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Honestly, as a Caucasian woman raised going to the Reservations in native country in New Mexico, I am sick and tired of white people answering this question. How bout we let a real First Nations person talk? Black Elk - WikiquoteGuess what folks - we stole their land, slaughtered their people and their buffalo, gave them diseases they had never even known about, destroyed them with alcohol when we weren’t outright killing them with firearms they had no initial access to, herded their children to schools far away from their families where the children had their language ripped out of them and were often raped and tortured. How would you deal with this if it happened to your people? The Canadian Government Systematically Tortured And Abused Aboriginal Children For 100 YearsBecause white people write the history books, we refuse to acknowledge that Hitler was studying how well we genocidally massacred entire populations and rewrote them out of history, and he used much of our horrific success as a model for how to get rid of the Jews, gypsies, and other outcast populations when he was writing Mein Kampf. Were American Indians the Victims of Genocide?Thanks for yet again perpetuating the white colonizer superiority myth that we whose ancestors were part of the original Holocaust have participated in since the “Founding” (Read Occupation) of this country. I’d love to hear from any First Nations folks out there who can speak to the incomprehensible assault on their land, their peoples, their language, their traditions, their animals, and their spirituality by ruthless, master race colonizers.Read up on this before you rattle on about it white folk!Yes, Native Americans Were the Victims of GenocideHistorians/History Native Americans, genocide by Roxanne Dunbar-OrtizRoxanne Dunbar-Ortiz grew up in rural Oklahoma, the daughter of a tenant farmer and part-Indian mother. She has been active in the international Indigenous movement for more than four decades and is known for her lifelong commitment to national and international social justice issues. After receiving her PhD in history at the University of California at Los Angeles, she taught in the newly established Native American Studies Program at California State University, Hayward, and helped found the Departments of Ethnic Studies and Women’s Studies. Her latest book is An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States.Mass Grave at Wounded KneeThis paper, written under the title, “U.S. Settler-Colonialism and Genocide Policies,” was delivered at the Organization of American Historians 2015 Annual Meeting in St. Louis, MO on April 18, 2015.US policies and actions related to Indigenous peoples, though often termed “racist” or “discriminatory,” are rarely depicted as what they are: classic cases of imperialism and a particular form of colonialism—settler colonialism. As anthropologist Patrick Wolfe writes, “The question of genocide is never far from discussions of settler colonialism. Land is life—or, at least, land is necessary for life.”i The history of the United States is a history of settler colonialism.The extension of the United States from sea to shining sea was the intention and design of the country’s founders. “Free” land was the magnet that attracted European settlers. After the war for independence but preceding the writing of the US Constitution, the Continental Congress produced the Northwest Ordinance. This was the first law of the incipient republic, revealing the motive for those desiring independence. It was the blueprint for gobbling up the British-protected Indian Territory (“Ohio Country”) on the other side of the Appalachians and Alleghenies. Britain had made settlement there illegal with the Proclamation of 1763.In 1801, President Jefferson aptly described the new settler state’s intentions for horizontal and vertical continental expansion, stating: “However our present interests may restrain us within our own limits, it is impossible not to look forward to distant times, when our rapid multiplication will expand itself beyond those limits and cover the whole northern, if not the southern continent, with a people speaking the same language, governed in similar form by similar laws.” This vision of manifest destiny found form a few years later in the Monroe Doctrine, signaling the intention of annexing or dominating former Spanish colonial territories in the Americas and the Pacific, which would be put into practice during the rest of the century.The form of colonialism that the Indigenous peoples of North America have experienced was modern from the beginning: the expansion of European corporations, backed by government armies, into foreign areas, with subsequent expropriation of lands and resources. Settler colonialism requires a genocidal policy. Native nations and communities, while struggling to maintain fundamental values and collectivity, have from the beginning resisted modern colonialism using both defensive and offensive techniques, including the modern forms of armed resistance of national liberation movements and what now is called terrorism. In every instance they have fought and continue to fight for survival as peoples. The objective of US authorities was to terminate their existence as peoples—not as random individuals. This is the very definition of modern genocide.The objective of US colonialist authorities was to terminate their existence as peoples—not as random individuals. This is the very definition of modern genocide as contrasted with premodern instances of extreme violence that did not have the goal of extinction. The United States as a socioeconomic and political entity is a result of this centuries-long and ongoing colonial process. Modern Indigenous nations and communities are societies formed by their resistance to colonialism, through which they have carried their practices and histories. It is breathtaking, but no miracle, that they have survived as peoples.Settler-colonialism requires violence or the threat of violence to attain its goals, which then forms the foundation of the United States’ system. People do not hand over their land, resources, children, and futures without a fight, and that fight is met with violence. In employing the force necessary to accomplish its expansionist goals, a colonizing regime institutionalizes violence. The notion that settler-indigenous conflict is an inevitable product of cultural differences and misunderstandings, or that violence was committed equally by the colonized and the colonizer, blurs the nature of the historical processes. Euro-American colonialism, an aspect of the capitalist economic globalization, had from its beginnings a genocidal tendency.So, what constitutes genocide? My colleague on the panel, Gary Clayton Anderson, in his recent book, “Ethnic Cleansing and the Indian,” argues: “Genocide will never become a widely accepted characterization for what happened in North America, because large numbers of Indians survived and because policies of mass murder on a scale similar to events in central Europe, Cambodia, or Rwanda were never implemented.”ii There are fatal errors in this assessment.The term “genocide” was coined following the Shoah, or Holocaust, and its prohibition was enshrined in the United Nations convention presented in 1948 and adopted in 1951: the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. The convention is not retroactive but is applicable to US-Indigenous relations since 1988, when the US Senate ratified it. The genocide convention is an essential tool for historical analysis of the effects of colonialism in any era, and particularly in US history.In the convention, any one of five acts is considered genocide if “committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”:(a) killing members of the group;(b) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;(c) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;(d) imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;(e) forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.iiiThe followings acts are punishable:(a) Genocide;(b) Conspiracy to commit genocide;(c) Direct and public incitement to commit genocide;(d) Attempt to commit genocide;(e) Complicity in genocide.The term “genocide” is often incorrectly used, such as in Dr. Anderson’s assessment, to describe extreme examples of mass murder, the death of vast numbers of people, as, for instance in Cambodia. What took place in Cambodia was horrific, but it does not fall under the terms of the Genocide Convention, as the Convention specifically refers to a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, with individuals within that group targeted by a government or its agents because they are members of the group or by attacking the underpinnings of the group’s existence as a group being met with the intent to destroy that group in whole or in part. The Cambodian government committed crimes against humanity, but not genocide. Genocide is not an act simply worse than anything else, rather a specific kind of act. The term, “ethnic cleansing,” is a descriptive term created by humanitarian interventionists to describe what was said to be happening in the 1990s wars among the republics of Yugoslavia. It is a descriptive term, not a term of international humanitarian law.Although clearly the Holocaust was the most extreme of all genocides, the bar set by the Nazis is not the bar required to be considered genocide. The title of the Genocide convention is the “Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide,” so the law is about preventing genocide by identifying the elements of government policy, rather than only punishment after the fact. Most importantly, genocide does not have to be complete to be considered genocide.US history, as well as inherited Indigenous trauma, cannot be understood without dealing with the genocide that the United States committed against Indigenous peoples. From the colonial period through the founding of the United States and continuing in the twentieth century, this has entailed torture, terror, sexual abuse, massacres, systematic military occupations, removals of Indigenous peoples from their ancestral territories, forced removal of Native American children to military-like boarding schools, allotment, and a policy of termination.Within the logic of settler-colonialism, genocide was the inherent overall policy of the United States from its founding, but there are also specific documented policies of genocide on the part of US administrations that can be identified in at least four distinct periods: the Jacksonian era of forced removal; the California gold rush in Northern California; during the Civil War and in the post Civil War era of the so-called Indian Wars in the Southwest and the Great Plains; and the 1950s termination period; additionally, there is the overlapping period of compulsory boarding