The root of racism?

Slavery has started since the beginning of time. One of the most infamous cases of slavery which happened in Africa was the Transatlantic slavery in the 15th century. As mentioned previously in the last post, the introduction of AIDS/HIV is one of the effects impacted to the Africa region and the rest of the world, most probably due to the Transatlantic Slavery.

So what is the Transatlantic Slave Trade and what are some of the hard truths about it that we are not aware of?

Maybe this can help.

All in all, the Slave Trade has brought upon massive injustice to the people till this day. It has led us to believe in the concept of racial biasness from one skin color to the other, which might have eventually create issues like this we see today, especially in the States.

Perhaps we might think that at least the practice of slavery no longer exist....WRONG!!
On the contrary, we have now replaced the term slavery into a modern phrase.




And what about the other type of 'modern slaves'? Not in the sense of being trafficked illegally but still facing the same abuse and torments we associate with slaves.

Such is the case which happened in Singapore.

Just like civilization, slavery still prospers and flourishes in some corners of the world through time.
If we were to sever the chains of supply and demands of human capital, perhaps we are able to cut the ties and practices of slavery especially in this modern times.

From Colonialism to AIDS/HIV?!!!

                       

                  Who would've thought...?!!

While I was researching some of the social impacts the Berlin conference has left behind Africa.

This came up.

According to the book from Timberg and Haplerin, the HIV/AIDS pandemic became prevalent through the Scramble of Africa right after the Berlin Conference.

With large groups of colonists and technology moving into a land still practicing their ancient ways. It was only just a matter of time when a strand of the virus began to thrive, transferring from chimp to human.

As they traced the origin of the pandemic. They discovered the probable path of the HIV virus, originating from a small patch of dense forest in Cameroon.

In a sense, Western colonialism did not just affect the local people of the African region.

Due to the motivation behind the acquisition of resources and lands equates to the amount of power they hold as an empire, little did they expect the repercussions of the Scramble of Africa to this day, where an estimation of 36.7 million people were living with the HIV virus worldwide. 

Hence, this is the price that we have to pay as human beings for exploiting humanity in the past. 

Here's your slice...

Through the lectures, I've learned about the Berlin Conference. Basically a German Chancellor by the name Otto von Bismarck invited 14 other Western Countries, including the 4 superpowers of that time (1884-1885) Portugal, British, France and Belgium and none from the African countries to dissect the African regions up to their own preference and colonize them.

Probably the ideal image to sum up the whole scenario.

Now, part of the reasons why they do this was of course to exhibit their colonial power not just to the Africans but to their fellow Western rivals. In simple terms: the more land you own, the more power you have.
Another reason was because of Africa rich resources and raw materials. Even before the discovery of oil, Africa was abundant with diamond, palm oil, cotton and so much more. By monopolizing more of these resources is to be able to control the market.

By taking up the African countries to themselves, it is with no surprise that this comes with serious issue like genocide and slave labor to name a few. Even centuries after the Berlin Conference, Africa is still feeling the effects and repercussions of it. From civil war, countries secede from one another to the entire region heavily dependent on aid and debt.

Here is a video to summarize and illustrate the events after the Berlin Conference, the Scramble for Africa:

In conjunction of Independence Day in Malaysia.

    Yesterday was the 59th Independence Day of Malaysia and I thought I should reflect upon some of the accomplishment the country has achieved in relations to the current issue of Africa that we are facing. Coming from a multicultural country with its diverse ethnicity of people, Malaysia too started off as a colonized land by the British. Due to the pushing of economy reasons in the land used to be named as Malaya, there was an influx of Chinese and Indian migrant to help with not just mining but also farming reasons. Since then the Chinese, Indians and Malays have been living under the same country alongside with other groups of indigenous community or Orang Asli.

One of the achievement that did us proud as Malaysians was when Malaysian athletes bagging a few medals for its country in the recent Rio Olympics 2016 in Brazil. I'm sure many of you are familiar with Lee Chong Wei being one of the top badminton players in the world recently just won himself the second place in the Olympics.

Lee Chong Wei, top Malaysian athlete in the badminton world.

However, we have to ask ourselves: what have we truly accomplish as we are just 4 years away from Vision 2020, which is part of the nation's strategy towards being a 'self-sufficient' industrialized country by the year 2020

As some of you may have heard about the recent news behind the infamous 1MDB scandal of the Prime Minister of Malaysia, Najib Razak being accused of siphoning state funds through this company and into his own personal account. Yet, despite numerous attempts in bringing this case to court, a number of local judges has opted to close the case instead despite dozens of relevant unforgiving evidence.

In terms of its resources and putting it in contrast with Africa, Malaysia too has its fair share of abundance rich oil around the coast as well as timber located at East Malaysia that is currently being exploited off.

Given that the richness of resources in the country that essentially should be share with the public and instead the Malaysian politicians are seen to be sharing these reward among themselves. So the question that I asked in this post to ponder about is: will Malaysia ever going to succeed as a nation against corruption or will it end up falling into the same fate as Africa, constantly having its nation's riches to be exploited people with power and their temporary position?

Only time will tell.

Malaysia Boleh...

Introduction to Africa

     I’ve started this blog as part of an assessment from one of my classes called the Contemporary Africa and Social Change to explore further and reflect over some of the issues/topics in the lectures. In a way, this blog serves as a platform to channel my ‘inner’ thoughts on issues related not just on Africa but to the rest of the world as well. In these coming weeks, we shall look into the issues surrounding Africa and try to understand what were some of the repercussions that has affected the continent (yes, Africa is not a country) to the situation that we see today. 

But was Africa's condition already like this at the very beginning? Or did we as colonist transformed it in to the Africa we now are familiar with, the region that is devastated its poverty condition filled with famine and drought, even the adverts that were used by donation campaigns were usually the ones depicting starved African kids staring blankly over the camera with a barren dry background. 

Take this image for example. 

Throughout the lectures, I came to know that it was a series of (unfortunate) events that has since created a domino effect leading up to the present Africa.