The Capitalist Nigger by Chika Onyeani

N

nyantella

JF-Expert Member
Dec 17, 2010
889
180
Happy New year 2011 Dear JF members!!

As we start the year, please lets it doing some reading!

I do love reading books. recently I have come across a book by one Chika Onyeani, a Nigerian currently living in US. Going through that book, I met so positive and negative ideas and I would like the members of the forum to read and lets see how they fit in the current affairs in our country. to get the book just google by the tittle "The capitalist Nigger"

here under is one of the Controversial extract from that book:

“Continental Africans think the world owes them something. We whine and whine about how the Europeans looted our natural resources. Yes, they did, so what? We allowed them to do it, and we are still allowing them to do it even today. There is too much whining among Africans, Blacks, continental Africans and Africans in the Diaspora - whine, whine, whine ad nauseam. We are beggars. We beg for everything. If you need something, be a man. Go and get it! Don't start whining for somebody to do it or get it for you.”

Have a nice new year and God Bless you all.
 
You cannot forever hold Europe or the West in general responsible for what goes on in Africa merely because many African countries are former European colonies. This is an argument that just doesn't wash any more. Our solution is completely unrealistic. If we are to progress, we've to stop begging the West for economic devpt or to move in to install democracy by force? Just look at the Ivory Coast? How about the Bashir and Mugabe and many more of that type who are, if anything, worse? Zimbabwe was the bread-basket of Africa when Mugabe came to power 30 years ago. Today it is bottom of all the international league tables. Why?
Incidentally, African governments have had plenty of opportunities to readjust and even to redefine their borders over the years in discussion with their neighbours. This has never been done. One can only assume that these 'artificial states' are perfectly satisfactory to them.
Could we have a bit of honesty please? IT STINKS!
 
The title itself is a turn off. Just another Uncle Tom trying to make a quick buck.

Amandla.......
 
Unfortunately, one can not deny the facts history as they stand bare in front of us. That Europe was involved and is still involved in the subjugation of our people and the plundering of our resources. This is a fact. We can not deny it even if by denying it will make us feel better. But, accepting the fact is just one step in taking control of our destiny. We can not hold Europeans responsible for everything that is happening now. No we can not. But the question still remains how much of what is happening today is a direct outcome of what happened in our recent or distant past? or even a better one, can Africa and Africans build their own future, a future that is prosperous in spite of our colonial past?
 
"And they say it's the White man I should fear, but it's my own kind doing all the killing here",

'It ain't about black or white cuz we human, I hope we see the light before it ruined'

Tupac Shakur.....
 
unapomwambia mtu asimame na
kupigania/kuchukua haki yake ni vyema kumuachia mtu huyo uhuru wa kufanya hivyo.
bahati mbaya afrika kwa kiasi kikubwa tumetarajiwa kuchukua hiyo haki yetu
huku mkono mmoja umefungwa kwenye kiti". baya zaidi huo mkono mmoja uliohuru
unakuwa umeshikiliwa na wanasiasa a.k.a mafisadi. inabidi kwanza tuukomboe huu mkono
ulioshikiliwa na mafisadi ili tupate nafasi ya kuufungua ule mkono uliofungwa kwenye kiti-
 
Reading Walter Rodney's "How Europe Underdeveloped Africa" also offers another perspective. I am not trying to overlook the pitfalls of post-colonial Africa, though!
 
I believe that our current problems have increasingly less to do with past injustices done by the colonialists BUT more to do with current foolishness and greediness of our leaders. Effect ya slavery na colonialism can't have negative effects to us 4ever!
 
The facts remain, we have a blaming culture.... just looking around for whom to blame...., We need to emancipate ourselves from mental slavery..

The point the gentleman was trying to make is nobody can offer you anything we need to take it ourselves.. Its true what colonialist did was unforgivable.... a country like Belgium is what it is today because of exploiting the Congo... That was then.

But whom should we blame for these stupid contracts which our country is entering with so called wawekezaji... If you ask my humble opinion I blame our own Tanzanian Leaders.
 
Under a dual mandate England was to control Tanganyika and Zanzibar until they could learn to govern themselves, at which point it was to grant them independence. Fearing that this would not take place, Julius Nyerere argued in favor of immediate independence following World War II, and, in 1961, Tanganyika peacefully won its independence. Tanzania however was ill prepared for independence. The first secondary school was opened in 1930, and when World War II ended in 1945, only one school offered education through the twelfth grade in the entire country. It had six students. Colonial education expanded after 1950, but mainly in urban areas. Bright high school graduates were sent to Makerere College in Uganda or the Royal Technical College in Kenya (Nairobi University). By 1959 only 70 Tanzanian African had earned university degrees and 20 of these were teachers.
In 1954, less than 10 percent of Tanzania's children were in school. The colonial educational system was inadequate for the needs of an independent nation. Illiteracy was so widespread that elementary education was offered to all who desired it. Talented students won seats in high schools and at universities free of charge. After independence, education was offered by the government to all who could prove that they could benefit from it. As costs mounted, this policy became too expensive and was modified.
Click to expand...
Nimeitoa hapa:Tanzania - History Background - Percent, Education, People, Tanganyika, Independence, and Population

Kwanza tukumbuke tulikotoka. Miaka 41 (1959)chini ya mzungu muingereza, nchi yetu ilikuwa na graduates 70, kati ya hao 20 walikuwa waalimu. Miaka 41 baada ya kujitawala (2002) tulikuwa na graduates wangapi? Tulipopata uhuru madaktari waafrika walikuwa 12, wahandisi wawili (2) na wanasheria wawili (2). Idadi ya wahitimu wa vyu vikuu walikuwa 120. Je miaka 43 baadae tulikuwa nao wangapi? Miaka 27 baada ya kutawaliwa na muingereza nchiyetu ilikuwa na shule ya sekondari moja. Miaka 27 baada ya uhuru (1988) tulikuwa na shule za sekondari ngapi? Si kila kitu kinapimwa na GNP. Lazima tuangalie hao wanaotubeza walituacha wapi.

