The Legacy of Violence of the British Empire

Queen Elizabeth II in Nigeria

The recent death of the late British monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, has caused many to reflect on the legacy of violence of the British Empire.  The Empire, and the violence associated with it,  continued into the reign of Elizabeth II.  Millions of people in Africa, India and many other places were on the receiving end of this violence, and had their homes destroyed and their lives disrupted.  Many lost their lands and their livestock, as the British settlers took them by force.  And many lost their lives.  

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One important question which arises at this time is, how much did the late monarch actually know about what went on?  Churchill is quoted as saying, in the early 20th century, that it was a good thing the House of Commons don't know what they were doing [in Kenya].  "If they did, our East Africa programme would be under a cloud".   

Kenyans had written to Parliament many times, but received no response.  For more about this, see the documentary, Kenya, White Man's Country.   

Here are two more documentaries on this subject:  

​Kenyan History: The European Invasion! (1890 - 1930) [African History]

​Kenyan History (Part 3): The Empire Strikes Back [1952 - 1960]

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WARNING:   All of these documentaries contain disturbing images and information.  

 

On at least one occasion, it is known that Her Majesty was lied to about this situation. 

I have blogged about the role of the Empire in Kenya, where thousands of Kenya were killed during the "Emergency".  

For more about this, see:  The First Grader.  

Go here for an article on the Empire and how it is still impacting on African people today.  

Go here for more blogs about African history.  

Go here for more blogs about Black history.  

 

 

 

Black History: Rosewood

We have heard about the Black Wall Street.  Other Black communities were also destroyed by racist violence, including Rosewood, Florida.

Rosewood was attacked and destroyed by a racist mob.  Even the children  had to hide, or run for their lives when there was nowhere left to hide.   

Go here for more Black history posts.

Please leave your comments below, and please share this with your networks.  Thanks.  

Black History Film: Freedom Riders

Bombed Freedom Rides Bus

Click here for the Blogging Carnival for Nonviolence 2016.  

Have you ever gone into McDonald's, Burger King, Pizza Hut, KFC or indeed, any fast food place to buy and eat a meal? I am sure at some point we have all patronised some such establishment, or a café or diner.

Have you ever reflected on the fact that there was a time we were not allowed to enter such places?

The documentary Freedom Riders covers a period in 1961 when people – both Black and white – challenged the laws and customs that forbade Black and white people from mixing or co-mingling. The film contains archive footage as well as interviews with some of the original Freedom Riders.

Freedom Riders, a hard-hitting documentary, depicts when members of CORE – the Commission on Racial Equality – embarked on a journey to test a recent ruling by the Supreme Court which had declared segragation on interstate buses to be unconstitutional. They set out to test whether Federal law was being enforced.

The journey began in Washington, D.C. The Freedom Riders boarded buses to Atlanta, GA, where they met with Martin Luther King. They were excited to meet with him and hoped he would join them. But he cautioned them not to continue their quest, and to use methods that were less confrontational.

At this point, I admit to being confused. While applauding their courage, I do not understand why these young people chose to put themselves in extreme danger rather than finding another, less violent way to address the issue.

The Freedom Riders continued on their way, heading towards Birmingham, AL. One group rode a Greyhound bus (coach), the other used Trailways. The Greyhound never made it to its destination - it was firebombed by a racist mob. The Trailways bus arrived in Birmingham to be greeted by another racist mob. Bull Connor, Birmingham's Chief of Police, had made a deal with the Ku Klux Klan to allow the mob to assault the Freedom Riders for 15 minutes before the police arrived.

Because they were confronted by such extreme force, the Freedom Riders resolved to continue on their journey. They refused to be intimidated into giving up. This much I do understand and, again, applaud.

The Freedom Riders were then joined by fresh troops from Fisk University in Nashville, TN. Each had signed his or her last will and testament before joining the Freedom Rides. As time went on, more and more people joined them.

The film documents the dirty deals that were done, such as the one in Birmingham I mentioned above. At one point, the riders were holed up in the First Baptist Church with MLK, who was on the phone to the then Attorney General Bobby Kennedy. The Kennedies had not taken much notice of the need to enforce Federal law forbidding segregation up until then, and as Julian Bond says, civil rights were “an afterthought” to them. But MLK insisted they take action, and the Freedom Riders captured their attention and that of the nation. The leaders got behind the Freedom Riders and their efforts were reported internationally, shaming America and the values our nation was meant to represent. 

