For BLM protesters, a few inconvenient truths about Africa, race and slavery

Aug 1, 2020 by Jill

By Philip Vander Elst, The Conservative Woman:

AT a time when Black Lives Matter and Left-wing ‘anti-racist’ activists are seeking to remove statues of Cecil Rhodes and other historical figures associated with what they deem to be the shameful colonial past of Western democracies such as Britain, there is a need to set the record straight and challenge the ignorance and double standards fuelling this movement.

Open-minded readers willing to study the controversial issues I raise in more detail should get hold of the books I mention. And to that list should be added Ghanaian economist George Ayittey’s seminal Africa Betrayed, an excoriating and copiously documented indictment of post-colonial African tyrannies.

As a classical liberal who is distrustful of government, I am the last person to take a rosy and uncritical view of Western colonialism. All too often it has been associated with the worst abuses of state power. But it is a disservice to historical truth to dismiss the entire colonial era as an unrelieved tale of imperial greed, racism and exploitation with no compensating achievements or benefits.

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