“But what had made possible so swift and thorough a conquest?” “First was the contribution to enemy intelligence made by various explorers. Among the best known of these scouts were Mungo Park, David Livingstone, Richard Burton, Heinrich Barth, John Clapperton, Rene Caille, Count Belzoni, Count Savorgnan de Brazza, Henry Morton Stanley, John Speke, Major Dixon Denham, William Balfour Baikie, Gaspard Mollien and Richard and John Lander. For nearly a century these intrepid intelligence agents had crisscrossed Africa, spying on the land, its rivers, its people and its states. They came wearing different disguises. Mollien came, disguised as a trader, to spy out conditions and chart entry routes to the Senegal and Gambia river basins. On one occasion Denham participated in a Kanuri slaving raid in order to find out, he told his companions, the fighting strength and organization of the Kanuri. Some were sponsored by Kings and governments; others by Christian missionary organizations. But irrespective of their sponsorship, they all served Europe’s imperialist purposes. For it was the intelligence they gathered, the maps they provided, that guided the assembled powers at Berlin in partitioning Africa, and that helped their soldiers in their march upon its states. That is why these spies are lionized as heroes in the textbooks the imperialist occupiers have written for Africa’s schools. We should remember them; we cannot afford to forget the contribution they made to our defeat.” Chinweizu “The West and the Rest of Us: White Predators, Black Slavers and the African Elite” Page 51
Posted on: Sun, 01 Sep 2013 19:14:48 +0000
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