Africa

"The Portuguese military was the first to use chemical and biological warfare for counterinsurgency warfare in Africa, Portuguese troops poisoned wells and threw drugged prisoners out of aircraft. South African military officers were dispatched to Portuguese arms units in Angola to gain experience in counterinsurgency warfare. In general, South African military personnel were not impressed with the overall effectiveness of Portuguese counterinsurgency programs."

"Rediker says history has conveniently left out that there were many black pirates. His research of 15 pirate ships shows almost one-third of the pirates were, quote, "negroes or mulattoes." Some black pirates were runaway slaves. Some were sailors whose merchant ships were captured. And many blacks ended up on pirate ships when pirates grabbed slave ships as they traveled from West Africa through the middle passage."

"Our ties with Africa are rooted in the heritage of many Americans and in our historic commitment to self-determination. We respect the hard-earned sovereignty of Africa's new states and will continue to do our utmost to make a meaningful contribution to their development. We have no illusions that the United States can single-handedly solve the seemingly intractable problems of apartheid and minority rule, but we can and will encourage non-violent, evolutionary change by supporting international efforts peacefully to resolve the problems of southern Africa and by maintaining our contacts with all."

"The United States has always supported the process of self-determination in Africa. Our friendship for the African countries is expressed in support for continued peaceful economic development, expansion of trade, humanitarian relief efforts and our belief that the entire continent should be free from outside military intervention. Millions of Americans recognize their historical and cultural ties with Africa and express their desire that United States policy toward Africa is a matter of great importance. We support all forces which promote negotiated settlements and racial peace. We shall continue to deplore all violence and terrorism and to urge all concerned that the rights of tribal, ethnic, and racial minorities be guaranteed through workable safeguards. Our policy is to strengthen the forces of moderation recognizing that solutions to African problems will not come quickly. The peoples of Africa can coexist in security, work together in freedom and harmony, and strive together to secure their prosperity. We hope that the Organization of African Unity will be able to achieve mature and stable relationships within Africa and abroad. The interests of peace and security in Africa are best served by the absence of arms and greater concentration on peaceful development. We reserve the right to maintain the balance by extending our support to nations facing a threat."

"We recognize that much is at stake in Africa and that the United States and the industrial west have vital interests there, economically, strategically, and politically. Working closely with our allies, a Republican administration will seek to assist the countries of Africa with our presence, our markets, our know-how, and our investment. We will work to create a climate of economic and political development and confidence. We will encourage and assist business to play a major role in support of regional industrial development programs, mineral complexes, and agricultural self-sufficiency. Republicans believe that African nations, if given a choice, will reject the Marxist, totalitarian model being forcibly imposed."

"The African peoples are convinced that the west is central to world stability and economic growth on which their own fortunes ultimately depend. A Republican administration will adhere to policies that reflect the complex origins of African conflicts, demonstrate that we know what U.S. interests are, and back those interests in meaningful ways. We will recognize the important role of economic and military assistance programs and will devote major resources to assisting African development and stability when such aid is given on a bilateral basis and contributes directly to American interests on the continent. In Southern Africa, American policies must be guided by commonsense and by our own humanitarian principles. Republicans believe that our history has meaning for Africa in demonstrating that a multiracial society with guarantees of individual rights is possible and can work. We must remain open and helpful to all parties, whether in the new Zimbabwe, in Namibia, or in the Republic of South Africa. A Republican administration will not endorse situations or constitutions, in whatever society, which are racist in purpose or in effect. It will not expect miracles, but will press for genuine progress in achieving goals consistent with American ideals."

"We are committed to democracy in Africa and to the economic development that will help it flourish. That is why we will foster free-market, growth-oriented, and liberalized trading policies. As part of reforming the policies of the International Development Association, we have assisted in directing a larger proportion of its resources to sub-Saharan Africa. To nurture the spirit of individual initiative in Africa, our newly created African Development Foundation will work with African entrepreneurs at the village level. In addition, through our rejection of the austerity programs of international organizations, we are bringing new hope to the people of Africa that they will join in the benefits of the growing, dynamic world economy. We will continue to provide necessary security and economic assistance to African nations with which we maintain good relations to help them develop the infrastructure of democratic capitalism so essential to economic growth and individual accomplishment. We will encourage our allies in Europe and east Asia to coordinate their assistance efforts so that the industrialized countries will be able to contribute effectively to the economic development of the continent. We believe that, if given the choice, the nations of Africa will reject the model of Marxist state-controlled economies in favor of the prosperity and quality of life that free economies and free people can achieve. We will continue to assist threatened African governments to protect themselves and will work with them to protect their continent from subversion and to safeguard their strategic minerals."

"We reaffirm our commitment to the rights of all South Africans. Apartheid is repugnant. In South Africa, as elsewhere on the continent, we support well-conceived efforts to foster peace, prosperity, and stability."