schools, 1870s to 1960s. The Carlisle boarding school, founded by US Army officer Richard Henry Pratt in 1879, became a model for others established by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). Pratt said in a speech in 1892, "A great general has said that the only good Indian is a dead one. In a sense, I agree with the sentiment, but only in this: that all the Indian there is in the race should be dead. Kill the Indian in him and save the man."Cases of genocide carried out as policy may be found in historical documents as well as in the oral histories of Indigenous communities. An example from 1873 is typical, with General William T. Sherman writing, “We must act with vindictive earnestness against the Sioux, even to their extermination, men, women and children . . . during an assault, the soldiers can not pause to distinguish between male and female, or even discriminate as to age.”ivThe so-called “Indian Wars” technically ended around 1880, although the Wounded Knee massacre occurred a decade later. Clearly an act with genocidal intent, it is still officially considered a “battle” in the annals of US military genealogy. Congressional Medals of Honor were bestowed on twenty of the soldiers involved. A monument was built at Fort Riley, Kansas, to honor the soldiers killed by friendly fire. A battle streamer was created to honor the event and added to other streamers that are displayed at the Pentagon, West Point, and army bases throughout the world. L. Frank Baum, a Dakota Territory settler later famous for writing The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, edited the Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer at the time.Five days after the sickening event at Wounded Knee, on January 3, 1891, he wrote, “The Pioneer has before declared that our only safety depends upon the total extermination of the Indians. Having wronged them for centuries we had better, in order to protect our civilization, follow it up by one or more wrong and wipe these untamed and untamable creatures from the face of the earth.”Whether 1880 or 1890, most of the collective land base that Native Nations secured through hard fought for treaties made with the United States was lost after that date.After the end of the Indian Wars, came allotment, another policy of genocide of Native nations as nations, as peoples, the dissolution of the group. Taking the Sioux Nation as an example, even before the Dawes Allotment Act of 1884 was implemented, and with the Black Hills already illegally confiscated by the federal government, a government commission arrived in Sioux territory from Washington, DC, in 1888 with a proposal to reduce the Sioux Nation to six small reservations, a scheme that would leave nine million acres open for Euro-American settlement. The commission found it impossible to obtain signatures of the required three-fourths of the nation as required under the 1868 treaty, and so returned to Washington with a recommendation that the government ignore the treaty and take the land without Sioux consent. The only means to accomplish that goal was legislation, Congress having relieved the government of the obligation to negotiate a treaty. Congress commissioned General George Crook to head a delegation to try again, this time with an offer of $1.50 per acre. In a series of manipulations and dealings with leaders whose people were now starving, the commission garnered the needed signatures. The great Sioux Nation was broken into small islands soon surrounded on all sides by European immigrants, with much of the reservation land a checkerboard with settlers on allotments or leased land.vCreating these isolated reservations broke the historical relationships between clans and communities of the Sioux Nation and opened areas where Europeans settled. It also allowed the Bureau of Indian Affairs to exercise tighter control, buttressed by the bureau’s boarding school system. The Sun Dance, the annual ceremony that had brought Sioux together and reinforced national unity, was outlawed, along with other religious ceremonies. Despite the Sioux people’s weak position under late-nineteenth-century colonial domination, they managed to begin building a modest cattle-ranching business to replace their former bison-hunting economy. In 1903, the US Supreme Court ruled, in Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock, that a March 3, 1871, appropriations rider was constitutional and that Congress had “plenary” power to manage Indian property. The Office of Indian Affairs could thus dispose of Indian lands and resources regardless of the terms of previous treaty provisions. Legislation followed that opened the reservations to settlement through leasing and even sale of allotments taken out of trust. Nearly all prime grazing lands came to be occupied by non-Indian ranchers by the 1920s.By the time of the New Deal–Collier era and nullification of Indian land allotment under the Indian Reorganization Act, non-Indians outnumbered Indians on the Sioux reservations three to one. However, “tribal governments” imposed in the wake of the Indian Reorganization Act proved particularly harmful and divisive for the Sioux.”vi Concerning this measure, the late Mathew King, elder traditional historian of the Oglala Sioux (Pine Ridge), observed: “The Bureau of Indian Affairs drew up the constitution and by-laws of this organization with the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934. This was the introduction of home rule. . . . The traditional people still hang on to their Treaty, for we are a sovereign nation. We have our own government.”vii “Home rule,” or neocolonialism, proved a short-lived policy, however, for in the early 1950s the United States developed its termination policy, with legislation ordering gradual eradication of every reservation and even the tribal governments.viii At the time of termination and relocation, per capita annual income on the Sioux reservations stood at $355, while that in nearby South Dakota towns was $2,500. Despite these circumstances, in pursuing its termination policy, the Bureau of Indian Affairs advocated the reduction of services and introduced its program to relocate Indians to urban industrial centers, with a high percentage of Sioux moving to San Francisco and Denver in search of jobs.ixThe situations of other Indigenous Nations were similar.Pawnee Attorney Walter R. Echo-Hawk writes:In 1881, Indian landholdings in the United States had plummeted to 156 million acres. By 1934, only about 50 million acres remained (an area the size of Idaho and Washington) as a result of the General Allotment Act of 1887. During World War II, the government took 500,000 more acres for military use. Over one hundred tribes, bands, and Rancherias relinquished their lands under various acts of Congress during the termination era of the 1950s. By 1955, the indigenous land base had shrunk to just 2.3 percent of its [size at the end of the Indian wars].xAccording to the current consensus among historians, the wholesale transfer of land from Indigenous to Euro-American hands that occurred in the Americas after 1492 is due less to British and US American invasion, warfare, refugee conditions, and genocidal policies in North America than to the bacteria that the invaders unwittingly brought with them. Historian Colin Calloway is among the proponents of this theory writing, “Epidemic diseases would have caused massive depopulation in the Americas whether brought by European invaders or brought home by Native American traders.”xiSuch an absolutist assertion renders any other fate for the Indigenous peoples improbable. This is what anthropologist Michael Wilcox has dubbed “the terminal narrative.” Professor Calloway is a careful and widely respected historian of Indigenous North America, but his conclusion articulates a default assumption. The thinking behind the assumption is both ahistorical and illogical in that Europe itself lost a third to one-half of its population to infectious disease during medieval pandemics. The principle reason the consensus view is wrong and ahistorical is that it erases the effects of settler colonialism with its antecedents in the Spanish “Reconquest” and the English conquest of Scotland, Ireland, and Wales. By the time Spain, Portugal, and Britain arrived to colonize the Americas, their methods of eradicating peoples or forcing them into dependency and servitude were ingrained, streamlined, and effective.Whatever disagreement may exist about the size of precolonial Indigenous populations, no one doubts that a rapid demographic decline occurred in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, its timing from region to region depending on when conquest and colonization began. Nearly all the population areas of the Americas were reduced by 90 percent following the onset of colonizing projects, decreasing the targeted Indigenous populations of the Americas from a one hundred million to ten million. Commonly referred to as the most extreme demographic disaster—framed as natural—in human history, it was rarely called genocide until the rise of Indigenous movements in the mid-twentieth century forged new questions.US scholar Benjamin Keen acknowledges that historians “accept uncritically a fatalistic ‘epidemic plus lack of acquired immunity’ explanation for the shrinkage of Indian populations, without sufficient attention to the socioeconomic factors . . . which predisposed the natives to succumb to even slight infections.”xiiOther scholars agree. Geographer William M. Denevan, while not ignoring the existence of widespread epidemic diseases, has emphasized the role of warfare, which reinforced the lethal impact of disease. There were military engagements directly between European and Indigenous nations, but many more saw European powers pitting one Indigenous nation against another or factions within nations, with European allies aiding one or both sides, as was the case in the colonization of the peoples of Ireland, Africa and Asia, and was also a factor in the Holocaust. Other killers cited by Denevan are overwork in mines, frequent outright butchery, malnutrition and starvation resulting from the breakdown of Indigenous trade networks, subsistence food production and loss of land, loss of will to live or reproduce (and thus suicide, abortion, and infanticide), and deportation and enslavement.xiii Anthropologist Henry Dobyns has pointed to the interruption of Indigenous peoples’ trade networks. When colonizing powers seized Indigenous trade routes, the ensuing acute shortages, including food products, weakened populations and forced them into dependency on the colonizers, with European manufactured goods replacing Indigenous ones. Dobyns has estimated that all Indigenous groups suffered serious food shortages one year in four. In these circumstances, the introduction and promotion of alcohol proved addictive and deadly, adding to the breakdown of