William Gumede is a journalist and professor at the University of the Witwatersrand. He is a former ANC activist and leader of the student movement during apartheid.
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I was focusing on the politics—mass action, going to Bisho [site of a definitive showdown between demonstrators and police] (…) But that was not the real struggle—the real struggle was over economics. And I am disappointed in myself for being so naive.
Correct!
I was focusing on the politics—mass action, going to Bisho [site of a definitive showdown between demonstrators and police] (…) But that was not the real struggle—the real struggle was over economics. And I am disappointed in myself for being so naive.
Year:
Author Bio:
Source:
Interview with Naomi Klein (2007: 205).
Context:
According to Gumede, during the transition from apartheid to democracy in the early 1990s, everyone looked to the political negotiations as a guarantee of political freedom for the non-white South African population as a whole. Economic regulations did not receive much attention from ANC fighters. This enabled the white South African elite to secure economic power and therefore their wealth. The ANC government was disempowered in terms of economic policy, it could neither distribute land or water for free because these had been privatised, nor raise the minimum wage because of an agreement with the IMF (Klein 2010: 283, German edition).
Further Reading:
*William Gumede (2005): Thabo Mbeki and the Battle for the Soul of the ANC. Cape Town: Zebra Press.
*Naomi Klein (2007): The Shock Doctrine. The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. Toronto: Knopf Canada.
OK
Anyone who moves about without work or a job, without being able to prove that he has the means to support himself or is looking for an opportunity to do so, must be imprisoned for at least six weeks or made to do forced labour for up to six months. After the punishment is over, foreigners are to be expelled from the country and nationals to be taken to a corrections facility.
Correct!
Anyone who moves about without work or a job, without being able to prove that he has the means to support himself or is looking for an opportunity to do so, must be imprisoned for at least six weeks or made to do forced labour for up to six months. After the punishment is over, foreigners are to be expelled from the country and nationals to be taken to a corrections facility.
Year:
Author Bio:
Prussian Law on the Punishment of Vagrants (Prussia was a former German state).
Source:
Quote: Law on the Punishment of Vagrants, Beggars and the Work-shy. From January 6, 1843. In: Law Collection for the Royal Prussian States 1843. Berlin: Law Collection Office, p. 19.
Picture: Wikimedia
Context:
The Prussian Law on the Punishment of Vagrants, Beggars and the Work Shy legalised the imprisonment of homeless people in work houses. The peak of discrimination against those without recognised jobs or homes was reached during the Nazi era. In 1933, the persecution, detention and murder of so-called ‘work shy’ and ‘anti-social’ people began.
Further Reading:
*Peter Linebaugh & Marcus Rediker (2000): The Many-headed Hydra. New York: Verso. Chapter 2.
OK
“[H]ow to belong fully in this world that is common to all of us […] [?] But exclusion, discrimination, and selection on the basis of race continue to be structuring factors of inequality, the absence of rights, and contemporary domination […].”
Correct!
“[H]ow to belong fully in this world that is common to all of us […] [?] But exclusion, discrimination, and selection on the basis of race continue to be structuring factors of inequality, the absence of rights, and contemporary domination […].”
Year:
Author Bio:
Achille Mbembe (*1957) is a post-colonial theorist, philosopher and historian. He is a professor at the Witwatersrand University in Johannesburg.
Source:
Quote: Achille Mbembe (2017): Critique of Black Reason. Durham and London: Duke University Press, pp. 176-177.
Picture: Wikimedia. Creative Commons.
Context:
Mbembe develops a critical reflection on the Western notion of reason and rationality. He examines current dynamics of colonialism, racism and resistance and attempts to explore possibilities for a more just and solidary world order. He attempts to show the extent to which the goal of anti-colonial liberation struggles, the right to equal participation for all, remains relevant for the present day.
Further Reading:
*Achille Mbembe (2017): Critique of Black Reason. Durham and London: Duke University Press.
*Achille Mbembe (July 1, 2021): Notes on Late Eurocentrism. Translated by Carolyn Shread. Critical Inquiry.
OK
Wherever Christ murderers gather, the cross is mocked, God is blasphemed, the Father is not recognized, the Son is offended and the Holy Spirit is rejected. If the rites of the Jews are so sacred and venerable, then our way of life must be wrong. But if we go the right way, as is the case, then they go a deceptive way.
