By: D’ Siafa Draper
June 24, 2015
1:00 a.m.
Whether you were born in the decades
before or now, I am sure it is time that we become bigheartedly upset with the
term “The African Dream.” Colorful
languages used by mischievous minds have kept Africa in the dilemma of an
endless dream. It is either that, Africans are cramped by the cuff of White
Fingers or we are more likely taking the map of our continent for granted. Our
story is amazing, in no good way. This is a personalized dispatch to the
religious leaders of our temples, the school masters of our class rooms and the
flag bearers of our democracy. The desperate desires to emancipate our
continent remains a long walk, for the journey ahead seems rockier than our
landmarks.
Indeed history has been unkind to the
kind of comfort Africa has long dreamed about. Today like many Africans, I wake
up on my tiny mattress as the sunray permeates the tiny holes on my roof with
the hope that men of letters will pen their thoughts for the easing of pains of
the civil servants and that layman digging pipelines for survival. Americans
can proudly say: ‘we are living the American dream!’ This brings me to the
question, does Africa have a dream? Or are we honestly living the African dream
already? These presumptions is now giving a sour taste to patriots who
periodically trade their power through the ballots hoping that their rights to
vote will reward them at least a savor of national entitlements. Or maybe we
must wake up to the realization that ‘we have not seen anything yet.’ If this
should be our wakeup alarms, then the revolution freeness is yet to begin.
In recent years, I have had the
opportunity of attending Model A.U Summits, and Economic and Governance Forums
with the thoughts of exposing qualified ideas worth the brilliance of a
progressive democracy. I shortly realized that the legacy of our predecessors
is the manuscript of what is already written but now archived. I think this is
sickling. Let me interrupt you mind a little. Where are the returns of our trades?
What do I get for casting my ballot? Where are our policy makers? On flight for
vacation or in their suite behind the bar of high fenced walls? I think being
diplomatic with our tears will not have us a dream come true. The ink of
colonial legacies should be legitimate reasons to write a history we want to
share. The imp of slavery on our continental history shouldn’t tattoo our great
potentials, and this should not be officially impossible. With the strength of
youthfulness and brilliance, the power to distill these legacies is in our able
hands. Not only because we believe ‘it is possible,’ but finding an
answer the ‘how’ gives meaning to the ‘action.’ We do not need to forge
our identities in order to eat pizza, potato salad or wear tuxedo shirts. We
need to wake up gentlemanly towards this alternatively route which will earn us
the prestige of a continent worth celebrating.
Moreover, attending these national
conferences, it tickles my faith when we have to discuss the Unity of Africa.
Inasmuch Africa has always been one continent with artificial borders, we
cannot swagger the freedom that should be enjoyed from crossing these borders.
Language barriers remain flames of harassment across these artificial borders.
What is our position? Are we colonized or decolonized? The shame of apartheid
is still a pin in our trousers the evidence of we being our own slaves and
slave masters. Whatever is the disagreement, the trajectory to ideological rebirth
holds the central pillars to this dramatic course. In 2013, the second
African Union Summit was held in Maputo, during which Heads of State and
Government established the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program
(CAADP) with the purpose of serving as a framework towards the transformation
of Africa’s agriculture. How has this agenda helped the agriculture sectors in
attaining food security in Africa let alone the world? Area we puppets or… is
it that the word ‘independence’ is not an African word and therefore should not
merit our attention. I do not think our position should be as – laughing stock
to the world. If we cannot liberate ourselves from the sympathy of hunger then
what is the essence of our diamonds, crude oils, rubbers, gold and other
abundant resources. When people think Africa, they think poverty especially
hunger. Hope is so important that it has become our only string for survival,
but it cannot serve as a strategy of realizing what has been an African Dream.
The signatures of the 1963 visionaries
of 25th May in Addis of Ethiopia formed the Organization of African
Unity (OAU). Fifty years later, this union was morphed into what is now African
Union (A.U), what has typically changed? Let’s scan the primary aims of the OAU
then:
·
To promote the unity and solidarity of the African
states and act as a collective voice for the African continent. This was
important to secure Africa’s long-term economic and political future.
·
To co-ordinate and intensify the co-operation of
African states in order to achieve a better life for the people of Africa.
·
To defend the sovereignty, territorial integrity
and independence of African states.
