, is a fact proven over and over again in history. The problem is, now he is a rich black man and it is easy for us to claim he cannot speak for the average black person who is suffering from the effects of slavery. I mean Kanye never grew up in abject poverty. He came from a middle income family but spoke for the poor people but now that he is super rich, he is ‘far removed?’ That’s the black man’s mentality - misery loves company.
Nigerian senator Shehu Sani tweeted - ”If Kanye West thinks slavery was a choice, we will offer him a free ticket and tour guide to visit slave routes and camps in Badagry, Lagos, Ouida, Benin Republic, Ghana and Goree Island in Senegal to 'experience the choices in chains. Kanye defecated on the graves of victims.” I mean this all sounds great but I am sure we all and our parents sat in history classes and studied extensively about the ‘slave trade.’ Why have we never challenged the idea that it was trade - the exchange of goods and services? If it was not a choice, why did we not call it something else that reflects the absence of a choice. Why did we not call it abductions? I can still hear the voice of my history teacher saying “The slave trade….”
We have never challenged the idea of a slave trade before because it is what actually happened. You will hear people claiming no African chief sold his people and that is true, they sold prisoners of war who are ancestors of the same people we call ‘our African brothers’ today. The west has mastered the divide and conquer strategy. They came, created conflict between tribes and when the tribes went to war they then offered to buy the prisoners of war. We continue to sell each other today in different ways that is why we hear things like neocolonialism.
In 2011, the entire African community sat back and watched how NATO decided Gaddafi had lost his legitimacy as the leader of Libya and went ahead to kill the man. Today we all have nice things to say about Gaddafi. At the time, nobody cared about the fact that Libya was then one of the richest nations in Africa. Today, Libya is among the most most troubled countries in the world.
“We came, we saw, he died” - Hilary Clinton on the death of Gaddafi.
“Guess what, they have a chance now” - Joe Biden on post Gaddafi Libya.
Oh yea, he sure died but what chance did Libya get? - The chance to become a cesspool of human rights violations and a radicalization hotbed?
The case of Libya shows us clearly why slavery is a choice. Now in Libya, there are many factions fighting for power causing a continuous deterioration of the country while NATO is nowhere to be found except when they come in to bomb whichever rebel group they feel like would not support their agenda in case they take control over a strategic region under the pretext of fighting ISIS.
The people, instead of uniting to preserve their country are now fighting each other and amidst the chaos some people in France, Britain, and America are getting fat pockets looting Libya’s resources in exchange for supplying cheap guns and armor to the people so they can continue fighting each other. This is the same thing that happened here, we sold our ‘brothers’ to slavery in exchange for rum and mirrors - was a choice.
Obama can go out and cry as much as he wants about Libya being his worst mistake as President of the United States but the truth is they used one of us as is always the case and it was in his agenda from the beginning of his presidency and that is why he never put much thought going into it. It was easier for Obama who is of African decent to convince the African Union to sit back and let America deal with Libya. It had to be done with Obama as president to cover up the real agenda of whites breaking down pillars of African freedom - Propaganda it its purest form.
When you break it down to the basics, everything is 1s and 0s. That is the basis of all computer technology. As a people, to say we did not have a choice is crazy. We are just cowards. It comes down to the fact that we were and are still not willing to give up everything for our freedom. Again, it is 1s and 0s. You are either willing to give up your freedom or die for your freedom and we chose the former many times when presented with the choices.
I mean, back then they didn’t have the kind of advanced military weapons that they posses today and we couldn’t fight them? What about now that they have all sorts of advanced killing systems? We don’t stand a chance. What happened back then and is happening now in other forms of neocolonialism is that the west has never presented itself to be at war with us. The come as a friend trying to help us with our internal issues, fuel conflict among us, pick a side and supply them with the weapons so they feel more comfortable engaging in armed conflict.
Ghadafi’s mistake was to trust the west. His demise came after he had been deceived to think he was now in good terms with the west. He had stopped his WMD program and neglected his army. He had met with Obama. Condoleezza Rice even went on an official visit to Libya. Gaddafi actually thought he will never have to fight again and wanted to focus on just doing business. All along, he was being fooled. Thats a man Sarkozy called ‘a friend’ just months before he was killed.
Any-Ha!
I know I said we don’t stand a chance in the face of their almighty weapons but we do. Gaddafi had to be killed by the Libyan people. NATO could not use its own hands directly because the people in Britain, America, and France will not allow their governments to just walk into another country and oust its president. They had to create propaganda that will allow their people to give them the green light. In Iraq, when they went for Saddam Hussein, it was about weapons of mass destruction that never existed. Mind you, they had been friendly too with Saddam just before they took him out. In Libya, they claimed Gadaffi was about to commit a genocide, then they entered and armed rebels to fight against a military that Gaddafi had neglected thinking he was now at peace with the world.
The solution is in countering their propaganda and we have all the tools. We can decide to sit and remain cowards or start to see the part we play in victimizing ourselves.
- Tino Foy
P.S
I can already see your questions and arguments coming. I hope to answer most of them in the comments section.