Correct!
Wherever Christ murderers gather, the cross is mocked, God is blasphemed, the Father is not recognized, the Son is offended and the Holy Spirit is rejected. If the rites of the Jews are so sacred and venerable, then our way of life must be wrong. But if we go the right way, as is the case, then they go a deceptive way.
Year:
Author Bio:
Turkey, John Chrysostom (344 or 349 – 407)
Source:
quoted from Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, Hitler’s willing executors, Berlin 1996, 72.
Context:
John Chrysostom was Archbishop of Constantinople in the 4th century and is revered today as one of the greatest Christian preachers. Throughout his life he attracted attention through his ascetic way of life as well as through his critical attitude towards state and church authorities. Because of his countless anti-Jewish sermons, he is considered an early founder of Christian anti-Judaism.
Further Reading:
OK
In all peoples in which Jews lived as tolerated or still live today, they turned out to be disruptors of inner peace and thus destroyers of national communities that had become natural. The Old Testament of the Bible, which the Jews claim contains their story, is at the same time the story of peoples who were materially and spiritually ruined by the Jews. However, the Jew has not shown himself to be the only disruptor of natural development in peoples. He is also the destroyer of peace among the peoples.
Correct!
In all peoples in which Jews lived as tolerated or still live today, they turned out to be disruptors of inner peace and thus destroyers of national communities that had become natural. The Old Testament of the Bible, which the Jews claim contains their story, is at the same time the story of peoples who were materially and spiritually ruined by the Jews. However, the Jew has not shown himself to be the only disruptor of natural development in peoples. He is also the destroyer of peace among the peoples.
Year:
Author Bio:
Julius Streicher (1885-1946)
Julius Streicher was editor of the anti-Semitic propaganda newspaper “Der Stürmer”, the leading anti-Semitic propaganda newspaper under National Socialism.
Source:
Julius Streicher, The Striker, October 17, 1940.
Context:
Joined ethnic movements at an early stage, he took part in the so-called Hitler Putsch in 1923, which earned him Hitler’s trust. After the transfer of power to the Nazis, Streicher was made head of the “Central Committee to Repel Jewish Atrocities and Boycotts”. In the Nuremberg trials, the court sentenced him to hang up for crimes against humanity in October 1946.
Further Reading:
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?view=detail&mid=C0BAED96B28B4212D5B3C0BAED96B28B4212D5B3&q=julius streicher&shtp=GetUrl&shid=7bb31e73-be37-42a1-854b-37eb59d99144&shtk=RGVyIEp1ZGVuaGV0emVyIC0gSnVsaXVzIFN0cmVpY2hlciBEb2t1IERldXRzY2g%3D&shdk=SnVsaXVzIFN0cmVpY2hlciAoKiAxMi4gRmVicnVhciAxODg1IGluIEZsZWluaGF1c2VuIGJlaSBBdWdzYnVyZzsg4oCgIDE2LiBPa3RvYmVyIDE5NDYgaW4gTsO8cm5iZXJnKSB3YXIgZWluIG5hdGlvbmFsc296aWFsaXN0aXNjaGVyIFBvbGl0aWtlci4gRXIgd2FyIEdyw7xuZGVyIC4gSnVsaXVzIFN0cmVpY2hlciAoKiAxMi4gSnVsaXVzIFN0cmVpY2hlciAoKiAxMi4gRmVicnVhciAxODg1IGluIEZsZWluaGF1c2VuIGJlaSBBdWdzYnVyZzsg4oCgIDE2LiBPa3RvYmVyIDE5NDYgaW4gTsO8cm5iZXJnKSB3YXIgZWluIG5hdGlvbmFsc296aWFsaXN0aXNjaGVyIFBvbGl0aWtlci4gRXIgd2FyIEdyw7xuZGVyIC4uLg%3D%3D&shhk=t0MSPrjlnhUkDL0PrUO%2FXvU5Z3bPC0wu%2FbkyoEr%2Bv%2Bc%3D&form=VDSHOT&shth=OVP.MYBgn_UkgM1sRSfEqVddSQEsDh
OK
Yes, my sin — my greater sin and even my greatest sin is that I nationalised Iran’s oil industry and discarded the system of political and economic exploitation by the world’s greatest empire. This at a cost to myself, my family; and at the risk of losing my life, my honour and my property. With God’s blessing and the will of the people, I fought this savage and dreadful system of international espionage and colonialism.
