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The despair of British Colonialism and the Promise of Tomorrow

 

      In 1947, India was dismembered. Its shoulders were chopped off to create Pakistan. Its right shoulder became West ( Punjab) Pakistan, and its left shoulder became East (Bengal) Pakistan. The departing British were the axe-wielder. They, the British are responsible for many of the problems that haunt the world today, from India to Africa to the Middle East and elsewhere. Their policy of “divide and rule”, playing off one ethnic/ religious/regional/linguistic group against another and their arbitrary drawing of boundary lines, separating tribes and clans and families, into different states/territories have been a recipe for disaster. Hindus and Muslims in India, Jews and Muslims in Arabia, Zulus and Zhosas and Boers in South Africa  Yorubas and Ibos in Nigeria and elsewhere in “ British” Africa,  Sunna and Shia in Iraq, Sinhalese and Tamils in Sri Lanka, “white” Australians and Aborigines, “white” New Zealanders and Maoris, “white’ Canada and the First Nations, and Israelis and Palestinians. Wherever they had colonized, they looted the land and exploited the people, and when they were forced to leave, the poison of ethnic, religious and linguistic hatred were such, and so deep, that the years after have been filled with death and destruction.

      Sixty years ago, India threw off the yokes of British colonialism, but only after it had been shorn of two vital parts. The tens of thousands who died and the millions who were displaced are slowly coming to terms with their forced and violent births, working to build a viable society. Some, like India, Australia, New Zealand and Canada, have come to terms with their past and have taken remedial actions, and are more successful than others, while South Africa, Uganda, Ghana, Nigeria and more recently Bangladesh, Sierra Leone and Kenya, have made important strides .Others, like Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Iraq, Israel and the Palestine, are caught in a vortex of violence, that seems unending. Zimbabwe is under the nightmare of the megalomaniacal Mugabe ( when he goes, Zimbabwe will slowly but surely begin to heal). precondition for success. Nigeria still has to deal with ethnic, religious and regional problems and a fairer distribution of its oil wealth (especially in the Ogoni region) or it will spiral into violence and secession. South Africa has to deal with rising violence and a leadership crisis. Jacob Zuma is not the answer and until some one emerges to build a viable coalition, South Africa will be in turmoil. The Israelis and the Palestinians are locked in a dance to death.

      All eyes are turned to the new American President Obama. He has brought hope and a belief that the seeming impossible, is possible. Much is riding on his presidency, especially in the desperate and forlorn regions of the world. In Kenya, where his father belonged to the Luo, there is a saying that “it is easier for a Luo to become president

      The recently concluded elections in Bangladesh and Ghana, are indications of better things to come. They are both blessed with a large, educated middle class, a necessary of the U.S.A. than to become president of Kenya”. Well, a son of a Luo has become president of the U.S.A. and now a Luo child as well as children everywhere can hope.    The possibilities are endless. The world has changed and there is the promise of a better tomorrow, a tomorrow that is more inclusive, more optimistic, and more decent, when everyone can hope and dream again. Dream on.            

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