I do not know if Credo Mutwa knows about this particular book because his health has been deteriorating since 2005 when Capitalist Nigger was first published. Whether he agrees with the views expressed in the book Capitalist Nigger I publish this interview so that you can make up your own mind. As a concerned South African I believe this book holds a wake up call for all those who are open to it, and will annoy the rest who are conformist or politically correct.
Here’s an interview originally published in Mail & Guardian newspaper from October 2005 when Dr Chika Onyeani visited South Africa:
M&G – What is the difference between what you are preaching and what other Africans on the continent and in the diaspora have said about the need for economic self-reliance?
Chika – My message is different in that they were always blaming colonialists or slavery for the black persons problems. I am not saying we should not recognise the impact of colonialism. But we should say that it has been 45 years since Africa was decolonised. It is time we said that what happens in Africa today, we are responsible for it. We cannot continue to blame the colonialist. Who said to [Nigerian military strongman Sani] Abacha and [Congo dictator] Mobutu [Sese Seko] take the money and go and put it in a bank in Europe.
M&G – So what do you see as a solution?
Chika – We need to learn to take care of ourselves. Indians wear saris made in India, they drive cars made in India, and [the] Chinese are not afraid to use products made in their country. We must do the same.
M&G – What is stopping blacks from doing what they need to do?
Chika – Inferiority complex. I met a man who says he is from a village somewhere here. He told me that the people in his village have lost all their stores to the Pakistanis. Why is that? It is because we are not willing to put in the same amount of time. It is because the Pakistanis are willing to work hard; they are prepared to work 25 hours a day and eight days a week. Blacks are not willing to work hard. They think that once you have a shop, you have arrived.
M&G – What about the possibility that the Pakistani, like the Chinese, have access to cheaper raw materials and commodities because of the lower cost of doing business in their countries?
Chika – People in Africa should not demand such high wages. The Indians dont mind working for peanuts, as long as it is for the good of their communities.
M&G – But there are wealth-gap issues in both India and China.
Chika – Why must we concentrate on the negative? In India, the larger part of the population is still poor. So what? India is leading in a lot of ways. If you make a call to credit card company, chances are it would be answered in India. Just because of the way they have been able to do the things. The reason we have so many people going to Europe looking for work is because we have not been able to provide jobs for our people.
What would you say to comments that you are playing into the hands of racists by depicting black people as lazy and inefficient?
Chika – I dont care about what white people are thinking. It is what we think about ourselves. If we talk about it, perhaps we will stop doing it.
Purchase Capitalist Nigger by Chika Onyeani from Amazon.com.
If you liked this interview I also recommend you watch the video of distinguished economist George Ayittey at TEDGlobal conference in Tanzania in 2007.
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Yes, it is true that on one hand an awakening of solidarity and self-confidence is needed – which is the cause of the blaming and victim-mentality like he says.
But to follow an animalistic capitalism and join the West, India, China and East Asia in it’s pursuit of power on the anguish of others?!
Wake up you fools! This Capitalist clap trap will only force power into the hands of marginally more people, while enslaving more innocent people to only a more aggressive primitive life!
Being enslaved ‘for the good of the communities’, huh? What a fat lie! Capitalism does brings clean roads, working trucks and trains. But it turns people into either wolves or hamsters. Either you devour the weak and the helpless of the quench of your belly, or you’re enslaved upon the spinning wheel, and degraded to confined freedom, in all aspects, and confined space.
It dries society of the soul, and in their lusts of for more money become untrusting of others, everything becomes about agenda, and a society that was once bonded on soul, spirituality and culture is now a soul-less machine world.
In a sense Dr Stella Nkomo view of him asking for ‘Black People’ to ‘aspire to be White’, is sort of true.
The man makes no reference for the need to show out their own culture and language, but refers to them as Black – people of only skin and no cultural identity or dignity.
An Alter-globalist socialist campaign needs to be implemented, one of love, equality, preservation and solidarity, not a one of wolves and hamsters!
Honestly speaking the book is what all Africans must read in order for us as africans 2 “Buy African and behave African”. Most Africans (especialy in south africa) will disagree with the book where else they will Totaly agree with a Bible which was created by a caucasian person. Dr Onyeani I read your book till the last and the trueth is “if we start to stop buying things made by other race group we will realise that living is not only about money because money is not from OUR CONTINENT (AFRICA) so why cnt the caucasians, indians, chinees go back 2 their original countries and live us with our great continent” africa knows nothng abt Technology, money, bible, even education. What an African man knows is to hunt, getting everythng dat Our African creator gave us for free. If u cud feel wat I feel u’d undrstand, coz m nt gud in dis English as it is a foreign language in my great continent. LET US LIVE N BEHAVE AFRICAN MAQABANE(COMRADES) PEACE. Luv u all my african brothers n sisters
Thobani you are a fool, you don’t know what you are talking about, saying that black people know nothing about education.
All you are doing is giving south africans a bad name you should have just kept your mouth shut.