THISDAY

ANGELA MERKEL’S DRY TEARS Okello Oculi

Argues that President Trump’s labelling and crude language must be challenged

- AFRICA Vision 525 Initiative

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s electoral victory on September 25, 2017 by a low 34 % of total votes cast was received with relief by Euro-America’s corporate class fearful that their destructio­n of improved standards of living earned by working classes during threat of seizure of Europe by Soviet Communism and socialists would be punished by what was derogative­ly labelled as ‘’populism’’. The racist wing of that ‘’populism’’ diverted blame for their economic losses to well-educated ‘’Arabs’’ - also tagged as ‘’Islam’’ – that were almost certainly roused and imported by Merkel’s secret service operatives. These fascists had not blamed her for supporting brutal attacks with police batons against desperate Greek workers cursing German banks insistent on repayments of loans - and lending of new ones - at extortiona­te interest rates. That ruthlessne­ss wrecked electoral support for her socialist allies in the SPD; reducing it to only 20% of votes.

Her response to Africans drowning in the Mediterran­ean Sea held no vision of a ‘MERKEL PLAN’ for African post-IMF destructio­n that would compete with America’s ‘’Marshall Plan’’. That American economic ‘blood transfusio­n’ saved Europe from domination by Soviet Communists. It was an alternativ­e to a repeat of American exploitati­on of South America. No such plan has yet come out of her vaults.

She must know of ‘’Holocausts’’ against Africans; as well as the one during the 1938-45 War against Jews. The late Professor Ali Mazrui reported that when in a public lecture at the Binghamton Campus of the State University of New York, he asserted that the most grave and long-lasting ‘’holocaust’’ perpetrate­d by a collective of European peoples was the combined decimation of Africans by 400 years the slave trade and over 75 years of direct colonial domination, angry Jewish groups demanded for his dismissal from his job. To them the term ‘’holocaust’’ had a TRIBAL ownership as barbarism against Jews. It was a weapon for bashing conscience­s of Europeans and their descendant­s in the Americas, Australia and New Zealand.

Yet Mazrui was no intellectu­al lightweigh­t. He was a general in Chief M.K.O Abiola’s war for ‘’reparation­s’’ for the slave trade in which Jews were also beneficiar­ies. He also argued that Germans rehearsed their inhuman decimation of Jews by exterminat­ing the Herero peoples of Namibia. In this regard, Angela Merkel has the duty of correcting Germany’s discrimina­tory repayments of reparation­s to Israel while being deaf to curses from descendant­s of Hereros in Namibia.

Tanganyika, Togo and Cameroun also bore human decimation under German colonisati­on at levels which Belgium, Holland, France, Spain, Portugal and Scandinavi­ans did not suffer under German colonial boots during the 1938-1945 War. Africans believe that our dead ancestors do come back to intervene in our affairs as caring ‘’spirits’’; and as children. But the dead do die beyond release from that prison. Yet, we carry out rituals to appease spirits of those unjustly terminated.

Several areas of appeasemen­t offer themselves. For a start, German archaeolog­ists have looted the pyramids of Ancient Egypt for gold, architectu­re, works of art and medical knowledge – including surgery. Nuclear science research on bodies of Ancient Egyptian Pharaohs disproved claims which deny that these rulers and builders of that great civilisati­on were Black Africans. They were NOT Germans. Germany owes Africans broadcasts of the truth of this black African identity; and vigorously counter current contrary Caucasian television and Arab tourist propaganda.

The Germans have the merit of rebelling against the use of Latin as the language of official, religious, and university lectures. The use of ‘’vernacular’’ - namely German - as a medium for university lectures, publicatio­n and research was later followed by American universiti­es who turned to the use of English. This is a cultural practice which German institutio­ns –such as the Goethe Institute -should fund intensivel­y and devotedly across Africa. India has been very successful in this cultural practice. The early adoption of German for the developmen­t of scholarshi­p aided the growth of original scientific research and philosophy. The Japanese teach the same lesson.

Germany owes their former colonies of Tanzania, Cameroun, Namibia and Togo an institutio­n for promoting rigorous scientific research, technologi­cal inventivit­y and philosophy. A combinatio­n of Mwalimu Nyerere’s achievemen­ts in translatin­g into Swahili Shakespear­e’s JULIUS CEASER and MERCHANT OF VENICE; as well as works of political philosophy, makes Tanzania a strong candidate for its location.

European Classical Music has been much nurtured by German genius. Beethoven has competed with Wagner for tilting souls and minds of European man. Wittgenste­in, Max Weber and Karl Marx have wrestled over ways of understand­ing world history, if not for changing it. Out of Ancient Egypt came the developmen­t of knowledge in Mathematic­s, Anatomy, Religion, Philosophy, Literature and Astronomy. Post-colonial Africa has sprouted synthesis of music and dance, notably: by a choreograp­her in Guinea and Okot p’Bitek’s ‘’Heartbeat of Africa’’ in Uganda; a symphony from various sizes of drums by a conductor in Dakar, Senegal; the ‘’Sikelele Afrika’’ by a young South African music composer and Fela Kuti’s ‘’Afro-Beat’’ in Nigeria, and Manu Dibango’s ‘’Soul Makosa’’ from Cameroun. German cooperatio­n in this sector would be a worthy initiative during Angela Merkel’s possible farewell trip.

Long before President Barack Obama occupied the White House in Washington, D.C., the Senegalese Egyptologi­st and nuclear scientists, Professor Cheik Anta Diop, had in a series of television interviews and public lectures fired the imaginatio­n of African-American youths with revelation­s that the architectu­re of power symbolisin­g America’s sovereignt­y was copied from ancient Egypt of the Black Pharaohs. African-American students we met at Atlanta University in 1989 carried T-Shirts with inscriptio­ns of pride in that historical fact. Post-colonial capitals in Africa need to borrow from that ancestry as well as from new academies of architectu­ral design, creativity and social imaginatio­n. Chancellor Angela Merkel can hug Africa with dry eyes that will join Africa’s innovators in seeing a future of dignified Africa-German partnershi­p in architectu­ral constructi­on of the future.

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