 

The actions of the Freedom Riders, and the support of MLK and other prominent leaders such as the Reverend Ralph Abernathy, led to the Riders securing a high level of protection for part of their journey. This demonstrated that the State and Federal governments could have afforded them that protection from the start. This takes me back to my original question. Why did the Riders not insist on getting government protection before they started out? Or why diid they not use less violent strategies?

Unfortunately, the story did not end there. The Riders suffered more brutal racist violence. In Jackson, Miss, they were sentenced to hard labour at the notorious Parchman State Prison. Again, this was intended to discourage them but had the opposite effect. The prison became one of the stops on the Freedom Rides and over 300 of the riders served time there – under a law that had been declared unconstitutional.

I have to admire the Riders' ingenuity. Nothing and no one was going to stop them. They turned every adversity into an advantage. They even composed a song about the Parchman prison. 

For more about Parchman Prison, see Worse than Slavery: Parchman Farm and the Ordeal of Jim Crow Justice.  

The Freedom Riders' quest was a foolhardy one – in terms of the methods they used - and led to a great deal of suffering which, to my mind, was preventable. However, the courage and determination of these young people spurred the Federal Government to take action and, in the end, led President Kennedy to call for an end to all segregation.

The film draws some very uplifting and inspiring conclusions. People from all over the United States, from different races and religions, and different backgrounds, came together and put their lives on the line to put an end to racial injustice.

I definitely recommend you see this film.

Please leave your comments below and please share this with your networks. Thanks.

Filmmaker Ken Fero on Deaths in Police Custody

Joy Gardner

There's a reason why everyone in my neighbourhood in South London knows who Trayvon Martin was.

A few months ago, a local public meeting was held. The posters all featured a photo of Trayvon. No caption, no explanation. But everyone in this area knows that similar things happen here.

I know Trayvon was not killed by the police, but his killing was sanctioned by the courts.

BFI London South Bank recently held a day on deaths in police custody, as part of the African Odysseys ongoing film series.

Filmmaker Ken Fero, director of numerous documentaries including the multi-award-winning Injustice, spoke in the morning and screened clips from his films. In the afternoon, two of those films were screened.

Injustice chronicles the fight for justice of seven families whose members died in police custody. None of the police officers involved in these killings have been prosecuted or disciplined. Six of the families are Black (African Caribbean), the seventh is Irish. An Irishman was gunned down as he walked through Brixton carrying a wooden table leg. The police stated they thought he was armed with a gun.

All of these families are still continuing to fight for justice.

Injustice has never been shown on UK television. When it was first released in 2001, every time it was due to be shown in cinemas, the police would phone the cinema about 15 minutes before the screening was due to start, threatening legal action. They claimed the film “might be libellous”.

Ken Fero, filmmaker

However, as Fero explained at the BFI, the audience inevitably contained someone who owned a business or ran a community centre or another venue. So the audience would decamp down the street, and the film would be screened.

Like a lot of people, I was very keen to see the film, and I saw it in a barbershop in South London. All I can say is, if you haven't seen Injustice, you need to see it.

Fero has made many other films about human rights abuses committed in Britain and other European countries, notably Germany and France. It was, frankly, disturbing to hear him say how many times he has filmed some of the same families. For example, the family of Joy Gardner, a Jamaican citizen who died in police custody in 1993.

Joy Gardner suffocated whilst in police restraints. The press labelled her an illegal immigrant and, as Fero pointed out, ignored the fact that other labels could equally be applied to her. Like “student” and “mother”.

He also said that, between 2001 and 2011, another 1,000 people died in police custody. This is an escalation, as more than 1,000 deaths in police custody had occurred in the previous 30 years.

Fero said he makes these films in order to inspire people and educate them about how to take action. He told me that he doesn't want to continue to make these films but, as I am sure he would agree, it is vital that he does.

And while we are collectively mourning Michael Brown, Eric Garner and all the others, we are aware that these things also happen here.

Please join us for the International Summit on Nonviolence today.

See also: Deaths in Police Custody.

Fire in the Blood Documentary

Fire in the Blood is the true story of how the pharmaceuticals companies conspired to stop people in Africa and other parts of the world from having access to affordable HIV meds.  

The key word here is "affordable". 

I saw this documentary a couple of years ago, but it has taken me until now to blog about it, because it upset me so much.  It is a very disturbing film.  

As we know, the HIV virus mutates and people have to change their meds every few years, to get hold of the most up-to-date and effective meds.  

Drugs laboratories in India were producing generic versions of popular meds and selling them in many different markets, including the United States.  This had been going on for many years. 

But when they started producing HIV meds, this was seen as a problem.  Some of the major pharmaceuticals companies, which were producing their own brands of AIDS and HIV meds, conspired to stop them from producing meds which would be affordable in places where people, and governments, have limited funds for purchasing meds.  

