This time, Rose, I am replying to a mail sent me about the previous article where I speak contemptuously about the white people who colonized Africa. These people were not concerned for the African people they so presumptuously colonized, they waltzed in as if it was their right to do so in the name of their white race. They did not give one hoot for the welfare of the populations, they used them and they coerced them into labor using brutal force and contempt in the mines and plantations they exploited. They pillaged the riches of this continent with the greatest of ease and pleasure and small countries like Belgium, which has practically no natural resources apart from coal and steel, became rich and powerful on the backs of the Congolese. King Leopold of Belgium was quoted as saying fondly, “Le Congo ç’est mon jardin”, (the Congo is my garden). They did worse than that, as I’ve already mentioned in my previous articles, they cut the place up as if it was their own great big cake to do so. As President Kagame said the other day in one of his speeches, “They left one part of the family on one side of the border and the other half on the other side”. J ust think of that, you’re Rwandan, then because some white guy comes along, tells you that you no longer belong to yourself, to your country, you belong to him. Then he tells you are no longer Rwandan but Congolese. You tell him, “You can’t do that, we’ve always been Rwandan, we cannot all of a sudden become Congolese”. But your protests fall on barren ground and Congolese you become. They did what they did and that cannot be changed. However, there is such a thing as recognizing what you did and accepting that the consequences have left behind a bloody mess, and I mean bloody! It is precisely because of what they did and how they did it, that these situations have arisen today on this continent. Therefore, instead of aggravating an already volatile situation, they should be helping to resolve the problem. What I’m trying to point out in going into the past, is the absolute arrogance with which they took over, the arrogance and superiority with which they regarded the Africans and I am sorry to have to say that many white people still do retain that superiority complex, even today. That’s what the British Lords did in Ireland. They took our land, destroyed our monarchy, beat our Gaelic language out of us. They imposed huge taxes on the hovels we were left to live in. And, when we kept pigs and tried to fatten them and care for them so we could pay those taxes under threat of eviction, they laughed and scorned us in the Queen’s court saying, “Oh, the Irish, they keep the pigs in the parlor”. One British Lord on his way back from visiting the African colonies, ending his trip with a visit to their Irish colony, is quoted as saying, when he returned to the Court, “They treat them worse than the niggers”. So pardon me if I can say that these insults still hurt even though they were directed at my ancestors and as far as the contempt of the colonizer is concerned, I’ve been there. I just wanted to underline that as a white, I was colonized by other whites with the same contempt and scorn they imposed in Africa. To get back to the problem at hand with this issue of Bruguière’s arrest warrant, three countries France, Germany and Spain have taken a stand against Rwanda based on very flimsy and dubious evidence obtained from people who were responsible for the planning and execution of genocide. The UN has published a report which was contested by the Rwandan government and Holland has decided to suspend aid to the country, based on this report and the Chief of Protocol to President Paul Kagame is arrested and held in France. I don’t know, but it looks a lot like conspiracy to me to undermine the government and give voice to people who still harbour and promote the hate ideology which led to the extermination of over a million people here in Rwanda. No, unfortunately, I do not believe that there has been a great deal of progress on this level since the colonial times. There is, on the contrary, an attitude of condescending neo colonialism where the big white daddy feels it to be his right to impose his dictates as if he knew better. Rwanda can and will defend herself and the rights of her people and will remain a sovereign State with or without their assistance. Ends
