Listen to Your Ancestors By William Bowles

18 October 2003

[This is another essay out of the past that on rereading, seems even more relevant than it did when I wrote it almost exactly ten years ago in 2003. It exists in its old non-Wordpress form but republishing it here, makes it more accessible as well as tying into my current writing. WB]

I am a big fan of history. Ever since I was a kid, history fascinated me and perhaps in another life I might well have become a historian. And, in an age where history gets rewritten by the corporate media hour by hour, day by day, understanding where we come from and how we got here is a critical issue.

Empire Games – but who writes the rules? By William Bowles

12 June 2011

The Western left’s abdication, nay abandonment of principles that go to the heart of the socialist liberation project has been long in the making, decades even and made all the more obvious by the left’s take on events in Libya and now Syria. Critiques of the ‘humanitarian, socialist interventionists’ came thick and thin but for the most part the fundamental question of why the left had abandoned its historic mission has not been asked.

Robert Mugabe, yet another man the West loves to hate By William Bowles

29 June 2008

Robert Mugabe is bit like Osama bin Laden, if he didn’t exist they’d have to invent him, and invent him they have, with a vengeance.

Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil By William Bowles

15 November 2007

AIDS, truly the white man’s burden

It’s taken decades to unmask the story of how AIDS came to be, and far from being an ‘act of nature’, the real story of its origins is one of ruthless ambition and professional rivalries, entrenched interests, racism and the arrogance and the indifference of the ‘master race’ toward their fellow humans and to our closest relative, the chimpanzee, hundreds of whom were needlessly slaughtered allegedly in the cause of ‘science’ and our well-being.

Jive8: Bob Geldof does damage control for international war criminal By William Bowles

6 July 2005

The last few weeks have seen a gigantic propaganda onslaught by the state and corporate interests to confuse, misdirect and finally channel peoples’ concerns anywhere except where they truly belong, that is, directed at big business and the political class that represents them, that has for hundreds of years raped Africa and the rest of the poor of this planet that in turn, made possible the obscene wealth we in the developed world not only possess but squander. A squandering that is directly responsible for the other major crime of our age, climate change.

Africa Bound By William Bowles

6 June 2005

Kwame Nkrumah and Martin Luther King

Africa’s winner-takes-all politics lies at the heart of everything that has gone wrong with Africa… It is the reason why it has fallen behind the rest of the world economically, the reason for its wars and poverty.
Richard Dowden, director of the Royal Africa Society and former Africa editor of the Independent. The Independent, 1/6/05, p.2

The statement above pretty well sums up the Western propaganda line on Africa, the alleged ‘basket-case’. That it’s written by the director of the Royal Africa Society and former Africa editor for the Independent speaks reams about the interlocking nature and hence common ideological thrust that the Western ‘intelligentsia’ peddles to the ‘masses’ about how Africa got to be where it is today.

Listen to your ancestors By William Bowles

18 October 2015

I’m a big fan of history. Ever since I was a kid, history fascinated me and perhaps in another life I might well have become a historian. And in an age where history gets rewritten by the corporate media hour by hour, day by day, understanding where we come from and how we got here is a critical issue.

Let history be our teacher By William Bowles

8 August 2003

In the context of the events that are unfolding in Liberia, it’s important that we do not forget how these conditions came to pass, and the role of the West in making it so. This is especially important given the kind of media coverage and ‘analysis’ we are being subjected to, now that the West has ‘rediscovered’ Africa.

The continent from another planet By William Bowles

3 August 2003

Have you noticed that events in Africa are reported in a contextual vacuum? And predictably, coverage in the press has been nothing short of scandalous. Either, it’s ‘warlords,’ ‘corruption,’ ‘tribalism,’ ‘humanitarian crisis,’ ‘failed state,’ or some combination of the above. As far as Western media coverage is concerned, Africa has no history that’s of any relevance to contemporary events aside that is, from some form of ‘self-inflicted failure,’ that is intrinsic to the ‘African mind.’

Bush in the Bush William Bowles

8 July 2003

Today, Bush arrives in Senegal where he’ll visit Goree Island, one of the locations from which an estimated 20 million slaves started their long journey to the Americas. Half of the 20 million never made it. And no doubt, Bush will make a speech about America’s commitment to ‘freedom’ and to Africa, blah-blah-blah…. He’ll talk about America’s desire to fight AIDs, poverty and the lack of economic progress. Of course he won’t mention the 200 billion dollars in subsidies pledged to America’s agri-business over the next few years, nor the effects of ‘structural adjustment’ in destroying the economies of many of Africa’s struggling neo-colonies. And will he mention the long list of African dictators installed or supported by the US over the past fifty years in its alleged fight against communism? Don’t bet on it because you’ll lose.