So a lot of people in African countries, Latin American countries and others were prevented from getting hold of these meds at affordable prices.  This has been called "genocide".  

Fire in the Blood breaks it down.  It shows exactly what was done and how the U.S. government conspired with the pharmaceuticals companies.  

This is not an easy film to watch, and it does not have a happy ending.  

Having said this, Fire in the Blood demonstrates why we must become less dependent on pharmaceuticals to treat serious illnesses, including HIV and AIDS.  We must learn to use other methods, including traditional methods of healing, as well as complementary therapies and other methods, alongside pharmaceuticals.  

Although pharmaceuticals have saved millions of lives, and are continuing to do so, we also need to use other methods.  

Black Film: 83 Days

At a recent African Odysseys film event, we were privileged to view the trailer for 83 Days. 

George Stinney Jr. was a 14-year-old boy who was accused of murdering two white girls in South Carolina in 1944.  They had asked him where they could pick flowers and he had given them directions. 

A number of people were rounded up once the girls’ bodies were found, but they were all let go after George admitted he had seen the girls and given them  directions. 

George’s family were first taken out of the County, then out of the State.  So there he was, all alone, with no one to support or advise him.

The officials said he had confessed to the murder of these two girls, but they did not produce a confession.  When he was put on trial, his court-appointed lawyer was a tax attorney with no trial experience, who offered no defense.  There was no evidence against George, but he was convicted.   To this day, there is no transcript of the trial. 

So, at the age of 14, George Stinney Jr. became the youngest-ever person to be executed in the United States.  (However, we are still imprisoning children.) 

The producer, Ray Brown, said they had come up against opposition while researching this film.  As a result of their efforts,  George Stinney Jr. has now been pardoned.  

This is a story that needs to be told, and I am glad the film will be released next year.  Unfortunately, we need to remember that this was just one of a long line of State-sponsored murders of people of African heritage – and not just in the U.S.A. 

 Click here for more details of 83 Days. 

Sweet Crude - The Niger Delta

Sweet Crude - the Niger Delta

Black History Studies recently screened the documentary "Sweet Crude", about the Niger Delta. 

I am going to say up front that I was upset by this film, although I was aware of the situation in the Niger Delta, having seen a film produced by the BBC a few years ago which covered much of the same ground.  

It is vitally important that Black History Studies continue to screen these kinds of films and provide us with the information we need about the experience of African people all over the world.  

It is equally important that we remember we can transform the situation.  More about this later. 

Oil was discovered in the Niger Delta in 1956.  Once international oil giants Shell and Chevron moved in, they devastated the region, with the complicity of successive Nigerian military regimes.  For more about modern Nigerian history, see Naij:  A Film History of Nigeria.  

The natural life expectancy in the Niger Delta is in the sixties; today, the life expectancy is 40.  Forty.  Four-zero.  

During the enslavement period, the Niger Delta was known as the "slave coast".  Many thousands of people were taken down the river in chains, to be sold in the West. 

There is a long history of resistance in the region.  

Today, because of the constant illegal burning of natural gas released by the oil drilling, toxic chemicals are released which pollute the air and the water and destroy the wildlife.  The rain that falls in the Niger Delta is toxic enough to destroy metal roofs.  

There are few, if any, schools in the Niger Delta. The Nigerian government and the oil companies want to drive the locals off their ancestral lands.  

You can view the trailer below. 

One of the most disturbing episodes covered by Sweet Crude was when Director Sandy Cioffi, having cultivated a relationship with MEND (The Movement to Emancipate the Niger Delta), arranged for a member of MEND to be interviewed on Nightline.  

MEND wanted the international media to cover the situation.  A member of MEND courageously agreed to be interviewed on camera, but the interviewer repeatedly asked him if he was a terrorist and if M\END were holding hostages.  When the MEND member answered "no", the interviewer  appeared bored and looked at his watch, and when the MEND spokesman began to explain the situation, the interview was terminated.  

The subject was broadcast with a screaming headline about "Africa's New Terror Crisis" and references to a threatened increase to the price of oil for Americans. 

Although we know the media often manipulate stories, and manipulate us, it was still shocking to watch this.  

The Joint Task Force (JTF), a branch of the Nigerian military, maintain a presence in the region with brutal violence.  The U.S. government under George W. Bush agreed to supply intelligence about activists in the region to the Nigerian government.  Thus, in a way, we are all complicit in this scenario.  

The author and activist Ken Saro-Wiwa was imprisoned and killed because of his involvement in the Niger Delta protests. 