Correct!
Yes, my sin — my greater sin and even my greatest sin is that I nationalised Iran’s oil industry and discarded the system of political and economic exploitation by the world’s greatest empire. This at a cost to myself, my family; and at the risk of losing my life, my honour and my property. With God’s blessing and the will of the people, I fought this savage and dreadful system of international espionage and colonialism.
Year:
Author Bio:
Mohammad Mossadegh (1882-1967) was an Iranian lawyer, politician and the first prime minister of independent Iran. The quote is from his speech in court in 1953, in which he defended himself against charges of high treason.
Source:
Context:
As part of a wave of anti-colonial movements, Mohammad Mossadegh became Iran’s first democratically elected prime minister in 1951. In the same year, he was voted Man of the Year by the US Time Magazine for making the nationalisation of British-controlled oil production his first official act. However, in 1952 Dwight D. Eisenhower came to power in the USA, and he promoted a strongly anti-communist course and condemned any form of nationalisation. The CIA had previously noted that the situation in Iran could only be “saved” with a “new prime minister” (File Foreign Relations of the United States 1951: 87). From 1953 onwards, the CIA incited the ruling elite in Iran against Mossadegh and bribed the population with money, as corroborated by documents published in 2017 (Deutsche Welle 2017). In Latin America (e.g. Chile 1973, Allende vs. Pinochet), Africa (e.g. 1961 in Congo, Lumumba vs. Mobuto) and Asia (e.g. 1967 in Indonesia, Sukarno vs. Suharto), governments also emerged from socialist or anti-colonial movements and were overthrown and replaced by dictatorships.
Further Reading:
*Deutsche Welle (2017): 1953: Irans gestohlene Demokratie.
*Foreign Relations of the United States (1951-1954).
*Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung (2013): Zwischen Kolonialismus und Nationenbildung.
OK
They tried out one theory after the other on us. First they suspected my mother and her brothers; they accused him of murder out of greed. At the time of the murder, my father was at the peak of his economic success with his flower wholesale business. He made really good money. There were always bundles of bills hidden under my parents’ mattress. It was later said that my father was probably a dealer and didn’t buy flowers in Holland, but drugs.
Correct!
They tried out one theory after the other on us. First they suspected my mother and her brothers; they accused him of murder out of greed. At the time of the murder, my father was at the peak of his economic success with his flower wholesale business. He made really good money. There were always bundles of bills hidden under my parents’ mattress. It was later said that my father was probably a dealer and didn’t buy flowers in Holland, but drugs.
Year:
Author Bio:
Semiya Şimşek (b. 1986) is a pedagogist and the daughter of Enver Şimşek, who was the first person to be murdered by the NSU. Semiya Şimşek has become an important voice for victims’ relatives. In her book Painful Homeland: Germany and the Murder of My Father, she works through her experiences around the murder of her father. Semiya Şimşek left Germany and now lives in Turkey.
Source:
Süddeutsche Magazin, 10/2013.
Context:
Between 2000 and 2007, the neo-Nazi terrorist organisation National Socialist Underground (NSU) murdered nine migrants and one policewoman: Enver Şimşek, Abdurrahim Özüdoğru, Süleyman Taşköprü, Habil Kılıç, Mehmet Turgut, İsmail Yaşar, Theodoros Boulgarides, Mehmet Kubaşık, Halit Yozgat Michele Kiesewetter.
Both the NSU and investigators kept these crimes undercover for more than ten years until the NSU exposed itself with a video in 2011. After it became public, some members of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution destroyed relevant files, and high-ranking officers for the Protection of the Constitution resigned. Instead of pursuing actual clues, for years, investigators targeted the victims’ relatives and accused them of criminal activities. The unprecedented right-wing terrorist crimes of the NSU, the investigations and the subsequent trial illustrate only too well the deeply rooted institutional racism of the police, the secret service and courtrooms. The victims’ relatives, co-plaintiffs, activists and critical journalists denounced the fact that during the entire process, right-wing extremist groups were never investigated.
