SUNRISE AFTER DUSK: A HIJACKED DESTINY

By Moses Uwazurike. B.Sc M.Sc MD.

This book is a compendium of European businesses within the African continent, conducted with good intentions, positively motivated from the first time Arabs and Europeans set foot on African soil. However, it later became complicated and sour due to unfair gaming by one side, greed and avarice on the other, and negative compromises on both sides.

The original objective of this trade was to exchange goods for goods, each side playing fairly and ultimately delivering the dividends of mutual business relationships. When this transaction became intriguing, it unfortunately got screwed up and turned into the buying and selling of humans as domestic servants and later into human cargoes meant for international shipment.

The West has tried in multiple ways, many times, to fix their past misdeeds; however, the measures applied idiosyncratically metamorphosed into the abolitionist nightmare of civil war, colonization, imperialism, economic slavery, segregation, marginalization, and brutalization of one people and one race.

All attempts to correct these evils of the past by subsequent generations have also proven very difficult due to a couple of reasons, including unfairness and injustice, because, as the saying goes, "He who must come to equity must come with clean hands" (source unknown).

An injustice to one is an injustice to all, and an injustice anywhere is an injustice everywhere. (Martin Luther King Jr.)

All the above were far from being the case, and as such, nothing seems to make those misgivings go away. The issue at hand right now is that the injustice is so widespread that if left unchecked, the aftermath will be worse than what the world is witnessing today from the effects of climate change, migration tsunamis, wars, ethnic cleansing, and habitat displacement from most ancestral homes.

This book suggests remedies that will prove to be better than what the governments of the world today are proffering as the solution to the apocalyptic problems of our time. There should be a restructuring of lending practices and an overhauling of the world's monetary policies by better-regulated agencies, devoid of the lending malpractices of bodies like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. There should be an equitable redistribution of world collective wealth, good enough to build structures that will be attractive enough to compel young people to stay and work in their ancestral homes (countries of origin) and earn a decent living wage. In effect, these restructurings will strengthen world bodies like the United Nations (UN), World Trade Organization (WTO), UNICEF, and the World Food Programme.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Newman Springs Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Apr 4, 2024
• ISBN: 9798887637006

Book preview

Table of Contents

Title

Copyright

Dedication

Introduction

Chapter 1: Who Are These People—the Black Race?

Chapter 2: The Geographical Location of the Black Race

Chapter 3: The Precolonial Lives of the Indigenous Africans

Chapter 4: Trans-Saharan Slave Trade

Chapter 5: Transatlantic Slave Trade

Chapter 6: Abolition of Slave Trade

Chapter 7: Colonization—the Scramble for Africa

Chapter 8: Neocolonization and Imperialism

Chapter 9: Economic Slavery

Chapter 10: Industrialization of Europe and the Americas

Chapter 11: Western Involvement in African Politics

Chapter 12: Western Involvement in African Economy

Chapter 13: Marginalization of the Black Race in the Western Society

Chapter 14: Affirmative Action for the Western Blacks and Reparations for the African Indigenous People

References

About the Author

SUNRISE AFTER DUSK

A HIJACKED DESTINY

Moses Uwazurike. B.Sc, M.Sc, MD.

Copyright © 2024 Moses Uwazurike. B.Sc, M.Sc, MD.

All rights reserved

First Edition

NEWMAN SPRINGS PUBLISHING

320 Broad Street

Red Bank, NJ 07701

First originally published by Newman Springs Publishing 2024

ISBN 979-8-88763-701-3 (Hardcover)

ISBN 979-8-88763-700-6 (Digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Dedication

To God Almighty, my late parents, and my elder brother: Davidson, Felicia, and Christian Uwazurike, who went beyond the call of duty to raise me strong, especially my mother who pronounced a verbal blessing on me. One day in the face of my struggles, she said, My son, you shall be educated to unimaginable levels despite all the odds.

To Princess Ijeoma Eronini Uwazurike whose marriage to me helped to shape my life and helped to move my destiny to the next level.