The OAU was also dedicated to the
eradication of all forms of colonialism, as, when it was established, there
were several states that had not yet won their independence or were
minority-ruled. South Africa and Angola were two such countries. The OAU
proposed two ways of ridding the continent of colonialism. Firstly, it would
defend the interests of independent countries and help to pursue those of
still-colonized ones. Secondly, it would remain neutral in terms of would
affairs to avoid being involved in Cold war.
Bravo to the OAU for its beautifully
layout aims on behalf of the continent. Considering the first primary aim,
immense progress has been made over the years. However, South Africa’s not
surprisingly attitude of xenophobic attacks on same skin neighbors is an
alarming clock which strongly indicates the incompleteness of our
solidarity. Such brutal violence is so
horrific, it has to be called to order least it become a virus and spread to
other countries that may see it as a norm of being in charge and taking
control. As at now, there are places in South Africa that are totally in White
control and Blacks dare not tread. This is a high class pointed pistol directly
pointed to rebuff any semblance of our eternal reforms. The song I heard as a
kid: ‘Say no to Apartheid, Say No,’ still drains blood through the vain of
Africans. There must be deliberate efforts to achieve a rough ethnic balance.
It is my hope that someday, South Africa and French speaking countries will see
reasons to open their heart and hands to the examples of Liberia, Ghana,
Nigeria, Sierra Leone and other African countries where Africans from
artificial borders are given warm treatments because of the brotherhood of
unity. We all know that our economic and political present and future is
completely out of our control, which is a plague undermining the African Unity.
Unless a radically different approach is taken, the medical prescription for
our cure will suffocate our very throats. At one stroke, Africa has to advance
on systems of her own ideologies than that of Western countries. A somewhat
complex course of event that will umbrella our solidarity against language
barriers will be a distinctive uniform that shall reaffirm our continental
patriotism, thereby rearranging our political divisions on the pulpit of democracy.
With these achievements, we can negotiate the return of our political and
economic sovereignty that are totally in the hands of these foreigners. The
return of this control is possible only if we persist.
After all these decades, if Africa
could not take full responsibilities for the construction of her headquarter
financially and infrastructural wise without foreign hands, how will the torch
of independence flame through the continent? The ‘integrated, prosperous and
peaceful Africa’ for which the A.U was formed remains a graceless path, far
from achieving its comparative advantages. The future of that child on the
refuse site whose hope of one day sitting in a classroom remains a vain
expectation of what he hopes for, while there is a year-long celebration of
what is considered fifty years of active leadership. Is the cup half empty or
half full, or is there any substance in it at all? A partial answer may lie in
the unison of today’s leaders taking the mantle of an inexorable initiative
that will break the episode of this historic tension beginning at the grassroot
level in order to hijack devices of oppositions in a more radical fashion and
assume the control of our continent.
The backwardness of our solidarity
cannot be discussed without the mention of my own president the late William
V.S Tubman, who wore Western lens to frustrate our continental unity. The
so-called Monrovia Group was a counter-force of White Fingers initiative with
the aim of infuriating the Casablanca Group which was comprised of Guinea,
Ghana, Mali and Egypt who later became a part. President Tubman, the astute
politician just knew how to get his way through. An armistice meeting which was
held in Sanniquellie, northern Liberia in 1959 to blend these groups which as a
result, is today’s folklore of the unity we seek.
Furthermore, I think the words of
Chinua Achebe when he opined, ‘No one can
teach me who I am. You can describe part of me, but who I am and what I need is
something I have to find out myself’ should not be given a surface glance.
Alternatively, it remains our initiative to draw the deep potentials of those
coined words of wisdom and the effect of its interpretation on our cohesion. We
cannot continue to err in the name of openhandedness while our sores remain
unattended to. Moreover, it is important to consider that our attitude in our
homes, offices and social areas are seemingly the product of what we have as a
continent. Is the dream of Africa - the A.U achievable or is it a fanciful
myth? We have the choice to forever remain ‘toothless bulldogs’ or ‘babies with
sharp teeth’ who will not continue sucking at foreign breasts to appease our so
called deflated stomachs. I close with these words, ‘we are a generation of
ideas, we must either think in freshness and vigor or go mad.’ It is either
that we are already awake or day dreamers, but we cannot continue in that trend
because, ‘he who dreams without end lives in the fantasy of his sleepless mind.
No more dreams Africa, wake up now or forever remain asleep.
