In Defense of Armed Rebellion Part 2

Blah! I feel like such a chump. Sometimes I can just go on and on about something without ever seeming to make much sense.

Anyway, tribalism itself is a loaded word these days. For some reason the word still conjures up images of primitive hunter-gatherers and projects the notion of a backwards people still living in the caves. This is all nonsense. Tribes, or ethnic groups, are bound together by a common language and a common culture. Just think about Germans living in Germany or Spaniards living in Spain. These various groups of people have set up borders that generally enables people bound by custom and language to inhabit the same territory. Now, this is not to say the system is perfect, or that everyone is happy with it, but this arrangement - small, homogeneous political states bound by language and custom - has contributed significantly to Western prosperity.

This brings me to the Third World. The violence we see today coming from these regions stems from a society or ethnic group's inability to declare independence - REAL independence! - from colonial policy and tyrannical rule. Remember, the Marxists who violently seized power kept the colonial boundaries intact! This was done so that Marxist policy could be carried out more effectively. Oh, and remember, the colonial boundaries were not drawn up randomly, for the Europeans had to work hard to conquer Africa, and the intentional division of ethnic groups between the colonial powers was designed to keep the African tribes/nations/kingdoms/confederations from regaining power.

All too often the West is quick to condemn rebellions, offer military aid to totalitarian governments, and sometimes even resort to putting troops on the ground and "maintain or restore order" (in an ironic twist of fate, most U.N. troops are composed of soldiers hailing from former colonies, while the commanding officers generally come from the West) for the sake of preserving a certain failed state. This is a mistake. Most of the rebellions that continually flare up are based upon rational calls for self-governance and liberation of tribal land from a (in the rebel's point of view) colonial government.

A policy of the West towards the Third World may do well to begin to officially recognize separatist movements as legitimate, and cease providing arms and aid to totalitarian governments abroad. In the meantime, do yourself a favor and decide to fully support an armed rebellion in some part of the world you may never had heard of!

In Defense of Armed Rebellion

I just read a heart aching article over at Dissent Magazine. Its not so much all the death and destruction that gets to me anymore, but rather the almost inevitable pattern that I see arising out of secession movements within the post-colonial Third World.

It is common knowledge that during the later half of the nineteenth century European states began to embark on crusades that involved carving up the world into territories as they saw fit. Liberalism, or I guess I should say the European name for a system of governance that protects individual rights and private property first and foremost - became much more popular in Western Europe than in the rest of the world during the 18th and nineteenth centuries. As a result, nation states became smaller, borders more porous, and people more empowered. They proceeded to conquer the world.

Collectivist ideology destroyed Europe. After the fall of Europe in 1945 their former colonies began to declare independence. Unfortunately, the elites of these societies (who were mostly lawyers; see Tocqueville for details) had been "educated" in Europe's universities, and as a result were indoctrinated with nationalist propaganda, European conceptions about collectivist thought, and taught that their tribal identities were primitive, outmoded, or worse: communal; but as I hope to show you these elites were out of touch with their societies. After helping to thrust the yoke of their Imperial overlords off of their societies' backs, the European-educated elites began to construct new and artificial identities for these former colonial territories.

For instance, Kwame Nkrumah (who was educated in the United States, and not Europe), long recognized as a chief figure in Africa's move to independence, believed that

"...political independence, though worth while in itself, is still only a means to the fuller redemption and realization of a people. When independence has been gained, positive action requires a new orientation away from the sheer destruction of colonialism and towards national reconstruction...In order that this ideology should be comprehensive...it must be socialist in form and in content and be embraced by a mass party."

