POWER #WordsOfTheProphet
Power is the only argument that satisfies man. Except the individual, the race or the nation has POWER that is exclusive; it means that that individual, race or nation will be bound by the will of the other who possesses this great qualification.
It is the physical and pugilistic power of Harry Wills that makes white men afraid to fight him. It was the industrial and scientific power of the Teutonic race that kept it for years as dictator of the economic and scientific policies of Europe. It is the naval and political
power of Great Britain that keeps her mistress of the seas. It is the commercial and financial power of the United States of America that makes her the greatest banker in the world. Hence it is advisable for the Negro to get power of every kind. Power in education, science,
industry, politics and higher government. That kind of power that will stand out signally, so that other races and nations can see, and if they will not see, then feel. Man is not satisfied or moved by prayers or petitions, but every man is
moved by that power of authority which forces him to do even against his will.
- Marcus Mosiah Garvey
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Trading Companies, Enslavement & The Colonial Process
The capitalist institution which came into most direct contact with African peasants was the colonial trading company: that is to say, a company specialising in moving goods to and from the colonies. The most notorious were
the French concerns, Compagnie Française d’Afrique Occidentale (CFAO) and Societé Commerciale Ouest Africaine (SCOA) and the British controlled United Africa Company (UAC). These were responsible for expatriating a great proportion of Africa’s wealth produced by peasant toil.
Several of the colonial trading companies already had African blood on their hands from participation in the slave trade. Thus, after French merchants in Bordeaux made fortunes from the European slave trade, they transferred that capital to the trade in groundnuts from Senegal...
The African working class produced a less spectacular surplus for export with regard to companies engaged in agriculture. Agricultural plantations were widespread in North, East and South Africa; and they also appeared in West Africa to a lesser extent. Their profits depended on
the incredibly low wages and harsh working conditions imposed on African agricultural labourers and on the fact that they invested very little capital in obtaining the land, which was robbed whole-sale from Africans by colonial powers and then sold to whites at nominal prices.
For instance, after the Kenya highlands had been declared ‘Crown Land’, the British handed over to Lord Delamere 100,000 acres of the best land at a cost of penny per acre. Lord Francis Scott purchased 350,000 acres, the East African Estates Ltd. got another 350,000 acres, and...
Profits from Mining Companies in the Colonial Process.
In the final analysis, the shareholders of the mining companies were the ones who benefited most of all. They remained in Europe and North America and collected fabulous dividends every year from the gold, diamonds,
manganese, uranium, etc. which were brought out of the South African sub-soil by African labour. For years, the capitalist press itself praised Southern Africa as an investment outlet returning super profits on capital invested. From the very beginning of the Scramble for Africa,
huge fortunes were made from gold and diamonds in Southern Africa by people like Cecil Rhodes. In the present century, both the investment and the outflow of surplus have increased. Investment was mainly concentrated in mining and finance where the profits were greatest.
Labour & Wage Disparities under European Colonialism cont...
Colonial governments discriminated against the employment of Africans in senior categories; and, whenever it happened that a white and a black filled the same post, the white man was sure to be paid considerably more.
This was true at all levels, ranging from civil service posts to mine workers. African salaried workers in the British colonies of Gold Coast and Nigeria were better off than their brothers in many other parts of the continent, but they were restricted to the ‘Junior staff’
level in the civil service. In the period before the last world war, European civil servants in the Gold Coast received an average of £40 per month, with quarters and other privileges. Africans got an average salary of £4. There were instances where one European in an
Man's first duty to himself is to discover himself. Who am I here? What is expected of me by my creator? Man in our world is a supreme being, and he owes no obligation to anybody or anything but the source that created him - a source that doesn't not interfere with him,
but expects from him the acts of man - that source we call God. Outside of that source he has an absolute power that can not successfully be challenged. Yet so many of us, and particularly members of our race, fail to realise this great responsibility that goes with power.
We must stand on our own two feet, and face all challenges, circumvent the evils that necessarily will beset us, overcome the obstacles, and push forward to our goal. This my dear friend is the job of real men & women in a world of alien opposition, determined to hold us back.
The program, to be explained in a few words, is that of universal industrial, educational, religious, social, and political freedom. The stranger will ask, “Why should you want political freedom when Victoria of England gave it to you eighty-four years ago, and Lincoln of
America, fifty-seven years ago?” I am tempted to answer for you, and to say that the present-day Negro does not believe in hypocrisy and camouflage. He believes in truth, in honesty, in justice. The freedom that Lincoln gave us means that half of the population of our race in...
America is still voteless and voiceless; all of the population of the race in America is deprived of that higher right of citizenship that makes each and everyone an equal under the constitution.
Religiously, we are still slaves to the doctrine of an alien race. It is true...