COLONIALISM'S DAMAGES (or POOR AFRICA!)

During one of the many TV talk show I heard an elegant and dapper Prelate unexpectedly attacking with verbal violence and give the voice onto an unsuspecting woman who had dared to express a politically incorrect thought on colonialism, and gave her opinion about the answers to be given to the situation in Africa
With shining and indignant look, highlighted by the shirt pearl's color and by his clergyman's perfection , he lost the usual,seraphic calm yelling that he only could talk: "I can speak, because I've seen at first hand the damages caused by colonialism! Madam you know nothing, you're ignorant of the matter and therefore you're nor allowed to open your mouth!"
The poor woman, attacked with such vehemence lowered his eyes, bowed his head confused and disheartened, and stood silent ...

TO DEFEND THE POOR WOMAN HUMILIATED BY A SO MUCH CHARACTER'S WISDOM, I felt the need to point out something and to ask the great Prelate do not get too warm, please do not venturing judgments that will confuse the mind of the naive and historically ignorant listeners.
The illustrious Prelate perhaps was still very young when in 1960 Somalia has left the Italian protectorate. From cultured and wise man who he is, he knows for certain that the colonists left an orderly nation, with social security and all health facilities available at that time, perhaps the best. Certainly he knows that their first president - SIAD BARRE - was already sergeant of the italian military police, but certainly he even doesn't know that yet in 1970, after the end of the Italian protectorate, my son's pediatrician Dr. Ballati, to make a career in Italy he had first to spend two years at the Mogadishu's hospital.
It is also impossible that he could know that my father Arnaldo, son of an engineer from Romagna, named Lino Bertuzzi (class 1887), lived in Somalia with his family since he was three years until the age of 16.
But, having not seen in person, I met Somaliland after the stories heard by grandparents and father. I am very sorry that the place loved by my Dad, has returned to primitive anarchy, thirty years to do it, and only now it seems to be recovering.
Our illustrious Prelate knows without any doubt a little of the Somali history, of how in 1905 it was bought by a Sultan, and that Italy brought Somaliland to the twentieth century; he understands very well, I bet it, who and why did it to regress.

FRENCH AND ENGLISH imitating the ancient Romans, for sure have caused enormous damage to the colonized peoples:.

  • They gave an evolved motherlanguage to thousands tribes who despite living a few kilometers away, were different and spoke different languages, hating each other and fighting for racial or religious reasons. Just as somewhere it happens again today since settlers are gone for half a century and more.
  • They stopped bloodshed and battles between tribes, and taught to read and write their language. They built hospitals and schools and courts and tried to introduce the idea of modern law.
  • They gave an indelible mark on the mentality and organization of those countries, especially the British ones. I can't keep a little laugh, thinking on those magistrates and Indian judges aping english in their gowns and wigs.
  • They led technologies and principles of modern agriculture, built power plants and then introduced electricity, have established industries and built roads and aqueducts. Today in many countries most of these works have gone to the dogs, thanks to the idiotic policy of USA administrations and ideologies inherited from the Cuban, USSR's mercenaries who have been paid to destabilize Africa. And we do not speak about Chinese ....

    • PORTUGUESE AND BELGIAN caused too many massive damages.

    They created Brazil, the Portuguese. In Angola and Mozambique as Goa they exported language by putting a stop to the situation, however, was that widthespread in Africa, and that comes back today, of the tribes fighting each other and their racial and religious hatreds. It is true that the Portuguese have profited by the slave trade, the slaves they bought from the chief of tribes, until the British not prevented it. I do not know in detail what they have done good or evil, the Portuguese, but I think on a smaller scale and less efficiently had more or less the function as the French and the English.
    About Belgians I know that once the fomer Congo's capital Brazzaville was founded by Savorgnan di Brazzà, a Friulian who explored the river two centuries ago.     Now that the capital is called Kinshasa, on the othe side of the Congo river, misery is black, immeasurably more than before.
    On the other hand I also know an Ivorian half-blood, son of a Belgian and a local princess, who of course speaks French, and English. Today he is in the USA and is the director of a great hotel.

    SPANISH.

    The Spaniards are a very special case. Thanks to technological superiority, but with very few men, using alliances with the tribes of local Indians, they managed to create a vast empire. The native language most spoken in the world actually is something like Spanish. In fact the Chinese have in common ideograms, but they speak many different languages between them.

    CHINESE, RUSSIAN AND their hangers, they have instead brought their own freedom and prosperity to the oppressed Africans.

    We experience their successes in advertising appeals of more or less honest NPO offering us the sight of miseries wich for us were a scandal once upon a time. If we still persevere in our today's politics we will soon get to see them here too.
    Once in the African theater after World War II, and favored by the idiotic USA policy, the mentality of '68, and the general cowardice, they wanted to bring communism to those people, to make them free and prosperous like them. They used mercenaries, especially Cubans, to oust the Europeans from Africa obtaining the following wonderful results:

    • Whole areas where farms were producing food for the local have been cleared by the Europeans, and then hunger arrived.
    • Hatreds between tribes are resurrected and unspeakable and horrific massacres have taken the place of peace.
    • The African wildlife has been decimated , and many animal species are endangered.
    • And as it was centuries ago with the Portuguese many of those tribal leaders who prevailed and became masters of the territories, are exploiting their subjects and administered. Just as once sold slaves and ivory, many of these leaders now allow the natural wealth's plundering and are wasting the resources of their countries. And many of them do not use the wealth obtained to improve the lives of their people, but for themselves, because of rampant corruption. If you think this to be a kind of colonialism, you're wrong dear sir! It's exactly the opposite.
    • With revolutions promoted yesterday by the communists and now by the Islamists, the whole Africa declined alarmingly.
      In English-speaking countries, however, the mentality is almost the same, even after the end of the Europeans' domain, as in Kenya. Also South Africa was very advanced, and now has worsen but is still at a tolerable level, the best among the African countries, and they seems to still be able to govern themselves (because many citizens are still those of European origin).

    Therefore I'm daring to recommend the elegant and dapper but aggressive, uppersaid Prelate to deal more of God and less of Caesar. This is recommended in the Gospels by Our Lord Jesus Christ, and it's tirelessly repeated by his Vicar on earth, our present Holy Father Francis. Listen to them, please!

    Lino Bertuzzi - Roma Jan 2014 - Rev.I: June, 2014