Re: assumptions ?

On Sat, 29 Dec 2001 12:07:08 EST, GRHaleJr@cs.com wrote:
>The title of the book is: The Albert N'Yanza,
>Great Basin of the Nile And Explorations of the
>Nile Sources, by Sir Samuel W. Baker, M.A.,
>F.R.G.S., Gold Medallist of the Royal
>Geographical Society.
>
>It is available online from:
><http://www.booksonline.com/BookDisplay..cfm?Book
>Num=17895>
>
>Live long and prosper, and thanks for your
>response.
>
>
>Gordon Hale

Hale, what is a racist punk like you doing on the World Systems 
Network? Did the local branch of the KKK assign you? This mailing 
list is dedicated to a theory that, among other things, attacks 
Eurocentrism root and branch. Meanwhile, you dredge up the racist 
ravings of a Victorian "explorer" who helped his masters figure out 
how to carve up Africa, starting with the Sudan. This is from Alan 
Moorehead's "White Nile". Since Moorehead's book is intended to 
flatter scum like Baker, Colonel Gordon, Richard Burton et al, one 
wonders how disgusting Baker truly was. I certainly understand what 
makes such a racist attractive to somebody like yourself.

Moorehead:

Probably nothing more monstrous or cruel than this traffic had 
happened in history, for it was more highly organized than the 
slaving in Tanganyika. Baker records the terrible facts with a 
juridical calm which is very effective; and yet, like Burton, and 
unlike Speke, he did not really take to Africans and he was no blind 
believer in immediate emancipation. 'However we may condemn the 
horrible system of slavery,' he wrote, 'the results of emancipation 
have proved that the negro does not appreciate the blessings of 
freedom, nor does he show the slightest feelings of gratitude to the 
hand that broke the rivets of his fetters.' Baker had a theory that 
Africans were not and could not ever be equal to white men. The most 
he would concede was that in childhood the negro 'might be in 
advance, in intellectual quickness, of the white child of a similar 
age, but the mind does not expand—it promises fruit, but does not 
ripen. . . .'

Elsewhere he attacks the Africans for the savagery and brutality of 
their tribal customs. 'Charming people, these poor blacks, as they 
are termed by English sympathizers,' he exclaims when a Nuer chief 
'exhibited his wife's back and arms covered with jagged scars ... he 
was quite proud of having clawed his wife like a wild beast.' And 
again: 'Polygamy is, of course, the general custom; the number of a 
man's wives depending entirely upon his wealth, precisely as would 
the number of his horses in England. There is no such thing as love 
in these countries . . . everything is practical, without a particle 
of romance. Women are so far appreciated as they are valuable 
animals. I am afraid this practical state of affairs will be a strong 
barrier to missionary enterprise.'


-- 
Louis Proyect, lnp3@panix.com on 12/29/2001

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