The U.K. and the U.S. could not have been built today without Africa's aid. It is all the resources that were taken from Africa, including human, that built these countries today! So when they try to give back, we shouldn't be on the defensive.
Interpretation
Africa played a crucial role in the development of the U.K. and U.S. through its resources and human contributions.
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala highlights the indispensable contributions of Africa to the formation and prosperity of Western nations like the U.K. and U.S. She emphasizes that much of what these countries are built upon, including resources and labor sourced from Africa, should be acknowledged, and thus, when there is an effort to give back or acknowledge this history, it should not be met with defensiveness but rather gratitude and recognition.
In practice
In a speech addressing international relations and reparations, one could cite this quote to emphasize the historical contributions of colonized nations.
When I became finance minister, they called me Okonjo-Wahala - or 'Trouble Woman.' It means 'I give you hell.' But I don't care what names they call me. I'm a fighter; I'm very focused on what I'm doing, and relentless in what I want to achieve, almost to a fault. If you get in my way, you get kicked.
I'm trying to tell you that there's a new wave on the continent. A new wave of openness and democratization in which, since 2000, more than two-thirds of African countries have had multi-party democratic elections. Not all of them have been perfect, or will be, but the trend is very clear.
The best way to help Africans today is to help them to stand on their own feet. And the best way to do that is by helping create jobs.
When you save the life of anyone, a farmer, a teacher, a mother, they are contributing productively into the economy.
Investing in women is smart economics, and investing in girls, catching them upstream, is even smarter economics.
I felt Nigeria didn't have to succumb to the image of being a corrupt country; we didn't have to let the economy stagnate.
Thus ended the great American Civil War, which must upon the whole be considered the noblest and least avoidable of all the great mass conflicts of which till then there was record.
I think when you see so many Hindu temples of the 10th century or earlier disfigured, defaced, you realise that something terrible happened. I feel the civilisation of that closed world was mortally wounded by those invasions the old world is destroyed. That has to be understood. Ancient Hindu India was destroyed.
The March on Washington was a defining moment in the history of this country and a great example of our nation truly living up to its creed.
The Chinamen built the railroad, the Indians saved the Pilgrim,_x000D_ _x000D_ And in return, the Pilgrim killed 'em._x000D_ _x000D_ They call it it Thanksgiving, I call your holiday 'hell-day.'
In Ethiopia, the black people became Christians 1700 years ago, hundreds of years before Northern Europe turned to Christianity... And here, most of the saints are black.
Today's headlines and history's judgment are rarely the same.
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