Sweet Crude is heartbreaking.  As I said above, it is vital that we remember that we can transform the situation.  We have amazing energy inside of us and we can use it to transform situations like these.   For more about this, see Your Inner Wisdom. 

Thank you once again to Black History Studies for screening Sweet Crude.  

For more information and to buy a copy on DVD, visit Sweet Crude. 

Film Africa: Filming Sensitive Issues

Dancing on the Edge

THIS BLOG POST CONTAINS ADULT CONTENT. 

I had some serious issues with the Filming Sensitive Issues event held at the BFI as part of the recent Film Africa festival.  

I walked in to see a panel of three white women (one of them turned out to be mixed race, but she appeared white).  I immediately had a problem with this.  There are many Black people filming in Africa right now, at this moment, and I am sure some of them are filming sensitive issues.  So I question the composition of the panel.  

Two of the filmmakers had made a film about LGBT activists in Uganda.  I'm not going to say much about this right now.  

The other white woman, Karen Boswall, had made a documentary in Mozambique entitled Dancing on the Edge, about health workers educating people in local communities in order to prevent the spread of HIV.  So this was a real conflict for the woman who was the central figure in the documentary - she was an HIV+ health worker who was participating in the ritual. 

Dancing on the Edge showed girls taking part in a traditional initiation ceremony.  They had to take a vow that they would always sexually satisfy their husbands and never refuse to do so.  This goes directly against the health initiative to encourage people to use condoms.  They also vowed to submit if their husbands decided to beat them.  Thus, the initiation instructed them on how to be a good woman. 

One thing I found very offensive was that Boswall said the ancestors had required women to take these vows - this is what the locals told her.  I had a problem with this because it is the duty of the ancestors to protect their descendants (although not all ancestors are protective).  If your ancestors are telling you to submit to beatings, they are not doing their job.  However, there was no analysis of this from the filmmaker.  

It has rightly been pointed out to me that religion and spirituality are often used to manipulate and control people, as depicted, for example, in Ousmane Sembene's film Moolaade.  Therefore, it is entirely likely that the ancestors are being slandered in this instance. 

The film depicted many girls and young women taking part in the ritual.  In a lengthy sequence, they are topless.  So we see this sea of breasts - again, with no explanation or analysis.  There is no voiceover to place this in context. 

One thing I found particularly disturbing was that many of these girls were very young - far too young to have breasts - in fact, they literally looked like little boys.  I question why children so young were participating in an initiation ritual.  

Another problem I had with this event was that Boswall was surprised at how many people had asked her about female genital mutilation (FGM) in connection with her film.  It is obvious that, in an African context, any discussion of female initiation ceremonies will include reference to FGM, but Boswall did not seem to understand this.  Nor was she aware of Moolaade.  I have a problem with someone who knows so little about African film, or indeed African culture, having her work included in this festival.  

Boswall was well-meaning.  She said she was disappointed that her film was unlikely to bring about change, and she plans to make fiction films rather than documentaries in future.  

Some useful reflections came out of the event, as the filmmakers involved were very candid about the effects of their work on African communities.  I shall say more about this in future. 

Although the BFI screens the excellent African Odysseys film series on a monthly basis, I was very disappointed by this offering from Film Africa. 

Black Fighter Pilots of WWII

Black Fighter Pilots of WWII was the most recent presentation by London Black History Walks.  Every time I attend one of these events, I am very moved and inspired.  And I always learn something new.  

Those fighter pilots from the United States, the Caribbean and Africa were seriously courageous, and some of them were seriously fine!  

Nightfighters, a 1994 documentary about the Tuskegee Airmen, was screened.  Many of the men talked about their own experiences during the war.  They were reported as being not good enough. 

Click here to read more. 

This coming Sunday's event will be How Black People Won World War 2.  Click here for this and more Black History Month events. 

The Black Wall Street - Before They Die

Saw this awesome Black history film screened by Black History Studies last week.  

"The Black Wall Street" was  the name given to the thriving community of Greenwood, Oklahoma, which boasted several millionaires.  In 1921, Greenwood was attacked and destroyed by white people envious of its success. 

Some of those who were children at the time, and saw their homes and community destroyed, are still alive now.  "Before They Die" is the title of a documentary about the elderly survivors' fight for justice. 

Click here for more about The Black Wall Street and to watch the trailer for "Before They Die". 

Click here for Next Black History Events. 

The attack on The Black Wall Street was a horrible atrocity.  But we can help the survivors to get justice.  We can bring about positive change.  We have the power to transform the situation.