social order and responsibility.xiv These realities render the myth of “lack of immunity,” including to alcohol, pernicious.Historian Woodrow Wilson Borah focused on the broader arena of European colonization, which also brought severely reduced populations in the Pacific Islands, Australia, Western Central America, and West Africa.xv Sherburne Cook—associated with Borah in the revisionist Berkeley School, as it was called—studied the attempted destruction of the California Indians. Cook estimated 2,245 deaths among peoples in Northern California—the Wintu, Maidu, Miwak, Omo, Wappo, and Yokuts nations—in late eighteenth-century armed conflicts with the Spanish while some 5,000 died from disease and another 4,000 were relocated to missions. Among the same people in the second half of the nineteenth century, US armed forces killed 4,000, and disease killed another 6,000. Between 1852 and 1867, US citizens kidnapped 4,000 Indian children from these groups in California. Disruption of Indigenous social structures under these conditions and dire economic necessity forced many of the women into prostitution in goldfield camps, further wrecking what vestiges of family life remained in these matriarchal societies.Historians and others who deny genocide emphasize population attrition by disease, weakening Indigenous peoples ability to resist. In doing so they refuse to accept that the colonization of America was genocidal by plan, not simply the tragic fate of populations lacking immunity to disease. If disease could have done the job, it is not clear why the United States found it necessary to carry out unrelenting wars against Indigenous communities in order to gain every inch of land they took from them—along with the prior period of British colonization, nearly three hundred years of eliminationist warfare.In the case of the Jewish Holocaust, no one denies that more Jews died of starvation, overwork, and disease under Nazi incarceration than died in gas ovens or murdered by other means, yet the acts of creating and maintaining the conditions that led to those deaths clearly constitute genocide. And no one recites the terminal narrative associated with Native Americans, or Armenians, or Bosnian.Not all of the acts iterated in the genocide convention are required to exist to constitute genocide; any one of them suffices. In cases of United States genocidal policies and actions, each of the five requirements can be seen.First, Killing members of the group: The genocide convention does not specify that large numbers of people must be killed in order to constitute genocide, rather that members of the group are killed because they are members of the group. Assessing a situation in terms of preventing genocide, this kind of killing is a marker for intervention.Second, Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group: such as starvation, the control of food supply and withholding food as punishment or as reward for compliance, for instance, in signing confiscatory treaties. As military historian John Grenier points out in his First Way of War:For the first 200 years of our military heritage, then, Americans depended on arts of war that contemporary professional soldiers supposedly abhorred: razing and destroying enemy villages and fields; killing enemy women and children; raiding settlements for captives; intimidating and brutalizing enemy noncombatants; and assassinating enemy leaders. . . . In the frontier wars between 1607 and 1814, Americans forged two elements—unlimited war and irregular war—into their first way of war.xviiGrenier argues that not only did this way of war continue throughout the 19th century in wars against the Indigenous nations, but continued in the 20th century and currently in counterinsurgent wars against peoples in Latin America, the Caribbean and Pacific, Southeast Asia, Middle and Western Asia and Africa.Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part: Forced removal of all the Indigenous nations east of the Mississippi to Indian Territory during the Jackson administration was a calculated policy intent on destroying those peoples ties to their original lands, as well as declaring Native people who did not remove to no longer be Muskogee, Sauk, Kickapoo, Choctaw, destroying the existence of up to half of each nation removed. Mandatory boarding schools, Allotment and Termination—all official government policies--also fall under this category of the crime of genocide. The forced removal and four year incarceration of the Navajo people resulted in the death of half their population.Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group: Famously, during the Termination Era, the US government administrated Indian Health Service made the top medical priority the sterilization of Indigenous women. In 1974, an independent study by one the few Native American physicians, Dr. Connie Pinkerton-Uri, Choctaw/Cherokee, found that one in four Native women had been sterilized without her consent. Pnkerton-Uri’s research indicated that the Indian Health Service had “singled out full-blooded Indian women for sterilization procedures.” At first denied by the Indian Health Service, two years later, a study by the U.S. General Accounting Office found that 4 of the 12 Indian Health Service regions sterilized 3,406 Native women without their permission between 1973 and 1976. The GAO found that 36 women under age 21 had been forcibly sterilized during this period despite a court-ordered moratorium on sterilizations of women younger than 21.Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group: Various governmental entities, mostly municipalities, counties, and states, routinely removed Native children from their families and put them up for adoption. In the Native resistance movements of the 1960s and 1970s, the demand to put a stop to the practice was codified in the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978. However, the burden of enforcing the legislation lay with Tribal Government, but the legislation provided no financial resources for Native governments to establish infrastructure to retrieve children from the adoption industry, in which Indian babies were high in demand. Despite these barriers to enforcement, the worst abuses had been curbed over the following three decades. But, on June 25, 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5-4 ruling drafted by Justice Samuel Alito, used provisions of the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) to say that a child, widely known as Baby Veronica, did not have to live with her biological Cherokee father. The high court’s decision paved the way for Matt and Melanie Capobianco, the adoptive parents, to ask the South Carolina Courts to have the child returned to them. The court gutted the purpose and intent of the Indian Child Welfare Act, missing the concept behind the ICWA, the protection of cultural resource and treasure that are Native children; it’s not about protecting so-called traditional or nuclear families. It’s about recognizing the prevalence of extended families and culture.xviiiSo, why does the Genocide Convention matter? Native nations are still here and still vulnerable to genocidal policy. This isn’t just history that predates the 1948 Genocide Convention. But, the history is important and needs to be widely aired, included in public school texts and public service announcements. The Doctrine of Discovery is still law of the land. From the mid-fifteenth century to the mid-twentieth century, most of the non-European world was colonized under the Doctrine of Discovery, one of the first principles of international law Christian European monarchies promulgated to legitimize investigating, mapping, and claiming lands belonging to peoples outside Europe. It originated in a papal bull issued in 1455 that permitted the Portuguese monarchy to seize West Africa. Following Columbus’s infamous exploratory voyage in 1492, sponsored by the king and queen of the infant Spanish state, another papal bull extended similar permission to Spain. Disputes between the Portuguese and Spanish monarchies led to the papal-initiated Treaty of Tordesillas (1494), which, besides dividing the globe equally between the two Iberian empires, clarified that only non-Christian lands fell under the discovery doctrine.xixThis doctrine on which all European states relied thus originated with the arbitrary and unilateral establishment of the Iberian monarchies’ exclusive rights under Christian canon law to colonize foreign peoples, and this right was later seized by other European monarchical colonizing projects. The French Republic used this legalistic instrument for its nineteenth- and twentieth-century settler colonialist projects, as did the newly independent United States when it continued the colonization of North America begun by the British.In 1792, not long after the US founding, Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson claimed that the Doctrine of Discovery developed by European states was international law applicable to the new US government as well. In 1823 the US Supreme Court issued its decision inJohnson v. McIntosh. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Marshall held that the Doctrine of Discovery had been an established principle of European law and of English law in effect in Britain’s North American colonies and was also the law of the United States. The Court defined the exclusive property rights that a European country acquired by dint of discovery: “Discovery gave title to the government, by whose subjects, or by whose authority, it was made, against all other European governments, which title might be consummated by possession.” Therefore, European and Euro-American “discoverers” had gained real-property rights in the lands of Indigenous peoples by merely planting a flag. Indigenous rights were, in the Court’s words, “in no instance, entirely disregarded; but were necessarily, to a considerable extent, impaired.” The court further held that Indigenous “rights to complete sovereignty, as independent nations, were necessarily diminished.” Indigenous people could continue to live on the land, but title resided with the discovering power, the United States. The decision concluded that Native nations were “domestic, dependent nations.”The Doctrine of Discovery is so taken for granted that it is rarely mentioned in historical or legal texts published in the Americas. The UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Peoples, which meets annually for two weeks, devoted its entire 2012 session to the doctrine.xx But few US citizens are aware of the precarity of the situation of Indigenous Peoples in the United States._______________i Patrick Wolfe, “Settler Colonialism and the Elimination of the Native,” Journal of Genocide Research 8, vol. 4 (December 2006), 387.ii Gary Clayton Anderson, Ethnic Cleansing and the Indian: The Crime that Should Haunt America. