WE MUST CREATE AN AFRICAN DIASPORA SOLIDARITY!
On his dying bed, Dr. W. E. B. DuBois lamented in agony and disillusionment. After many years of trying to shape the scholastic attitudes of the American population, he joined his disciple, Kwame Nkrumah, in Ghana in hopes that the winds of change would finally blow in freedom for the African masses. He had waited painfully and worked tirelessly for 95 years to see true liberty for the Negro race in the Americas. With the emergence of men like Charles Houston, Julius Nyerere, Sekou Toure, Diop, Seghhor, Rastafa Haile Selassie, Azikiwe, Thurgood Marshall, Marcus Garvey, Kwame Nkrumah, Patrice Lumumba, Jomo Kenyata, Sadat, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Nelson Mandela and others, he was convinced the only hope for true emancipation of the African of the Diaspora lay in the freedom of Africa. He and Dr. W. B. Blyden succeeded in transplanting Pan-Africanism from the Western Hemisphere to the Motherland. Ghana, a country that became his adopted homeland, fashioned its independence struggle under the premise that the freedom of Ghana was nothing if it did not result in the freedom of Africa. Unfortunately for Africa, the Cold War that precipitated the end of colonialism ushered, in its place, imperialism and communism, thereby creating a safe harbor doctrine called nonalignment and causing the African dream of a free Africa to become a casualty of the Cold War.
Our short history of pseudo independence shows a chilling history, a desperate and impoverished continent, and a legacy of suffering for the offspring to experience. Slavery, colonialism, apartheid, the Cold War, communism and nonalignment, DuBois, Nkrumah, Marcus Garvey, Lumumba, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the early proponents of Pan-Africanism are all gone. The sad commentary is that Africa has suffered immensely and is much worse today than at independence.
Dr. DuBois predicted that the dividing elements in the Western Society would be (a) the color line, and (b) the talented 10 %. The color line is a social phenomenon that continues to shape the way Westerners view Africans. The talented 10% referred to a percentage of the African-American population who would have the economic means to shape the welfare of all Africans. The prediction has been nothing but an economic nightmare as the talented 10% have amassed riches to themselves without reaching out to the rest of the masses. DuBois’s prediction of the talented 10% has played out not only within the African Diaspora but more so in Africa.
The African-American Community boasts a GNP of almost $400 billion for a population of a little over 30 million. DuBois hoped that the talented 10% would succeed in harnessing resources to economically emancipate the rest of the community. This has not happened. Individual Africans of the Diaspora have chosen to advance individually without regard for their village or community, let alone collectively as a race. The Africans of the first generation have not fared differently. In the sixties, there were less than 100,000 newly arrived Africans in the USA. Forty years later, the number has soared to a population of almost 6.5 million with a GNP of $4.5 billion. The phenomenon here is that the community boasts a talented 80%, the reason being that most of them hail from aristocratic and plutocratic homes in Africa, driven to success without community responsibility. Having learned how to navigate the colonial systems in Africa, they have found success in the USA an easy task. The polls show African immigrants staying an average of 14.5 years in school as compared to all other ethnic groups and races in America, rivaled only by Asians who stay an average of 13 years in school. By amassing degrees to their names, they have managed to achieve acceptance within mainstream American culture. Compare this to sub-Saharan Africa whose combined GNP is a little over $720 billion with a population of almost 850 million. It is here that only the talented 10% has dwindled to 5% who control and accrue benefits from resources of the $720 billion, leaving the 95% socially destitute and living under economic and political misery.
Given this scenario, two things must happen simultaneously: (1) Africa is better off united as one government than staying within the present colonial borders and under the current political structure; and (2) Africans of the Diaspora must unite in order to harness their resources for the Motherland. We are convinced that herein is salvation for our people. The late Kwame Nkrumah predicted forty years ago that if we did not unite, the Western world would stand by as we cut each other’s throats while they supply the wires with which to accomplish the onslaught. Just look at our short history and cry out for a people whose future is at best a continuous living nightmare.
