Andrew Roberts

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Andrew Roberts

During January 2005, the Daily Mail published a racist series of outrageous anti-African articles written by BBC Presenter Andrew Roberts. One of the articles entitled Recolonise Africa! Even went as far as to call for Britain to send military troops to what he labels the ‘dark continent’ and deliver ‘New Imperialism’. He writes;

‘all this can take place again as long as it was spearheaded by the United States and Britain, and enthusiastically supported by such countries as Canada, Australia and New Zealand’.

Whilst defending Winston Churchill in his article Some Racist! he claims ‘much of Africa has gone backwards since the end of British colonial rule’. Roberts acknowledges that Churchill was a racist, although his article erroneously appears to assert that the self appraisal of European superiority at that time provides moral validation for what has clearly been exposed as an abhorrent excuse for explaining the colonialists ‘duty to bring civilization to those that were less developed’. Roberts who presented the BBC ‘Secrets of Leadership’ history series also claims that;

For the fact remains that in the long history of the Dark Continent, the brief period when ordinary Africans were most content, most secure, most just governed and least likely to be oppressed by their tribal enemies was when they were administered by the British Empire.

Roberts a self professed ‘expert’ on leadership has no knowledge of African leaders, perhaps if he had studied some he would have a more accurate understanding of the continent he remains so ignorant about. Instead he disrespects the works of great African leaders such as Kwame Nkrumah and is oblivious of the precolonial state of Africa preferring to use Eurocentric stereotypes as his source instead of studying the works of revered historians such as Cheikh Anta Diop and John Henrik Clarke.

[The African leader] Marcus Garvey was well aware of the artificial borders in Africa established by Europeans that cut across cultural and political lines within Africa with no consideration being given to the prior formation of territories before the coming of the European. The modern nation-state with its tight borders and security check points is a European invention, that did not exist in precolonial Africa. What did exist in Africa was the territorial state based on cultural (sometimes mistakenly referred to as tribal) formations and affiliations.

John Henrik Clarke, Africans at the Crossroads.

Roberts asserts that in 1941 British colonists did not leave a terrible legacy and instead by ‘civilising savages against their will’ they abolished slavery (sic) and human sacrifices, in response we believe a quote from Roberts himself is the best way to conclude.


"I was once on the actual Clapham omnibus," Roberts says, "and the man sitting next to me said, 'Were you on the TV last night?' I said, 'Yes,' beaming and thrilled to be recognised. The man tapped my knee and said, 'I thought you talked a load of crap.'"

The man was right.

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