You correctly point out some of the few of the many hundreds of practices by these people and what I call nation-states. I love these examples that restore the dignity and intelligence to people. Benin was but one of hundreds of such a nation-states across Africa that were destroyed by the European invaders.
There is no doubt today that science proved that every human brain has the same potential. For over two hundred thousand years the ability of the brain to compute language, which takes thousands of calculations per second, has been equal everywhere. The computational power created by evolution on the steppes Africa far surpassed our ability to use it.
But the British in particular have been brutal and masterful in creating a mythology of their own ‘dignified’ superiority, that they label civilization. Even today people first picture London in their minds when thinking of this term—or perhaps Paris. The British monarch and aristocrats (oligarchs) used jewels, fancy balls, polite manners, and ‘finery’ to lift themselves up in images while simultaneously degrading the native people of countries they invaded or occupied as barbaric, primitive, stupid, lazy, etc. That image making is a justification for the slave trading and raw material stealing their corporations inflicted. The British and the Portuguese created corporations starting in 1600 that enslaved and traded collectively well over 12 million black Africans just between the two of them. It was all for the name of profit.
One of the few interesting facts is that the United States and some eastern European countries, actually walked out of the Berlin conference of 1884, not taking any part in the carving up of Africa. The re-drawing of the map was done without knowledge and consent, of course, of the Africans themselves in their hundreds of nation states. That original map is gone but we can still find it today.
The British, along with the French, Germans, Italians, Portuguese, and Spanish committed over 300 year. The greatest genocide‘s and slaughters mankind has known collectively. I’m not one to shy away from talking about American slavery, and what our country has done in wars, or not acknowledge other country’s genocides or atrocities globally. But the European powers committed such atrocities with such feigned civilized ways for their own military and monetary benefits, then they refused to acknowledge any of it, and refused to collectively, restore any of the dignity and respect to the countries, people, and nature they destroyed.
