Dear Editor,

Many Caucasian Americans and Europeans pat themselves on their collective backs for the high standard of living they are able to often enjoy without considering the factors that have allowed them to enjoy the luxuries of life.

None can argue the point that North America and Europe are not blessed with the right mix of geographical features favourable to a high level of economic development. The Industrial Revolution and more recently the information revolution lifted Caucasian civilisation to the rarefied air of opulence unimaginable in past centuries.

For most of human history poverty has clung to the family like a lusty, passionate lover that loathes to let go of any paramour. To paraphrase the words of English philosopher Thomas Hobbes, life was short, nasty, and brutish universally. Infant mortality was high, and ripe old age arrived for many four decades after their birth. Disease, wars, famine, lawlessness, and despotic rulers dispatched millions into the great beyond long before the three score and 10 of Bible fame.

Historians are in agreement that the first baby steps in human civilisation occurred along the banks of the Nile, Tigris, Euphrates, Indus, and Huang He rivers. Great cities and civilisations emerged in all these river valleys because of the abundance of water so necessary for the Agrarian Revolution that served as the basis of survival, past and present, for the human family.

Agriculture and land ownership were the two key ingredients in the accumulation of wealth up to the Industrial Revolution. Countries that had good arable land, precious mineral deposits, a good water supply, and a robust labour market were the first nations to show signs of economic development. Since Africa is considered to be the birthplace of the human family it is not surprising that ancient Egyptian civilisation was one of the brightest beacons of human achievement in the ancient world.

The agrarian age may have kept the human family alive, but it did not make most societies rich. Land owners were the main beneficiaries in the agrarian age because of their exploitation of peasants and slaves. Some members of the European plantocracy in the Caribbean owned wealth that must have made them comparable to Bill Gates, Elon Musk, and Jeff Bezos. The wealth of nations, however, started to expand with the coming of the industrial age. Wealth accumulation shifted away from agriculture towards the industrial process, whereby factories mass produced goods that could be sold to markets at home and abroad.

Dutch hegemony, symbolised by the Dutch West India Company and others of similar ilk, gave way to British hegemony. A large supply of coal combined with its geographical advantages and a sprawling colonial empire provide the stimulus for the British to assume the lead in wealth accumulation and global power from the Dutch. The information revolution of our day would witness another hegemonic shift as the US took the lead in wealth accumulation and global dominance from the British.

It can, therefore, be argued that wealth accumulation is intimately connected to nations adequately utilising their geographical advantages to produce food, mine raw materials, and move products to local and international markets. Countries capable of accumulating sufficient capital to invest in research and development of new technologies, new products, and new methodologies in old industries will also accumulate more wealth than those who do not.

Caucasians have had a good economic run over the past 500 years. The Dutch, British, and Americans have been spectacularly successful at accumulating wealth. Of course, it did not hurt that all three of these economically successful nations were able to exploit the labour of indigenous and imported workforces. Caucasians generally benefited from the acquisition of free land, which they simply expropriated or outrightly stole from the native inhabitants.

Raw materials needed to boost industrial output were also extracted from stolen land by exploiting people in the economic interest of the more successful Caucasian nations. Perhaps one of the best definitions I have come across of America is the definition that says America is a stolen land that was developed by the labour of stolen people. Europe may not have been a land stolen by Caucasians, but its economic development has been advanced by stolen land and by stolen people.

Reparation may not sit well with Caucasians who have benefited historically and continue to benefit via generational wealth that has come down to the present generation from their more exploitative ancestors. Debt relief and loss and damage related to climate change are two ways in which Caucasians can begin to right the historical wrongs that were committed against Africa, the Caribbean, and the rest of the colonised world. It is encouraging to hear that a number of Caucasian nations are willing to accept some culpability for global climate change. This is a good start and African and Caribbean nations must continue this dialogue in the interest of the people of both regions.

Lenrod Nzulu Baraka

Founder of Afro-Caribbean Spiritual Teaching Center

rodneynimrod2@gmail.com