Comment by ChomskyNormal4m | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ChomskyNormal4m | Hacker News Reader

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ChomskyNormal4m

> Africans in Africa share little of the fervent anti-colonial attitude prominent in the American Black community here.

Like who, Umkhonto we Sizwe? Patrice Lumumba? The MPLA?

> African writers in Britain and Africa, respectively, write to disparage the export of the Black American anti-colonial perspective

Is this new? The South Africans had Buthelezi to go around the world criticizing the anti-apartheid movement, and there were ones before that.

Benedict Arnold ended up not sharing the anti-colonial attitude of his fellow Americans. Nor did Vidkun Quisling of his fellow Norwegians share anti-colonial attitudes. We are not unaware these people exist.

>Like who, Umkhonto we Sizwe? Patrice Lumumba? The MPLA?

We're talking ground-floor interactions from what I've seen that obviously do not speak to any kind of unanimity but a surprising extent nonetheless. One such video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkKi1vC_IEA

> Is this new? The South Africans had Buthelezi to go around the world criticizing the anti-apartheid movement, and there were ones before that.

The writers in question weren't criticizing the modern anti-racism movement in America, however, but the form of its response and its presumptions. Perhaps a minute difference but one nonetheless.

Also, if anti-colonial feelings in Africa are a black American export, I guess that means the 1879 victory of the Zulus over two British columns in the battle of Isandlwana were a black American export.

Because obviously nothing changed in 141 years in Africa's relationship with colonialism.

There is strong anti-colonialist sentiment still in Africa today. Again, I believe ignoring it and putting our heads in the sand is not the right way to go. You have to face down ethno-nationalists, or you end up in a very bad place. Just as you have to challenge ethno-nationalists in the US, you need to challenge them in Africa. In the end, they are bad for societies they operate in.

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