To my children, Ikem, Odochi, Ozioma, Chiagozie, and Uzoma Uwazurike, who have been an encouragement to my academic quest, especially Odochi, Ozioma, and Uzoma who helped to proofread my book. My thanks again goes to Mazi Nze Hilary Iwuji of Oparanadim, my primary school history teacher who taught me the oral traditional history of part of what is told in this book.

To my adorable granddaughter, Obioma H. Uwazurike, who will one day pick up her pen to challenge the social ills of her own times especially after she's read her grandfather's book on race and relations.

Introduction

The Black Lives Matter demonstrations were triggered by the brutal killings of black bodies, bodies to some groups, but to the rest of us and the black population, those ones brutally murdered were human beings, and not one or two at any given period were senseless murders. For example, Trayvon Martin was brutally murdered by a white neighborhood security officer, George Zimmerman, in 2013. Zimmerman was later acquitted in the state of Florida by an all-white jury based on the statutory law of stand your ground and self-defense.

Another heart-wrenching example was the horrific killing of George Floyd on the twenty-fifth of May 2020 by a white police officer based in Minneapolis, Mr. Derek Chauvin, and another young black woman, Breonna Taylor, murdered by the police almost at the same time, under a no-knock warrant for a drug raid that she knew nothing about.

It was at this point I was compelled into retrospective thinking and began to chronicle the history of the black race's anguish in the world, particularly in the western hemisphere.

I was neither born before or during a period of slavery, nor had I immigrated to the United States of America during the civil rights movement. I knew nothing about America and the civil rights movement until I immigrated to America as a young adult. Upon my arrival and as my stay prolonged, I became acquainted with ugly words such as hate, segregation, racism, and discrimination all metered against the black people in America. It was through my studies of West African history in primary and secondary school that I learned about the slave trade and slavery, and through various college elective courses that the knowledge of what occurred was deepened. The rest was oral traditional history handed down to us by our parents and grandparents. The summary of what we were told then was that the white man invaded Africa and took away our strongest uncles, nephews, and nieces against their will and shipped them to American plantations to work for their masters. This brought untold hardship to these naive folks. The intensity of the suffering experienced by these people who were coined slaves was unimaginable.

It was during my personal research for the truth on the black race's difficulties or challenges in moving forward in life that I found out that from the beginning of history, this race has been battered, shattered, dismembered, and even dispossessed of their physical, intellectual, and material endowments and patrimonies.

I had an Aha! moment that gave rise to some empirical questions about what went wrong and what the causative factors were that put them where they are right now.

My search did not go too far when it started unveiling the truth about what happened.

From day one of the arrival of the Arabs and the white man from Europe on the black man's soil, they began what would be called institutional plunder and extermination of the black race.

It is a known fact that Africa is among the oldest continents of the planet Earth. Evidence has shown that life and humanity evolved from the thick forest of Africa, before spreading to other parts of the world.

As old as Africa is, either as a people or a continent, not much has been said of her history or stories to the global community. There have been these legendary questions by young Western children such as Do Africans live in the trees? or Do Africans have tails? They knew that none of these questions held any truth, but this came about by what they were fed by their grandparents and great-grandparents who looted and spoiled Africa and planned to cover their misdeeds with these fallacies. The reason for these lies was to enable them, the Arabs and the Europeans, to hide their dark past of what they did to Africa and her people from their younger generation and the rest of the world.

Up to recent years, the rest of the world knew little or nothing about how Africans at that time lived and conducted themselves (Basil Davidson, West Africa before the Colonial Era: A History to 1850, 1998).

Some recent studies on Africa have shown that the continent is the second largest in the world, the cradle of civilization, and the first original home of all mankind before humans moved up north (to what is now Europe and the Americas), in search of food and comfort. This was not a myth. Archeological facts and scientific proofs are present to support the historical existence of the ancient Africans. Some books written in the past and present have shown that the black race is as old as creation itself.

Most importantly, oral traditional history has brought some light and strength to support the African legendary stories, to reinforce African positions and its resilience to some of its challenges as they try very hard to keep their head above the waters.

The purpose of this book is to examine the black race retrospectively, to properly elucidate the reasons for their challenges, hindrances, and obstacles the black race has been facing and continue to face unabatedly.