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2014.), 4.iii “Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Paris, 9 December 1948,” Audiovisual Library of International Law, http://untreaty.un.org/cod/avl/ha/cppcg/cppcg.html (accessed December 6, 2012). See also Josef L. Kunz, “The United Nations Convention on Genocide,” American Journal of International Law 43, no. 4 (October 1949) 738–46.iv April 17, 1873, quoted in John F. Marszalek, Sherman: A Soldier’s Passion for Order(New York: Free Press, 1992), 379.v See Testimony of Pat McLaughlin, Chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux government, Fort Yates, North Dakota (May 8, 1976), at hearings of the American Indian Policy Review Commission, established by Congress in the Act of January 3, 1975.vi See: Kenneth R. Philp, John Collier’s Crusade for Indian Reform, 1920-1954.vii King quoted in Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, The Great Sioux Nation: Sitting in Judgment on America (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2013), 156.viii For a lucid discussion of neocolonialism in relation to American Indians and the reservation system, see Joseph Jorgensen, The Sun Dance Religion: Power for the Powerless (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977), 89–146.ix There is continuous migration from reservations to cities and border towns and back to the reservations, so that half the Indian population at any time is away from the reservation. Generally, however, relocation is not permanent and resembles migratory labor more than permanent relocation. This conclusion is based on my personal observations and on unpublished studies of the Indigenous populations in the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles.x Walter R. Echo-Hawk, In the Courts of the Conqueror (Golden, CO: Fulcrum, 2010), 77–78.xi Colin G. Calloway, review of Julian Granberry, The Americas That Might Have Been: Native American Social Systems through Time (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2005), Ethnohistory 54, no. 1 (Winter 2007), 196.xii Benjamin Keen, “The White Legend Revisited,” Hispanic American Historical Review 51 (1971): 353.xiii Denevan, “The Pristine Myth,” 4–5.xiv Henry F. Dobyns, Their Number Become Thinned: Native American Population Dynamics in Eastern North America (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press in cooperation with the Newberry Library, 1983), 2. See also Dobyns, Native American Historical Demography, and Dobyns, “Estimating Aboriginal American Population: An Appraisal of Techniques with a New Hemispheric Estimate,” Current Anthropology 7 (1966), 295–416, and “Reply,” 440–44.xv Woodrow Wilson Borah, “America as Model: The Demographic Impact of European Expansion upon the Non-European World,” in Actas y Morías XXXV Congreso Internacional de Americanistas, México 1962,3 vols. (Mexico City: Editorial Libros de México, 1964), 381.xvii John Grenier, The First Way of War: American War Making on the Frontier, 1607–1814 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 5, 10.xviii http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2013/06/25/supreme-court-thwarts-icwa-intent-baby-veronica-case-150103xix Robert J. Miller, “The International Law of Colonialism: A Comparative Analysis,” in “Symposium of International Law in Indigenous Affairs: The Doctrine of Discovery, the United Nations, and the Organization of Americans States,” special issue, Lewis and Clark Law Review 15, no. 4 (Winter 2011), 847–922. See also Vine Deloria Jr., Of Utmost Good Faith (San Francisco: Straight Arrow Books, 1971), 6–39; Steven T. Newcomb, Pagans in the Promised Land: Decoding the Doctrine of Christian Discovery (Golden, CO: Fulcrum, 2008).xx Eleventh Session, United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, http://social.un.org/index/IndigenousPeoples/UNPFIISessions/Eleventh.aspx (accessed October 3, 2013).

Protein-energy undernutrition (PEU), previously called protein-energy malnutrition, is an energy deficit due to deficiency of all macronutrients. It commonly includes deficiencies of many micronutrients. PEU can be sudden and total (starvation) or gradual. Severity ranges from subclinical deficiencies to obvious wasting (with edema, hair loss, and skin atrophy) to starvation. Multiple organ systems are often impaired. Diagnosis usually involves laboratory testing, including serum albumin. Treatment consists of correcting fluid and electrolyte deficits with IV solutions, then gradually replenishing nutrients, orally if possible.In developed countries, PEU is common among the institutionalized elderly (although often not suspected) and among patients with disorders that decrease appetite or impair nutrient digestion, absorption, or metabolism. In developing countries, PEU affects children who do not consume enough calories or protein.ClassificationProtein-energy undernutrition is graded as mild, moderate, or severe. Grade is determined by calculating weight as a percentage of expected weight for length or height using international standards (normal, 90 to 110%; mild PEU, 85 to 90%; moderate, 75 to 85%; severe, < 75%).PEU may bePrimary: Caused by inadequate nutrient intakeSecondary: Results from disorders or drugs that interfere with nutrient usePrimary PEUWorldwide, primary PEU occurs mostly in children and the elderly who lack access to nutrients, although a common cause in the elderly is depression. PEU can also result from fasting or anorexia nervosa. Child or elder abuse may be a cause.In children, chronic primary PEU has 2 common forms:MarasmusKwashiorkorThe form depends on the balance of nonprotein and protein sources of energy. Starvation is an acute severe form of primary PEU.Marasmus (also called the dry form of PEU) causes weight loss and depletion of fat and muscle. In developing countries, marasmus is the most common form of PEU in children.Kwashiorkor (also called the wet, swollen, or edematous form) is a risk after premature abandonment of breastfeeding, which typically occurs when a younger sibling is born, displacing the older child from the breast. So children with kwashiorkor tend to be older than those with marasmus. Kwashiorkor may also result from an acute illness, often gastroenteritis or another infection (probably secondary to cytokine release), in a child who already has PEU. A diet that is more deficient in protein than energy may be more likely to cause kwashiorkor than marasmus. Less common than marasmus, kwashiorkor tends to be confined to specific parts of the world, such as rural Africa, the Caribbean, and the Pacific islands. In these areas, staple foods (eg, yams, cassavas, sweet potatoes, green bananas) are low in protein and high in carbohydrates. In kwashiorkor, cell membranes leak, causing extravasation of intravascular fluid and protein, resulting in peripheral edema.In both marasmus and kwashiorkor, cell-mediated immunity is impaired, increasing susceptibility to infections. Bacterial infections (eg, pneumonia, gastroenteritis, otitis media, UTIs, sepsis) are common. Infections result in release of cytokines, which cause anorexia, worsen muscle wasting, and cause a marked decrease in serum albumin levels.Starvation is a complete lack of nutrients. It occasionally occurs when food is available (as in fasting or anorexia nervosa) but usually occurs because food is unavailable (eg, during famine or wilderness exposure).Secondary PEUThis type most commonly results from the following:Disorders that affect GI function: These disorders can interfere with digestion (eg, pancreatic insufficiency), absorption (eg, enteritis, enteropathy), or lymphatic transport of nutrients (eg, retroperitoneal fibrosis, Milroy disease).Wasting disorders: In wasting disorders (eg, AIDS, cancer, COPD) and renal failure, catabolism causes cytokine excess, resulting in undernutrition via anorexia and cachexia (wasting of muscle and fat). End-stage heart failure can cause cardiac cachexia, a severe form of undernutrition; mortality rate is particularly high. Factors contributing to cardiac cachexia may include passive hepatic congestion (causing anorexia), edema of the intestinal tract (impairing absorption), and, in advanced disease, increased oxygen requirement due to anaerobic metabolism. Wasting disorders can decrease appetite or impair metabolism of nutrients.Conditions that increase metabolic demands: These conditions include infections, hyperthyroidism, pheochromocytoma, other endocrine disorders, burns, trauma, surgery, and other critical illnesses.PathophysiologyThe initial metabolic response is decreased metabolic rate. To supply energy, the body first breaks down adipose tissue. However, later, when these tissues are depleted, the body may use protein for energy, resulting in a negative nitrogen balance. Visceral organs and muscle are broken down and decrease in weight. Loss of organ weight is greatest in the liver and intestine, intermediate in the heart and kidneys, and least in the nervous system.Symptoms and SignsSymptoms of moderate PEU can be constitutional or involve specific organ systems. Apathy and irritability are common. The patient is weak, and work capacity decreases. Cognition and sometimes consciousness are impaired. Temporary lactose deficiency and achlorhydria develop. Diarrhea is common and can be aggravated by deficiency of intestinal disaccharidases, especially lactase. Gonadal tissues atrophy. PEU can cause amenorrhea in women and loss of libido in men and women.Wasting of fat and muscle is common in all forms of PEU. In adult volunteers who fasted for 30 to 40 days, weight loss was marked (25% of initial weight). If starvation is more prolonged, weight loss may reach 50% in adults and possibly more in children.In adults, cachexia is most obvious in areas where prominent fat depots normally exist. Muscles shrink and bones protrude. The skin becomes thin, dry, inelastic, pale, and cold. The hair is dry and falls out easily, becoming sparse. Wound healing is impaired. In elderly patients, risk of hip fractures and pressure (decubitus) ulcers increases.With acute or chronic severe PEU, heart size and cardiac output decrease; pulse slows and BP falls. Respiratory rate and vital capacity decrease. Body temperature falls, sometimes contributing to death. Edema, anemia, jaundice, and petechiae can develop. Liver, kidney, or heart failure may occur.Marasmus in infants causes hunger, weight loss, growth retardation, and wasting of subcutaneous fat and muscle. Ribs and facial bones appear prominent. Loose, thin skin hangs in folds.Kwashiorkor is characterized by peripheral and periorbital edema due to the decrease in serum albumin. The abdomen protrudes because abdominal muscles are weakened, the intestine is distended, the liver enlarges, and ascites is present. The skin is dry, thin, and wrinkled; it can become hyperpigmented and fissured and later hypopigmented, friable, and atrophic. Skin in different areas of the