Here Nkrumah (and echoed by many other independence movement leaders at the time and all over the world) reveals the malicious deeds done by mis-education, and the tragic misunderstanding by Nkrumah and other leaders of how colonies were drawn up and divided by European states. This fundamental misreading of history is what has ultimately led to today's economic stagnation in much of the Third World. Nkrumah himself renamed the former territory of the Gold Coast (which, in turn, was preceded by a powerful trading empire and many other trading peoples) Ghana, after an ancient African empire that was located nowhere near modern day Ghana. The idea behind keeping this former colony's boundaries and governance structures may, in an amateur sort of way, be understood in the following passage:

"The political maturity of the African masses may to some extent be traced to economic and social patterns of traditional times. Under communalism, for example, all lands and means of production belong to the community. There was people's ownership. Labour was the need and habit of all. When a certain piece of land was allocated to an individual for his personal use, he was not free to do as he liked with it since it still belonged to the community."

This quote, taken from his book Class Struggle in Africa, shows an arrogant, deceiving, and perhaps even naive glimpse into the mind of one of Africa's most prominent Marxist leaders. For individualism and protection of private property were prevalent throughout Africa at the beginning of Europe's conquests. For example, the Ashanti empire's success in defeating the British time after time largely rests, I believe, on the power emanating from a distinct form of Liberalism. Protection of private property and individual rights were relatively strong in the Ashanti realm (though slavery and aristocracy did pervade their society at the time. Think Ancient Greece!), and it led to a much more empowered society. I must here point out that the Ashanti government's lust for war against other African states ultimately led to the erosion of those aforementioned rights, therefore destroying individual liberty and economic power. The Ashanti succumbed to the British in 1896. Yet Nkrumah's interpretation of colonialism acknowledges none of this. His whole conception of Africa is based largely on European interpretations of African thought and tradition! Upon further reflection, though, this should come as no surprise, because Nkrumah and other Marxists spent a good deal of time living in the West, and not in Africa.

Let me switch gears here. The Imperial realizations of European states did not stem from Liberalism or free and unhampered markets, but rather from the same collectivist ideology that eventually led to the destruction of Europe in the mid-20th century. Keeping the ideology of Nkrumah and others in mind, observe this passage, delivered by Nkrumah in a speech sometime near the end of his decadent, violent, and lawless rule:

"...I have often said, the party and the nation are one and the same, namely: the Convention People's Party is Ghana and is Ghana the Convention People's Party."

Here we can clearly see that the Third World's economic and political stagnation does not stem from their inability to govern themselves, but rather from the overarching, Leviathan-like ideas that were first laid down upon the African people by Western-educated Africans indoctrinated by collectivist thought in the West. The false notions of communal land in the past and socialist reconstruction for the future is largely to blame for what has kept the Third World in it's modern day chains.

The Marxist ideology that led to consolidation of power for the few and the continuation of artificial borders in the Third World was not the only ideology floating around these colonies at the time of the independence movements, however. You see, the Marxists grasped power (and their overlord's approval) not through votes or from gaining the respect of the people, but through violence - the only known way that Marxism has ever been known to gain governance. However, before the Marxists brutally rose to power there was a brief struggle for ideas, and a more natural, tribal, and individualistic approach was being pushed by others. The ideology behind these ideas is what the West refers to as Liberalism. It has a strong tradition in Third World societies. It is as natural to them as it is to us. If implemented, it would lead to the same prosperity we see in the West. But it is rooted in a concept that is either misunderstood or hastily dismissed by Western intellectuals today: tribalism.

Dead Aid and the Wonders of Technology and Liberty

If y'all are interested in why Africa is mired in poverty, this economist provides a great economic explanation for the poverty. While my interest in explaining Africa and exposing its greatness to others will focus on laws and politics, being able to understand economics (the study of the working of the means-ends principle in human affairs) only strengthens my understanding of the region and the wonderful people who inhabit it. Africans are truly the kindest, gentlest people on the entire planet.

In other news, this blog statement brought tears to my eyes. As the internet becomes available to more and more people, governments and the tyranny they represent will continue to struggle to be seen as legitimate. Without the internet and its ability to promote ideas unhindered by government censors and regulators, the people of the world would still have difficulties discovering why there is so much trouble in the world today. The revolution lives on. Don't Tread on Me!

A reply, and a thought on patriotism

Hahaha! No, there's no hidden message, unless the "pick your five" program is secretly a communist front.