Further Reading:
*NSU Watch.
*wsws.org (Dietmar Henning, 15.07.2015): Documentary examines unanswered questions about the National Socialist Underground.
OK
For a long time we lived under the dictatorship of the Communists, but now we have found out that life under the dictatorship of business people is no better. They couldn’t care less about what country they are in.
Correct!
For a long time we lived under the dictatorship of the Communists, but now we have found out that life under the dictatorship of business people is no better. They couldn’t care less about what country they are in.
Year:
Author Bio:
Grigori Gorin (1940-2000) was a Russian-Jewish doctor, screenwriter, and novelist.
Source:
Boris Kagarlitsky (1994): Square Wheels: How Russian Democracy got Derailed. New York: Monthly Review Press, p. 191.
Context:
Through the transformation processes of glasnost (public) and perestroika (reorganisation), Mikhail Gorbachev, President of the Soviet republics, attempted to orchestrate a democratic transition in the Soviet Union. However, since Russia was heavily indebted, it had to implement economic reforms in order to get credit. With the dissolution of the USSR, Russian President Boris Yeltsin deposed Gorbachev and ruled by special decree for a year during the economic crisis. Valuable state property was sold off. For example, 40% of the oil company which had annual sales of around US$ 190 billion (2006) was sold for US$ 88 million (Klein 2007: 232). In 1999, he handed power to Putin, whose first act was to guarantee Yeltsin immunity (ibid.: 237).
Further Reading:
*Aris Chatzistefanou & Katerina Kitidi (2012): Katastroika. Documentary.
*Naomi Klein (2007): The Shock Doctrine. The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. Toronto: Knopf Canada.
OK
There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.
Correct!
There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.
Year:
Author Bio:
Warren Buffett (born 1930) is a US American entrepreneur, investor, and multi-billionaire.
Source:
Zitat: Ben Stein (26.11.2006): In Class Warfare, Guess Which Class Is Winning. In: New York Times.
Bild: www.saha.org.za/udf/full/671.jpg
Context:
For Buffet, war is about the distribution of economic resources. Since the 19th century, workers’ movements in many parts of the world have been fighting for their social and economic rights, for example, the 8 hour work day which was established in Germany in 1918. However, from the 1980s onwards, social rights have been cut back across the world, to the benefit of the rich. US President Ronald Reagan and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the UK were crucial protagonists here. Thatcher smashed the unions, describing striking miners in 1984 as the ‘enemy within’. Sociologist Wilhelm Heitmeyer also talked about a ‘class struggle from above’ in the case of Germany. Yet this struggle was confronted with many forms of resistance. In 1987, more than 300,000 black miners organised a strike in apartheid controlled South Africa, which was violently suppressed.
Further Reading:
*New York Times (16.08.1987): Miners’ Strike in South Africa Raises the Spirit of Resistance
OK
We have given jobs to every family that has lost their homes and land to the Dock Complex.
Correct!
We have given jobs to every family that has lost their homes and land to the Dock Complex.
Year:
Author Bio:
M.L. Meena (birthdate unknown) was Deputy Chairman of the Haldia Dock Complex in Calcutta, India.
Source:
Quoted in Samata Biwas (2016): Haldia: Logistics and its Other(s). Workshop-paper Kolkata Research Group.
Context:
A lot of migration also takes place within states. When India freed itself from British colonial rule in 1947, the former colony was divided into the independent states of India and Pakistan. “For more than ten million people on both sides of the new border, this was tantamount to resettlement, flight and expulsion” (Federal Agency for Civic Education (2014): The Partition of British India 1947). Other forced migrations take place because of so-called development projects. The quote comes from the Kolkatta area of West Bengal, where many people were dispossessed for the construction of the dock and harbour complex. Many have been waiting for compensation for decades.
Further Reading:
*Samata Biswas (2017): Haldia, A Port City in India.
*Kalim Siddiqui (2012): Development and Displacement in India: Reforming the
Economy towards Sustainability.
OK
Poor countries – and poor people – differ from rich ones not only because they have less capital but because they have less knowledge (…) Indeed, even greater than the knowledge gap is the gap in the capacity to create knowledge.