The Association for the Advancement of Africa is ushering a call for social solidarity among people of African origin, at home and abroad, men and women of good will, for the purpose of influencing true liberty for our people. We have had enough rhetoric and coercion. We must choose in this century whether Africa will remain crippled and stagnated or move to participate in its healing. It is imperative that we take on a unified change to emancipate our helpless nations and people in Africa. The future of our children depends on our renewed commitment. We are proposing not just an African Union but also the Federation of Africa, all countries under one government. This move is precipitated by the following facts:
a) The present chunks of lands are still wards of Europe and the West.
b) The divisions of Africa into borders that reflect a people with common language, customs, values, norms, and ancestry would lessen the level of conflict and instability that have rendered productive lands economically barren. Compare the European map in the last 40 years.
c) With stability created by the new paradigm, Africa is capable of tripling its GNP within 10 years of the Union just as South Korea has done.
d) Foreign aid has crippled Africa and can no longer be a sound economic model for a continent that is capable of feeding the rest of the world for over 1,000 years. Foreign aid has always ended up in the bank accounts of Kleptocrats. Without creating paradigms that restructure Africa to a stable society, Africa will continue to bleed.
e) The Africans of the Diaspora have gained more clout and sophistication than they had in the 60s. With almost 200 million Africans in the Diaspora, Africa has more support to its total emancipation than before. With the talented 10% of the African American, Caribbean African, Canadian Africans, Brazilian Africans, European Africans, and the 80% talented aristocrats and plutocrats of first generation Africans, the time has come to bind the wounds of the bleeding brothers, sisters, mothers and fathers in Africa. When Europe itches, all European Americans scratch. When Japan itches, all Japanese Americans scratch. Who scratches when Africa itches? Will the Africans of the Diaspora bind the wounds of bleeding Africa?
f) The Diaspora has resources and the know how to give back to Africa and to assist our brothers and sisters who are in the trenches. We must be concerned about the welfare of the masses that exist with merger means. We have spent 40 years blaming and plotting, and it is time now to plan and build together for the sake of our posterity. This is even more urgent given the fact 65 percent of Africa’s population is under 25 years.
Africa can never be free while it continues to operate within the colonial framework that was left behind. There must be a total paradigm shift to effectuate true liberating change. The very colonial powers that ushered us into this present faulty political and social infrastructure have adjusted their own political maps to meet the needs of their people. Just in the last 20 years we have seen the Berlin Wall, the Soviet Union Block, and different ethnic groups previously divided to unify within lands of common ancestry, language, and ideology so that peace and tranquility would be realized. Europe is doing it for its people and does not consider a historical betrayal to its political map. Why do we continue to hold on to political entities that do not serve our people?
Knowing very well that the present colonial political configurations in Africa have only managed to serve the purposes of Europe, we continue to be gatekeepers of systems that have enslaved our people. The structures for which our people are dying have only been in place since the sixties. Must we not be as wise if not wiser than our former masters to change our political map to suit the needs of our people? Just as Europe has done for its people, can Africa afford not to usher in a new infrastructure that will bring about the fall of all the walls that continue to create instability for our people? Look at the colonial madness in Nigeria for example? The present national configurations have turned into colonial prisons for our people as exemplified by the 120 million with almost 200 ethnic groups who speak 400 different languages under the umbrella of forced relationships. Compare this configuration to Europe; and you find that, for every major language or ideology, there is a country. Nigeria fails before it even begins. The Byafran War brought this to a climax. At almost 30 million, the Igbo deserve their own border since they share the same language, ancestry, values and beliefs. At 35 million, the Yoruba deserve the same. And so do other ethnic configurations that plague Africa.
The partitioning of Africa was not based upon the needs of Africans but rather upon the needs of Europe. The colonial borders that we now call independent republics of Africa still continue to suffer under the yoke of perpetual servitude to Europe. It is for this purpose they were created; and it is therefore no wonder that only five percent of the 850 million Africans draw benefit from them.
