Dr. Jaiteh,

Well, I hope you are not alluding here that this is only the figment of a
tiny minority's imagination?

What is in question here is not only the contents of the various curricula
but comments and remarks by professors supposed to guide students and to
bring the best out of them. Some of what is recounted here occured as late
as the late 90's so we are not talking here about only the colonial
mentality of the British but neo-colonial mentality, colonial hang-over, if
you wish...

Oh yes, African intellectuals, graduates of SOAS, most notable among them,
Dr. Walter Rodney, took up the challenge and penned masterpieces on African
history. "How Europe underdeveloped Africa," a copy of which I proudly
treasure among my library cannot be a figment of the imagination.

The illustration on the cover depicts the map of Africa as roots whose trunk
rise up to support branches that spread across Europe  and the books itself,
the product of exhaustive historical research documents in elaborate detail
how European/American developement was nourished by African blood and sweat.

The names of companies, the colonies they exploited, the profits they made
and the meager percentage of those profits repatriated in order to build
infrastructures that facilitated more efficient exploitation of Africa are
documented. The scant number of hospitals, schools, etc. built were all part
of the scheme to further create a more conducive environment for
exploitation.

So I repeat as I stated only yesterday in another forum: All Western society
have benifited from the exploitation of African blood; any which has not
chewed the flesh, has drunk the stew or gnawed the bone of the African meal.

In order to numb their consciences these Bible toting imperialist concocted
lies about the sub-humanity of the African and it is those lies, even after
they have been proven to lack any scientific foundation, that persist even
today and remnants of such dinasours are those mentioned in the text as
still sitting in chairs at SOAS.

Regards,

Kabir.

On 3/21/07, Malanding Jaiteh <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> Njaay Jata,
> I hope we are not giving too much attention to these so called radical
> black/African students and their views about Euro-centrism. To claim
> that institutions like SOAS deliberately stacked their libraries and
> curriculum with neo-colonialist material was part of a grand design to
> give  Africans inferior education  is an insult to us Africans. First
> there is no doubt literature on Africa  predating 1900 were written by
> Europeans. The fact is that they like today's writers wrote for their
> audience who happened to be Europeans and not Africans. An believe me a
> large proportion of books (past and present) were written in order to
> make money and fame and not re-educate a foreign population. And most
> often writers spice up, embellish, exaggeration sometimes makeup stories
> to make the bestseller lists.  Secondly it is over 50 years of
> independence. By now Africans should, instead of complaining about the
> materials in SOAS, write their own books. But then, even that would not
> be free of distortions and twisting of facts.
>
> Malanding Jaiteh
>
>
>
>
> Kabir Njaay wrote:
>
> >      FEBRUARY 2000
> >
> > ---------------------------------------------------------
> >
> >       FEATURE
> >
> >      The lies my teacher told me
> >
> >      Ursula Yatima Troche writes about how African/black and other
> >
> > radical students who challenge the accepted educational order in British
> > universities are marked down by their lecturers.
> >
> >      "Some people even end up getting mad here!", said a student of the
> > University of London's highly-regarded School of Oriental and African
> > Studies (SOAS), where I studied.
> >
>

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