Change War vs Iran With New Paradigm For Development?

March 17, 2026

What have we witnessed in the preemptive war against Iran being waged by Israel and the United States? That powerful armies can destroy weaker nations with overwhelming military force. However, it is much harder to recreate a new viable nation that is capable of  providing for its people. Look closely at the last two colossal failures of regime change wars in this century; Iraq, and Libya. Both are and have been failed states for decades. President Trump’s war on Iran has entered its third week. Despite the macho boasting of President Trump and his followers, what has really changed for the better? Yes, Iran’s infrastructure and military capability is being dismantled. Has the regime changed? Is the nation any better off? Is the world any safer?

U.S. military-intelligence reports that the regime in Iran maintains control of the country and is more emboldened to resist U.S. and Israeli bombings of their nation. Does President Trump wish the alternative? That the nation of Iran disintegrates, and becomes another failed state, a balkanized territory of warring religions, ethnicities, and non-Iranian nationalities? Are the U.S. and the world really better off with a destabilization of the Middle East and the Gulf?

Read below, President Franklin Roosevelt’s superior approach to nation building.

The article below is reprinted from americansystemnow.com.* Read my earlier post on President Trump’s war on Iran: Trump Adopts Neocon Regime Change: Was His MAGA A Hoax?

How FDR Planned to Outflank the British in Iran and Afghanistan

By Edward Spannaus,  March 13, 2026

Surprising as it may seem today, at the end of the Second World War, both Afghanistan and Iran looked to the United States as their hope for economic development, and for protection from the imperialist designs of Great Britain and the Soviet Union. Both Afghanistan and Iran had long been pawns in the “Great Game” between Britain and Russia, and both saw in the principles of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Atlantic Charter, the possibility of fulfilling their aspirations for freedom from foreign domination and exploitation.

The transformation of the image of the United States, from the protector of exploited nations, to the “Great Satan” and sworn enemy of pan-Islamic fanatics, is a case study in British methods of manipulation and control.

The favorable image of the United States held in the eyes of the leaders of both Iran and Afghanistan was largely due to the deployment of President Roosevelt’s personal representative, Gen. Patrick J. Hurley, to that region in 1943-44. When Hurley arrived in Iran in 1943, he found a country occupied jointly by the British and the Soviets, a country which feared it would be permanently partitioned by the two occupying powers after the war. Hurley proposed that Iran protect its future by joining the Allies and declaring war on Germany and the Axis powers—a proposal which was violently opposed by the British and Russian allies!

At FDR’s instruction, and over efforts by the Anglophilic U.S. State Department to sabotage his efforts, Hurley drafted the “Declaration Regarding Iran” during the Teheran Conference in late 1943. The declaration guaranteed the independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity of Iran, and promised assistance in dealing with the postwar economic situation. Over Averell Harriman’s objections, Roosevelt managed to get the document signed by Stalin and Churchill.

Roosevelt’s vision was to make Iran a “pilot project,” which would show the world the benefits of applying American “twentieth-century” methods to the task of global development. He assigned Hurley to develop a plan for the postwar economic development of Iran, which involved freeing Iran from internal and foreign exploitation, so that it could use its considerable natural resources for its own benefit. FDR also asked Hurley to compile a list of American industrialists and experts who could be trusted to carry out the project. Hurley’s report to Roosevelt included the following provisions:

“Inauguration in Iran of the American pattern of self-government and free enterprise will be an assurance that [the] proceeds from development of Iranian resources will be directed substantially to the building of schools, hospitals, sanitary systems, irrigation systems, and improvement of all facilities contributing to the health, happiness and general welfare of the Iranian people.

“This plan of nation building may be improved through our experience in Iran and may become the criterion for the relations of the United States toward all nations which are now suffering from the evils of greedy minorities, monopolies, aggression, and imperialism.”

President Roosevelt was enthusiastic about the Iran Plan, and forwarded it to the State Department, commenting: “I was rather thrilled by the idea of using Iran as an example of what we could do by an unselfish American policy.”

Intervention in Afghanistan

Afghanistan was Hurley’s next stop. He flew to Peshawar in Pakistan, only 150 miles from the capital of Afghanistan. As Hurley’s biographer Don Lohbeck tells the story:

“In Peshawar, a series of British-inspired obstacles arose to hinder completion of the flight to Kabul. First the plane in which he was to fly over the mountains to the Afghan capital was declared to be of a type that could not possibly land on the Kabul air strip; second, the officials of the British airfield ‘lost’ the key to the gasoline pump and could not furnish gas for the flight; third, local weather reports from Kabul were withheld from the Americans so that when on January 4, they finally took off—they had to turn back when within only twenty miles of the Afghan city, because weather conditions were so bad they could not land. Trying again the next day, the Americans had to turn back because of engine trouble that developed while in flight.

“Finally, in disgust, General Hurley and his party left Peshawar by car, driving through the Khyber Pass.”

Hurley’s trip was a marked success. The U.S. military attaché wrote that Afghanistan, which had been left out of the Teheran Conference, was eager for some notice from the United States, and that the Afghan leaders now looked to Washington as the arbiter of their relations with Britain and Russia.

Hurley himself reported to Roosevelt that “since leaving Afghanistan I have confirmed the impression that neither Russia nor Britain has the confidence of the Afghanistan Government…. The fact that the United States Government has no imperialistic designs may be regarded as the chief reason why it is trusted by Afghanistan and all nations of the Middle East. The king of Afghanistan is also familiar with the principles expressed by you. He expressed himself as in complete accord and anxious to follow your leadership. The king was delighted by the Iran Declaration. He said it gave all nations of the Middle East and Central Asia confidence in their own future. Throughout the Middle East you are credited with having obtained the Iran Declaration from Britain and Russia.”

The FDR-Hurley plan for Iran was violently attacked by the State Department, whose “expert” on Iran, Eugene Rostow, dismissed it as “hysterical messianic global-baloney.” Hurley angrily denounced the opponents of the plan as “stuffed-shirt diplomats in the State Department who were kow-towing to the British.”

But with Roosevelt’s death in 1945, and the accession of Harry Truman to the White House, the British agents-of-influence in the State Department had their way, and Roosevelt’s postwar plans for the Middle East and Central Asia were scuttled.

American aid for Afghanistan, which was looking to the United States for investment and assistance, never materialized. The United States did manage to maintain more of a role in Iran, and in the early 1950s even assisted Iran’s efforts to wrest control of its oil from Britain. Contrary to historical myth, the United States supported the Mossadeq government’s nationalization of Iran’s oil resources. But with the advent of the Eisenhower administration, U.S. policy in Iran was quickly aligned with that of Britain, and U.S. agents played a secondary, supporting role in the British-run coup against Mossadeq. It was only later that the CIA took credit for overthrowing Mossadeq—a stupid and false claim, which contributed greatly to British efforts to transform the United States into the “enemy image” in the Middle East.

*First published in Executive Intelligence Review, Oct. 13, 1995.

Read my earlier post: Trump Adopts Neocon Regime Change: Was His MAGA A Hoax?

Lawrence Freeman is a Political-Economic Analyst for Africa, who has been involved in economic development policies for Africa for over 35 years. He is a teacher, writer, public speaker, consultant on Africa, and an analyst of global strategic relations. Mr. Freeman strongly believes that economic development is an essential human right. He is the creator of the blog: lawrencefreemanafricaandtheworld.com, also publishes on: lawrencefreeman.substack.com, “Freeman’s Africa and the World, and on X @lkfreemansafrica

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Remembering Nancy Spannaus, Historian & Advocate for American System of Economics

February 5, 2026

On Saturday, January 31st, 2026, I attended the funeral of a longtime friend and colleague, Nancy Bradeen Spannaus. (See obituary below). The service was filled with hundreds of people who were touched by the life of Nancy. She lived her mortal existence the way all of us should: to do good for the human race. She affected many people from different sectors of society. She left an indelible mark on humanity during her life on earth. In her retirement years, she wrote and published three books, which educated Americans among others, on the better principles that the United States of America was founded on and stood for. She discussed in detail the history of Alexander Hamilton’s American System of Political Economy. She wrote a groundbreaking history of the fight in the United States against slavery, which the vast majority of Americans and non-Americans alike, are completely ignorant of. She also discussed how British subjects, American colonists, became citizens of this Republic after defeating British imperialism.

I knew Nancy for almost fifty-seven years. I first met Nancy and her husband Ed, following my freshman year in college in 1969. She and I had various forms of political collaboration over the succeeding decades. Nancy had a significant impact on my life even though I never discussed it with her until the occasion of her eighty-second birthday in December 2025. Nancy influenced who I am today. She contributed more than anyone else in helping me to become a writer. For that, I will be thankful for the remainder of my life.

Over the long period of time that I knew Nancy, I realized she was a person of strong intellect. Her writings on Hamilton and the American System of Political Economy were invaluable to me. Her work in this extended field of American history provided me with an in-depth education and motivated me to read and re-read many of the original works of Alexander Hamilton and his students, among others; Henry Carey, Fredrich List, Peshine Smith, Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin D Roosevelt. However, even though I knew her as a strong political figure, historian, and author, it was not until many years later that I realized the quality of her inner strength. This was amplified in the way she conducted her life in the remaining months after she was diagnosed with a rare and deadly form of cancer.

To help educate my circle of colleagues around the world, I would buy Nancy’s books and gift them to political allies, relatives and friends across the United States, Africa, and China. This practice continues today, in an effort to educate people on the true principles upon which the United States of America was founded. Among some African circles, this stimulated a discussion on how Alexander Hamilton and the American System of Political Economy could affect economic progress in African nations today. I will continue my efforts of distributing Nancy’s books to expand people’s knowledge of the profound history of the United States. Nancy once told me that I was her best customer.

Alexander Hamilton was an economic genius. He created a National Bank by converting outstanding debts from the Revolutionary War into credit. He allowed holders of U.S. debt to use their relatively worthless paper claims, to purchase shares (stock) in this new bank. This created new capital for lending (issuing credit) for investments in farming, manufacturing, and internal improvements (infrastructure). For decades I have advocated for a Hamiltonian approach to address Africa’s huge infrastructure deficits. Years ago, I collaborated with a group of Africans to establish an African Infrastructure Development Bank, modeled on Hamilton’s First Bank of the United States (1791). This approach remains valid for Africa today, especially when there is no competent policy to provide the trillions of dollars of credit required to build vital categories of infrastructure necessary to industrialize the nations of Africa.

Like Nancy, I too am guided by a mission in my life: to make the world better. To improve the quality of the thinking of as many people that I can reach with my limited resources. It has been my particular mission for over thirty-five years to eliminate poverty and hunger in Africa. Introducing Africans to Hamilton’s scientific economic principles has been an important feature of that mission. With Nancy as a model, I hope in my brief mortal existence I can have the same uplifting impact on society that Nancy has exhibited throughout her life.

After all, our mortal existence should mean more than just simply seeking pleasure and satisfying our biological needs. We should all govern our mortal existence by what kind of indelible contributions we have made to the future of civilization after our mortal existence expires. Let the way Nancy Bradeen Spannaus conducted her life be an inspiration and exemplar for all of us to emulate. I consider myself to be very fortunate to have met Nancy during my lifetime.

Nancy Bradeen Spannaus, author and historian 1943-2026

February 4, 2026

Nancy Bradeen Spannaus of Lovettsville, VA,  author and public historian, died on January 16, 2026 at Inova Loudoun Hospital. Nancy had been fighting cancer over a span of eleven years, and was battling a rare and particularly virulent form of the disease for the past two years. 

Nancy had been studying U.S. history, with an emphasis on the country’s economic development in general, and Alexander Hamilton in particular, since the 1970s, and in 1977 she co-authored a book of writings on the Political Economy of the American Revolution.  In 2017, upon retirement from a career in journalism, she established the blog https://americansystemnow.com, which contains more than 600 articles on the history and principles of the American System of Economics. 

In 2019, she published the book Hamilton Versus Wall Street: The Core Principles of the American System of Economics. In 2023 she published Defeating Slavery: Hamilton’s American System Showed the Way. 

In early 2025, with an eye to the upcoming 250^th anniversary of the American Revolution, she published a collection of essays from the blog in a volume entitled From Subject to Citizen: What Americans Need to Know about Their Revolution. 

In recent years, she was a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution (Ketoctin Chapter), the Alexander Hamilton Awareness Society, the Lincoln Group of D.C., the Loudoun 250 Committee, and the American Friends of Lafayette. 

Nancy spoke on Alexander Hamilton and related topics at many local events, including history groups and the public libraries. She was also a volunteer for the Western Loudoun Food Pantry (acting as its manager in recent years), and the Lovettsville Historical Society. She taught in Lifelong Learning programs, often as an Adjunct Professor, at Shepherd University, Long Island University, Johns Hopkins University, and Frederick Community College.

Nancy was born in Portland, Maine, of parents Donald and Mary Lou Towle Bradeen, in 1943, and spent her younger years in Washington, Pennsylvania and Cincinnati, Ohio. She was a graduate of Bryn Mawr College (B.A., 1965), and Columbia University School of Social Work (M.S., 1967).  As a journalist, she was for many years the editor-in-chief of several national publications affiliated with the Lyndon LaRouche organizations, and she also ran for statewide office in Virginia in the 1990s.