body may be affected at different times. The hair can become thin, reddish brown, or gray. Scalp hair falls out easily, eventually becoming sparse, but eyelash hair may grow excessively. Alternating episodes of undernutrition and adequate nutrition may cause the hair to have a dramatic “striped flag” appearance. Affected children may be apathetic but become irritable when held.Total starvation is fatal in 8 to 12 wk. Thus, certain symptoms of PEU do not have time to develop.DiagnosisDiagnosis usually based on historyTo determine severity: Body mass index (BMI), serum albumin, total lymphocyte count, CD4+ count, serum transferrinTo diagnose complications and consequences: CBC, electrolytes, BUN, glucose, calcium, magnesium, phosphateDiagnosis of protein-energy undernutrition can be based on history when dietary intake is markedly inadequate. The cause of inadequate intake, particularly in children, needs to be identified. In children and adolescents, child abuse and anorxia nervosa should be considered.Physical examination may include measurement of height and weight, inspection of body fat distribution, and anthropometric measurements of lean body mass. Body mass index (BMI = weight[kg]/height[m]2) is calculated to determine severity. Findings can usually confirm the diagnosis.Laboratory tests are required if dietary history does not clearly indicate inadequate caloric intake. Measurement of serum albumin, total lymphocyte count, CD4+ T lymphocytes, transferrin, and response to skin antigens may help determine the severity of PEU or confirm the diagnosis in borderline cases. Many other test results may be abnormal: eg, decreased levels of hormones, vitamins, lipids, cholesterol, prealbumin, insulin-like growth factor-1, fibronectin, and retinol-binding protein. Urinary creatine and methylhistidine levels can be used to gauge the degree of muscle wasting. Because protein catabolism slows, urinary urea level also decreases. These findings rarely affect treatment.Laboratory tests are required to identify causes of suspected secondary PEU. C-reactive protein or soluble interleukin-2 receptor should be measured when the cause of undernutrition is unclear; these measurements can help determine whether there is cytokine excess. Thyroid function tests may also be done.Other laboratory tests can detect associated abnormalities that may require treatment. Serum electrolytes, BUN, glucose, and possibly levels of calcium, magnesium, and phosphate should be measured. Levels of blood glucose, electrolytes (especially potassium, occasionally sodium), phosphate, calcium, and magnesium are usually low. BUN is often low unless renal failure is present. Metabolic acidosis may be present. CBC is usually obtained; normocytic anemia (usually due to protein deficiency) or microcytic anemia (due to simultaneous iron deficiency) is usually present.Stool cultures should be obtained and checked for ova and parasites if diarrhea is severe or does not resolve with treatment. Sometimes urinalysis, urine culture, blood cultures, tuberculin testing, and a chest x-ray are used to diagnose occult infections because people with PEU may have a muted response to infections.ChildrenIn children, mortality varies from 5 to 40%. Mortality rates are lower in children with mild PEU and those given intensive care. Death in the first days of treatment is usually due to electrolyte deficits, sepsis, hypothermia, or heart failure. Impaired consciousness, jaundice, petechiae, hyponatremia, and persistent diarrhea are ominous signs. Resolution of apathy, edema, and anorexia is a favorable sign. Recovery is more rapid in kwashiorkor than in marasmus.Long-term effects of PEU in children are not fully documented. Some children develop chronic malabsorption and pancreatic insufficiency. In very young children, mild intellectual disability may develop and persist until at least school age. Permanent cognitive impairment may occur, depending on the duration, severity, and age at onset of PEU.AdultsIn adults, PEU can result in morbidity and mortality (eg, progressive weight loss increases mortality rate for elderly patients in nursing homes). In elderly patients, PEU increases the risk of morbidity and mortality due to surgery, infections, or other disorders.Except when organ failure occurs, treatment is uniformly successful.TreatmentUsually oral feedingPossibly avoidance of lactose (eg, if persistent diarrhea suggests lactose intolerance)Supportive care (eg, environmental changes, assistance with feeding, orexigenic drugs)For children, feeding delayed 24 to 48 hWorldwide, the most important preventive strategy is to reduce poverty and improve nutritional education and public health measures.Mild or moderate protein-energy undernutrition, including brief starvation, can be treated by providing a balanced diet, preferably orally. Liquid oral food supplements (usually lactose-free) can be used when solid food cannot be adequately ingested. Diarrhea often complicates oral feeding because starvation makes the GI tract more likely to move bacteria into Peyer patches, facilitating infectious diarrhea. If diarrhea persists (suggesting lactose intolerance), yogurt-based rather than milk-based formulas are given because people with lactose intolerance can tolerate yogurt. Patients should also be given a multivitamin supplement.Severe PEU or prolonged starvation requires treatment in a hospital with a controlled diet. The first priority is to correct fluid and electrolyte abnormalities and treat infections. A recent study suggested that children may benefit from antibiotic prophylaxis. The next priority is to supply macronutrients orally or, if necessary (eg, when swallowing is difficult), through a feeding tube, a nasogastric tube (usually), or a gastrostomy tube (enternal nutrition). Parental nutrition is indicated if malabsorption is severe.Other treatments may be needed to correct specific deficiencies, which may become evident as weight increases. To avoid deficiencies, patients should take micronutrients at about twice the recommended daily allowance (RDA) until recovery is complete.ChildrenUnderlying disorders should be treated.For children with diarrhea, feeding may be delayed 24 to 48 h to avoid making the diarrhea worse; during this interval, children require oral or IV rehydration. Feedings are given often (6 to 12 times/day) but, to avoid overwhelming the limited intestinal absorptive capacity, are limited to small amounts (< 100 mL). During the first week, milk-based formulas with supplements added are usually given in progressively increasing amounts; after a week, the full amounts of 175 kcal/kg and 4 g of protein/kg can be given. Twice the RDA of micronutrients should be given, using commercial multivitamin supplements. After 4 wk, the formula can be replaced with whole milk plus cod liver oil and solid foods, including eggs, fruit, meats, and yeast.Energy distribution among macronutrients should be about 16% protein, 50% fat, and 34% carbohydrate. An example is a combination of powdered cow’s skimmed milk (110 g), sucrose (100 g), vegetable oil (70 g), and water (900 mL). Many other formulas (eg, whole [full-fat] fresh milk plus corn oil and maltodextrin) can be used. Milk powders used in formulas are diluted with water.Usually, supplements should be given with the formulas:Magnesium 0.4 mEq/kg/day IM is given for 7 days.B-complex vitamins at twice the RDA are given parenterally for the first 3 days, usually with vitamin A, phosphorus, zinc, manganese, copper, iodine, fluoride, molybdenum, and selenium.Because absorption of oral iron is poor in children with PEU, oral or IM iron supplementation may be necessary.Parents are taught about nutritional requirements.AdultsUnderlying disorders should be treated. For example, if AIDS or cancer results in excess cytokine production, megestrol acetate or medroxyprogesterone may improve food intake. However, because these drugs dramatically decrease testosterone in men (possibly causing muscle loss), testosterone should be replaced. Because these drugs can cause adrenal insufficiency, they should be used only short-term (< 3 mo).In patients with functional limitations, home delivery of meals and feeding assistance are key.An orexigenic drug, such as the cannabis extract dronabinol, should be given to patients with anorexia when no cause is obvious or to patients at the end of life when anorexia impairs quality of life. An anabolic steroid (eg, testosterone enanthate, nandrolone) or growth hormone can benefit patients with cachexia due to renal failure and possibly elderly patients (eg, by increasing lean body mass or possibly by improving function).Correction of PEU in adults generally resembles that in children; feedings are often limited to small amounts. However, for most adults, feeding does not need to be delayed. A commercial formula for oral feeding can be used. Daily nutrient supply should be given at a rate of 60 kcal/kg and 1.2 to 2 g of protein/kg. If liquid oral supplements are used with solid food, they should be given at least 1 h before meals so that the amount of food eaten at the meal is not reduced.Treatment of institutionalized elderly patients with PEU requires multiple interventions:Environmental measures (eg, making the dining area more attractive)Feeding assistanceChanges in diet (eg, use of food enhancers and caloric supplements between meals)Treatment of depression and other underlying disordersUse of orexigenic drugs, anabolic steroids, or bothThe long-term use of gastrostomy tube feeding is essential for patients with severe dysphagia; its use in patients with dementia is controversial. Increasing evidence supports the avoidance of unpalatable therapeutic diets (eg, low salt, diabetic, low cholesterol) in institutionalized patients because these diets decrease food intake and may cause severe PEU.Complications of treatmentTreatment of PEU can cause complications (refeeding syndrome), including fluid overload, electrolyte deficits, hyperglycemia, cardiac arrhythmias, and diarrhea. Diarrhea is usually mild and resolves; however, diarrhea in patients with severe PEU occasionally causes severe dehydration or death. Causes of diarrhea (eg, sorbitol used in elixir tube feedings, Clostridium difficile if the patient has received an antibiotic) may be correctable. Osmotic diarrhea due to excess calories is rare in adults and should be considered only when other causes have been excluded.Because PEU can impair cardiac and renal function, overhydration can cause intravascular volume overload. Treatment decreases extracellular potassium and magnesium. Depletion of potassium or magnesium may cause arrhythmias. Carbohydrate metabolism that occurs during treatment stimulates insulin release, which drives phosphate into cells. Hypophosphatemia can cause muscle weakness, paresthesias, seizures, coma, and arrhythmias. Because phosphate levels can change rapidly during parenteral feeding, levels should be measured regularly.During treatment, endogenous insulin may become ineffective, leading to hyperglycemia. Dehydration and hyperosmolarity can result. Fatal ventricular arrhythmias can develop, possibly caused by a prolonged QT interval.Key PointsPEU can be primary (ie, caused by decreased intake of nutrients) or secondary to GI disorders, wasting disorders, or conditions that increase metabolic demand.In severe forms of PEU, body fat and eventually visceral tissue are lost, immunity is impaired, and organ function slows, sometimes resulting in multiple organ failure.To determine severity, measure body mass index (BMI), serum albumin, total lymphocyte count, CD4 count, and serum transferrin.To diagnose complications and consequences, measure CBC, electrolytes, BUN, glucose, calcium, magnesium, and phosphate.For mild PEU, recommend a balanced diet, sometimes avoiding foods that contain lactose.For severe PEU, hospitalize patients, give them a controlled diet, correct fluid and electrolyte abnormalities, and treat infections; common complications of treatment (refeeding syndrome) include fluid overload, electrolyte deficits, hyperglycemia, cardiac arrhythmias, and diarrhea.HOPE YOU LIKE IT :)

