Ukraine

[Biko Agozino]

Ukraine should get help with development projects, not weapons. Instead of banning Russian, a language that is spoken by a sizable part of the population, fund the teaching of all languages. With renewable energy, Ukraine could be industrialized peacefully as a non-aligned nation

Biko

[Cornelius Hamelberg]

 "peacefully as a non-aligned nation". exactly. Like Sweden...

Eleven years ago, as we travelled by train through Estonia to a seaside resort that was once the summer residence of the Czar of Russia ( we were in Estonia to celebrate someone’s birthday) what we saw on the roadside looked like the relics of failed Soviet efforts to industrialize that Baltic state. So it was not equal development of all the states in the former USSR. I visited the synagogue in Tallinn and was asked by the rabbi there, “ Do you know the difference between Estonia now and Estonia as a member of the USSR?” Being an honest fellow, I told him, “ I don’t know.” He smiled and replied, “ Under the Soviets it was Marx & Engels, now it’s Marks & Spencers!”  

Since this MAD (mutual assured destruction) situation cannot persist forever, one would have thought that if there could be a moratorium of an agreed x number of years during which Ukraine and the remaining remnants of the former Warsaw Pact countries should not join NATO then that would signal the end of the crisis.

Far away from all the problems in Africa, here’s some light-hearted diversion to ease the stress and the tension that's starting to mount over here:

(Some years ago the idea of Israel joining NATO was being floated (in the media) the centre of gravity to that ideology being the “One for all and all for one” motto – therefore, ye unfriendly Arabs & Iran beware: An attack on a/one NATO member is an attack on all NATO members including Uncle Sam who could thereby send in some of his biggest Armageddon bombers to cause total nuclear annihilation…

Apart from being Russia- friendly, I wonder what Islamic NATO member Turkiye with the largest land army and an air force that is second to none thinks about all this...

As things are now, Israel cannot compete in the Middle East Football league championship - not even for the FIFA world cup - the official reason given by the OIC countries is “lack of security.”

They say that they cannot guarantee the safety of the Israeli players, the safety of the Israeli players cannot be guaranteed on or off the football stadium. Just imagine the psychological state of mind of the Israeli football squad having to face Iran for the return match in Imam Khomeini Revolutionary Football Stadium in Teheran. A total of how many red and yellow cards would be dealt? For the first match between Israel and Iraq in Tel Aviv, the Iraqi team would have been reduced to eight men (three red cards) and the Israeli team also reduced to eight men, after the collisions. Who in the Iraqi team would want to return to Baghdad to face the firing squad for losing to the Zionist enemy?)

Our officially neutral Sweden (not a member of NATO) is busy showing some deep political sympathies for Ukraine and it would seem that Sweden is sometimes a willing lapdog for Uncle Sam, hence in a leaked diplomatic telegram Carl Bildt was described as “ a medium sized dog with big dog attitude”. Right now, all the talk is about a Russian invasion of Ukraine which if at all would have to happen this winter - not a few months later, and if and when it does happen , there’s the ever present danger that some silly military or other could deliberately or mistakenly fire a missile into Russia proper , maybe a missile aimed at the Kremlin , and then the ensuing war would be fought in Europe and not in the United States. It will all start to get interesting by then, when North Korea fires their first hypersonic ballistic missile, over the Atlantic, and that’s when Biko & Co over there in Virginia will wake up and start smelling the coffee, begin to understand and to know that you are not so far away after all…

For those of us who are superstitious, believe in prophecy etc. this is most serious:

Anton Johansson : The Fate of Nations

https://docplayer.net/56763589-Anton-johanson-prophecies-of-world-war-i-and-iii.html

The Prophecies of Anton Johansson about a third World War

[Cornelius Hamelberg]

Up to now, we haven’t heard Vladimir Putin putting it exactly like this:

These days, every time I hear the name CUBA or Mexico I find myself comparing the Cuba crisis of 1962 with the current crisis that’s being manufactured and fomented and hyped up around Ukraine. The same people who are saying that everybody’s free to choose their alliances would still not want Russia to set up military bases in Cuba or Mexico or Canada, or even little Grenada....

[Biko Agozino]

Rather than deploy missiles in Cuba, Russia should fund infrastructures for Cubans and Africans like China. They should be doing the same at home by the way. Spend the military funds on social security and ignore war mongers after attaining mutually assured destruction. The US should be doing the same at home - deploy the military spending towards tuition-free four year college for all, universal healthcare coverage, housing, infrastructural devt. and re-industrialization. Those countries forced to adopt pacifist constitutions have fared better economically. 