"Republicans have three priorities in our country' s relations with Africa. The first is to oppose the forces of Marxist imperialism, which sustain the march of tyranny in Africa. This priority includes giving strong assistance to groups which oppose Soviet and Cuban-sponsored oppression in Africa. Our second priority is the need to develop and sustain democracies in Africa. Democrats have often taken the view that democracy is unattainable because of Africa's economic condition, yet at the same time they refuse to promote the conditions in which democracies can flourish. Economic freedom and market-based economies are the key to the development of democracy throughout Africa. Our third area of concern is humanitarian assistance, especially food aid, to African nations. The Reagan-Bush Administration has always provided this assistance."

"I am an African. And that makes me who I am."

"On the other hand, the European authors of this article consider that they have a responsibility concerning the misdeeds of colonialism in Africa. Like Italy, Spain also resorted to a strategy of scorched earth in its colonies, including the use of poison gas (Kunz and Müller 1990). As in other Mediterranean countries, the Spanish massacres in Morocco and Equatorial Guinea (Pando Despierto 1999; Guerín 2008) have been deleted from cultural memory and replaced by nostalgic accounts of the empire. We have to help construct a critical memory that reviews the works of totalitarianism and racism in other continents, because our societies have to learn about a history that has been so often forgotten, sanitized or sweetened through popular films, books and magazines. ‘These new visual and textual formations... today shape the mental geography and the imaginary of people who travel blindly and unencumbered through geographic and historical space. As temporal distance increases, these popular constructions may even, one day, be regarded as factual truth and assimilated as knowledge by those who have only a remote inkling of colonial history’ (Norindr 1996: 158). By exposing colonialism, we may contribute to rethink its legacies in the present."

"We’ve just heard from the Minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Many point a finger of blame at the DRC and other poor countries for their poverty. Yet we don’t seem to remember, or want to remember, that starting around 1870, King Leopold of Belgium created a slave colony in the Congo that lasted for around 40 years; and then the government of Belgium ran the colony for another 50 years. In 1961, after independence of the DRC, the CIA then assassinated the DRC’s first popular leader, Patrice Lumumba, and installed a US-backed dictator, Mobutu Sese Seko, for roughly the next 30 years."

"Africa was the part of the world with the institutions least able to take advantage of the opportunities made available by the Industrial Revolution. For at least the last one thousand years, outside of small pockets and during limited periods of time, Africa has lagged behind the rest of the world in terms of technology, political development, and prosperity. It is the part of the world where centralized states formed very late and very tenuously. Where they did form, they were likely as highly absolutist as the Kongo and often short lived, usually collapsing. Africa shares this trajectory of lack of state centralization with countries such as Afghanistan, Haiti, and Nepal, which have also failed to impose order over their territories and create anything resembling stability to achieve even a modicum of economic progress. Though located in very different parts of the world, Afghanistan, Haiti, and Nepal have much in common institutionally with most nations in sub-Saharan Africa, and are thus some of the poorest countries in the world today."

"When you fall, get up, oh oh And if you fall, get up, eh eh Tsamina mina zangalewa Cause this is Africa Tsamina mina eh eh Waka waka eh eh Tsamina mina zangalewa This time for Africa."

"Lord, bless Africa. May her horn rise high up. Hear Thou our prayers. And bless us. Descend, O Spirit. Descend, O Holy Spirit."

"Should anti-cult ideology become entrenched within African regulatory frameworks, it is likely to undermine the broader ecosystem of religious diversity. Independent churches, indigenous spiritual movements, and minority faiths would face increased scrutiny, bureaucratic barriers, and the risk of closure. The distinction between safeguarding citizens and controlling belief would become increasingly ambiguous, thereby weakening the constitutional guarantee of religious [liberty]."

"Slavery existed all over the world. The Egyptians had slaves. The Chinese had slaves. The Africans did..."

"Africans express particularly positive views about America."

"China's investment in Africa of various kinds exceeds forty billion dollars."

"[T]he result of a collaboration, most likely unthought-out and maybe even unconscious, between outsiders and insiders; almost a conspiracy of Africans and their European apologists, who would very much like to see Africa succeed, even at the expense of a pogrom, a thorough purge of these immigrant peoples."

"The regeneration of Africa means that a new and unique civilization is soon to be added to the world. The African is not a proletarian in the world of science and art. He has precious creations of his own, of ivory, of copper and of gold, fine, plated willow-ware and weapons of superior workmanship. Civilization resembles an organic being in its development – it is born, it perishes, and it can propagate itself. More particularly, it resembles a plant, it takes root in the teeming earth, and when the seeds fall in other soils new varieties sprout up. The most essential departure of this new civilization is that it shall be thoroughly spiritual and humanistic – indeed a regeneration moral and eternal!"

"If you can’t have electricity you can’t drive any industrial development. Electricity drives everything, so until we fix that problem Africa faces huge challenges."