Some people cannot help themselves with all this negativization of Africa and inferiorization of African people.From these people, you never hear about Africa’s progress or achievements today or yesterday. In addition, you never hear about African Lions, the fastest growing economies of Africa or even the continent with the fastest growing middle class: Africa.According to Charles Stith, former US ambassador to Tanzania, "One thing blocking a fuller perception of Africa's progress may be implicit racism. There is a historic framework that by definition sees Africa . and Africans as inferior and negative and makes most stories about the continent negative. By contrast, China has problems, but we see and hear other things about China. Russia has problems, yet we see and read other things about Russia. That same standard should apply to Africa."Outstanding Technologies in AfricaBy Sidee Dlamini, Class of 2015To the unaware, Africa is still known as the Dark Continent; however, numerous trends continue to show how much progress has been made on the African continent. More importantly, there has been a lot of technological advancement that the majority of the world is unaware of. It is my belief that most of the issues faced by the continent will be solved through the use of technology. I envision technology being deeply implemented in government procedures such that efficiency is increased ten fold and corruption is greatly. Of course, technology isn’t the answer to all problems, but it has the capability to solve a few if not most. How might these visions be accomplished you might ask? Well, I myself am in pursuit of that answer, but for now, I would like to explore a few outstanding technologies on the African continent.1. M-pesa has been a life changing innovation for the remittance world. It has eliminated the need for bank accounts, bank charges and the inconvenience of depending on a public transport driver to deliver money to the village. The most significant thing about M-pesa to me is the fact that it is a reminder that you have to know your environment very well in order to create lasting and useful solutions to the existing problems.2. SEACOM is one of the leading undersea cable companies. They have created a great opportunity to boost Internet connectivity on the continent. Like M-pesa, Seacom has provided access to areas that were previously unreachable. In 2012, the United Nations deemed Internet access a basic right. I have no doubt that access to information will improve the lives of many individuals; I also hope that there will be more positive outcomes than bad ones produced by the wide access to internet.3. GSMA mHealth has brought the mobile and health care industries together by bringing solutions to long-term health problems. Patients are able to access basic health information through their mobile phones. The main advantage in this technology is that it allows access to people in rural areas where people have been typically neglected.4. JoziHub Kenya is one of the leading technology innovators, however this noted hub is in Johannesburg, South Africa. The JoziHub incubator helps kick start and accelerate innovation in the tech and social spheres. These locally based hubs are particularly exceptional because they have the ability to adapt to the local needs. Many technologies and innovations have failed because they were a great idea in one environment and not the other i.e. there was a lack of external validity in these innovations.……..Africa is an opportunity for the world: Overlooked progress in governance and human developmentWhile narratives over the past few decades have painted a wide range of views of Africa—as a child in need of development, a rising economic power, an imminent threat, a tinderbox of terrorism, poverty, forced migration, and disease—the truth is, as always, more nuanced. One thing is certain: the transformation that Africa has undergone in recent decades has been remarkable. Africa is shaping its own destiny and should be referred to as the “African opportunity” instead of the “African threat.”….IMPROVING HEALTH AND REDUCING THE IMPACT OF DISEASESSignificant public health improvements have been made in Africa over the past several decades. There have been substantial declines in maternal and child deaths, and the incidence of chronic malnutrition among children under five has decreased by almost 10 percentage points from 1995. Most countries are making good progress on preventable childhood illness and communicable diseases. HIV/AIDS and malaria continue to have a widespread detrimental impact on Africans, but treatment options are improving. Across the continent, life expectancies and healthy life expectancies are rising.To view Africa solely as a hotbed of disease and hunger is to ignore the significant strides that countries and communities have made. African governments and health workers are committed to preventing illnesses, especially neglected diseases that often tend to get short shrift, improving access to treatments, and finding better ways to deliver quality health care. There is now scope for businesses and emerging partners to join governments in the fight against disease through technological innovations and health systems strengthening.…………………………………………….Governance progress but concerns remain | ALB ArticleThe African Governance Report from the Mo Ibrahim Foundation has seen positive steps taken towards the continent’s development goals, but there are some worrying trends to address.The quality of governance in Africa has improved over the first five years of the African Union’s Agenda 2063 transformation plan, but there is a growing divergence between the continent’s best and worst countries, according to the African Governance Report, released by the Mo Ibrahim Foundation.The full Ibrahim Index of African Governance across the 54 African countries is released on alternate years and will next be released in 2020, but this year’s report focused on progress at the halfway point of the first 10-year period of Agenda 2063, which runs from 2014 to 2023.MEASURING PROGRESSThe report called for greater attention to be paid to education, which it linked to economic and development goals, noting a worrying decline in quality on average across the continent since 2014.Mauritius and Seychelles, traditionally strong performers on the index, perform particularly well for education, along with Kenya, Algeria and Tunisia, while Chad, Libya, Gabon, Central African Republic (CAR) and Somalia performed worst.Health, another area monitored, has improved across the past decade, although progress has slowed since 2014. Mauritius, Libya, Seychelles, Cabo Verde and Rwanda all scored well, while Sierra Leone, Madagascar, South Sudan, CAR and Somalia were the weakest performers.For women and youth inclusion, which the report described as a critical development area “to create and foster inclusive societies and inclusive governments”, there had been similar progress and a similar slowing of it.There has been a big improvement in female education and socio-economic opportunities, but the growth in the female population with employment has been lower. Rwanda, Madagascar, Seychelles, Uganda and South Africa led for gender inclusion category, while Guinea-Bissau, Sudan, Egypt, Somalia and Libya were poorest.The security and justice category had seen the most uneven progress, ultimately ending up in a better place than 10 years ago, but suffering from a significant drop around 2013, from which it recovered in 2016. Mauritius was best for rule of law, with Ghana and South Africa, while Eritrea, Libya and Somalia were at the bottom. For transparency, it was Rwanda, Botswana and Mauritius, while Equatorial Guinea, Somalia and South Sudan fared the worst.National security forms an important part of this category and here Somalia and South Sudan were significantly worse than any other country, while Cabo Verde, Mauritius and Seychelles all received the highest possible score.In the final category – prosperity and economic opportunity – the one most obviously linked to economic progress, Mauritius, Rwanda, Morocco, South Africa and Seychelles were again the top five, while Eritrea, Libya, Equatorial Guinea, South Sudan and Somalia were last—————Many people spent years studying economics and business management but are not at all interested in history. They explain everything in economic or managerial terms.They live in the “here and now” totally unaware of a basic fact: what happened hundreds of years ago significantly affects the present conditions. The present is inseparable from the past, including the distant past.Africa is the cursed continent. Most African nations are so corrupt with bad leadership.The so-called curses of Africa have names and more importantly origins.Curse #1: The Curse of BerlinBritish explorer David Livingstone had described colonialism in the apparently benign terms of the ‘three Cs’: Commerce, Christianity, and Civilisation. The more malign ‘three Ps’ may, in fact, have been more accurate: Profit, Plunder and Prestige —Adekeye Adebajo,Two major events in Africa are linked to Berlin.The Berlin Conference (1884–1885) that sealed the Scramble for Africa.Africa was partitioned and divided like a giant cake among Western powers. The ultimate goal of the Berlin Conference was to keep Africa divided and poor.They succeeded.How?by destroying powerful empires, sophisticated kingdoms, thriving ports, advanced city states and flourishing communities. The Lunda Empire was destroyed by King Leopold, King of the Belgians.by destroying between 50 to 100 cities and major towns. Stanley wrote in his journal that he destroyed 28 major towns in Congo. The Force Publique, the