How can we trust them?

                                By Akoli Penoukou

I – In the Beginning

How can we trust people

who, on landing at our shores

received hospitality

which enabled them to engage in free trade

which they soon turned into unequal exchange

giving cheap and nasty goods

like mirrors, beads, outmoded clothing, gin, and gunpowder

taking expensive and durable goods

like gold, diamond, and ivory

yet remained insatiable.

II – After Unequal Trade

How can we trust people

who, on gaining a foothold on our shores

became inhospitable

which made them engage in a one-sided trade

which consisted of a strange form of exchange

hauling away their fellow human beings

mainly young children and healthy adults

leaving behind grief and destruction

mainly old people, sick adults, and ghost habitations

yet remained remorseless.

III – After Slavery

How can we trust people

who, on settling at our shores

lorded it over us

which enabled them to have a stranglehold on our lands

which allowed them to further fatten theirs

gobbling on our natural resources

like gold, timber, bauxite, iron, copper, diamond, and rubber

leaving behind pain and destruction

like forced labourers and scarred lands

yet remained heartless.

IV – After Colonialism

How can we trust people

who, on leaving our shores

remote-control them

which enable them to thrust us deeper into abysmal depths

which allow them to propel themselves still higher

fixing diminishing prices for our exports

like gold, timber, diamond, copper, cocoa, coffee, and cotton

hiking the costs of their industrial products

like machines, medicines, automobiles, and clothes

yet remain impenitent.

V – After Neo-Colonialism

How can we continue to trust people

who, at every turn of our troubled history

have proved themselves not worthy of trust?

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posted 10 July 2006