Editor,

RE: "When subversive ideas came to Rwanda” (The New Times, August 25).

I often wonder what really ails this the black man (generic man) that decades after the end of formal, overt colonization; more than a century and a half since the end of formal slavery (even though Jim Crow laws and the prejudice that fed them prevented effective emancipation), the black man and woman still needs to fight continuously for justice, to be recognised as an equal member of humanity and to be allowed the dignity that all human beings crave and which is our birthright.

Where did we go wrong that since formal independence, won by our grand-parents and our parents at great cost, we Africans still require to emancipate ourselves from mental subjugation without which we can never really be independent?

For make no mistake about it; the flaw is primarily with us, not with those who take advantage of it to maintain us under their thumb and profit from our inability to overcome our weaknesses.

Black people everywhere, except in a very few instances, seem to have a sign painted on them in large letters that say: "I Am Chump, Exploit Me!”

We need to wake up.

Mwene Kalinda