She is survived by her husband of 57 years, Edward; her second son Andrew, a journalist based in Milan, Italy; and grandson Christopher Ziboni Spannaus of Italy. She was predeceased by her first son Michael (1970-1990). She is also survived by four younger brothers and sisters: Robert Bradeen and wife Ellen, of Haughton, Louisiana; Judy Bradeen, of Lebanon, New Hampshire; David Bradeen and husband NJ, of Camden, Maine and Indian Wells, California; and Susan Bradeen Haimes and husband David, of Seneca Falls, New York.

In her own words:

In 2018, Nancy wrote a biographical essay for the DAR, which she adapted just this last November for a website on influential women. Here are a few excerpts, beginning where she was discussing her mother’s side of the family as “decidedly a matriarchy.”

My father represented a clear countervailing, and broadening influence. As a Classics professor and twice a fellow at the Princeton Institute for Advanced Studies, he was a rigorous scholar and very demanding of me, his oldest child. He had an in-depth historical view (“Everything after the 5^th Century B.C. was current events,” he said.) He never gave any indication that my gender should interfere with the highest level of intellectual achievement—and pushed me to go to a top woman’s college, Bryn Mawr, in order to get the best education possible. Bryn Mawr had a strong Classics tradition, including school songs in Classical Greek and a de facto patron goddess, Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom (and war). I majored in philosophy . . . .

My own concentration of study on the American Revolution, which began in the mid-1970s, did not focus on the role of women, but on the ideas which the leading Founders, such as Benjamin Franklin and Alexander Hamilton, developed in order to create the new nation. And while these heroes of mine were by no means concentrated on advancing the role of women per se, their political ideas were equally applicable to liberating the minds of men and women.

For as long as I can remember, I always felt an obligation to act to improve society. By the time I finished my formal education, this concept had broadened considerably beyond just working in a local community, to encompassing the world as a whole. When I had my children in the early 1970s, my determination to play that larger role in the world, specifically through politics, became even stronger. I owed it to my children, as well as those of others, to create a world where they could thrive. My husband shared this view . . . .  

I have retired, but will actually never really retire. It is still my obligation to use what knowledge I have acquired to educate, and if possible, inspire, my fellow human beings to improve this world—indeed, to bring it out of crisis. My activities, including starting a blog and joining DAR, have been embarked on with this intent. That is my role as a privileged human being . . . .  

For Nancy, the history of the American Revolution was a living project.  She was passionate about the good the American Revolution had brought to the world, and she was determined to help people understand it so that the visions and ideas of Alexander Hamilton and the American founders could shape our future.  Nancy breathed life into the figures of the past in a way that forges a direction for now, and for the times to come.  To this end, she continued to write and think about more speaking events — right up through the very last weeks of her time on Earth.  

Read below my previous posts on Alexander Hamilton:

Hamilton versus Wall Street: Relevance to Ethiopia & Africa

Nations Must Study Alexander Hamilton’s Principles of Political Economy

Alexander Hamilton’s Credit System Is Necessary for Africa’s Development

Lawrence Freeman is a Political-Economic Analyst for Africa, who has been involved in economic development policies for Africa for over 35 years. He is a teacher, writer, public speaker, consultant on Africa, and an analyst of global strategic relations. Mr. Freeman strongly believes that economic development is an essential human right. He is the creator of the blog: lawrencefreemanafricaandtheworld.com, also publishes on: lawrencefreeman.substack.com, “Freeman’s Africa and the World, and on X @lkfreemansafrica

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History & Creativity of Africa Should Not Be Forgotten Today

February 7, 2026

Below is a presentation to a youth conference on the rich history of Africa, by Jacques Chiminade, a respected political personality in France. (Excepted from EIR magazine, Feb 6, 2026))

The African Continent and the Future of the World

When the conditions of the present lead to a high-risk future, and the threatened annihilation of humanity if nothing is done to change our way of thinking and acting, then human inspiration must come from the beautiful achievements of the past. In the long arc of our human history, in those moments when man’s creative free will and commitment to the future—to natural law—prevail, we can build the basis for increases in the potential relative population-density. This potential for humanity to increase comes from those contributions from the past. It’s like in a chorus, when the contribution of various voices—various singing, cross-voices—creates the beautiful unity of the composition.

Those moments of achievement have taken place in practically all parts of the world during portions of human history. It did not reach a durable level for the whole of humanity, because the various contributions were relatively isolated. The creative thinking was located in one part of our Earth and could not spread everywhere through a continuous process of ongoing organizing. Therefore, it collapsed. It could not then be based on a durable self-perception necessarily rooted in the perfecting of the other, on organizing, on universality.

Now I come to Africa, which is our topic here. First, Europe—and in general the West—have to get rid of colonialism forever, neocolonialism, and geopolitics as well, to respond to the challenge of the oneness of humanity. It demands that we propose to the people of the African continent the most advanced means for development, leaving it up to their free will to accept or refuse them. I am nonetheless convinced that they are going to accept them, because they are fully committed to a better order. They are committed to becoming a type of new China with African characteristics.

Now, racist ignoramuses like [former French President] Nicolas Sarkozy and his advisors here in France say that Africa has not been part of human history until now, and needs to be helped to enter human history. To this crazy statement, we can reply that Africa has belonged the whole time to human history. Most of our ancestors in Europe, and the United States as well, come out of Africa. According to experts in genetics—it’s the only thing that I would accept from them—our ancestors were originally all Black, and our skin only adapted to the cold weather of Europe.

Cheikh Anta Diop, the great African historian, has shown us that Egyptian dynasties come from Africa, and in particular those from the upper region of the Nile, in the Meroë region.

The Ife Civilization

Now, I want to show you the civilization of the Ife region, which covered the present states of Nigeria, Benin, Togo, and [surrounding areas]—it’s part of the great Yoruba civilization. I have here on my desk—and introduce you to—one of the most famous heads that you can admire for its beauty. This is it here. It’s a copy from the British Museum. And more deeply, the Ife started its development many centuries before Christ, in the Neolithic age, and there is a lot of archaeological material on that.

The Ife then blossomed between the 9th and the 14th Centuries of our era, were affected by a terrible Black Death plague during the 14th Century—the same as in Europe—and managed to recover from it during the 15th, and in particular the 16th to the 19th Century, before being destroyed by colonial looting.

These heads of the Ife culture are heads of kings, queens, and also close collaborators of the kings and queens. There was even a famous woman queen of Ife: Luwo Gbagida. Not only men were kings; women also. Ooni meant king or queen. And it was derived from art, from the word for art.

These heads are not things in themselves for the sake of art. They are the product of a whole advanced civilization which at some points was more advanced than Europe.

The heads are made either of terra cotta, bronze, or brass. The heads are from the Middle Ages—the first ones between the 8th and 9th Centuries—more advanced than in Europe.

The city of Ife, according to archaeological evidence, had probably about 100,000 inhabitants—more than any city in Europe at those times. And the heads in bronze or brass were made with a lost-wax casting process, which required an extreme refinement to master such a process. It was only mastered many years later in Europe to mold bells for the churches—which is easier to do than to produce a beautiful head.

The Ife culture produced all kinds of goods for the population, but needed copper, and also zinc and lead, both to produce the heads and to manufacture. The heads are made of 70-77% copper, 16.5% zinc, and 11.3% lead. So they have a very refined composition.

Copper came from continental Europe, Byzantium, Morocco through the Niger River, and also Timbuktu on the camel’s back.

Timbuktu, by the way, has still today—in the historical families of the city—the most precious manuscript books from a Muslim African tradition. Ahmed Baba of Timbuktu was one of the respected thinkers of the 16th Century and also known in certain parts of Europe.

Ife was involved in heavy trans-Saharan trade, connecting Eastern and Western Africa, the Indian Ocean, and also the Mediterranean.

Supreme Creative Power

But there is more to it—and it’s the most interesting part for us and for our knowledge of history, theology, philosophical theology. The Ife believed in a supreme divinity, Olodumare, generator of the potential creative power in the universe—not so far, in a less accomplished form, from Cusa’s Posse Ipsum: God being the all-possibility itself, or the power to be.

Olodumare created man in the following way: He asked the artist divinity—called Obatala—to mold in agile form the first human being with a potential to create Ona or art. Hence, Ooni art, representing the kings and queens as an expression of the most perfected man or woman—and not idols. The beautiful face here on my desk represents that [artistic] accomplishment of man.

With the mental and physical looting of the colonialists, showing how they think, Leo Frobenius, the German ethnologist and archaeologist who discovered, by chance, Ife heads in 1910—before dying, just before dying—assigned them to some Greek colony in Africa. They were so beautiful that he thought they could not be genuinely African.

Well, the truth is that they are genuinely African—the most advanced form of art, not only in Africa but at a world level. There are human heads with influences of Asian and Egyptian cultures, because there is one humanity beyond diversity.

And there we have, I think, one of the most beautiful expressions which gives hope for our future.

Abolish the Colonialist Spirit

Let me conclude: Let’s get rid forever of the colonialist spirit. Let’s get rid of neocolonialism and geopolitics. Let’s get rid of all the consequences of the Berlin Treaty of 1885 and the Berlin Conference of 1884-1885, which shared the looting of Africa by all European countries.

Let’s then integrate ourselves in the long arc of humanity by our knowledge of the African input to the history of humanity.

I would have liked to tell you about so many African cultures: the Nok, the Igbo, the Edo, Oyo, Zulu, Xhosa—[South African leader Nelson] Mandela was, by the way, from a Xhosa culture—and the great kingdom of Benin culture, with Benin City on the Benin River, which according to enthusiastic experts—they may have exaggerated a bit, but they saw it like that—had walls four times longer than the Great Wall of China, and employing 100 times more materials and more workers than the Egyptian pyramid of Cheops.

The city was looted and destroyed by the British expedition of 1897 on behalf of free trade, and propagating at the same time the slander of an African gratuitous barbarity which “stinks of death.”

So, our commitment today as citizens from Western states should be to give the African countries the means for development: a new architecture for peace through shared security and common development—sharing the task with China, Russia, Turkey, India, and others which are active in Africa—sharing in a reverse spirit of the 19th-Century Treaty of Berlin.

Not pickaxes and shovels, but nuclear energy for all.

You, the youth—we, the youth—have this crucial task for world peace before us. Much more than that: We can only succeed if we learn from Africa—if we learn to learn from the best of African history.

I have hope. I have here also on my desk what’s called a “passport mask” from Western African civilizations—to honor the ancestors and identify and protect the travelers. Yes, Africa was not an area of fixed ethnic entities. It was a continent of exchanges and traveling.

Well, we young travelers of the future of peace: Let’s go there with the identity of one humanity beyond all borders. Thank you.

Read below my earlier posts:

Nuclear Energy Challenges Western Colonial Mind-Set: Cheikh Anta Diop & John Kennedy Would Concur

“To terminate the African slave trade, we need to raise the value of man in Africa.” American System Economist, Henry Carey

Creativity Is The True Source of Economic Wealth

Lawrence Freeman is a Political-Economic Analyst for Africa, who has been involved in economic development policies for Africa for over 35 years. He is a teacher, writer, public speaker, consultant on Africa, and an analyst of global strategic relations. Mr. Freeman strongly believes that economic development is an essential human right. He is the creator of the blog: lawrencefreemanafricaandtheworld.com, also publishes on: lawrencefreeman.substack.com, “Freeman’s Africa and the World, and on X @lkfreemansafrica

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Build Bering Strait Tunnel: Outflank The Diseased Geopolitical ‘Zero-Sum’ Ideology

December 6, 2025

I concur in all essential aspects of the analysis presented by my colleague Matt Ehret in the video above, and his article below, (mathewehret.substack.com).

My brief introductory remarks:

It is imperative that civilization mature to full adulthood and finally move beyond the anti-human ‘zero-sum’ ideology that has dominated geopolitical thinking for decades. We do not live in a perpetual Hobbesian war against all! We are not beasts. We are not governed by power or might. We are a noble species uniquely endowed with the power of creativity, which no other creature or machine possesses. All nations and people, guided by reason and goodwill, must join forces to create a new paradigm of development for the future of the human race. It is in the vested self-interest of each nation to ensure the progress of every other nation. Not containment, not hegemony, but material advancement of the conditions of life for every country.

Ehret’s historical and comprehensive presentations on the great infrastructure project, the Bering Strait Tunnel, is illustrative of the principle of common shared interest for humankind. All but a tiny number of Americans, among others, know that our finest president, Abraham Lincoln, advocated for this project over 160 years ago, in collaboration with Russia. In recent times, the construction of the Bering Strait Tunnel has been supported in various ways by Presidents Xie Jinping, Vladimir Putin, and Donald Trump. If the three leading powers of the world would unite for the completion of this vital section of the World Land-bridge, it would be transformative for civilization for many decades to come.

Will we, citizens of the world, have the fortitude and vision to demand that our leaders act with such purpose? Only if we free ourselves from the disease of a ‘zero-sum’ mind-set.

Matt Ehret writes:

I sincerely believe that humanity has reached a dramatic crossroads in our collective evolution, and the choices that we make (or fail to make) in the coming months will affect not only the lives of our children and grandchildren but the lives of countless future generations for centuries to come.