It is a political betrayal of the needs of the masses of our people to continue holding on to these foreign structures that have not served our people. Just show me one political entity in Africa where this colonial configuration has worked, and I will show you a volcano waiting to erupt. Who knew five years ago that the Ivorians would be in turmoil while the rest of Africa looked on helplessly as our own butchered each other? Why should France deploy its soldiers in Africa with immunity while African armies cannot even move an inch to save their own from the onslaught? Is it not hypocritical for France to demand that USA seek permission to deploy troops in Iraq while they send troops to Africa with impunity and without permission while Africans sit and helplessly watch? Of what use is the 35% GNP expenditure on weapons when we cannot defend the helpless in our motherland? Why should USA seek permission of the African leaders to deploy troops in Iraq when none of them have rallied to stop France from doing the same in Africa? How long will our people continue to suffer under the yoke of continued enslavement while our leaders safeguard the colonial interests? Europe has created NATO. Cannot we create SATO? Are our people any less human? How can republics with enormous human needs spend 55 percent of their income on military equipment? Who are the republics defending when its people are plunged into untold suffering? Look at Guinea, Cote d’Voire (Ivory Coast), Democratic Republic Congo, Congo, Sudan, Rwanda, Burundi, Mozambique, Angola, Ethiopia, Somalia, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Uganda, and the list goes on. When is enough, enough?
The struggle for independence for Africa came about because African leaders at the time dreamed of a new society that was truly democratic, humane, just, peaceful, able to manage its affairs, protective of its young men and women, and one that was truly progressive and economically satisfying. You will agree with me that this has been and continues to be a daily struggle in almost all our African countries. Even though we did not have MIGs and high-powered cars or refrigerators, at least then our people were able to cultivate and harvest their crop and raise their young under the great traditions of African rites of passage. It was a society in which the young had some sense of responsibility to their community. Our leaders or elders had respect and did not engage in senseless butchering of their subjects. It was a society whose kingdoms did not go on rampages to kill their vanquished foes as exemplified in Rwanda, Liberia, and Guinea. Given they did not speak English, French, Portuguese, nor Spanish, but they lived peacefully with each other, loved community tranquility and mutual prosperity, and were driven by a spiritual underpinning that respected the Creator with untold reverence. Now, most are scared to go plant anything for fear of being killed while at it while others do not have the seeds to put in the ground.
But would any person with any sense of reasoning wonder at the dismal nature of our affairs in Africa when, as a matter of fact, the institutions Africans govern are of a foreign origin and were set in place with the principles of mercantilism? Have we so quickly forgotten that the little chunks of land as they stand today were secured for the colonial powers? Was it not to this end that the educational, economic, political, religious, and military institutions in Africa were created? Is it any wonder that these institutions have reached levels of diminishing returns and are therefore no longer capable of meeting the needs of the masses, while enlightened men continue to operate as though somehow the colonial powers will come to their rescue? Can a mosquito ever donate enough blood for the bleeding victim? Some of our leaders have served their Master well; and out of gratitude we find ourselves enslaved by our own greed, jealousy, and pride while the Master continues to feast at the table of prosperity that we have so sacrificially laid for him.
My people, what shall we say then of an African independence of 40 years? What has become of our land capable of feeding the whole world for years while its people starve to death? How can a land so fertile and so rich have a people who benefit nothing from its bounty? How long is long enough?
We are therefore mobilizing and inviting everyone to join the cause. We also invite you to the AAA convention in New Orleans during the Memorial Day weekend at the Inter-Continental Hotel to dialogue and engage in this conversation. If Africa must be free, it is because you want it to be. No one will do it for us. Our Think Tank Forum will feature discussions in the areas of (a) ethics, (b) political process, (c) military systems, (d) education) (e) health, (f) women’s issues, (g) immigration, (h) youth, (i) culture, (j) science, and (k) technology, all geared toward the consideration of the Federation of African States and how that will look more so after the endorsement of AU. It is a very exciting time as we hope to have representatives from the African Diaspora as well as dignitaries in attendance. Your contribution is valuable to the cause.