Russia is a thoroughly European country. Russia was an ally of the US, France, and the UK against Germany, Italy and Japan in WW2 where it was Russia that pushed back the Nazi war machine to the greatest extent at thebhuge cost of dozens of millions of lives of ordinary people fighting the great patriotic war to save their revolution. 

Russia is still a major partner of Europe especially in energy trade. The people of Ukraine can decide that they want to be non-allied and concentrate on economic and social development and they should receive international support. Germany should extend the policy of industrial reconstruction at home not only to Ukraine but also to Africa. 

If Israel cannot play in the Arab League, let them apply to join the African league if they are not afraid of being flogged with koboko at every match where West African and North African no-nonsense strikers go show them pepper; though they can be given security at matches. No need to shoot missiles when they can shoot penalties.

What if imperial Germany had rejected war and concentrated on developing universities, industries, education, and advancing social conditions in the few colonies they colonized in Africa to prove that they were more enlightened than other European colonizers rather than commit genocide against the Heroro and others while seeking to grab more at the cost of dozens of millions of lives of Germans who did not own any colonial companies? There could have been no European tribal wars over which country's bourgeoisie must control the lion's share of colonies in Africa, contrary to the warnings of Du Bois and Rosa Luxemburg. Monday Morning Quarter Backing. 

Ukraine is a reminder that we can learn from history to answer the rock n roll question: War, what is it good for? Absolutely nothing.

Biko

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[Gbolahan Gbadamosi]

Hear! Hear!

I really like (and agree with) every sentence you have written here. Thanks Biko.

Gbolahan Gbadamosi

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/617618028.7434742.1643769756022%40mail.yahoo.com.

[Cornelius Hamelberg]

Professor Biko Agozino,

This boy-boy, beggar-beggar mentality! I’m complaining. Why is it that it’s always “The West” “China” “Russia” Japan” “Korea” that should be doing things for Africa? When is Africa going to start gaining some respect by becoming self-reliant?

What if Britain had never colonised anybody? What if the Romans had never colonised Britain? You ask, “What if imperial Germany had rejected war and concentrated on developing universities, industries, education, and advancing social conditions in the few colonies they colonized in Africa”?

I ask: What if the Son of God had not been born in Bethlehem?

I guess that your message to the president of Nigeria and Nigerians should be the same

“ fund infrastructures for Cubans and Africans like China. They should be doing the same at home by the way. Spend the military funds on social security and ignore war mongers after attaining mutually assured destruction. The US should be doing the same at home - deploy the military spending towards tuition-free four year college for all, universal healthcare coverage, housing, infrastructural devt. and re-industrialization. Those countries forced to adopt pacifist constitutions have fared better economically.”

Nigeria has flared trillions of dollars worth of gas  and contiues to do so. The same kind of gas that Russia is supplying Germany....

You remember the movie Dr. Strangelove (How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb)?

Well, there is nothing comedic about the current NATO-Russia impasse that is largely being fuelled by rhetoric from sleepy Joe Biden who before being elected Potus had been accused of having some special business interests in the Ukraine and is now talking tough to show that despite that shuffle shuffle walk he is not a goner yet and still has some spunk left in him. If he’s not careful, after Afghanistan, by opening up too may war fronts at the same time, Iran is going to teach him a lesson, followed by China (in the South China Seas) and North Korea just throwing / test-firing a few of their hypersonic ballistic missiles over the Atlantic should be enough to send some shivers down his spine and through his thinning hairs sitting there in the Pentagon with Kamala Harris waiting to take over as Commander-in-Chief, in the oval office, and by her side, for the first time, the First Gentleman of America. At least the Smartha Brahmins of Tamil Nadu should be happy about that. One of their own kind as first female Potus of the United Snakes of America. War, what is it good for when you can chant Om Shanti Shanti Shanti

Indeed, just as you say, “Ukraine is a reminder that we can learn from history “

Just the other day, I was looking at some document about Jewish Cemeteries in Ukraine and checking out Ukraine in Jewish history. I was checking this out since Volodymyr Zelensky the President of Ukraine is Jewish and Volodymyr Groysman the Prime Minister of Ukraine is also Jewish… and there are currently about 1,200,000 immigrants from the former USSR in Israel

If wishes were horses then beggars would ride. What you have just written here (your wish list and recommendations qualify you you for the Nobel Peace Prize and to join the ranks of Henry Kissinger, Yasser Arafat, Yitzhak Rabin, and you saw what happened to him…

As a criminologist I’m sure that you are also familiar with the scoundrel known as Nebuchadnezzar and others of his ilk.