Correct!
Poor countries – and poor people – differ from rich ones not only because they have less capital but because they have less knowledge (…) Indeed, even greater than the knowledge gap is the gap in the capacity to create knowledge.
Year:
Author Bio:
The World Bank is a Washington D.C. (USA) based multinational development bank. Its original purpose was to finance the reconstruction of states destroyed by World War II. Today its core task is to promote the economic development of “less developed” member states through financial aid, advice and technical assistance.
Source:
Weltbank, (1998/99): World Development Report: Knowledge for Development, New York: Oxford University Press, p. 1f.
Context:
The World Bank evaluates the development status of countries according to the logic of Western capitalist economies. The assumption that only conformity with these standards can lead to progress in the Global South makes any recognition of non-Western values and world views impossible. From this prevailing development policy perspective, other ways of life and social forms are considered deficient. This is despite the fact the Western road to development – e.g. through the exploitation and destruction of people and nature – has not proven to be sustainable. Since its founding in 1946, the World Bank chairmen have all, with only two exceptions, been white, male US-Americans. Numerous social movements and NGOs in the Global North (attac) and South (Focus on the Global South) have been criticising and resisting World Bank policies for decades.
Further Reading:
*Grace Blakeley (2020): The Great World Bank Robbery: An Interview with Walden Bello (Podcast). Tribune Magazine.
OK
(…) the refugees have to be thrown out, and the farmers have to help out.
Correct!
(…) the refugees have to be thrown out, and the farmers have to help out.
Year:
Author Bio:
Jakob Fischbacher (1886-1972) founded the Bavarian Party in 1946, which saw itself as a meeting place for conservatives and separatists for an independent Bavaria. Central to the party’s project was defence against German refugees from the East.
Source:
Der Spiegel 16/1947: Preußen-Attacke.
Context:
After the Second World War, there was not only transnational migration, but large parts of the population also migrated within the new states. In Germany, 14 million expelled Germans migrated west from the eastern areas occupied during fascism, and from former parts of Germany. In Bavaria in the years up to 1950, the population increased by almost 30%. Although the Eastern refugees were included in the “völkisch” notion of German identity, they were vehemently repelled for reasons of radical redistribution. Andreas Schachner of the Bavarian Party said that so many foreigners were using Bavarian mangers “that pogroms would be necessary to restore justice” (Hoefer 2015). These slogans are echoed in current discussions that have accompanied the movements of refugees and migrants to Europe since the early 2010s.
Further Reading:
*Carsten Hoefer (2015): “Die Flüchtlinge müssen hinausgeworfen werden.”
OK
What are you doing here, my comrade? Ding Ding. Who brought you here through evil betrayal? Ding Ding. Is that the boat that betrayed you? Ding Ding. Or was it the smuggler who lied to you? Ding Ding. How the children drowned in their mother’s arms. Ding Ding. Europe’s peoples thank the smugglers. Ding Ding.
Correct!
What are you doing here, my comrade? Ding Ding. Who brought you here through evil betrayal? Ding Ding. Is that the boat that betrayed you? Ding Ding. Or was it the smuggler who lied to you? Ding Ding. How the children drowned in their mother’s arms. Ding Ding. Europe’s peoples thank the smugglers. Ding Ding.
Year:
Author Bio:
Mohsen Lihidheb (date of birth unknown), Tunisian fisherman and artist, founder of the Museum of the Sea.
Source:
Deutschlandfunk (02.07.2020): Geflüchtete in Tunesien
Die Toten von Zarzis.
Context:
Every year, thousands of people make their way from Africa to Europe to flee from poverty, war, discrimination and climate catastrophe. During some periods up to 2,000 people arrive in Lampedusa in a single day (Der Standard, 11 May, 2021). The frequently deadly borders of Fortress Europe are made up of the Atlantic Ocean around the Canary Islands, the Greek border at the Evros river and, above all, the Mediterranean Sea. People on the move are used by politicians for geostrategic purposes (Deutschlandfunk, 29 December, 2021), pushed back by coast guards (Graf 2021), exploited by farmers (globalslaveryindex.org) and interned in camps (Arte TV, 1 December, 2021). But there are also solidarity initiatives and self-organisation by migrants and individuals like Mohsen Lihidheb, who draw attention to the structures of exploitation and push for change to the migration regime.