Certainly, the danger of chaos and unbounded thermonuclear war has never been greater. But inversely, the potential to apply the fruits of human ingenuity to the cause of protecting our species, ending world hunger and expanding our consciousness into the cosmos has also never been greater. As such, the opportunity to recapture the dream of a world of win-win cooperation driven by scientific, artistic and technological progress is so important. And nowhere is this opportunity as immediately ripe and nowhere are the historical precedents as powerful as they are in the great Arctic frontier.

While some war mongers envision long-range missiles across the Arctic — and Golden Domes expanding the NATO-led Full Spectrum dominance agenda into the Arctic, other, more constructive ideas, provide a happier solution for US-Russian friendship and peace for the entire world.

Not only did Presidents Putin and Trump most recently share a dialogue around cooperation in Alaska, where only 4 miles separate Russian and American territories via the Big and Little Diomede Islands in the middle of the Bering Strait, but additionally, the Polar Silk Road led by China has emerged as a great force of Eurasian and world economic collaboration since it was first announced in 2018.

Trump’s repeated message that the “USA, Russia and China together could solve the world’s problems” admittedly still remains only words, but it is the absolutely correct line of thinking, if only concrete policies can be built accordingly.

Many people do not realize this, but President Putin in fact called for the construction of the Bering Strait rail connection in 2008, and again in 2011, in both cases offering to pay $60 billion to start this project, representing 2/3 of the estimated cost. In both instances, his offers met deaf ears among George Bush and Barack Obama. In 2014, China’s major news platform China Daily and Beijing Times gave an official endorsement of this initiative.

And in 2020, President Trump gave executive support for a long overdue railway connecting the lower 48 states to Alaska via Alberta.

But even here, these modern calls for arctic development did not emerge out of a vacuum. In December 1864, President Abraham Lincoln delivered a State of the Nation address to Congress outlining federal support for extending telegraph lines through the Bering Strait, stating:

“The proposed overland telegraph between America and Europe, by the way of Bering’s Straits and Asiatic Russia, which was sanctioned by Congress at the last session, has been undertaken, under very favorable circumstance… Assurances have been received from most of the South American States of their high appreciation of the enterprise, and their readiness to cooperate in constructing lines tributary to that world-encircling communication.”

Russian Alaska would be sold to the USA in only three years later explicitly around the notion of facilitating this program.

The USA had just suffered a grave civil war and had much reason to trust Czar Alexander II’s Russia, which had intervened to protect the Union against the aggressive intervention by English and French imperial powers supporting secession. In 1863, Czar Alexander II sent Russian battleships to NY and San Francisco as a message of solidarity with Lincoln and a threat to imperial forces of Europe.

Describing his motive for sending the Russian fleet to America, Czar Alexander II said:

“In the Autumn of 1862, the governments of France and Great Britain proposed to Russia, in a formal but not in an official way, the joint recognition by European powers of the independence of the Confederate States of America. My immediate answer was: ‘I will not cooperate in such action; and I will not acquiesce. On the contrary, I shall accept the recognition of the independence of the Confederate States by France and Great Britain as a casus belli for Russia. And in order that the governments of France and Great Britain may understand that this is no idle threat, I will send a Pacific fleet to San Francisco and an Atlantic fleet to New York… All this I did because of love for my own dear Russia… I acted thus because I understood that Russia would have a more serious task to perform if the American Republic, with advanced industrial development, were broken up and Great Britain should be left in control of most branches of modern industrial development.’”

This fact has been literally erased from American history books, but it is better understood in Russia, which has today a statue featuring the two martyred patriots and great emancipators: Czar Alexander II and Lincoln holding hands in Moscow.

In 1890, Lincoln’s friend and first governor of Colorado, William Gilpin published his book “The Cosmopolitan Railway,” outlining his dream of a world of rail networks, industrial progress and cooperation.

Echoing the win-win philosophy of Xi Jinping’s New Silk Road today, William Gilpin stated:

“The cosmopolitan railway will make the whole world one community. It will reduce the separate nations to families of our great nation… From extended intercommunication will arise a wider intercourse of human ideas and as the result, logical and philosophical reciprocities, which will become the germs for innumerable new developments; for in the track of intercommunication, enterprise and invention invariably follow, and whatever facilitates one stimulates every other agency of progress.”

Gilpin noted the common cultural and geographic properties of both American and Russian societies with Russia’s Manifest Destiny calling forth a pioneering spirit to “go east,” while America’s Manifest Destiny envisioned a westward expansion. Gilpin wrote: “It is a simple and plain proposition that Russia and the United States, each having broad, uninhabited areas and limitless undeveloped resources, would by the expenditure of 2 or 3 hundred millions apiece for a highway of the nations threw their now waste places, add a hundredfold to their wealth and power and influence.”

In 1905, Czar Nicholas II following the sage advice of Sergey Witte, gave national support to the Bering Strait tunnel and funded a team of American engineers to carry out feasibility studies. Again, Russia had good reason to trust the USA as the Trans Siberian railway built between 1890 to 1905 benefited immensely through Baldwin Locomotives made in Philadelphia and the support of hundreds of American technicians and engineers.

Sadly, history unfolded in another direction from the beautiful vision laid out by Czar Alexander II, Abraham Lincoln, William Gilpin and Czar Nicholas II. An age of bankers wars, anarchist assassinations, and economic turmoil disrupted this new age of progress and cooperation among civilizational states.

Despite small valiant efforts by patriots such as President Franklin Roosevelt, Vice President Henry Wallace and President John F Kennedy to revive the spirit of Lincoln and Czar Alexander, the enemies of humanity kept the world subdued into a trap of Game Theory, Mutually Assured Destruction, Exploitation and zero sum logic.

Today’s Belt and Road Initiative and the strategic alliance established between Russia, China and Iran have re-awoken the forgotten vision of a world of cooperating sovereign nation states.

Hopefully, the current systemic breakdown crisis finds a population and a leadership capable of recognizing its historic responsibilities and a moral sensibility, capable of throwing out the old world thinking of Empire in favor of a new paradigm, more befitting of a species destined to explore the universe, create, love and problem solve together.

Watch: The-arctic-in-grand-strategy

Lawrence Freeman is a Political-Economic Analyst for Africa, who has been involved in economic development policies for Africa for over 35 years. He is a teacher, writer, public speaker, consultant on Africa, and an analyst of global strategic relations. Mr. Freeman strongly believes that economic development is an essential human right. He is the creator of the blog: lawrencefreemanafricaandtheworld.com, also publishes on: lawrencefreeman.substack.com, “Freeman’s Africa and the World, and on X @lkfreemansafrica

America’s Leadership: King, Biden, and Trump

January 20, 2025, the leadership of the United States was passed to President Donald Trump from President Joe Biden, on the official day celebrating the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. This confluence brought to my mind, a multi-dimensional time image encompassing six decades of history in the United States.

Martin Luther King Jr. was born on January 15, 1929, and his life was ended at the age of thirty nine, by an assassin’s bullet on April 4, 1968. He was not a President, in fact he never held public office, but he possessed the qualities of leadership, and he should have become President of United States. Until his death, Dr King embodied the highest qualities of morality and justice, superior to all other U.S. leading political figures of that period.

Below, you will see an article by a colleague of mine, Nancy Spannaus, Dr. King Demanded Economic Justice for All, discussing the qualities and attributes of Dr King. He was not only the most forthright American leader advocating for the fulfillment of the intent of the Declaration of Independence for equality, as the great statesperson, Frederick Douglas had demanded a century earlier. Dr King was also the champion in the United States for economic development of those who were still struggling to achieve economic advancement. Dr King also distinguished himself by stepping outside of civil rights issues and challenging the political class of the United States to end of Vietnam War, which may have been a contributing motivation for his assassination. Years earlier, in 1957, Dr King, and his wife traveled to West Africa to attend Ghana’s independence ceremony at the invitation of Kwame Nkrumah. He was also fierce critic of apartheid rule in South Africa. .

It was in 1967, with Dr King leading the most powerful political movement that the United States had experienced, that I, then a 16 year old youth, intersected the political arena, in part due to Dr King’s crusade. Almost sixty years later, I am still committed to economic justice in the United States and throughout the world, although now my interventions and my focus has developed beyond what it was when I was a young teenager. I can still remember the faces of the people on the New York City subway the night Dr King was assassinated, as I was returning home from my part time job. They were filled with sadness, anger, and anguish in response to their messiah being seized from them. A true leader, who could have changed the future, was stolen from the American people and the world. It was not until  twenty years later that I joined forces in Alabama with the followers of Dr. King, who were still alive and active.

After the assassination of President John F Kennedy, our last great president, who was an American statesman, Dr King’s leadership was made even more vital for the future of the United States. Even though he was in office for only a few short years, President Kennedy exemplified a superior quality of presidential leadership, after the failed and limited presidencies of Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower, respectively. Following the death of President Kennedy, our nation’s commitment to science and development dissipated, eventually vanished, under the onslaught of the 1970’s “rock-drug-zero-growth” counterculture.

From Kennedy’s assassination in November 1963, to his own in April 1968, Dr King built a grass-roots political movement that should have propelled him to the presidency of the United States. Tragically, it was not to be. Instead, for the last 56 years, we have suffered the mediocrity or worse of eleven presidents, bringing us to the current election of the second term of President Trump. While individual presidents may have made useful contributions, both the Republican and Democratic parties have so far failed to produce a true leader that represents the most profound fundamental principles of the United States, much less a statesman. Unfortunately, our recent U.S. presidents have not been able to “see the promised land” nor demonstrate the qualities of thought, morality, and leadership exhibited by Dr King.

It is not my intention now, to review the failures of President Biden’s administration nor prognosticate about the possible consequences of future policies by President Trump. America and the world could not have survived another four years of $100 billion wars supported by Secretary of State Blinken and President Biden. However, that was probably not the main reason that Biden was voted out of office. Whatever exactly President Trump stands for, he was the chosen vehicle used by the voters to express their outrage against the policies of Washington DC, dominated by the Democrats. More specifically, voters perceived that the ruling liberal political class in Washington arrogantly chose identity classifications over their interest. Whether the new administration knows the authentic founding principles of the U.S. and has the moral and mental fortitude to navigate a renaissance, is unclear to me at this moment. I have my doubts because I have seen more populism and slogans than substantive fruitful strategies.

To restore the U.S. to its core principles that made our nation a shining city upon a hill, will require a complete break from the rules-based-order’s zero sum mentality. First, we must end “the axis of evil” mindset and return to diplomacy grounded in policies that promote the common interest of development for all nations. Second, it is essential that we reinvigorate  Alexander Hamilton’s successful Principles of Political Economy embedded in the creation of the First National Bank. President Franklin Roosevelt, a student of Hamilton, understood that nations require legitimate banking institutions to generate credit to promote economic development. True economic growth involves issuing long term loans at 2-3 percent interest rates to drive economic growth, especially in categories of soft and hard infrastructure. We do not need oligarchs to make obscene profits, but we require all nations to be profitable to ensure peace.

If president trump genuinely wants to overturn the policies of Washington that have been detrimental to the U.S. and the world, he should adopt the following proposal of mine.

Let Presidents Trump and Xi Jinping of China, who preside over the two largest economies in the world, unite in a joint mission to end poverty and hunger across the African continent. This common mission to benefit humankind would usurp the power of the financial predators, the commodity cartels, the usurious financial institutions, and the rules based order ideologues. It would actually drain the swamp! It would  yield a magnificent and enduring legacy, if President Trump has the courage and foresight to initiate such a bold strategy.

It would be a commitment to economic justice that would make Dr King proud.

Read below my earlier posts on this subject:

In Celebration of Black History Month, Let Us All Emulate the Great Frederick Douglas

Frederick Douglass: “Knowledge Unfits a Man to be a Slave”

Lawrence Freeman is a Political-Economic Analyst for Africa, who has been involved in economic development policies for Africa for 35 years. He is a teacher, writer, public speaker, and consultant on Africa. Mr. Freeman strongly believes that economic development is an essential human right. He is the creator of the blog:   lawrencefreemanafricaandtheworld.com, and also publishing on: lawrencefreeman.substack.com, “Freeman’s Africa and the World

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Alexander Hamilton Created the U.S. African Nations Can Embrace His Economic Principles

August 25, 2024

In the interview above, two American history historians discuss the vital contributions of Alexander Hamilton to the founding of the United States of America. The question was raised in the interview whether USA, with its profound constitution, would have even be created if not for Hamilton’s intellectual input and energy. They highlighted Hamilton’s insistence that the young republic adopt a government supported policy of developing a manufacturing sector. Hamilton’s Report on the Subject of Manufacturers, written in 1791, remains a seminal argument for every nation to promote manufacturing. Hamilton, with support from President George Washington, prevailed over those who maintained the USA would be an agricultural based economy. Hamilton also insisted that the new republic have a strong central government against those who campaigned for the supremacy of states rights . Hamiltonian successfully reorganized the debt of the thirteen colonies and expanded the economy with new investments in infrastructure, through his creation of the First National Bank.

Hamilton’s economic philosophy created a school of economic thought, the American System of Political Economy, (opposed to so called free-trade), which when applied created economic growth in the U.S and other nations through the world. I have advocated decades that Hamilton’s economic principles transform African nations into industrialized economies.

Read below my earlier posts on this subject.