In our world of realpolitik, the weakest link to all that your wishful thinking/ prayers to the Almighty is your Biko Agozino military doctrine being proposed to our macho-man Vladimir Putin (what a contrast with Sleepy Joe B) that even as NATO relentlessly expands eastwards to the very borders of Russia, bribing and absorbing all the former Warsaw Pact Countries (NATO would also like to get Sweden on board) Russia should “ignore war mongers after attaining mutually assured destruction.”

And what happens when NATO says “hands up!”?

Russia should then Blow the whole planet up?

Bring the whole temple down, like Samson..

Biko Agozino: Paradise Regained: Samson Agonistes

I suppose it’s the same military doctrine that you propose to Iran who even as we speak is already completely surrounded by US military bases

You say that “Russia is a thoroughly European country” Really? Like the former “East European” countries? Then the logical step 2 is to invite them to join the EU, to be followed by step 3, drop any pretence to ideological differences and self- interest, open the door for them to expand Westwards invite them to full NATO membership and to become de jure and de facto the most powerful warlords in the European sector of that organisation. I don’t think that Kamala Harris would like the idea. Nor would China and North Korea...

[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

Magnificent piece by Biko.

That road not travelled that led to WWII would have meant a different world for everyone.

Great thanks

Toyin

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/617618028.7434742.1643769756022%40mail.yahoo.com.

[Biko Agozino]

'This boy-boy, beggar-beggar mentality!' wrote the self-proclaimed stupendous Ignoramus None of my seeds shall sit by the sidewalk and beg bread, sang Marley. Europe is dependent on Africa and has been for more than 1000 if not 50,000 years since the invention of humanity in Africa. That is the originality of Diop in Civilization or Barbarism and of Rodney in How Europe Underdeveloped Africa - Oyibo people are the ones who have always depended on us for everything while giving us bombs to kill each other. Fanon said that we are not begging for reparation as if it is a charitable work by the sisters of mercy, we deserve reparative justice for crimes against humanity.

Thanks for nominating me for a visit to the People's House to dine with the dancing queen. But tell the committee that we no dey cook pepper soup with Peace Prizes. Let them throw some Science prize bones in our direction now after all, our women invented the Calendar with I Shango counting bones designed to remind them what time of the month it was about 25,000 years ago when there was nobody called a European.

Almost every country is multicultural today, so why would Ukraine ban the teaching of the language spoken by a huge proportion of the population and expect them to go and sleep like Sleepy Joe. Yeah, let Uncle Joe sleep and take rational decisions unlike those suffering from insomnia who never sleep and are fond of grabbing women against their will. Germany got it right with the coalition that includes the Greens saying no to war and sending helmets. Let them send machine tools for factories instead.

So our Jewish Igbo brothers are in power in Ukraine when the Nigerian currency still proclaims, never allow igbo rule again (naira)? The Igbo example is to invest in education and commerce to reduce poverty even if those who control the military and the oil wells do not want us to beggar our neighbors because of bad belle. Let those born to rule continue ruling but they should live and let live. Instead of looking for land to grab for cattle or for oil drilling or just shakara, they should use their political power to wipe away illiteracy without firing a shot.

Can I get some Amen? Thanks to Gbolahan and Oluwatoyin.

Biko

https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/04ee47c1-3ad1-43ec-afea-a102914ca879n%40googlegroups.com

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[Cornelius Hamelberg]

Professor Biko Agozino,

Indeed, “they should use their political power to wipe away illiteracy without firing a shot”

Here’s my Amen. I lend my voice to the Bob Marley chorus singing,

"Brother, you're right, you're right You're right, you're right, you're so right!”

Bob, 40 years gone today...

And here’s my Salve Magister as we used to salute our Latin teacher when we were in Form 1.

I suppose that if the Anglo-Saxons hadn’t been colonized by the Romans, there wouldn’t have been any Latin in our school syllabus. I also suppose that these days you cannot be a proficient English Language buff if your don’t know enough Latin to translate quae cum ita sint...

I’m in agony; I keep hearing this line from Judy Blue Eyes:

“Don’t let the past, remind us of what we are not now.”

I knew that Cornelius Ignoramus was going to put you on the defensive, boasting and braying and chest-beating in the usual “It all began in Africa” braggadocio mode, to name just a few, like Professor Griff and popularizers such as Yosef Ben-Jochannan fondly known as “Dr. Ben” and John Henrik Clarke, and Ivan Van Sertima and Martin Bernal and Jungle Brothers, “sent to earth to educate the fool” and that's’ why we are where we are today.

Reminds me of Malcolm X’s speech at the African Unity Rally in Harlem in 1963, complaining about that mentality that believes that “you can’t do anything, without the White Man”. Of course, that was back in 1963, two years after you arrived on this planet, from Heaven…

So, tell me some more, what’s happening?