Antecedently, the degree to which the black race had been subjected to hardship and abject poverty, whether the focus is on black aboriginals or black people enslaved by their masters in the other six continents of the world, has been agonizing. Whatever the case was and no matter how these uncomfortable relationships have been colored in the eyes of the justice system and been accommodated by the justice agents of the world, permit me to emphatically state that both the Trans-Saharan and Trans-Atlantic slave trades were trades predicated on poverty, misery, deprivation, and desperation, and marred by lies, deception, injustice, and advantage taking of the weak.

Every black man somewhere has an ugly story or experience of oppression that will possibly follow them to their grave.

I want to conclude this introduction by using the following Igbo adage, "Onye chefuru ebe mmiri ozizo zutere ya, gbabata nabe gi; chupu ya, nihi na O gaghi echeta ebe ono zere mmiri (It is always best for one to remember where a torrential rain met them so that they can at the same time remember where they ran in for shelter.)"

Chapter 1

Who Are These People—the Black Race?

Decorated African woman. courtesy of Robert Brain, The Decorated Body, 1979.

The story and history of the black race will be incomplete without answers to such questions like the following: Who are the black race? How did they conduct themselves as a society? How did they carry out their businesses? What system of government did they practice? Did they have a religion or belief system? And what was their fiscal net worth and safety nets?

For the purposes of clarification, Africa and Africans were in existence before the coming of the white man or before their land was invaded by the Europeans like Mungo Park who said he discovered the river Niger (that was already in existence before his arrival).

Africa and Africans have been mostly described as myth. Pictures of tropical rain forests with giant trees; wild animals such as apes, gorillas, chimpanzees, and monkeys; and men and women with dark complexions having imaginary long tails. These imageries have been some of the most demeaning characterizations of Africans and their continent.

Before geography, natural sciences, and chemistry of what, where, and when, one could have believed that the black race were the architects of their failure; empirical evidence has shown that this hypothetical reasoning does not hold up. History has shown that the black race was destined to be a superspecies, projected and prepared for the best in life. Africa was coveted for its natural and material resources and its people who were endowed with extraordinary physical and intellectual capacities and capabilities. They were physically built very strong with a resistance to all manner of diseases and harshness of all climatic challenges. All the earthly minerals are buried in their ancestral homeland. We cannot attribute their failure to the color of their skin. The black man's color is beautiful; it comes in different hues. Some are ebony black; others are brown, burgundy, indigo, and silky black. No other human race has such a palette of colors. No wonder when imitators want to ask God, How did you make the black race so beautiful? rather than being vocal about the question, they take a trip to areas of high intensity of the sun to sunbathe or get a tan. This is just a poor attempt to imitate the beauty of black people.

If the black race were given space to develop themselves, in a short time they would stand in their place of natural endowment and would become the envy of the other races.

Prior to the description of the indigenous people of Africa, we must start with an overview of the geographical disposition of the continent. Africa occupies a vast land mass of about 11.7 million square miles. It is the second largest continent after Asia.

The African continent shares a border in the west with the Atlantic Ocean, in the east with the Red Sea, on the north with the Mediterranean Sea, and on the south with the Indian Ocean. The circumference of the continent measures about 23 million miles. This does not include the vast African archipelagos such as Madagascar, Seychelles, Socorro, Comoros, Mauritius, Reunion, Ascension, Saint Helena, Tristan da Cunha, Cape Verde, the Bijagos island, Bioko, Sao Tome and Principe, Azores, Madeira, and Canary Islands.

Africa is cut into two halves by the tropics of the equator. Most of the continent lies in the tropical region, bounded in the north by the Tropic of Capricorn and the rest in the south bounded by the Tropic of Cancer. The name Africa was given to this continent by the Romans (Aprica), meaning sunny. The Greek called it Aphrika, meaning with gold; Afriga, the land of the Afrigs, a community south of Carthage, an ancient city located in the present-day Tunisia (Paul Bohannan and Philip Curtin, Africa & African, Library of Congress, USA, 1971).

The entire continent is a tableland. The northwest part is a dune of dry