A Hamiltonian Development Policy for Africa Is A Necessity

Nations Must Study Alexander Hamilton’s Principles of Political Economy

Alexander Hamilton’s Credit System Is Necessary for Africa’s Development

Lawrence Freeman is a Political-Economic Analyst for Africa, who has been involved in economic development policies for Africa for 35 years. He is a teacher, writer, public speaker, and consultant on Africa. Mr. Freeman strongly believes that economic development is an essential human right. He is the creator of the blog:  lawrencefreemanafricaandtheworld.com, and also publishing on: lawrencefreeman.substack.com, “Freeman’s Africa and the World.”

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April 14, 2024

Today, we remember and reflect upon the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. His death was a tragedy for the United States from which we can honestly say, we have never recovered. His unique leadership and disposition saved the Union from being destroyed through division into separate regional entities. He was a towering intellect with extraordinary courage and morality to lead our United Staes through its most perilous period of potential disintegration.

Abraham Lincoln was perhaps our finest president and greatest American.

Once again, the United States is faced with a grave internal crisis. Presently, we have no leaders of President Lincoln’s quality. The American population is not the educated citizenry our Founding Fathers envisioned to maintain our Republic. Actual serious thinking by my fellow citizens has been replaced by group think and political correctness, following three successive generations of being dumbed down by our politicians and culture.

Whence will a leader like Abraham Lincoln come, to save our Union once again from destruction.

Below is a post by my colleague, Nancy Spannaus, creator of the blog: americansystemnow.com, in remembrance of Abraham Lincoln, as told by the great statesman, Fredrick Douglass.

Excerpt from Spannaus:

The assassination of Abraham Lincoln a mere five days after the victory of the Union in the Civil War represents one of the greatest tragedies this nation has ever endured. With that act, we moved from the prospect of Reconstruction and reconciliation led by a man of principle and compassion, as he signaled in his Second Inaugural and final speech, to a bitter and ongoing struggle which ensured that we would remain a nation divided, if not doomed.

Excerpt from Frederick Douglass’ eulogy of Abraham Lincoln:

But what was A. Lincoln to the colored people or they to him? As compared with the long line of his predecessors, many of whom were merely the facile and service instruments of the slave power, Abraham Lincoln, while unsurpassed in his devotion, to the welfare of the white race, was also in a sense hitherto without example, emphatically the black man’s President: the first to show any respect for their rights as men.

Read Spannaus’ entire article

Read my earlier posts:

TPLF Must Be Disarmed In Ethiopia Now! “A House Divided Cannot Stand” Abraham Lincoln

Assassination of President Abraham Lincoln: A Tragedy for the Human Race

Shortly, I will be publishing from lawrencefreeman.substack.com

Lawrence Freeman is a Political-Economic Analyst for Africa, who has been involved in economic development policies for Africa for over 30 years. He is a teacher, writer, public speaker, and consultant on Africa. Mr. Freeman strongly believes that economic development is an essential human right. He is also the creator of the blog:  lawrencefreemanafricaandtheworld.com

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February 20, 2024

This post is my contributions to Black History Month in the U.S.

Nancy Spannaus has made an invaluable contribution to the history of the fight over slavery in the United States, with her new book; Defeating Slavery: Hamilton’s American System Showed the Way. Thoroughly documented, Spannaus exposes the falsehood that America was founded on slavery, or that slavery is in the DNA of Americans. Not only are such untruths historically unfounded, but they are downright folly, and display gross ignorance of the history of the United States. Slavery was a disease, a cancer inside the United States, which sadly is still affecting our society today. However, it is not the basis of the more profound accomplishments of the United States, in its better days.

As anyone who understands real economics would know, it is physically impossible for slavery to begat the creation of the United States as an industrialized power. Slave labor, which dominated a whole section of the southern portion of the United States, is not a driver of economic growth, but rather retards development.

I concur with Spannaus, that if the economic principles of Alexander Hamilton had been fully implemented, the southern slave labor economies would have been driven out of existence. Southern United States, which I know well, still displays the backwardness inherent in its legacy from slavery, which President Lincoln intended to eradicate. Unfortunately, the assassination of President Lincoln, also killed his plans for full  reconstruction of the South.

 

Bluntly stated, the whole 1619 Project , which erroneously purports that the U.S. was founded on slavery, is a fraudulent attack on the United Staes of America. Our nation is imperfect. Its greatest flaw is an uneducated populace that has been dumb downed over the last half century to submit to popular opinion, rather than investigate the truth  on such critical issues as slavery. Spannaus, in her new book unmasks the actual fight for and against slavery in the U.S. And in so doing, has performed an invaluable service to U.S. and to universal history.

Another valuable benefit to this book is the rich history of the fight for and against the realization of the unique American System of Political Economy, which Spannaus traces from Alexander Hamilton to President Abraham Lincoln

Slavery Has Always Been A Battle

Spannaus boldly states on page one, that contrary to what many uninformed Americans believe, our American Revolution created the first antislavery movement in the world. Do our citizens even know that before the creation of the United States, the colony of Rhode Island banned slavery in 1652, and the colony of Georgia outlawed slavery in 1733? (p. 2) Or that as early as 1688, the Society of Friends in Germantown, Pennsylvania, issued the first petition against slavery? Astonishingly, five decades after 1619, there was only one British colonial territory, South Carolina, which was explicitly founded as a slave economy. (p. 39)

Massachusetts was a leading colony advocating the elimination of slavery. Sam Adams, a leader in the Revolutionary War, in 1766, chaired a town meeting on slavery, which instructed the state’s representatives: that for the total abolishing of slavery among us, you move for a law to prohibit the importation and purchasing of slaves for the future. (p. 63)

Pennsylvania was also a hotbed of the anti-slavery movement. Anthony Benezet, an immigrant, who became a leader and activist in Pennsylvania for the education of black children and the elimination of slavery,  published numerous tracts against slavery. But Benezet did more than write. In 1775 he established a first known organization dedicated to the abolition of slavery anywhere in the world.” (p. 77)

In 1775 , Pennsylvania quakers, under the guidance of Benezet, established the Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage. Years later its second iteration became, the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting Abolition of Slavery and for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage, commonly called the Pennsylvania Abolition Society. (pp. 77-78)

Revolutionary figures John Jay and Alexander Hamilton formed the New York Society for Promoting the Manumission of Slaves, in 1785. The preamble to their association read in part:

The Benevolent Creator, and Father of all  Men; having given to them all equal right to life, liberty, and property, no sovereign power on earth can justly deprive them of either but in conformity to part impartial laws…(p. 134)

Yet slavery spread even with public sentiment against it. To outlaw enslavement of our fellow Americans required our bloody Civil War, at a cost of 750,000 lives. However, after almost 250 years since the founding of our nation, and almost 160 years since the ending of the Civil War, we are still engrossed in fighting the legacy of slavery. Why wasn’t slavery extinguished and how could that have been accomplished?

 

Slavery Could Have Been Eliminated

In her book, Spannaus makes a unique contribution to the discussion of the elimination of slavery. She boldly asserts that had Alexander Hamilton’s economic principles been fully executed across the United States, slavery would have been extirpated from American society. While this idea may seem foreign to many, it is actually elementary. It requires people freeing  themselves from the mysterious belief that economic growth is determined by the “invisible hand, or “buy low and sell dear,” or British spawned “free trade.” Once one rejects this deliberate miseducation by our society, and comprehends the principles of physical economy, we understand the following: an uneducated, poorly paid, poorly fed, and over worked labor force is less productive and yields less profit to the economy. A backward slave labor system that squeezes out “profit” from the exploitation of backbreaking manual labor in growing sugar, cotton, and tobacco, cannot compete with the labor force of an industrialized economy.

Alexander Hamilton expressed this concept as early as 1774, two years before the revolution.

Were not the disadvantages of slavery too obvious to stand in need of it, I might enumerate and describe all the tedious train of calamities, inseparable from it. I might shew that it is fatal to religion and morality; that it tends to debase the mind, and corrupt its noblest springs of action. I might shew, that it relaxes the sinews of industry, clips the wings of commerce, and introduces misery and indigence in every shape. (p. 165)

Spannaus summarizes that Hamilton emphasized two concepts that are central to industrial progress: the productive powers of labor and the need to stimulate the creative powers of the human mind. Both are starkly antithetical to the feudal slave labor system. (p. 166)

Hamilton opposed slavery because it debased human beings, and he knew that slave based agriculture system would weaken the United States. The British not only ran the transatlantic slave trade but invested in the southern slave labor economy as a means of breaking apart our Republic, while making huge profits in the process.

Industrialization Required

In his Report on Manufacturers,* Hamilton argues the necessity for the United States to become a manufacturing society, but also to exploit, if you will, the capital of the human mind. In the above cited Report, Hamilton writes that manufacturing, unlike slave-labor, serves: to cherish and stimulate the activity of the human mind, by multiplying the objects of enterprise. (pp. 170-171)

As Spannaus underscores throughout her book, industrialization of the United States was the means to eliminate slavery before the Civil War. Having Failed to accomplish that, a comprehensive full-throated reconstruction effort for the defeated Southern slave-economy following the war was required. This is what the well-known followers of Hamilton, and proponents of the American System, such as President Lincoln and Henry Carey, understood.

Henry Carey was a towering intellectual force in the nineteenth century. He was an American System economist, advisor to President Abraham Lincoln, and authored the Slave Trade: Domestic and Foreign, and How It May be Extinguished, (1853). Carey wrote on the negative effects of slavery. Spannaus refers to Carey extensively throughout her book and devotes almost the entirety of chapter sixteen to his thoughts. Typifying the outlook of the advocates of the American System, Carey wrote in 1865:

Had our legislation been of the kind which was needed for giving effect to the Declaration of Independence, that great hill region of the South, one of the richest, if not absolutely the richest in the world, would long since have been filled with furnaces and factories, the labourers in which would have been free men, women, and children, white and black, and the several portions of the Union would have been linked together by hooks of steel that would have set at defiance every effort of the ‘wealthy capitalists’ of England for bringing about a separation. Such, however, and most unhappily, was not the course of our operation. (p. 224)

Frederick Douglas and Abraham Lincoln. Giants in the fight against slavery. (Courtesy of history.com)

Constitution Not Pro-Slavery

Many poorly informed detractors of the U.S. Constitution denounce the framers by selecting a word, a phrase, or a sentence, which they allege  proves the United States is racist nation founded on support for slavery. This conclusion is usually reached without any serious intellectual investigation of the historical and factual context. It has now become popular to attack the Founding Fathers in obeisance to the latest politically correct dogma. The U.S. Constitution was written by mortal human beings with imperfections. However, this noble document, the Preamble in particular, articulated principles that transformed the world. It helped to ignite liberation movements against British colonialism across the globe, including in Africa.

The great American statesman, Frederick Douglas, who was born a slave on a plantation on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, understood this well. Douglas became an informal advisor to President Lincoln despite some  disagreements. He distinguished himself by breaking  from the abolitionists because of their support for the dismemberment of the Union. Americans and non-Americans alike, would benefit from reading Douglas’ writings. In his remarks below, Douglas responds to the provision in the U.S. Constitution that set the date of 1808, for the banning of importation of slaves. Like Dr. Martin Luther King, Douglas recognized the importance of the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence and insisted that the United States deliver on its noble intention. Speaking in 1860, seven decades after the Constitution was ratified and a year before the outbreak if the Civil War, Douglas spoke on the constitutional banning of slavery:

American statesman, in providing for the abolition of the slave trade, thought they were providing for the abolition of the slavery. This view is quite consistent with the history of the times. All regarded slavery as an expiring and doomed system, designed to speedily disappear from the country. But, again, it should be remembered that this  very provision, if made to refer to the American slave trade at all, makes the Constitution anti-slavery rather than for slavery…Thirdly, it [Constitution] is anti-slavery, because it looked to the abolition of slavery rather than its perpetuity. Fourthly, it showed that the intentions of the framers of the Constitution were good not bad. (p. 157)

It will be well worth your time to read Spannaus’ new book.

Defeating Slavery: Hamilton’s American System Showed the Way, by Nancy Spannaus. Defeating-Slavery-Hamiltons-American-System  

*See Chapters on Report on Manufacturers, Spannaus, Bradeen, Hamilton Versus Wall Street: The Core Principles of the American System of Economics, iUniverse, 2019

Read my earlier post: Nations Must Study Alexander Hamilton’s Principles of Political Economy

Lawrence Freeman is a Political-Economic Analyst for Africa, who has been involved in economic development policies for Africa for over 30 years. He is a teacher, writer, public speaker, and consultant on Africa. Mr. Freeman strongly believes that economic development is an essential human right. He is also the creator of the blog:  lawrencefreemanafricaandtheworld.com

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December 24, 2023

This article is my Christmas gift to Jews, Muslims ad Christians suffering around the world today.

The Angels heralded the birth of Jesus Christ, “peace on earth and good will to men” ( Luke 2:14). His birth in Bethlehem, Palestine, over 2,000 years ago, was to bring a new epoch for humankind, imbued with agape- love. Today, Gaza, Palestine, is a “Living Hell.”