Further Reading:
*Der Standard (11.05.2021): Fluchtbewegung im Mittelmeer: Der jährliche Teufelskreis.
*Deutschlandfunk (29.12.2021): Geflüchtete an der polnisch-belarusischen Grenze. Tote im Schnee – und ein grünes Licht der Hoffnung.
*Laura Graf (2021): Pushbacks dokumentieren. Ungehorsame Beobachtungen von Grenzgewalt auf der Balkanroute.
*Global Slavery Index (2018): Country Study Germany.
*Arte (2021): Lager der Schande. Europas Libyen Deal.
OK
He who hung the earth in its place is hanged. / He who fastened the heavens is fastened to the cross. / He who fastened all things is fastened to the wood. / The Lord is reviled, God is murdered ./ King Israel was slain by Israelite hands.
Correct!
He who hung the earth in its place is hanged. / He who fastened the heavens is fastened to the cross. / He who fastened all things is fastened to the wood. / The Lord is reviled, God is murdered ./ King Israel was slain by Israelite hands.
Year:
Author Bio:
Turkey, Melitio of Sardis (ca.120-185)
Melitio of Sardis appeared in the 2nd century as Bishop of Sardis in what is now Turkey. He is venerated as a saint by the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches.
Source:
Melitio von Sardes, Passover Homilie, quoted by Karl-Erich Grözinger, Die “Gottesmörder, in: Julius H. Schoeps / Joachim Schlör (ed.), Bilder der Judenfeindschaft, Augsburg 1999, 57.
Context:
His writings about the Jews as murderers of God, published between 160 and 170, are considered important sources for the development of Christian anti-Judaism. Melito saw the destruction of the temple as well as the suffering of the Jews in the Diaspora as a consequence of their god-murder.
Further Reading:
Christlicher Antijudaismus, ein Wegbereiter des Antisemitismus – juedspurenhuenfelderlands Webseite!
OK
There were 60,000 people living on this island, including the Indians; so that from XXXX to XXXX, over 3,000,000 people had perished from war, slavery, and the mines. Who in future generations will believe this? I myself writing it as a knowledgeable eyewitness can hardly believe it.
Correct!
There were 60,000 people living on this island, including the Indians; so that from XXXX to XXXX, over 3,000,000 people had perished from war, slavery, and the mines. Who in future generations will believe this? I myself writing it as a knowledgeable eyewitness can hardly believe it.
Year:
Author Bio:
Bartolomé de las Casas (1484-1566) was a member of the Dominican Order and active as a bishop in the Spanish colonies in America. The Valladolid dispute (1550-1551) between de las Casas and the philosopher Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda dealt with the question of the legitimacy of the enslavement of the indigenous population of America. Sepúlveda represented the interests of Spanish landowners, de las Casas pointed out the violent acts of the Spaniards. The missing dates are 1494 and 1508, a period of 14 years.
Source:
Howard Zinn (1980): The People’s History of The United States. New York: Harper Collins.
Context:
In the first century of America’s occupation, the population decreased by approximately 75 million (95% in some areas) as a consequence of imported disease and murder (Federici 2009: 85f.). As early as the 1560s, there were resistance movements against the Spaniards. For example, members of the Taki Onqoy movement (1560-1572), which arose in what is now Peru, were opposed to any cooperation with the Europeans and advocated an alliance of Andean indigenous peoples to end European colonisation. They rejected Christianity and Christian names as well as food or other consignments from the Spaniards, they paid no tribute and did not work for the conquerors (Stern 1982: 50ff.).
Further Reading:
*Steven J. Stern (1982): Peru‘s Indian Peoples and the Challenge of Spanish Conquest. Huamanga to 1640. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, S. 50ff.
*Silvia Federici (2009): Caliban and the Witch. Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation. New York: Autonomedia.
OK
Surplus from Africa was partly used to offer a few more benefits to European workers and served as a bribe to make the latter less revolutionary. The bribe came in the form of increased wages, better working conditions, and expanded social services. The benefits of colonialism were diffused throughout European society in many ways. (…) Meanwhile, the capitalist still made his fortune by ensuring that the Ivory Coast or Colombian grower got no
price increases.
