would tend to keep the negroes down to the bare level
of subsistence, while using the produce of their
country to increase the comfort and splendor of the
Communist community. It would do this with that
careful unconsciousness which now characterizes all
the worst acts of nations. Administrators would be
appointed and would be expected to keep silence as
to their methods. Busybodies who reported horrors
would be disbelieved, and would be said to be actuated
by hatred toward the existing regime and by a perverse
love for every country but their own. No doubt,
in the first generous enthusiasm accompanying the
establishment of the new regime at home, there would
be every intention of making the natives happy, but
gradually they would be forgotten, and only the
tribute coming from their country would be
remembered. I do not say that all these evils are
unavoidable; I say only that they will not be avoided
unless they are foreseen and a deliberate conscious
effort is made to prevent their realization. If the
white communities should ever reach the point of
wishing to carry out as far as possible the principles
underlying the revolt against capitalism, they will
have to find a way of establishing an absolute
disinterestedness in their dealings with subject races. It
will be necessary to avoid the faintest suggestion of
capitalistic profit in the government of Africa, and
to spend in the countries themselves whatever they
would be able to spend if they were self-governing.
Moreover, it must always be remembered that backwardness
in civilization is not necessarily incurable,
and that with time even the populations of Central
Africa may become capable of democratic self-government,
provided Europeans bend their energies to
this purpose.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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