Following the brutal killing and kidnapping of innocent Israelis by Hamas on October 7, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has launched an all-out war against the Palestinians living in Gaza. Thousands of tons of munitions are being dropped on Gaza by the Israeli Defense (IDF) including 2,000 pound “dumb bombs” (unguided), which cause maximum damage on civilian targets. The indiscriminate relentless bombardment of hospitals, refugee camps, schools , churches, apartment buildings, for 11 weeks, except for a 1 week pause,  has created a “Hell on Earth” for Gazans, on the eve of the celebration of the birth of Christ.

Innocent civilians are being herded like animals to southern Gaza, where they are also bombed. According to the United Nations, 576,000 Gazans face extreme hunger-26% of the population. Over 80%-1.8 million of Gaza’s population of 2.2 million people are displaced with nowhere to go. Lack of clean water, food, electricity, and basic health services is turning the Gaza strip into an equivalent of an open-air, concentration camp* without the barbed wire. Over 20,000 Palestinians have been killed and 53,000 wounded by Netanyahu and the IDF, in less than two months-averaging 2,000 deaths per week of combat. The majority have been women and children. Over 8,000 Palestinian children have had their lives snuffed out before they could experience what life is. That number will rise from the continued bombing assaults, scant medical provisions and services, and the lack of conditions on the ground to support human life. Thus, we are rapidly approaching the elimination of 1% of Gaza’s population. Palestinians living in Gaza are undergoing population reduction, and Netanyahu wants to depopulate the Palestinians living in  Gaza; dead or alive.

The mentality of Israel’s war cabinet and military is so crazed, that the IDF ignored a white flag, the international recognized signal for surrender, raised by three Israeli hostages, and opened fire on them. Killing them despite shouts for help in Hebrew by one hostage.

Israel is attempting to protect itself from blame for slaughtering thousands of innocent civilians in Gaza with the shield of antisemitism. In Washington DC, officials of both parties fall over themselves accusing anyone who criticizes the state of Israel as an antisemite. Yes, antisemitism exists, I have been the victim of it, but Israel is the only nation whose actions cannot be challenged without being clubbed as an antisemite. This protection racket must end.

Netanyahu Must Go

The citizens of Israel made a grave mistake returning Netanyahu to power as prime minister. The Hamas attack on October 7, exposed the complete failure of Netanyahu and his cabinet to protect Israel, despite boasting of their intelligence and military prowess. This includes having in their possession the plans by Hamas for their invasion against Israel for over a year.

Some of my Jewish friends who dislike Netanyahu, Gaza, asked me: how should Israel have responded to the October 7^th attack? My answer is clear: recognize that the policy of occupation of Gaza and the West Bank,  by Israel has been an unmitigated failure. And now is the time to rethink the future of Israel and Palestine. The first step is to remove Netanyahu from office. He is not capable of protecting Israel citizens. Secondly, returning to the basic principles of the Oslo Accords of 1993-1995,as a preliminary starting point for a new approach to peace in the region.

Netanyahu is a racist and antisemite against the Arab people. He is not shy about is desire to drive Palestinians out of Gaza and expand Jewish settlements to populate the West Bank. At the beginning of the IDF offensive, Netanyahu wanted to force Egypt to accept Palestinians as part of an “ethnic cleansing” of Gaza. Netanyahu is on record opposing a unified Palestinian state. It is well documented that for many years Netanyahu has facilitated the transfer of funds to Hamas to enable their independence from the Palestine Liberation Organization  (PLO). This was done, as he admits, to weaken the PLO and prevent a unified Palestinian effort for an independent Palestinian state.

Netanyahu has always opposed the creation of an independent Palestinian nation, and to the apparent dismay of the Biden administration, still opposes a Two State solution today.

As well-informed Jews know but may not want to admit: Netanyahu is spitting on the noble philosophical tradition of Jewish history and culture. That includes his rejection of: Philo of Judea, a contemporary of Jesus (20 BCE-50 CE); Moses Maimonides (1138-1204); Moses Mendelssohn (1729-1786); and Yitzhak Rabin (1922-1995).

Carnage Does Not Beget Peace

For example. Examine the unnecessary murderous assault on the al- Shifa hospital. The largest, best equipped medical facility in Gaza, which in addition to caring for hundreds of patients also provided shelter to crowds of Palestinians seeking refuge from Israeli bombs raining down on them. Thousands of displaced Palestinians and civilians in need of medical care and protection sheltered in and around this complex of buildings.

Netanyahu and the IDF propagandized that underneath al-Shifa was a military hub of Hamas. These unsubstantiated allegations were shamelessly repeated by every U.S. official, and public spokesperson, including President Biden. To this day, weeks after the November 15^th assault, Israel has had the opportunity to display proof, yet no evidence has been presented. Requests for more conclusive evidence from both U.S. and Israeli officials have been stonewalled with claims of “classified information.”  All that has been disclosed so far is a network of tunnels under the hospital complex, which exists almost everywhere throughout Gaza.

According to a December 21 article in The Washington Post, all that was revealed by the Israeli government was:

• The rooms connected to the tunnel network discovered by IDF troops showed no immediate evidence of military use by Hamas.
• None of the five hospital buildings identified appeared to be connected to the tunnel network.
• There is no evidence that the tunnels could be accessed from inside hospital wards.

The Post reports that medical facilities are afforded special protection — even in times of war — losing their status only “while they are being used outside their medical function to commit acts harmful to the enemy,” according to Adil Haque, a law professor at Rutgers University.

The IDF siege and attack on al-Shifa resulted in hundreds of deaths.

Civilian Punishment Will Fail 

Robert Pape writing in Foreign Affairs magazine (12/6/23), makes several valid observations in his article, Israel’s Failed Bombing Campaign in Gaza: Collective Punishment Won’t Defeat Hamas.

Carpet bombing campaigns are unsuccessful throughout history. They tend to increase the resolve of the population to reist. The disproportionate numbers of Hamas fighters killed compared to the number of Palestinian civilians, will only intensify their belief that Israel wants to eliminate their existence in Gaza.

Pape writes: Israel is almost certainly producing more terrorists than it is killing, since each dead civilian will have family and friends eager to join Hamas to exact revenge. Mass civilian punishment has not convinced Gaza’s residents to stop supporting Hamas. To the contrary, it has only heightened resentment among Palestinian

According to some experts, for every Palestinian murdered, two-five Palestinians will become new recruits for Hamas. The brothers, sisters, fathers, and mothers, who watched their families and, especially their children perish, will seethe with hatred of Israel for years, decades, and quite possibly generations. Thus, the current indiscriminate or maybe intentional mass deaths of Palestinians is sowing the seeds for continued armed conflict, not security.

Pape continues: …a vast portion of the more than 500,000 Palestinian men between the ages of 18 and 34 are now ripe recruits for Hamas or other Palestinian groups seeking to target Israel and its civilians…

There is every reason to think that Israel’s renewed military occupation of Gaza—“for an indefinite period,” according to Netanyahu—will lead to a new, perhaps larger wave of suicide attacks against Israeli civilians.

Netanyahu and the IDF murdering innocent civilians by the tens of thousands will not eliminate Hamas or prevent Hamas 2.0 from emerging. They should have learned from history: you cannot defeat an ideology through kinetic warfare.

A New Mind-Set Needed

As long as Netanyahu remains in power there will be no Two State solution. There will be no peace and no future security for Israel. That much is clear, but his removal alone will not resolve the conflict.

The only long-term basis for security for these two Semitic cultures is to establish a common aim that is in the long term interest of both Israelis and Palestinians.

How do achieve this?

We start with the fact that we are all human beings and are all more alike than different. The universal principle that bonds us uniquely as the human race is, we are the only species with a mind capable of creative imagination. No other living creature or non-living machine is capable of producing creative thought. This makes every human life sacred and every child precious. Human beings, unlike animals, have the ability to think about and act on the present for the future. All human beings have the same aspirations for their children and grandchildren, to live a better life than their parents.

There is no easy resolution to this long-standing conflict, except to act in a way that would normally be considered impossible. Let us stand on the shoulders of history to obtain security and peace for future generations of Palestinians and Israelis.

In Europe during the first half of the 17^th century, eight million people during died in the Thirty Years War, which ended with the famous 1648 Treaty of Westphalia.

 Article 1 of the treaty stipulated: …That this Peace and Amity be observ’d and cultivated with such a Sincerity and Zeal, that each Party shall endeavour to procure the Benefit, Honour and Advantage of the other;

Article 2 stipulated: That there shall be on the one side and the other a perpetual Oblivion, Amnesty, or Pardon of all that has been committed since the beginning of these Troubles…

 

To wit: each belligerent must act for the benefit of the other, and all crimes committed in the past must be forgotten and pardoned. It will be hard for the belligerents to acknowledge and accept these principles, but there is no other path forward, except more suffering, more killing and more bloodshed.

Israel and Palestine should move in the direction of the process of the Oslo Accords (1993-1995) with an emphasis on fulfilling the common aims of both people. This will require a joint economic development program using the talents and resources of both peoples and nations, for the long-term benefits of future generations. Prejudices do not die quickly, but by acting in the interest of the other, they can be diminished over time.

We have just passed the 30^th anniversary of the historic handshake in Washington DC on September 13, 1993, between Israeli Prime Minister, Yitzhak Rabin, and Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman, Yasser Arafat. It was a torturously conflicted handshake for Prime Minister Rabin, who previously viewed Chairman Arafat, as a mortal enemy.

Not surprisingly, then leader of the Likud Party, Benjamin Netanyahu, led the opposition to the extraordinary peace agreement between Arafat and Rabin.

The opposition’s response was shrill; from the start its leaders charged Rabin with endangering the country, and even with perfidy. Benjamin Netanyahu told [Rabin’s ally] Foreign Minister Shimon Perez in a Knesset debate: ‘You are much worse than the British prime minister Neville Chamberlain, because Chamberlain threatened the security and freedom of another nation, while you are threatening the security and freedom of your own nation.’ A newspaper advertisement run by the opposition parties—and approved by Netanyahu, according to daily Ha’aretz newspaper—said ‘The people rise up against the treason of the of the Rabin…We are not prepared to obey the laws of the government. (Horovitz)

 

Let us emulate the transformation of former Israeli Prime Minister, Yitzhak Rabin, who was a commander in the Israel’s wars of 1948 and 1967, but lost his life tragically, as a warrior for peace. He was killed in 1995, by a right-wing Jewish fanatic, who opposed Rabin’s commitment to peace with Palestine.

(The author grew up in a liberal Jewish household in New York City, and has dedicated his life to fighting for justice, economic progress, and defense of oppressed people world-wide).

*Concentration Camp: a place where large numbers of people, especially political prisoners or members of persecuted minorities are deliberately imprisoned in a relatively small area with inadequate facilities.

Horovitz, David, (1996) Shalom, Friend-The Life and Legacy of Yitzhak Rabin, Newmarket Press.

Lawrence Freeman is a Political-Economic Analyst for Africa, who has been involved in economic development policies for Africa for over 30 years. He is a teacher, writer, public speaker, and consultant on Africa. Mr. Freeman strongly believes that economic development is an essential human right. He is also the creator of the blog:  lawrencefreemanafricaandtheworld.com

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Today’s World Desperately Needs “A New Just Economic Order”

September 21, 2023

WILLS ADDRESS AT UNGA-SEPT 8, 1975

ADDRESS AT THE SEVENTH SPECIAL SESSION OF THE U.N. GENERAL ASSEMBLY, SEPTEMBER 8, 1975

Call for New International Economic Order at the United Nations

(Frederick R. “Fred” Wills, was Foreign Minister of Guyana from 1975-78)

I have been advocating for 50 years for a New Just International Economic Order with a new Financial Architecture dedicated to economic development for all people of the world. It should be clear to all qualified leaders that the hegemony of the so called rules-based order, has been shattered by the rising expectations of the “Global South.” The reemergence of the Non-Aligned Movement, typified by the Group of 77 and the BRICS, with their righteous demands for economic equality, has become a new force on our planet. They resonate with the calls for a “New International Economic Order” prevalent in the 1970s and 1980s. This is why it is more than relevant today for us to review and stand upon the shoulders of this profound speech, delivered before UNGA by Fred Wills, almost half a century ago. We have the responsibility to complete this mission for the sake of civilization.

Excerpts from Fred Wills’ historic presentation follow:

Mr. President,

One year ago in this very forum there were articulated the Declaration on the Establishment of the New International Economic Order and a Programme of Action to implement it. These were adopted at the Sixth Special Session and were followed by the Charter of Economic Rights and Duties promulgated at the 29th regular session of the United Nations. Thus was provided a compendious mandate for the dismantling of the old structures that have proved inadequate and the construction of an entirely new system more responsive to the needs and hopes of the poor and disadvantaged.

The allegedly sterile debate as to whether or not a new international economic order is required has already resulted in the presentation of far-reaching proposals which it would be our clear duty to evaluate in our efforts to arrive at a global consensus…

THE IMPERATIVES FOR CHANGE

The hour is critical. The expectations are that we will agree on concrete steps that will represent a real advance towards the new order on which the majority of mankind insists.

The imperatives for change are clear. Thirty years ago the Bretton-Woods system, reinforced by the Marshall Plan, introduced a new era in the post-war world which promised a redress of economic disequilibrium in the developed world. Predictably, this system failed to satisfy the aspirations of the developing nations and it is this failure in especial that introduces the note of urgency in our debate. It is imperative that we should fashion new structures and new institutions to arrest the widening gap between the developed market economies and the producers of raw materials and semi-manufactures…

It is clear, Mr. President, that any attempt to give new vitality to obsolescent institutions is wholly unacceptable. In the face of such attempts the solidarity of the developing countries is the best guarantee that the processes of change will lead to the establishment of the New International Economic Order.