Correct!
Surplus from Africa was partly used to offer a few more benefits to European workers and served as a bribe to make the latter less revolutionary. The bribe came in the form of increased wages, better working conditions, and expanded social services. The benefits of colonialism were diffused throughout European society in many ways. (…) Meanwhile, the capitalist still made his fortune by ensuring that the Ivory Coast or Colombian grower got no
price increases.
Year:
Author Bio:
Walter Rodney (1942-1980) was a Marxist historian and politician from Guyana. Born into a working-class family, he studied in Guyana and Jamaica and taught in Germany and Tanzania. He was killed in a bomb attack in 1980 while campaigning for the Working People’s Alliance election campaign. In 2015, a commission of inquiry found that the attack had originated from within the Guyanese government.
Source:
Quote: Walter Rodney (1975): Afrika. Die Geschichte einer Unterentwicklung. Berlin: Klaus Wagenbach, p. 173, German edition.
Picture: Wikimedia
Context:
The main beneficiaries of colonial conquest and plunder were European companies and colonial states. In addition, both the resources that were stolen from colonised areas and the exploitation of their people helped to defuse conflicts between labour and capital in the metropolises. There, the working classes were given a share of colonial exploitation through, for example, the cheap availability of consumer goods such as sugar and coffee. This encouraged the European working class to show solidarity with the ruling class in their own country rather than with the dispossessed on other continents. In order to achieve this cross-class “solidarity”, discourses of racism and national unity were also deployed, especially from the 19th century onwards.
Further Reading:
*Walter Rodney (1973): How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. London: Bogle-L’Ouverture Publications & Dar-Es-Salaam: Tanzanian Publishing House.
*Benedict Anderson (1983): Imagined Communities. Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism. London & New York: Verso.
OK
“In our struggle for much-needed vaccines, South Africa has been forced to spend unimaginable sums on overpriced doses of vaccine. We were forced into contracts on unfair and undemocratic terms that were completely one-sided.”
Correct!
“In our struggle for much-needed vaccines, South Africa has been forced to spend unimaginable sums on overpriced doses of vaccine. We were forced into contracts on unfair and undemocratic terms that were completely one-sided.”
Year:
Author Bio:
Fatima Hassan is a South African human rights lawyer and social justice activist and founder of the “Health Justice Initiative” in South Africa.
She won the Calgary Peace Prize in 2022 for her work in uncovering inequalities in the global distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, among other things.
Source:
Citation source: hil/aerzteblatt.de (19.09.23): ” High vaccine prices in South Africa: pharmaceutical companies and vaccine alliance criticized“
Context:
The coronavirus pandemic has once again highlighted the global inequalities in terms of medical care. Many countries in the Global North secured vaccine doses that far exceeded the size of their populations. Germany, for example, had 116.4 million Covid-19 vaccine doses in stock in February 2023, out of a population of 84 million. This vaccine nationalism (the tendency of wealthy countries to reserve vaccines for themselves) has led to shortages and higher prices on the international market. This made it difficult for poorer countries to gain access to affordable vaccines. In April 2020, the COVAX initiative was founded by several supranational institutions to coordinate global vaccine distribution. However, the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights criticized in April 2021 that COVAX cannot solve the problem of globally insufficient vaccine production. This would require technical support and, in particular, concessions in the area of intellectual property (patents). The Africa Coordinator of the People’s Vaccine Alliance Maaza Seyoum criticizes the system and speaks of “systemic racism” for the global community’s inadequate response to the COVID-19 pandemic in poorer countries(The Guardian, 26.08.2022).
Further Reading:
*Edna Bonhomme (27.04.2022): Diseases of Relevance. London Review of Books.
*Fatima Hassan (23.05.2022): Vaccine apartheid is racist and wrong (PLOS Blogs Speaking of Medicine and Health)
OK
White Man’s work eat people.
Correct!
White Man’s work eat people.
Year:
Author Bio:
Mossi proverb from what was then Upper Volta and is today Burkina Faso.
Source:
Quote: John C. Caldwell (1990): The Social Repercussions of Colonial Rule: Demographic Ascpects. In: Albert Adu Boahen (Hrsg): General History of Africa. VII. Africa under Colonial Domination 1880-1935. London: Heinemann, p. 475. The year (1900) is an approximation.
