Thread by @vijayprashad

So, I went to #Wakanda.

At first glance, it was an impressive place even thought I am allergic to monarchies, all monarchies.

It was wondrous to find a country that had ducked under colonialism (don't scare me like that colonizer), that was able to develop according to is own laws, using is own resources for its social welfare.

I was happy to find that the resources of #Wakanda were being used to make medicines and to create public transport. The country's resources were not stripped to go to the colonizer, for the colonizer's benefit.

I was happy to see an African country joyous in its history and its traditions, comfortable with itself (and able to laugh when it woffed the white man into silence).

It became clear that if this African country was not vigilant about the introduction of American ideology - imperialist ideology - it would be sunk under the weight of colonialism despite its own history.

So that #Wakanda becomes a country whose logic is identical to that of Western imperialism (fears of weapons proliferation to others) and whose power is rooted in control of superiority of arms.

It is no surprise then to see the monarchy of #Wakanda collaborate with the @CIA - the spear of imperialism in our times.

What is liberation to #Wakanda, what is freedom? The real liberated countries - such as Zambia and Mozambique in the post-colonial era, opened their borders to front line fighters from Angola and South Africa. That's what freedom looked like.

The debate suffocated me: whether to use weapons for Black power or to hide the weapons away. And then, in the end to share knowledge under the smirk of the CIA agent - capitalism's coming, baby, so get ready for the IMF coming in next with structural adjustment......

Why wasn't this liberated country providing a pathway for liberation of all peoples without starting a world war? Where was the example of Cuba - so important to national liberation as an idea? Couldn't #Wakanda have been a Cuba in the African continent?

I went to #Wakanda today. I was happy to be there. But I wanted so more. I wanted Walter Rodney to sit beside me during the show, lean over and say, 'For the only great men among the unfree and the oppressed are those who struggle to destroy the oppressor'.