Those of us who embrace Non-alignment will not lose a moment’s sleep over deliberate attempts at misrepresentation. We are not a bloc. Unbound by pacts, eschewing centralised military force, refusing the dictation of hegemonic power, we are aligned with peace, independence, equality, justice and the importance of the single human being. Our solidarity is based neither on the preservation of nor on the quest for power. It is rooted in common perception and shared ideals. The universality of the principles of Non-Alignment has long been vindicated. Those who only recently have come round to the acknowledgement of its validity must now seek to understand it properly…

GUIDELINES FOR ECONOMIC CO-OPERATION

Mr. President, the international community must move forward and in our way forward we must be guided by three fundamental approaches to the problems of development and international economic co-operation. From these approaches my delegation feels we deviate only at our peril.

First, we must subject all proposals to the test of their likelihood of advancing the arrival of the New International Economic Order along the path charted by the Group of 77.

Secondly, decision making on these vital issues must remain firmly within this Organisation.

Thirdly, the solidarity of the developing countries must be given new depth and content, especially through programmes of collective self-reliance…

Are we of the developing countries being asked to believe that institutions which have historically served the best interests of the developed world can be modified to promote our development? Must the improvement in the condition of the developing world remain a mere footnote to the prosperity of the developed world? In short, in a situation that demands surgery are we being asked to be satisfied with the dispensation of mere palliatives?

Nevertheless, Mr. President, I wish to assure you that my delegation will approach these and all other proposals, including those of the EEC, objectively and responsibly, because we are aware that what is at stake is nothing less than the future condition of all mankind…

Now, Mr. President, the third guideline – collective self-reliance among developing countries. The Programme of Action for the implementation of the New International Economic Order assigns an important role to collective self-reliance among the developing countries and calls upon the developed world to support such efforts. Forms of horizontal cooperation at the regional, sub-regional and inter-regional levels have already demonstrated their potential as instruments compelling significant change. Such new horizontal economic structures and arrangements will assist substantially in bringing our marginal situation to an end and could provide an essential thrust for radical alteration in the international economic system. The much maligned produce associations have already proven their worth as a stimulant of International dialogue, catalyst for change and a mechanism for the mobilisation of resources in the developing world…

The new economic order must therefore be designed to foster all efforts of self-reliance on the part of the developing countries – efforts both national and collective. True development cannot be imposed ab extra, but must be part of the internal dynamics of growth. The international framework must therefore create the conditions and provide support within which self-reliance can flourish…

Those, therefore, Mr. President, are the guidelines which we suggest should inform our decisions as we come now to the closing stages of this Special Session. They should be integrated within the blueprint already adopted for the New International Economic Order...(All emphasis added)

Read the entire presentation below:

Lawrence Freeman is a Political-Economic Analyst for Africa, who has been involved in economic development policies for Africa for over 30 years. He is a teacher, writer, public speaker, and consultant on Africa. Mr. Freeman strongly believes that economic development is an essential human right. He is also the creator of the blog:  lawrencefreemanafricaandtheworld.com.

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“To terminate the African slave trade, we need to raise the value of man in Africa.” American System Economist, Henry Carey

February 24, 2023 I am publishing below, “Industrialization is the Antithesis of Slavery” a new article by my colleague, Nancy Spannaus, creator of the blog, americansystemnow.com, because of the importance of this topic. Unfortunately, many Americans and non-Americans alike, foolishly repeat the silly and false notion that the success of the United States in becoming a great industrial power laid on the foundation of slavery. Nothing could be further from the truth. The U.S. achievement in becoming an economic power was despite, and in opposition to slavery. A progressing economy requires trained, skilled, and educated workers to operate the tasks required by productive manufacturing industries. Slave labor, exploiting the animal-muscle power of human beings only works in labor intensive occupations performed for example, in sugar, tobacco, and cotton plantations. Spannaus uses the writings of American System Economist, Henry Carey, a follower of Alexander Hamilton and advisor to President Lincoln, to elucidate the issue. Slavery kept southern sections of the United States in backward economic conditions, that are still evident today. Slavery also contributed to a racist notion that “blacks” are inferior, affecting the U.S., such that we are still struggling with forms of racism centuries later. To free all men and women, in Africa and in the U.S., we must exploit, if you will, the unique powers of the human creative mind. This can only be accomplished in a scientific-technologically advancing industrial economy, where every human being can be engaged in a productive profession and treated with dignity. Read Spannaus’ article below:

Read my earlier posts: In Celebration of Black History Month, Let Us All Emulate the Great Frederick Douglas Frederick Douglass: “Knowledge Unfits a Man to be a Slave” Lawrence Freeman is a Political-Economic Analyst for Africa, who has been involved in economic development policies for Africa for over 30 years. He is a teacher, writer, public speaker, and consultant on Africa. He is also the creator of the blog: lawrencefreemanafricaandtheworld.com. Mr. Freeman’s stated personal mission is; to eliminate poverty and hunger in Africa by applying the scientific economic principles of Alexander Hamilton

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In Celebration of Black History Month, Let Us All Emulate the Great Frederick Douglas

February 15, 2021 There is no better way to celebrate Black History Month than to to absorb the ideas of Frederick Douglas. I recommend you read this latest article written my friend, American historian, Nancy Spannaus-see link below: Happy Birthday, Frederick Douglas. I also suggest you read his wonderful autobiography: Life and Times of Frederick Douglas.  Frederick Douglas believed in the U.S. Constitution and demanded that Americans and their leaders live up to its noble principles. That is something we should all aspire to. Douglas wrote: “Men talk of the Negro problem. There is no Negro problem. The problem is whether the American people have loyalty enough, honor enough, patriotism enough, to live up to their own Constitution.” Frederick Douglas did not advocate tearing down America, but rather, demanded that Americans live up to the principle embodied in the U.S. Constitution.   https://americansystemnow.com/happy-birthday-frederick-douglass/  Lawrence Freeman is a Political-Economic Analyst for Africa, who has been involved in economic development policies for Africa for over 30 years. He is the creator of the blog: lawrencefreemanafricaandtheworld.com

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Today, More Than Ever, The World Needs Leadership Like Franklin Roosevelt

April 15, 2020 I publish below, FDR: Leadership in a Time of Crisis, by my longtime friend and authority on American History, Nancy Spannaus, for two reasons. One, to commemorate April 12, the 75^th anniversary of the passing of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the 32^nd President of the United States. More than just remembering a great President, we must look to his quality of leadership that the world desperately needs today. Humanity is faced with the most profound crisis, possibly ever, with the pandemic COVID-19. We have witnessed the deaths of tens of thousands of precious souls, tens of millions of people forced out of work, the once hailed globalized supply chains disrupted, and fears of starvation in the developing sector, and possibly, in the advanced sector as well, in the not too distant future. The Bretton Woods financial system, which is already bankrupt, is on life support from the Federal Reserve and other centralized banks, and our “just in time” economy has failed miserably to weather this crisis.  The global lack of a sufficient-redundant healthcare infrastructure has proved murderous, and we are no-where near the end of devastation from this deadly virus. Leadership should not just be left to our public officials, who have been deficient, in the last five decades, in creating a healthier economy for our planet of 8 billion people. Let us use this perilous moment of our civilization, to take the time, now, to reflect on what we must do, not only to survive this present crisis, but to guarantee a more prosperous future for all nations. Read: World Needs New Economic Platform to Fight COVID-19 Read: New Economic Order Required to Combat COVID-19 in Africa   Read the entire Second Inaugural Address

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History Course: “Africa The Sleeping Giant” Amb. Arikana Chihombori Lectures Students On The Berlin Conference

December 7, 2019 At the fifth week of my African history course (outlined below), 80 students heard Amb Chihombori-Quao discuss the effects of the Berlin Conference on the people of Africa today. This provocative presentation lead to many questions.   

“Africa: The Sleeping Giant” 6 week-12 hour course syllabus by Lawrence Freeman

The instructor’s intention is to provide the class with broad overview of the development of the African continent over millennia and centuries, coupled with insights to understand the present. The instructor believes that it is impossible to know current events in Africa today, beyond the misleading media headlines, without a full knowledge of Africa’s unique and at times tragic history. Week 1–“Introduction”: In this class we discuss the great diversity of the continent. This includes its size, climates, geographical characteristics, deserts, rivers, lakes, and historical facts regarding Africa’s many nations, its economic condition. Week 2–“Man Is Not a Monkey”: This class traces mankind’s emergence to what we call modern man-homo sapien sapien-over millions of years by examining the effects of man’s powers of reason, that did not evolve from the apes, and mankind’s exodus from the African continent.  We will then discuss a few of the early civilizations in East and West Africa, concluding with the great Bantu internal migration that transformed the continent. Week 3–“Early African Civilizations-Slavery”: In this we class we continue examining early civilizations in Africa, iron making, and population growth. We will then leap ahead to the “discovery” of Africa by Europe and roots of slavery. Week 4–“Slavery to Colonialism”: In this class we examine the seamless transition from slavery to colonialism, which in total encompasses 500 years, leading to destruction of the cultural and physical evolution of the African people. Week 5–“European Empires Carve Up Africa”: This class focuses on the hideous Berlin Conference that divided up Africa in accord with Europe’s geopolitical Imperialist view of Africa and its people. Week 6–“Africa’s Post Independence”: We leap ahead to the liberation of Africa from colonialism circa 1960. We discuss current and changing conditions in African nations, especially as the West abandons the continent and China supports Africa’s economic growth by building and funding infrastructure projects across Afric

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I am posting a provocative article that challenges our society’s accepted cultural beliefs about climate change. Admittedly more analysis and discussion is required, but let me convey a few concepts that should provide food for thought.The current hysteria about that the planet is facing impending doom is strongly reminiscent of the old discredited Malthusian theory that too many couples having too many children would over run the capacity of our planet to produce food. We now have over 7 billion people, and we know that our planet can feed billions more, if we properly developed its potential. In the 20th century, Malthus’ unscientific babbling was further extended by the Club of Rome and World Wildlife Fund to assert that the our planet had limited-fixed resources that could only maintain a fixed number of human beings. Of course, none of this is true, nor was it ever scientifically proven, but it became part of the popular culture. I am now approaching 68 years of age, and know how this propaganda spread from the late 1960s on. I was there and organized against it!Tragically, our culture today has accepted the new mantra of climate change, without a healthy scientific debate and analysis. For example CO2 is not deadly, it is one of the building blocks of life. If you look at weather events over time, a century or more, you will find that there is not an increase in hurricanes, and tornadoes. If you go back hundreds of thousands of years you’ll find several ice ages and warming periods.Also, why assume the planet has one fixed condition? Tens of millions of years ago there was no Sahara desert; it was caused by the Africa plate banging into southern Europe. Since then, the Sahara becomes moist and dry following a 22,000-25,000 year cycle based on the wobble of the earth’s axis.If we study our planet and universe over long periods of time, we will discover all kinds on patterns and anomalies. However, they all indicate a self developing universe. Mankind is not an antagonist to our planet and its environment, but rather, a co-contributor to its growth and development, which is not finite.The principles of our physical universe are coherent with the principle of creativity that all human being posses. This leads to another discussion for a future time. A special note to my African friends. Beware of propaganda that tells Africans they should have less children and forego industrialization, because it will destroy the planet.

The complete article follows the excerpts below: “The question is not whether, but to what extent human-caused changes in the atmosphere drive climate variations, and whether such changes are good or bad. Meaningful statistics (but ones that do not exist) would include responses to the following questions: • What would be the impact of doubling atmospheric CO2? • To what extent does water vapor cause a feedback effect? • To what extent must we take into account the solar magnetic field’s effect on the creation of clouds via cosmic radiation? • What is the certainty range on these predictions? • How well have climate models of the last two decades fared at predicting the global climate during the past 5 to 10 years? • Will the specific, foreseen changes in climate be beneficial or harmful, or a mixture of the two? “The climate of the Earth, as it exists in the solar system, is much more complex than a foolishly simple, yes-no question about “believing in” or “denying” climate change. “How can any such changes be determined? An individual cannot possibly notice that the climate is changing through their personal experience, which is necessarily limited in location and time. And it is absolutely ludicrous to claim that anyone could know, through their personal experience of weather, the cause of any such changes. “Science is not fashion. It is not decided by taking a poll or by seeing what is most popular… “A cultural paradigm shift occurred in the 1960s and 1970s, transforming the understanding of the relation of human beings to nature, and transforming the meaning of “progressive” from supporting progress to preventing it! “From this paradigm shift arise the unstated assumptions that underlie the emotional responses that many people have to these issues. One such assumption is a definition of “natural,” which excludes human activity, implicitly creating a goal—humans should simply not exist. This goes along with the shift from global warming (a specific change that could cause problems) to climate change, taking the assumption that any change to the climate would be bad, simply by virtue of its being change. Is this really true?…” Continue reading article

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How Young Are African Nations? Yet Africa is the Birthplace of Mankind

December 12, 2018

This picture is from a presentation I gave at the Christmas Party of the Mountain Club of Maryland. The audience had little knowledge of Africa, but were totally engaged, and excited to learn about this unique continent. Here I am showing them how young modern-day Africa is with a map of the dates of independence from European colonialism/imperialism. The notable exception of course is Ethiopia that was never colonized, having defeated the Italian army on the battle field at Adwa on March 1, 1896. It is more than ironic that the continent from which Homo Sapiens-Sapiens migrated to the rest of the planet approximately 100,000 years ago, has the youngest nations. My courses on African history investigate this paradox.

