Remember this when you are being righteous about white oppressiontowards the brothers in a frosty civil rights discussion...
Quoted from Stanley Burnham's 3rd edition of America's Bimodal Crisis:Black Intelligence in White Society, Foundation for Human Understanding,Athens, Georgia, 1993, pp. 51-52.:
Social oppression within [African] tribes was likewise much worse than generallyrecognized today. Polygamy was universal, and wives and children could bekilled at the husband's discretion, as documented in Achebe's first novel,Things Fall Apart* (1959), which tells of his own grandfather's hatchetingto death his adopted son at the demand of a tribal council simply to demonstratehis respect for a local witch doctor. Such sacrifice seems to have beencommonplace.
Moreover, anybody could be killed for subjected to slavery at the commandof a[n African] king or emperor, and this power was often abused to an extraordinarydegree, as illustrated by H.F. Fynn's** (1950) account of the notoriousZulu king Chaka (Baker***, pp. 389-390):
"On the first day of Fynn's arrival at court, ten men were carriedoff to death, and he soon learnt that executions occurred daily. On oneoccasion Fynn witnessed the dispatch of sixty boys under the age of twelveyears before Chaka had breakfasted.... On one occasion between four andfive hundred women were massacred because they were believed to have knowledgeof witchcraft.... One of Chaka's concubines was executed for taking a pinchof snuff from his snuff-box. A group of cowherd boys was put to death forhaving sucked the nipples of cattle. It was the rule in Zululand that noone might eat from any crop until the king had partaken of the first-fruitsof the year at a special ceremony. If anyone transgressed, every memberof his kraal was executed. At the ceremony the king was accustomed to havemany people executed for no other reason than to show his power and causehim to be feared."
Apparently the excesses of Chaka's murderous cruelty were brought to theirpinnacle upon the death of his mother, Nandi:
"Universal mourning was immediately ordered. The chiefs and peoplebegan to assemble in a crowd estimated at eight thousand.... Those who couldnot force tears from their eyes--those who were found near the river pantingfor water--were beaten to death by others who were mad with excitement.Toward the afternoon I calculated that not fewer than 7.,000 people hadfallen in this frightful indiscriminate massacre.... Whilst the masses werethus employing themselves, Chaka and his chiefs, the latter surroundinghim, were tumbling and throwing themselves about, each trying to excel intheir demonstrations of grief by alternate fits of howling.... On his firstappearance after the massacre Chaka ordered the execution of one of hisaunts, who had been unfriendly to Nandi, and of all her attendants (sometwelve or fourteen girls). Parties were sent out to execute those who hadnot come to express sorrow. During a period of one year after Nandi's death,all women found to be pregnant were executed with their husbands."
Where in Asian or European History can one find comparable examples of randombrutality? Who among all the rulers of Asia and Europe (Hitler and GenghisKhan included) ordered the execution of sixty children to whet his appetitefor breakfast? Or encouraged the murder of seven thousand subjects to expresshis grief for his deceased mother, then ordered the deaths of all the pregnantwomen in his kingdom plus their husbands for one whole year after his mother'sfuneral simply to commemorate her death?
*Achebe, C. Things Fall Apart, New York, Astor-Honor, 1959.
**Fynn, H.R. The Diary of Henry Francis Fynn. Edited by J. Stuart, Pietermaritzburg:Shooter and Shooter, 1950.
***Baker, J.R. Race. New York: Oxford University Press, 1974, pp. 389-390.
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Africa today is still an evil place for blacks to exist. Racial wars andgenocide are frequent as is slavery.
The Africans in America have the highest standard of living of blacks anywherein the world. Anywhere. In fact, the status of Africans and their nationalincome levels have collapsed disastrously since the Western Europeans andIndians who kept their countries and economies together were removed infavor of African administration. Africans were unable to take over theseindustries effectively so many of them collapsed and failed.