Amandla........
​
 
Mzee Mwanakijiji said:
But the question still remains,can Africa and Africans build their own future, a future that is prosperous in spite of our colonial past?
Click to expand...

Yes indeed,

This question and many other of similar nature are expertly tackled in the Capitalist Nigger.
Please see the quote from Chika below
"We as African people must lay the greatest assault on the corporate world, not with arms, but with the same weapons the corporate world has employed to keep us the most impoverished people on the earth. We must employ our brains. We cannot afford to continue to be the consumers of the world. We must begin to produce products with worldwide acceptance. We must stop the blame game and embrace others' superiority in a great many ways, while harnessing ways to see our superiority yield fruits of success"

It is a great book!!
 
Mundu said:
Yes indeed,

This question and many other of similar nature are expertly tackled in the Capitalist Nigger.
Please see the quote from Chika below
"We as African people must lay the greatest assault on the corporate world, not with arms, but with the same weapons the corporate world has employed to keep us the most impoverished people on the earth. We must employ our brains. We cannot afford to continue to be the consumers of the world. We must begin to produce products with worldwide acceptance. We must stop the blame game and embrace others' superiority in a great many ways, while harnessing ways to see our superiority yield fruits of success"

It is a great book!!
Click to expand...

Platitudes as usual. Since wen have we become the consumers of the world? I thought that honour belonged to the Unite States. Our rate of consumer goods is the lowest in the world. Had it been the other way round, nobody would have messed with us. It is easy to say that we should apply our brains without telling us how. As to the production of goods. Does he really think it is to do with worldwide acceptance. Hasn't he heard of tariffs? Hasn't anyone told him about the tariffs that kick in once one starts to export processed products rather than raw products? Didn't we try to process our cashewnuts and ended up with empty factories? And can he please tell us how one can embrace other's superiority in ONE way only! Like I said before, just another hack trying to score.

Amandla......
 
Mundu said:
It is a great book!!
Click to expand...
Reviewing this book, Ozodi Thomas Osuji notes - 'The writer [Chika Onyeani] looks admiringly at the West and appreciates the progress it has made in science and technology and social-political organization and would like Africans to replicate that progress. The man appears to worship all things Western and wants to transfer them to Africa . This is wishful thinking; in fact, it smacks of magical thinking.'

This also is my bone of contention with this type of populistic and romantic academism which seeks to separate the past from the present.
The whole review of Ozodi can be read here:
 
Rungu said:
Reviewing this book, Ozodi Thomas Osuji notes - 'The writer [Chika Onyeani] looks admiringly at the West and appreciates the progress it has made in science and technology and social-political organization and would like Africans to replicate that progress. The man appears to worship all things Western and wants to transfer them to Africa . This is wishful thinking; in fact, it smacks of magical thinking.'

This also is my bone of contention with this type of populistic and romantic academism which seek to separate the past from the present.
The whole review of Ozodi can be read here:
Click to expand...

Commenting on the same book, Ali Mazrui. D Phil (Oxon) says, and I quote "This is a book of passionate sense of outrage and collective self-approach. The beginning of self-reform is self-criticism. This author manifests a combination of anguish, anger and patriotism"

I also urge you to grab the book and read it!!
 
Fundi Mchundo said:
Platitudes as usual. Since wen have we become the consumers of the world? I thought that honour belonged to the Unite States. Our rate of consumer goods is the lowest in the world. Had it been the other way round, nobody would have messed with us. It is easy to say that we should apply our brains without telling us how. As to the production of goods. Does he really think it is to do with worldwide acceptance. Hasn't he heard of tariffs? Hasn't anyone told him about the tariffs that kick in once one starts to export processed products rather than raw products? Didn't we try to process our cashewnuts and ended up with empty factories? And can he please tell us how one can embrace other's superiority in ONE way only! Like I said before, just another hack trying to score.

Amandla......
Click to expand...

C'mon. Go and read the book first!! am sure,you will come here and re-edit this post!!
 
No thanks, I'll pass. I refuse to read a book by anyone who calls himself a Nigger. The few excerpts that you guys have posted are further proof that I am right in my stance. The guy is definitely not a Dambisa Moyo.

Amandla.......
 
Mundu, I have had the honour of conversing with Dr. Mazrui on different occassions and I do respect his academic stature. If you read Ozodi's review you will find that Ozodi also comments on Chika's "combination of anguish, anger and patriotism" when he writes about the book: 'It reads like a speech given by a militant, a radical political activist excoriating black folk for their tendency to blame the white man for whatever is wrong with the race while doing nothing to right the situation by themselves."

I see where you pick up Mazrui's quote but in my opinion that does not tell the whole. Could you point me to the rest of Mazrui's review of this book?
 
Fundi Mchundo said:
No thanks, I'll pass. I refuse to read a book by anyone who calls himself a Nigger. The few excerpts that you guys have posted are further proof that I am right in my stance. The guy is definitely not a Dambisa Moyo.

Amandla.......
Click to expand...

Then stop bullshitting!
 
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