Africa Creates Appalachian Mountains in the US

December 11, 2018

When the super continent Pangaea was formed 300 million years ago the African (Nubian) tectonic plate crashed into what is now the east coast of the US. This created the Appalachian Mountains that I and thousands of others hike regularly along the Appalachian Trail. Thank you Africa (I included this in a presentation I gave to my Mountain Club of Maryland’s Christmas Party on Africa)

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Frederick Douglass: “Knowledge Unfits a Man to be a Slave”

Frederick Douglas was born a slave in the month of February 1818. He was a towering figure in the fight to end slavery in the United States and emerged as a prominent American statesman in the nineteenth century. The article excepted below rekindled my memory of the exhilaration I felt over twenty years ago when I read his autobiography: “The Life and Times of Frederick Douglas.” Douglas’ lasting contribution to all Americans (and all people of the world) was his commitment to develop his mind. By learning to read and developing his mental powers, he had already “freed” himself spiritually years before he escaped from the Maryland plantation where he was kept a slave. In fact, it was the power of his mind that gave him the physical strength to challenge his master. There is no finer example for our children (and adults) to emulate, than the great Frederick Douglas, in our commitment to educate our minds and become free. Douglas understood, once he started reading, that if he could think, he would not be slave. He came to know, as we all should, that he shackles of the mind are more powerful  than the iron shackles on the body. In celebration of this bicentennial year of the birth of Frederick Douglas let us all renew our desire to unfetter our minds by emulating this unique individual. by Nancy Spannaus This year is the 200th anniversary of Douglass’s birth, and he is finally begun to be celebrated as the towering figure he was during the mid- and late 19th century. Douglass’s role in the movement to abolish slavery, including support for Lincoln in the Civil War, and later in the tumultuous post-war battles, showed him to be a great political leader. He famously championed the U.S. Constitution and called on his fellow African-Americans to support and enforce it. He fought for the woman’s right to vote. For many years he edited his own newspaper. He also served as ambassador to Haiti for a brief time, and remained active in politics until his death in 1895.

Frederick Douglass

But the aspect of Frederick Douglass’s contribution which I want to emphasize on this occasion is Douglass’s understanding of, and commitment to, education.  Yes, Douglass was primarily addressing black Americans in his discussion of this topic. But this man, who, despite being born into slavery, fought successfully to achieve a high degree of literacy, has much to teach all Americans (and others) about the qualifications for responsible citizenship of a republic. Readers have ample opportunity to investigate the subject for themselves in Douglass’s several autobiographies:  Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845), which became a bestseller, and was influential in promoting the cause of abolition; My Bondage and My Freedom (1855); and Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, which went through its final editing in 1892, three years before his death. A Mind Awakening By the age of nine, Douglass says, he was inquiring “into the origin and nature of slavery. Why am I a slave? Why are some people slaves and others masters? These were perplexing questions and very troublesome to my childhood. I was very early told by some one that ‘God up in the sky’ had made all things, and had made black people to be slaves and white people to be masters …. I could not tell how anybody could know that God made black people to be slaves.” In 1825, Douglass, who was about eight at the time, was sent to live in Baltimore with his master’s cousin, Hugh Auld, and his wife. The move to a city, one of the major industrial and shipbuilding centers on the U.S. East Coast, was to give Frederick a chance to expand his horizons both mentally and physically. It was at the Aulds that Douglass came to a more conscious understanding of his hatred of slavery and his love of learning. Douglass developed a passion early on for reading, a passion which, ironically, was provoked by the debased ideas of his master, Hugh Auld. Douglass called Auld’s lecture to his wife, on why she should stop teaching the boy to read, “the first decidedly anti-slavery lecture” he ever heard, and a revelation which drove him to learn as much as he could. In The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, the great man explained: “The frequent hearing of my mistress reading the Bible aloud … awakened my curiosity … to this mystery of reading, and roused in me the desire to learn. Up to this time I had known nothing whatever of this wonderful art, and my ignorance and inexperience of what it could do for me, as well as my confidence in my mistress, emboldened me to ask her to teach me to read … My mistress seemed almost as proud of my progress as if I had been her own child, and supposing that her husband would be as well pleased, she made no secret of what she was doing for me. Indeed, she exultingly told him of the aptness of her pupil and of her intention to persevere, as she felt it her duty to do, in teaching me, at least, to read the Bible.”

Abraham Lincoln reading to his son Tad.

What was the reaction of the presumably God-fearing, Christian slave-owner, Hugh Auld? Douglass describes it thus: “Of course he forbade her to give me any further instruction, telling her in the first place that to do so was unlawful, as it was also unsafe, ‘for,’ said he, ‘if you give a nigger an inch he will take an ell [an obsolete unit of measurement amounting to about 45 inches-ed.]. Learning will spoil the best nigger in the world. If he learns to read the Bible it will forever unfit him to be a slave.’ Apparently unaware of the rather extraordinary admission he had just made, Auld continued, ‘He should know nothing but the will of his master, and learn to obey it. As to himself, learning will do him no good, but a great deal of harm, making him disconsolate and unhappy. If you teach him how to read, he’ll want to know how to write, and this accomplished, he’ll be running away with himself.’ ”

Read: Frederick Douglass: “Knowledge Unfits a Man to be a Slave”

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Slavery rips hearts, souls, and minds out of Africa.

Below is one of the slides I use in my 14 hour course: “Legacy of Colonialism and Slavery in Africa” at Frederick Community College

 

Slavery rips hearts, souls, and minds out of Africa

Largest Forced Migration in Human History 1600-1900 (estimate) 10,904,00 Across the Atlantic 5,510,000 Across Indian Ocean and Asia Total: 16,414,000 slaves-human chattel in 300 years exported out of Africa 54,713 per year: 36,347 to Americas and 18,367 to Asia Consequences for African civilization *Loss of enormous source of productive labor *Forced redistribution of the population *Civil disruption including Africans forced to hide in the interior of the continent *Collapse in agricultural production *Strongest men and women removed from society *Increased susceptibility to disease *Increases scientific-technological gap between Africa and Europe *Decrease in reproduction of population; estimated loss of 100 million potential births *Degradation, insecurity, and diminished human identit

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Learning About Africa: How History Effects the Present

January 19, 2018

Here is the announcement for my newest college course on Africa. Also listed is the course outline a class I am currently teaching; “Africa:The Sleeping Giant.”  I will be preparing a third course on “The Effects of British Colonialism on Africa” in the near future.  These courses are 15 hours long, taught over 7-10 weeks in Maryland. 

“Eight Nations Vital to the Development of Sub-Sahara Africa”

By Lawrence Freeman The African continent encompasses 54 nations and is more than three times the size of the United States. The northern portion of the continent is dominated by the Sahara Desert, equal in area to that of United States. It is the driest, hottest place on earth, relatively barren, and thinly populated. The African nations below this vast desert are designated as “Sub-Saharan Africa” where approximately one billion live, and is expected to double in population by 2050. All but two of the 48 nations of Sub-Sahara Africa suffered the brutalities of colonialism following centuries of slavery. As a result, Sub-Sahara Africa is the poorest and most underdeveloped region in the world. Unfortunately, following their liberation from colonialism beginning in 1956, these nations did not achieve economic sovereignty. However, now, for the first time since colonial powers occupied Africa, there are signs of progress with the building of new railroads, expanded ports, roads, and new hydro-electric power projects. This has created the potential to transform the continent. This course will focus on eight Sub-Saharan nations; each unique in their history, development, and their contribution to the growth of Africa. Their combined population of 550 million comprise almost 30% of the land area of Africa. Join us in examining the following nations from their birth to the present day: Ghana, Nigeria, Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Zimbabwe, and South Africa. Over three decades, I have studied the history and developed an in-depth knowledge of Africa as a researcher, analyst, writer, and consultant. Sadly, most Americans know little about Africa, due to a limited number educational courses, and a reliance on the media. I hope to increase your understanding by sharing my accumulated knowledge with you.

 

 

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“Africa The Sleeping Giant” Course Outline:

1-Discovering the Africa Continent 2-Africa: Home to Mankind 3-Man Is Not a Monkey 4-The Great Bantu Migration 5-Early Civilizations 6-Europe Discovers Africa 7-Slavery Rips the Soul of the Continent 8-Colonialism, Exploitation, and Genocide 9-Economic Sovereignty and the Nation State 10-Africa’s Future is Development

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Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika! Lord, Bless Africa!

June 24, 2017 The Schiller Institute’s June 24 conference in Berlin was blessed with the performance of a richly polyphonic setting—by Schiller Institute member Benjamin Lylloff—of the most famous hymn in Africa, Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika (Lord, Bless Africa). The video of this premiere performance of the setting, with Lylloff conducting, may be viewed here. Composed in 1897 by Enoch Mankayi Sontonga (ca.1873-1905), a school teacher near Johannesburg, it became a song of defiance against colonial rule across Africa. Today it is the national anthem of Tanzania in a Swahili translation. In South Africa, it is conjoined with the Afrikaans anthem, Die Stem van Suid Afrika (The Call of South Africa), to form the national anthem. Lylloff drew his inspiration from the choral setting by Australian musician and musicologist, Karl Aloritias, who had also established the text in consultation with a researcher in South Africa whose parents had fought and died in the liberation struggle. The text—which begins in isiXhosa, then transitions to isiZulu and then to Sesotho—is provided here with an English translation. Nkosi sikelel’ iAfrika Maluphakanyisw’ uphondo lwayo Yizwa imithandazo yethu Nkosi sikelela, thina lusapho lwayo Nkosi sikelel’ iAfrika Maluphakanyisw’ uphondo lwayo Yizwa imithandazo yethu Nkosi sikelela, thina lusapho lwayo Woza Moya (woza, woza Moya) Woza Moya (woza, woza Moya) Woza Moya, oyingcwele Usikelele thina lusapho lwayo Morena boloka sechaba sa heso O fedise dintwa la matshwenyeho Morena boloka sechaba sa heso O fedise dintwa la matshwenyeho O se boloke, o se boloke O se boloke, morena se boloke Sechaba sa heso, sechaba sa Afrika Nkosi sikelel’ iAfrika Lord, bless Africa May her spirit rise high up Hear thou our prayers Lord bless us, Lord bless us Lord, bless Africa May her spirit rise high up Hear thou our prayers Lord bless us, your family. Descend, O Spirit Descend, O Spirit Descend, O Holy Spirit Lord bless us, your family. Lord, save our nation Stop wars and suffering. Lord save our nation Stop wars and suffering. Lord, Protect our nation Lord, save our nation Protect the nation of Africa Lord bless Africa

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Victory at Adwa- A Victory for Africa