Dan - I put Ghana as number one because fufu and chicken broth is the most incredible meal of all time; and because the people there are the kindest, most generous folks in the whole world - hands down!

That being said, one of the main reasons I love this nation is the form of government we have. The constitution and the bill of rights were designed by the framers to protect each and every one of us, individually, from the tyranny of government. To enhance our protections from the laws of government, the framers separated the central government into three distinct branches, correctly predicting that those separations would slow down and even discourage government tyranny. So this idea of individual liberty, based in property rights and natural law, gives me great pride when I dwell upon the land I come from.

It is this idea of individual liberty and freedom, and the enactment of such an idea through secession from the British Crown by revolution, that makes my heart beat faster every time I think about the fact that I am a citizen of the United States. Our liberty is envied throughout the world. Our freedom to work hard and save our money is looked upon by other nations as admirable. Our culture, our music, our arts, and our rebelliousness are dutifully watched and re-enacted by billions of young people around the globe. In fact, our very name, which represents the dreams of all peoples wishing to be free, has produced some of the kindest smiles I have ever encountered in my travels. From the countryside of France, to Fair Verona, to the charming capital of Portugal, to the humblest villages of western Africa, the American idea of liberty is wholeheartedly loved.

Tocqueville, the French aristocrat who traveled throughout the United States during the Jacksonian era, observed that there are two kinds of patriotism. One is an instinctive patriotism, where

“there exists a love of native country that has its source principally in the unreflective, disinterested, and indefinable sentiment that binds the heart…to the place where the man was born…It is a sort of religion itself; it does not reason, it believes, it feels, it acts.”

This instinctive patriotism reigns in nations with a centralized power structure, run through a top-down approach by an aristocracy or monarch/dictator/Caesar, which is inevitable in a centralized, bureaucratic political state.

Tocqueville described the other type of public spirit as a reflective patriotism:

“There is another more rational than that one [instinctive patriotism]; less generous, less ardent perhaps, but more fruitful and more lasting; this one is born of enlightenment…it grows with the exercise of rights, and in the end it intermingles in a way with personal interest. A man understands the influence that the well-being of the country has on his own.”

My patriotism is a reflective one. I love this nation; I love the system of limited government that was designed to protect us from tyranny. I love sense of awe I get from foreigners when they find out where I’m from; but this does not mean I will stand by silently and watch the government breaks its own laws to enhance its power over the lives of every individual citizen. I will not meekly accept the status quo of government lawlessness. I do not accept the socialist doctrine that our elected leaders are there to protect us through new legislation. Our representatives are there to abide by the Constitution, thus protecting our inalienable rights.

• Only Congress can declare war. Without a declaration of war by our representatives, our foreign intervention is lawless, and therefore has no moral justification.

• Only gold and silver is legal tender. Printing paper money to bail out big corporations and banks is illegal. Printing paper money to finance a massive welfare state is illegal.

• Cruel and unusual punishment is strictly prohibited in our laws. Torture and imprisonment without charges are illegal.

If nobody raises hell or even discusses the government breaking its own laws, we will suffer the fate of many civilizations that have come before us: behold Leviathan!

Tocqueville, who survived the bloody revolution of 1848 in France, had this to say on the decline and decay of public spirit:

"...sometimes a moment arrives in the lives of peoples when old customs are changed, mores destroyed, beliefs shaken, the prestige of memories faded away, and when, however, enlightenment remains incomplete and political rights are badly secured or restricted. Then men no longer perceive the native country except in a weak and doubtful light; they no longer place it in the soil...nor in the usages of their ancestors, which they have been taught to regard as a yoke; nor in the religion that they doubt...nor in the legislator whom they fear and scorn...they have neither the instinctive patriotism of the monarchy or the reflective patriotism of the republic..."

This is what I see today in America. Apathy. No passion. No public spirit. No respect for history. No respect for that which is old or sacred. In a nation as great as ours, this is just a shame...

school is cool!

hey folks, i'm a busy man right now. spring break is next week and i hope to have some stuff on ghana, liberalism and maybe even a 2pac video.....y'all keep coming back now!