private army of King Leopold destroyed the double.by dismantling long distance trade networks. Pre-colonial Africa was much more interconnected than today. The Lunda had trade partners both in West-Central and East-Central Africa.by ruining local economies and industries. The West and East African coasts were littered with local factories and industries. There was a thriving boat-building industry in the Loango kingdom, in present day Cabinda enclave of Angola.by killing or exiling African rulers. A lot of kings and chiefs were beheaded and their heads kept as trophies. Their skulls can be found in colonial and military museums in Europe. The skull of Chief Lusinga is still kept in a colonial museum in Belgium.by creating colonial states by making sure that ethnic groups that never got along had the same colonial master and powerful empires or kingdoms were divided among different colonial masters. The Kingdom of Kongo was divided between Belgium, Portugal and France.by banning the use of indigenous currencies and imposing colonial currencies (monetary servitude, still imposed through the Zone Franc). There are more than 120 indigenous currencies (pictures and specimens taken) from pre-colonial Congo catalogued in the Tervuren Museum of Belgium.by suppressing indigenous scripts (scriptural servitude). The saddest case with African scripts is the Bamun script of King Njoya in Cameroon. The script was banned by the French who also destroyed his libraries and press.The Scramble for Africa was soon followed by the Scramble for African Art. Huge expeditions were organized to “collect” works of arts and artifacts. Our royal palaces and sacred shrines were looted and burned to the ground. At least 90% of Africa’s cultural heritage sit in colonial museums in Europe and in the America.2. The fall of the Berlin Wall and the creation of new world orderWith the end of the Cold Word and the collapse of communist countries, the place and the role of Africa was redefined as part of the whole globalization process.The Walls of Africa - Coverage of the Fall of the Berlin WallThe fall of the Wall in 1989 eventually caused the marginalisation of Africa. In his analysis, Adebajo answered more than just the question of what the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 meant for Africa, but commented “Berlin is a metaphor for Africa’s colonial and post-colonial experiences.”Fall of Berlin Wall Had Impact on African ContinentAnalysts say the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 was primarily a symbolic event, but it marked the beginning of changes that would affect Africa and the developing world in many ways.The deputy chairman of the South African Institute for International Affairs, Moeletsi Mbeki, says the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 ended the Cold War and East-West rivalries."Africa had been at the receiving end of the Cold War with great powers using Africa as a playground to fight its [their] proxy wars," he said.An analyst with the Electoral Institute for Southern Africa, Ebrahim Fakir, says new forms of capitalism evolved that widened the gap between rich and poor."While 1989 may have signaled greater amounts of freedom, the inception of some kind of democratic regime, it also initiated greater amounts of inequalities, not just between states and regions of the world, but within states," he said.Analysts note that the demise of communism also left the world with a single dominant power, at least for a time. And this uni-polar world may have contributed to excesses such as those that led to the banking crisis that affected economies everywhere.Curse # 2: Curse of HamAfricans are cursed and doomed to perpetual slavery because of the curse of Ham. Ham is the biblical father of the African Nations. The curse of Ham was a lie to begin with. Ham was never cursed by Canaan was.Misinformation: Black Race Originated from Noah’s Son Ham1. Noah imposed a curse upon Canaan, not Ham2. According to the Bible, Canaan was the name of Ham’s son; this name is also used to refer to Phoenicia.Racist contextOver the time, certain religious groups spread fake teaching that Ham had a black skin because he was cursed by Noah. This teaching was used to justify racism and slavery of people with color skin across the world.….Egypt, the first super-power in world history is also known as the land of Ham.It is my educated belief that whenever haters focus on the savagery or servitude of the people they dislike, they usually cover up another story of displacement, land grabbing, genocide and above all a powerful legacy lost, erase, discredited or worse stolen.Three powerful quotes from Quora and Internet users.• Hamites" cursed as "blacks" now become "white" and therefore the just progenitors of civilization in Africa, beginning with Egypt.• The Eurocentrics classify Ham as all "black" people first (to justify slavery and colonization) then they all magically became "white" people after that point so that they could claim Egypt for themselves• Hamites" cursed as "blacks" now become "white" and therefore the just progenitors of civilization in Africa, beginning with Egypt.Stolen Legacy: The Egyptian Origins of Western Philosophy: James, George G M: 9781614278344: Amazon.com: Bookshttps://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2852&context=ocjTHE WORLD'S DEBT TO EGYPT. BY G. H. RICHARDSONAfricans, we are the elders of the world. In addition, the earliest civilizations on earth were created by people of different shades of brown. Black is a code word for different shades of brown.Paul Gaffarel, an early 20th French scholar said it all as follows (Courtesy of Google Translate)Several races seem to have, in turn, exercised world dominance, and been at the forefront of civilization.The order of succession is now very difficult to determine.However, the black race appears to be the first.The Malays hunted down Blacks in the islands of Polynesia; the Hindus chased them far into the interior of the Deccan and Ceylon.Blacks are represented in Egyptian monuments and easily recognizable by the color of their skin, snub nose and slanted eyes.They were later replaced by invaders.The final triumph of our race (the white race) dates back only from the 16th century when native American tribes were destroyed or absorbed by Europeans.Bishop William Montgomery Brown wrote "For the first two or three thousand years of civilization, there was not a civilized white man on the earth. Civilization was founded and developed by the "swarthy" races of Mesopotamia, Syria and Egypt, and the white race remained so barbaric that in those days an Egyptian or a Babylonian priest would have said that the riffraff of white tribes a few hundred miles to the north of their civilization were hopelessly incapable of acquiring the knowledge requisite to progress.It was southern colored peoples everywhere, in China, in Central America, in India, Mesopotamia, Syria, Egypt and Crete who gave the northern white peoples civilization." (The Bankruptcy of Christian Supernaturalism, Vol., p. 192.)Curse # 3: The Resource curseAfrica is plagued by the resource curse. Actually, the resource curse is not a curse in itself but a looting machine that was created more than 500 years ago. The looting machine instills or increases conflicts for oil and minerals. Rebel and militia groups are supplied with arms, particularly when they controlled oil or mineral rich regions and zones.Curse # 3: The Resource curseAfrica is plagued by the resource curse. Actually, the resource curse is not a curse in itself but a looting machine that was created more than 500 years ago. The looting machine instills or increases conflicts for oil and minerals. Rebel and militia groups are supplied with arms, particularly when they controlled oil or mineral rich regions and zones.The Looting Machine: Warlords, Oligarchs, Corporations, Smugglers, and the Theft of Africa's Wealth: Burgis, Tom: 9781610397117: Amazon.com: BooksThe trade in oil, gas, gems, metals and rare earth minerals wreaks havoc in Africa. During the years when Brazil, India, China and the other “emerging markets” have transformed their economies, Africa's resource states remained tethered to the bottom of the industrial supply chain. While Africa accounts for about 30 per cent of the world's reserves of hydrocarbons and minerals and 14 per cent of the world's population, its share of global manufacturing stood in 2011 exactly where it stood in 2000: at 1 percent.In his first book, The Looting Machine, Tom Burgis exposes the truth about the African development miracle: for the resource states, it's a mirage. The oil, copper, diamonds, gold and coltan deposits attract a global network of traders, bankers, corporate extractors and investors who combine with venal political cabals to loot the states' value. And the vagaries of resource-dependent economies could pitch Africa's new middle class back into destitution just as quickly as they climbed out of it. The ground beneath their feet is as precarious as a Congolese mine shaft; their prosperity could spill away like crude from a busted pipeline.This catastrophic social disintegration is not merely a continuation of Africa's past as a colonial victim. The looting now is accelerating as never before. As global demand for Africa's resources rises, a handful of Africans are becoming legitimately rich but the vast majority, like the continent as a whole, is being fleeced. Outsiders tend to think of Africa as a great drain of philanthropy. But look more closely at the resource industry and the relationship between Africa and the rest of the world looks rather different. In 2010, fuel and mineral exports from Africa were worth 333 billion, more than seven times the value of the aid that went in the opposite direction.But who received the money? For every Frenchwoman who dies in childbirth, 100 die in Niger alone, the former French colony whose uranium fuels France's nuclear reactors. In petro-states like Angola three-quarters of government revenue comes from oil. The government is not funded by the people, and as result it is not beholden to them. A score of African countries whose economies depend on resources are rentier states; their people are largely serfs. The resource curse is not merely some unfortunate economic phenomenon, the product of an intangible force. What is happening in Africa's resource states is systematic looting. Like its victims, its beneficiaries have names.You wouldn't buy a blood diamond, but do you own a conflict phone?Gold, Tin, Tantalum, and Tungsten: The “3TG”There are four conflict minerals legally defined by laws across the globe, including the U.S. and EU. The minerals are dubbed 3TG, for tin, tantalum (sometimes known as coltan or blue gold), tungsten, and gold.The three “Ts” are mostly mined in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and they’re all used extensively in electronics. The minerals are also mined in other places, like Australia and South America — generally by large industrial conglomerates without as many worker welfare concerns. Mining operations in Africa produce a huge percentage of the global supply of 3TGs and they do it cheaply. The minerals have many uses in electronics and are found throughout our smartphones:• Tantalum is used primarily for the production of tantalum capacitors, which have a comparatively high capacitance per volume and low weight.