Lawrence Freeman March 1, 2017 The battle of Adwa is probably the most renowned and historic battle in Ethiopian history. This celebrated victory by the Ethiopian army helped define the future of their nation, as one of only two non-colonized countries in Africa. The defeat of a European colonial empire by an African country, following the “Scramble for Africa” after the 1884-1885 Berlin conference a decade earlier, is not only a source of enduring pride and nationalism for Ethiopians, but also an inspiration to other Africans, who took up the fight for independence six decades later. Some historians suggest that this victory also led to the idea for the Pan-African movement. As a result, it is no surprise that on May 25 1963, Ethiopia under the rule of Emperor Haile Selassie was a founding member of the Organization of African States-OAS. Adwa, also known as Adowa, and in Italian Adua, was the capital of the Tigray region in northern Ethiopia. A late comer to grabbing territory in Africa, Italy began colonizing Somaliland and Eritrea in the 1880s. It was from the vantage point of Eritrea from where Italy launched its campaign against Ethiopia. The immediate pretext of the invasion was a dispute of Article 17 of the 1889 Treaty of Wuchale. Italy insisted that the treaty stated that Ethiopia had to submit to its imperial authority, thus effectively making Ethiopia a colony of the Kingdom of Italy. The Ethiopians resisted Italy’s military enforcement of its version of the treaty, leading to the outbreak of war in December 1894, with the Italian imperialists occupying Adwa and moving further south into Ethiopian territory. On March 1, 1896, King Menelik II, who, commanded a force of over 70,000, defeated the Italian army, killing 7,000 of their soldiers, wounding 1,500, and capturing  3,000 prisoners, routing their enemy, and forcing them to retreat back to their colony of Eritrea. It has been speculated that, if Menelik had pursued the retreating Italian troops, and driven them off of the continent, it might have prevented a second Italian invasion. On October 3, 1935, Italy led by fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, launched its second military incursion into sovereign Ethiopia territory. Five years later in 1941, Ethiopia once again drove the Italian invaders out of their country. The 1896 defeat of a European nation, considered an advanced country, by Ethiopia, viewed as a backward Africa country, led to riots on the streets of Italy and well deserved consternation in the capitals of European powers. Without taking the time now to review the ninety years of Ethiopian history following this famous battle, the military defeat of Ethiopia’s dictatorial Derg Regime in 1991 brings us to the beginning of contemporary Ethiopia. When the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front-EPRDF assumed control of the government in 1991, it was led by the now deceased, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, who initiated the economic policies that have guided Ethiopia for over 25 years. It was Meles Zenawi’s intellectual leadership, in particular his understanding of the indispensable role of the state in fostering economic development that distinguishes Ethiopia today from all other sub-Saharan African nations. For him the state was not “a night watchman,” but rather an active participant promoting economic growth for the benefit of its people. Ethiopia is a poor country. with a population approaching one hundred million, not endowed with rich mineral or hydrocarbon resources, and repeatedly struck by drought. Yet it has emerged in recent years with a rapidly growing economy. This is the result of Zenawi’s legacy that created a leadership with a self-conscious commitment to use the powers of the state to build an integrated infrastructure platform, which has served to drive the economy forward. This is clearly evident in Ethiopia’s Growth and Transformation Plans I and II, which set ambitious economic goals five years into the future, along with its proposed thirty year road construction plan. Since the EPRDF took over the responsibility of governing the nation, more than thirty new universities have been created, graduating more students that can be easily employed. In collaboration with China, Ethiopia operates the first electrified train in sub-Saharan Africa, traveling 750 kilometers in seven hours from Addis Ababa to Djibouti, establishing a port to export Ethiopia’s products. Their highway system consisting of toll roads, highways, and all weather roads will connect their light manufacturing industries to the port in Djibouti via their new rail line.   As a result of coherent policy planning in energy infrastructure, the Gibe III hydroelectric power plant has now added 1,872 of megawatts to the country’s electricity grid, and over the next two years, the Ethiopian Grand Renaissance Dam (GERD) will add an additional 6,000 megawatts, making Ethiopia the second largest producer of power in sub-Saharan Africa, behind South Africa.  The next step to develop the Horn of Africa is for Ethiopia, Sudan, and Kenya to extend their rails lines to become the eastern leg of an East-West railroad. Thus would transform Africa by connecting the Gulf of Eden/Indian Ocean with the Atlantic Ocean , creating an economic corridor that would literally revolutionize the economic power of the continent; contributing to the ending of poverty, hunger, and war. One cannot deny the success of Ethiopia’s unique path of development, nor can one omit the important role contributed to this process by Ethiopia’s successful resistance to foreign occupation; thus never having to suffer the dehumanizing effects of colonialism.

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Meles Zenawi: The Neo-Liberal Paradigm Is Dead

Here are excerpts taken by Lawrence Freeman, from an unpublished 2006 preliminary draft by then-Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, entitled, “African Development: Dead Ends and New Beginnings.”  From the Introduction: “The political and economic renaissance of Africa is an issue that continues to preoccupy Africans’ and non-Africans alike. Various methods of achieving such a renaissance have been proposed. Most of these proposals are variations of the dominant neo-liberal paradigm of development. My argument is that the neo-liberal paradigm is a dead end, is incapable of bringing about the African renaissance, and that a fundamental shift in paradigm is required to bring about the African renaissance.” Continue reading

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Tribute To  Ambassador Kofi Awoonor of Ghana, Who Challenged IMF, World Bank and UN Policies Towards Africa

Lawrence Freeman November 1, 2013 A tribute to the late Ghanaian Ambassador Kofi Nyidevu Awoonor, slain in the terrorist attack at the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi, Kenya Sept. 21, was held in New York City on Oct. 29. Entitled, “I Will Say It Before Death Comes,” the memorial was organized by the Multicultural Communications Cooperation and Development Inc., and the African Development Institute. Awoonor, a novelist, literary scholar, diplomat, political activist, and acclaimed “Poet of Ghana,” was not afraid to publicly criticize the policies of the World Bank, IMF, and United Nations. continue reading

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Commemoration of  50th Anniversary of the African Union

Donielle DeToy June 4, 2013 Fifty years ago, on May 25, 1963, African leaders representing 32 newly created nations gathered in Addis Abba, Ethiopia, to form the Organization of African Union (OAU). The President of Ghana, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, a founding father of the OAU, presented a clear and necessary vision of a united Africa joined together for the common cause of independent banking, economic cooperation, and large infrastructure projects Continue reading

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IN MEMORIAM:  PROFESSOR SAM ALUKO

by Lawrence Freeman March 3, 2012 A giant of Africa, Professor Sam Aluko of Akure, Nigeria, passed away peacefully on February 7, 2012, in a London Hospital at the age of 83. Nigeria, and the African continent, has lost one of its greatest sons, but the rest of the world will also suffer from his absence. Professor Aluko was the only competent African economist I ever met. He was respected beyond the borders of Nigeria for his steadfast and vocal opposition to the murderous policies of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, both of which are squatting in Abuja today, still directing Nigeria’s failed economy. My acquaintance with Professor Aluko, as I always called him, began one morning in the mid-1990s while he was eating breakfast at a hotel in Abuja, the capital of Nigeria. I introduced myself to him, and that initiated a wonderful friendship and collaboration that has lasted over these many years. Professor Aluko, after studying the writings of Lyndon LaRouche, became actively involved in our international movement overnight. He participated in many activities with the LaRouche movement and contributed articles to Executive Intelligence Review. He spoke at two major international conferences in Bad Schwalbach, Germany, organized by the founder of the Schiller Institute, Helga Zepp-LaRouche: Winning the Ecumenical Battle for he Good, in May 2001; and How to Reconstruct A Bankrupt World, in March 2003. He also participated in a conference in January 2001 in Khartoum, Sudan, entitled: Peace Through Development Along the Nile Valley Basin in the Framework of a New, Just World Economic Order, with Mr. and Mrs. LaRouche, along with scholars and government officials from Egypt, Ethiopia, and Sudan, as well as myself. Professor Aluko was the embodiment of what sociologist David Riesman called the inner-directed personality. Once Professor had proved to himself that he was right, he would not succumb to peer group pressure nor be a slave to popular opinion, a quality I greatly admired. He also did not hesitate to speak out to criticize government officials of his nation when he knew their policies were wrong, which often got him in trouble. When Professor Aluko accepted the chairmanship of National Economic Intelligence Committee (NEIC) from 1994 to 1999 under General Sani Abacha, he was severely criticized, even rebuked, by many shortsighted Nigerians. Ironically, he refused a position in the elected government of President Olusegun Obasanjo, years later, following Abacha’s death. He accepted the chairmanship of the NEIC in the Abacha regime because he was given the freedom to improve the economy, which he fully intended to do, with no concern for what people thought of the head of state. Professor Aluko continued to insist that the economy was better under Abacha than in subsequent governments, to the consternation of Obasanjo, who reacted foolishly by attacking Professor Aluko as senile, which he certainly was not. In fact, it is reported that in the final days before his death, Professor Aluko wrote a memo to the Ondo State government on how to the improve revenues of the state. Unlike the majority of people in society today, Professor Aluko always acted on the basis of principle, even when it caused hardship to himself and his family. He was immoveable once he set his mind on a course of action and, as everyone knew, he was incorruptible. He was always motivated by the good he could do for society, and never for personal gain. These are the qualities that I so much admired in Professor Aluko, who I could always count on for blunt, honest reports on conditions in Nigeria when we talked. I, in turn, would brief him on Mr. LaRouche’s assessment of global strategic developments. He was always eager to hear what “Dr. LaRouche” had to say. When a disgruntled former member complained to him that the youth were taking over the LaRouche organization, he admonished this individual by telling him: Of course they should–they are the future! Professor Aluko knew a thing or two about youth and the future, having a family that included 20 or so grandchildren (who’s counting?), that he loved to have around him. Once, when I walked into the NEIC office in Abuja, upon hearing my voice, he shouted out: Ah, that must be my American spy. Needless to say, I accepted the title happily. Unfortunately, today, with terrible conditions afflicting countries throughout the world, and especially, the horrific conditions of life for over 70% of Nigeria’s 160 million people, the absence of a Sam Aluko, with his powerful intellect, will have an enormous impact on us all. Until the end, he remained upset about the current state of affairs in Nigeria. For me, it will take time to overcome the grief caused by his passing, but I also feel special, that in my lifetime, I was privileged to know Professor Sam Aluko. Thank you so much for that gift, Sam. Alas, it is now time for me to say good-bye to my old friend. [Professor Sam Aluko was born August 18, 1929, in Ekiti State; studied economics at the London School of Economics between 1955 and 1959; taught economics at the University of Ife (Nigeria) and the University of Nigeria at Nsukka from 1959 to 1966; visiting scholar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University (USA) 1962; appointed Professor of Economics at the University of Ife in 1967; served as Economics Advisor to the Government of Ondo State, 1979-1983.]

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Kick The British Out of Africa!

Lawrence Freeman gave the presentation below in Khartoum to a conference organized by General Union of Sudanese Students following the indictment of President al-Bashir by the ICC.  Lawrence Freeman April 5-7, 2009 “We could end all of the manipulated conflicts in Africa that are borne from shortages of the necessities for human life. The conflicts arise because people are not permitted to live with the full rights and dignity that each human being is entitled to. Some may say that the kind of generational long-term infrastructure projects that I have just outlined are a dream, a mere nice idea, but that it is impossible, that it will never happen. Others may ask, what good does it do for us now? I maintain that it is the only hope for Africa. “First of all, it is the only way to guarantee a future for the children who will be born tomorrow, and a generation from now. This approach to infrastructure as a driver is necessary to stimulate our minds, to get us to think big thoughts, to dare us to imagine a continent where people’s daily existence is not dominated by simple survival. Yes, we need to survive, and do what is necessary to maintain our existence, but we must do it with a vision of the future that provokes our imaginations, and stimulates our minds.” Continue reading

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Amb Mubako: Zimbabwe Acts To Resolve the Issue of Land Ownership

Dr. Mubako is the Zimbabwe Ambassador to the United States. He was interviewed by Lawrence Freeman on May 27. (The references to “whites” refers to the British and Rhodesians who occupied Zimbabwe for 90 years.) Amb Mubako: Well, Zimbabwe was colonized by the British in 1890. They came to Zimbabwe from South Africa, then Cecil John Rhodes, and originally he was looking for minerals. But when he didn’t get enough minerals, he turned land, and began grabbing land from the Africans, and driving them off into reservations—what we call communal areas. And he took the best land for his settlers, most of the land—to the extent that, at independence, they reserved for themselves about 45% of the land, which has now been reduced to about 30% of the land, of the whole of Zimbabwe, but which constitutes about 70% of the best farming area in the country. And this land is owned by 4,500 farmers only, and many of the farmers are not, in fact, living in Zimbabwe. Some of them pay live in England, sit in the House of Lords, and there are rumors that even some of the ministers in Britain own land in Zimbabwe today. Continue reading

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Roosevelt’s `Grand Strategy’ to Rid the World of British Colonialism: 1941-1945

Lawrence K. Freeman Printed in The American Almanac, July 14, 1997

Two Opposing World Views: The Case of Africa

In Africa, Roosevelt saw, as we can unfortunately still see today, the horrendous, abysmal conditions of life which have resulted from British rule. When Roosevelt visited British Gambia on the West African coast in 1943, and saw the appalling conditions there, it created a strong image in the President’s mind of the truly ugly nature of British colonialism. He later spoke about it in his press conference:

“I think there are about three million inhabitants, of whom, one hundred and fifty are white. And it’s most horrible thing I have ever seen in my life…. The natives are five thousand years back of us. Disease is rampant, absolutely. It’s a terrible place for disease.“And I looked it up, with a little study, and I got to the point of view that for every dollar that the British, who have been there for two hundred years, have put into Gambia, they have taken out ten. It’s just plain exploitation of those people.”

He told his son after his visit to Bathurst (now Banjul), the capital of Gambia, that workers were paid only fifty cents a day. “Besides which,” he added,

“they’re given a half-cup of rice. Dirt. Disease. Very high mortality rate…. Life expectancy–you’d never guess what it is. Twenty-six years. These people are treated worse than livestock. Their cattle live longer!”

Roosevelt threatened the British, that he would expose what they were doing in Gambia:

” … if you Britishers don’t come up to scratch–toe the mark–then we will let all the world know.”

Continue reading

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The History of the Nile Region

Muriel Mirak-Weissbach June 9, 1995 The rich history of Sudan presents many paradoxes, primary among them, the paradox of its relationship with Egypt. Throughout ancient history, the culture of dynastic Egypt and that of the Nubians were intertwined, at times in conflict, at times at peace. During the periods of peaceful coexistence, if not actual alliances, both cultures prospered, the arts and literature flourished, regardless of which nation was the ruler.  It was in fact under the reign of a Sudanese pharaoh, Piankhy (or Piye), in the XXVth dynasty, that Egyptian culture, which had fallen into decay, was renewed; monuments were built, and a great age in sculpture was inaugurated.  When, however, outside forces invaded, as in the case of the Assyrians, Egypt and Sudan were set against each other.  Egypt’s continuing efforts to subjugate Sudan led to repeated invasions and conquests, each time driving the Sudanese power into retreat, in rump kingdoms, moving further south. The Sudanese, regardless of the pressures, held on to their independence, albeit in reduced form. Continue reading