We can learn from history.  The ancestors want us to heal these terrible, terrible wounds from the past and create the future we deserve. 

Click here for my Success Workshops in London. 

We can bring about peace and harmony for ourselves.  We can bring about joy and abundance for ourselves and for those around us.

Dark Girls Lecture with Directors

The Dark Girls documentary explores color prejudice/colorism among African American women. See below for a trailer.

The Du Sable Museum in Chicago will hold a lecture with Bill Duke and D. Channsin Berry, the directors of Dark Girls, on Monday, October 10, 2011.

For details of this and other events, see Black History/Cultural Events.

See also: Chicago African Festival of the Arts.

For more great stuff like this, click here to join Nurture Success.

See also: Africa and Africans on Film.

Dark Girls: Preview from Bradinn French on Vimeo.

Breaking into Britain

I saw this documentary on the BBC last week. "Breaking into Britain" tracks people travelling into Britain from two parts of the world: Afghanistan and Nigeria.

They are people who would not be able to enter the UK legally, so they have to find various means, dealing with shady people, journeying through war zones, and doing whatever they can to get here.

The documentary depicted the ordeal they go through.

People leaving Afghanistan may have to pay a people smuggler several thousand pounds to get them here. The journalist, himself from an Afghan background, met fellow Afghans everywhere he went. They often have to travel via Iran and Turkey, sometimes taking serious risks. Some have no money and no food. Many, having made it into Europe, find themselves stranded in Athens, sleeping rough and relying on charities to feed them and their children.

I guess they did not realise that Greece was in economic meltdown.

Those coming from Nigeria may have started their journeys anywhere on the continent. They travel through the desert to get to Morocco, where they try to get into Italy.

The documentary did not really explain or depict the reasons why these people are so desperate to get into Britain. It mentioned that Afghanistan has been at war for over 30 years, so life is difficult there. And seeing the risks they take shows us how determined they are to get into Britain.

People smugglers often demand sex from the women relying on them to help them get into Europe. A woman from the Congo described how she was raped at knife-point by a smuggler in the middle of the desert.

African people often travel via Niger. The journey through the Sahara is so dangerous that they have to travel in armed convoys.

Again, the documentary did not mention why Niger is so dangerous, although, coming from Congo, the woman, like many others, is seeking to escape an area of conflict.

People travel via overcrowded buses, lorries and boats; climb over fences, and cling to the bottom of lorries. They dodge the authorities and meet with hostility from from locals.

They are looking to find a better life for themselves and their children.

Some of them, however, once reality strikes, just wish they had enough money to go home.

Capitalism, A Love Story

I watched “Capitalism, a Love Story”, the excellent Michael Moore film the other day.

Moore talked about the plight of inner-city areas such as Detroit and Chicago, and how greedy corporations shut down factories, and put hundreds and thousands of people out of work, in order to increase their profits and pay higher salaries to their senior executives.

He contrasted this with a bakery in which every worker had an equal vote in decisions made by the company. Moore termed this “democracy”. Yet, I would argue, this is another form of capitalism, one without corporate greed. It’s still about running a business for a profit – and what’s wrong with that?

In this bakery, workers on the assembly line earn £60,000 a year. I want to work there myself. I could bake some bread.

What Moore does not reveal in the film is whether his own production company operates along similar lines.

To read more about the demise of Detroit, click here for Celebrating the Legend that is Motown.

Republic Windows and Doors

Workers at Republic Windows and Doors in Chicago staged a sit-in. They refused to leave the premises after being laid off.

They had been fired without notice, denied vacation and severance pay, and had their medical benefits cut off. They refused to leave until they were paid what they were owed.

Their spokesperson stated that he realised some bad business decisions had been made but, as he said, “We don’t make business decisions. We make windows and doors”. He reasoned that the Bank of America, which financed the company, had been given bail-out money, so why shouldn’t the bank give some of the money to the workers?

Bishop James Wolkowski, son of a Chicago steel-worker, visited them. He told them that they were teaching people that it is jut to challenge what is unfair. He had seen at first hand what happened when the steel works closed down, and the effect this had had on local families and communities.


Click here to read about President Obama’s support for the strikers.

After six days, the bank and the company agreed to all of the workers’ demands.

Moore’s grandstanding is always entertaining to watch. In this film, he makes several attempts to arrest senior executives at investment banks for their corporate crimes. Failing at this, he surrounds the buildings with police crime- scene tape.

One shocking element the film reveals is the practice of taking out “dead peasants’ insurance”, whereby corporations become beneficiaries of their workers’ life insurance policies. In other words, the company profits from the deaths of its workers.