• Tin is used for solder on most circuit boards on the planet, and in displays, including LCDs and OLEDs.• Tungsten is used for its hardness in wires and electrodes. Smartphones also vibrate via haptic feedback or for notifications by using an off-center motor made of tungsten components.• Gold is more commonly known and used extensively in electronics both directly for electronic contacts, connectors, and wires, and in some chemical compounds used in certain semiconductor manufacturing processes. Huge quantities of gold are sold illegally.Why conflict? And why has it been going on for so long?Speaking on a conference call for TCO Compliance in June, Joakim Wohlfeil, a policy advisor on conflict and justice for international development organization Diakonia, explained the sources of conflict, and the problems facing “artisanal” miners in Africa.The word artisan is generally associated with skilled crafts, but don’t be fooled. This is hard labor: millions of individuals mine in a semi-organized fashion by hand, without modern industrial techniques, to provide income for their families.…..The armed groups rule through lawlessness and deliberately avoid any kind of active peace. Peace brings laws, regulation, taxes, and customs duties.According to Wohlfeil, who speaks with miners in conflict zones, the armed groups trade the minerals via informal methods, and where gold is involved, often fetch surprisingly high prices. Criminal organizations like the Russian and Italian mobs legitimize their cash by purchasing gold, which can be easily washed into the economy. In the DRC alone, an astonishing 98 percent of mined gold is exported illegally.Tantalum also isn’t traded on a metal exchange like the London Metal Exchange, making movements of the raw ore difficult to track and purposefully obscured by suppliers. The price paid for the material is usually determined solely by negotiations between buyer and seller, rather than a constant market.The average intelligent person looks both ways before crossing a street or risks being hit by a truck. Africa is in bandages because most of its leaders looked only one way— at the external—George Ayitteyhttps://www.atlasnetwork.org/assets/uploads/misc/Applied_Economics_for_Africa_2018.pdfby George Ayittey“He who does not know where he came from, does not know where he is going,” says an African proverb. We are lost in Africa because we do not know where we came from, which is why we copy everything foreign by heart. It is either because we have no faith in our own or we lack knowledge of our own. Africa is lost and wandering because many of its leaders do not know where they came from. They have been copying alien systems and institutions, instead of building upon their own. For example, they have been building Confucius Institutes across Africa, not Ubuntu Institutes.We need to continue championing “African solutions to African problems” and arguing that the salvation of Africa does not lie inside the corridors of the World Bank, the IMF, or the US Congress. Neither does it lie in the inner sanctum of the Chinese Politburo or the Russian presidium. It lies in Africa’s own backyard—in her own indigenous institutions.There is absolutely nothing wrong with Africa’s indigenous economic system. But the indigenous system was roundly castigated by the ruling elites as “backward and primitive.” They then proceeded to copy all sorts of alien and unworkable models from abroad to impose on the African people. The continent became littered with the putrid carcasses of failed imported systemsTraditional Africa, the home of the real people of Africa, works—albeit at a low level of efficiency—and has sustained its people for centuries. The natives may lack formal education, but they are hard-working and enterprising. Using their raw native intelligence, ingenuity, and skills, they have been able to produce some of the world’s most beautiful cloths (kente, for example) and great works of art. The sculptures of Yoruba, Ibo bronzes, the beads of the Maasai, Fang masks, Zulu headrests, and Sotho snuff containers are recognized as masterpieces.There were free village markets, free trade, and free enterprise before the advent of colonialism in Africa. Timbuktu, for example was one great market town. Free-trade routes crisscrossed the continent with the trans-Saharan being the most famous. Politically, decision-making was by consensus at village meetingsBut much of this knowledge, as Mr. Soyinka rightly complains, has been hidden. Myths about Africa came to replace these truths, and the problem was compounded by the failure on all sides to distinguish between form and substance. The institutions of democracy, free markets, money, marriage, and justice, can take many forms. Just because there were no ballot boxes or supermarkets or white-wigged judges in pre-colonial African villages doesn’t mean Africans had no conception of those institutions. African tribal cultures aren’t in conflict with the West; only the forms of institutions are different.There is still much mythology about Africa’s indigenous economic system. The myth of “hunters and gatherers” persists, giving the impression that Africa had no economic institutions or culture before contact with the Europeans. Inexorably tied to their ancestral land, Africans supposedly eked out a living from primitive agriculture. Trade and exchange were supposedly un- known, since self-sufficiency and subsistence farming were the operative goals. Books on pre-colonial Africa dwell excessively on the “backwardness” of African technology. But Africa did indeed have economic institutionsAfricans engaged in a variety of industrial activities in the pre-colonial era. In Benin, “the glass industry made extraordinary strides” (Diop 1987, 136). In Nigeria, “the cloth industry was an ancient craft. Kano attained historical prominence in the fourteenth century with its fine indigo dyed cloth, which was traded for goods from North Africa. Even before the discovery of cotton, other materials had been used for cloth. The Igbo, for example, made cloth from the fibrous bark of trees. The Asante also were famous for their cotton and bark cloth (kente and adwumfo).No effort was made to build on Africa’s own indigenous institutions; only Botswana did this. The indigenous systems were castigated as backward and primitive that could not be relied upon to achieve the rapid transformation the leaders desired. Foreign systems and paraphernalia were blindly aped and transplanted into Africa.As such, no organic development took place but rather “development by imitation.”Ancestral culture and modern survival: The example of Meiji Japan (2) - Businessday NGAncestral Culture and Modern Survival: The Example of Meiji JapanWritten by Chinweizu Chinweizu Ibekwe - Wikipedia Chinweizu (born 26 March 1943) is a Nigerian critic, essayist, poet, and journalistThe notion that culture is the ultimate backbone of a people, the immune system of a society, is alien to the niggerized consciousness of the populations of PanAfrica. Many of their comprador elite now see African culture as nothing more than a source of fossilized arts and museum pieces to be sold to earn foreign exchange! Others view it as a disgraceful, primitive paganism that should be smashed and consigned to the bonfire.So, everything depends on the education they received, what it moulded them into. If you are educated as a lawyer, your mental framework tends to get limited to what you can do in a law court, or within the existing legal and constitutional arrangements.If your education is such that you think from the point of view of your conquerors, if it moulds you into a black European, that is mis-education, not education. If you take a rat and train it to see the world in the way the cat sees the world, you have not educated the rat, you have mis-educated it for life in a world with rat-killing cats.You have actually made it an easier prey for the cats, because the natural instincts of a rat would have told it how to deal with cats, or how to avoid cats. But after you have given the rat the education of a cat, it would lose those instincts. It might even think of itself as a cat! And that is what this colonialist education has done to Africans for the last two centuries. We have been fundamentally mis-educated, and we cannot even see the world from our own point of view, let alone in our own interest.The Japanese rulers launched their Meiji revolution in 1868, and were determined to make Japan an equal power with the foremost western powers. In this project, they sought to modernize but not Westernize Japan.They sent emissaries abroad to study their white enemies thoroughly. And they were interested in finding and adopting only those aspects of European civilization that would help in building Japan‘s national power.They united the energies of the entire population to achieve absolute national independence from foreign capital and foreign rule; accordingly, they regarded foreign help as proof of national weakness. They were focused on building enough Japanese power to prevent their being conquered, and to wipe out their national humiliation by foreign encroachments and tutelage.Such cannot be said for any of our Black African countries—with their unselective aping of all things European, their lack of a sense of humiliation at having been colonized, their pathetic addiction to foreign aid, their abject craving for foreign investment, and their absolute disinterest in industrializing themselves into economic and military power.The crucial point is that the movements that liberated Japan were led by people who did hard thinking about their reality, and who applied some ideological perspective to illuminate the problems of their society. They did not allow that crisis of knowledge ‘that afflicted the Black African movements to ever arise.As yet no Black African country has pushed ahead to attempt Japan after 1868. National liberation is manifested when you run your economy and society and culture entirely in your national interest. No foreign companies dominate the Japanese economy--that is the crucial point.As Cabral maintained, until we have mental independence—―absolute independence in our way of thinking and acting-- and apply it to control our territory and economy and culture, we are not independent.So, the independence that Black African countries claim is fake, because they do not control any of these vital aspects of their existence.