When I was a young university student in the United States running around with black activists, I didn’t want to hear anything about the fact that there were Africans who had enabled and facilitated the kidnapping and enslavement of their own African people for their own enrichment and the enrichment of European slave traders. But, facts are stubborn things: Africans sold other Africans.

In the Western media nowadays, we hear a lot about all the brutality taking place in the Ukraine, which has been attacked by Russia, but we Belizeans know very, very little about what has occurred in Zaire (previously the Belgian Congo) over the last six decades since the country, perhaps the richest in the world where natural resources are concerned, was granted political independence by Belgium in 1960.

It is generally accepted that Patrice Lumumba was an honest, sincere leader who wanted the best for his Congolese people, but there was another Congolese, a man by the name of Moise Tshombe, who controlled the wealthy Katanga province, who was prominent in the murder of Lumumba because, like some of the African chiefs in the slavery days, he was on the payroll of the European predators.

We don’t have to go anywhere to see that the paradigm of Africans participating in the butchering of other Africans remains a terrible reality, because almost every day in Belize some black youth kills another black youth with a high-powered automatic pistol.

In a previous column, I explained to you that the Russian people are not considered classic Europeans by the “tappa tappa” Scandinavian and Anglo-Saxon Europeans. But the Ukrainians are considered fully European. The Russians are considered a Slavic people, whatever that means. To us, as Belizeans of color, however, we see the Russians and the Europeans as basically the same thing — white people.

Anyway, so much for Russians and Ukrainians. It has been very, very painful to me to watch our own Belizean people of color accept all the pieces of silver handed out by Vladimir Ashcroft for the crushing of the interests of black Belizeans. The excuse is that this is what attorneys do. This is their professional modus operandi. They don’t see right and wrong, as such. It’s all about pipers, moneys, and tunes.

In the larger sense, human beings do very cruel things to other human beings because we want power and money. Western companies wanted control of Congolese resources at the lowest possible prices, so they paid for the murder of Patrice Lumumba, who wanted the best possible deals for his Congolese people. The Russians are murdering the Ukrainians because they want control of Ukrainian resources in order to become more powerful and wealthy.

What is puzzling for people like me is how God and religion fit into planet earth’s reality. There are some of us who do cruel things while masquerading as Christians. These are Belizeans who are considered the successful ones of our country. But Jesus said clearly and pointedly that His kingdom was not of this world.

And so, one of Christ’s parables which I cherish most is that of The Rich Young Man. He asked Jesus what he should do in order to enter the kingdom of heaven. Jesus said, obey the commandments. The Rich Young Man replied that he had been doing this, obeying the commandments, from the time he was a child. Jesus said, okay then, leave all you have and follow me. The Rich Young Man turned and walked away: he could not bear to give up his material possessions.

Ashcroft is the Belizean Anti-Christ. He brings material possessions for his favorites, wonderful material possessions. In return for these possessions, some of us have sold out our people. This is historically characteristic of an oppressed people. From the time we encountered the oppressor Europeans more than five centuries ago, they have been the oppressors, and we have been the oppressed. Those of us who want to be successes, have to sell out our own kind. This truth is undeniable.