Picture: Wikimedia
Context:
Enslaved Africans were forced to work on colonisers’ plantations and infrastructure projects (Linebaugh and Rediker, 2008: 16, German edition). For example, in the early 20th century, before WW1, one fifth of the ‘workforce’ in the German colony of Cameroon (150 to 200 people of every 1000, see Caldwell, 1990) died of the hardships and diseases of plantation and railway construction work. This high mortality rate was also at the root of the Mossi proverb in today’s Burkina Faso.
Further Reading:
*John C. Caldwell (1990): The social repercussions of colonial rule: demographic ascpects. In: Albert Adu Boahen (Hrsg): General History of Africa. VII. Africa under Colonial Domination 1880-1935. London: Heinemann, S. 458-486.
*Peter Linebaugh & Marcus Rediker (2000): The Many-headed Hydra. New York: Verso.
OK
Here I am no longer in my homeland; and they robbed me of it in a very specific way. The whole environment has become foreign (to me). It starts with the smell and goes all the way to the images on the streets.
Correct!
Here I am no longer in my homeland; and they robbed me of it in a very specific way. The whole environment has become foreign (to me). It starts with the smell and goes all the way to the images on the streets.
Year:
Author Bio:
Heinrich Lummer (1932-2019) was a CDU politician and was Senator for the Interior of Berlin state from 1981-1986.
Source:
David Clay Large (2002): Berlin. Biographie einer Stadt. STADT_VERLAG, p. 441.
Context:
The former Senator for the Interior of Berlin state, Heinrich Lummer, became notorious for the corruption scandals he was involved in and his support for the Federal Intelligence Service, as well as his inclusion of right-wing extremists in the CDU. Lummer also attracted attention with racist and anti-Semitic statements in which he campaigned against the “foreign infiltration” of the country, as this quote makes clear. These discourses also contributed to the image that persisted for many years amongst white Germans, of Kreuzberg neighbourhood as a dangerous criminal ghetto. The area was in fact a relatively safe environment for its residents, in that within it, they faced less persecution by the right-wing. Terms like “Türkenkinder”, “social impoverishment” and “Turkish colony” were used in a routine manner by the magazine Der Spiegel. This quote refers to Kreuzberg before its sweeping gentrification, and describes the area during the 1980s, when an estimated 30,000 people from Turkey lived there, for which reason it was called “Little Istanbul”. Kreuzburg has often been compared with the New York boroughs of the Bronx, Harlem and Brooklyn, which have been similarly stigmatised and criminalised.
Further Reading:
*Iman Attia (2007): Orient- und IslamBilder. Interdisziplinäre Beiträge zu Orientalismus und antimuslimischem Rassismus, Münster: Unrast.
*Çagrı Kahveci (2017): Migrantische Selbstorganisierung im Kampf gegen Rassismus. Die politische Praxis ausgewählter antirassistischer Gruppen türkeistämmiger Migrant*innen, Münster: Unrast.
OK
Give a man a fish and he can eat for a day. Give him a fishing rod and he can feed himself. Alternatively, don’t poison the fishing waters, abduct his great-grandparents into slavery, then turn up 400 years later on your gap year talking a lot of sh*te about fish.
Correct!
Give a man a fish and he can eat for a day. Give him a fishing rod and he can feed himself. Alternatively, don’t poison the fishing waters, abduct his great-grandparents into slavery, then turn up 400 years later on your gap year talking a lot of sh*te about fish.
Year:
Author Bio:
Frankie Boyle (born in 1972) is a Scottish comedian.
Source:
Frankie Boyle (2015): Britain’s criminally stupid attitudes to race and immigration are beyond parody.
Context:
The quote is from a discussion about anti-migration policies in Great Britain. Boyle claims that poverty and migration have to be associated with the colonial past and exploitation by the British Empire. He also parodies British development aid: “Thanks for the gold, guys, thanks for the diamonds. We did a fundraiser and got you fishing rods.”
Further Reading:
Timo Kiesel / Carolin Philipp (2011): white charity. Blackness and whiteness on charity add posters..
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1500
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2011