Maravi

Africa Freedom Day

Africa Freedom Day
By Editor
Sunday May 25, 2008 [04:00]

On this day, Africa Freedom Day, we remember what Kwame Nkrumah once said: “Seek ye first the political kingdom, and everything else will be added unto ye.” We also remember the speech by that internationalist par excellence Dr Enersto Che Guevara at the Second Economic Seminar of the Organisation of Afro-Asian Solidarity in Algiers on February 26, 1965:

“Each time a country is freed, we say, it is a defeat for the world imperialist system, but we must agree that liberation, or the breaking away from the imperialist system is not achieved by the mere act of proclaiming independence or winning an armed victory in a revolution. Freedom is achieved when imperialist economic domination over a people is brought to an end.”

For centuries, our continent has bled from many gaping sword wounds. No doubt our renaissance is at hand - and our challenge is to steer the continent through the tide of history.

The people of our continent are eager and willing to be among the very best in all areas of human endeavour.

The peoples of the resurgent Africa are perfectly capable of deciding their own future form of government and discovering for themselves ways of dealing with any dangers which might arise.
We need to exert ourselves that much more, and break out of the vicious circle of dependence imposed on us by the financially powerful; those in command of immense market power and those who dare to fashion the world in their own image.

Africa, more than any other continent, has had to contend with the consequences of conquest in a denial of its own role in history, including denial that its people had the capacity to bring about change and progress.

It would be a cruel irony of history if Africa’s actions to regenerate the continent were to unleash a new scramble for Africa which, like that of the nineteenth century, plundered the continent’s wealth and left it once more the poorer.

Conflict threatens not only the gains we have made but also our collective future.
The African rebirth is now more than an idea – its seeds are being sown in the regional communities we are busy building, and in the continent as a whole.

Can we continue to tolerate our ancestors being shown as people locked in time?

Africa yearns and deserves to redeem her glory, to reassert her centuries-old contribution to economics, politics, culture and the arts; and once more to be a pioneer in the many fields of human endeavour.

One destabilising conflict anywhere on the continent is one too many.
For as long as the majority of the people anywhere on the continent feel oppressed, are not allowed democratic participation in decision-making processes, and cannot elect their own leaders in free and fair elections, there will always be tension and conflict.
A continent which, while it led in every evolution of human life and was a leading centre of learning, technology and the arts in ancient times, has experienced various traumatic epochs, each one of which has pushed her peoples into poverty and backwardness.

We cannot abuse the concept of national sovereignty to deny the rest of the continent the right and duty to intervene when, behind those sovereign boundaries, people are being slaughtered to protect tyranny.
We should treat the question of peace and stability on our continent as a common challenge.

As we dream and work for the regeneration of our continent, we should remain conscious that the African renaissance can only succeed as part of the development of a new and equitable world order in which all the formerly colonised and marginalised take their rightful place; makers of history rather than the possessions of others.

As we stand on the threshold of a new African era characterised by democracy, sustainable economic development and a reawakening of our rich cultural values and heritage, African unity should remain our watchword and the African Union our guide.

Let us teach our children that Africans are not one iota inferior to Europeans, Americans or Asians.

The lack of human dignity experienced by Africans is the direct result of the policy of white supremacy.

All of us, descendants of Africa, know only too well that racism demeans the victims and dehumanises its perpetrators.

And as we go about various duties and assignments, let us not forget what Chinua Achebe wrote in A Man of the People (1967): ‘A man who has just come in from the rain and dried his body and put on dry clothes is more reluctant to go out again than another who has been indoors all the time. The trouble with our new nation…was that none of us had been indoors long enough to be able to say ‘to hell with it’. We had all been in the rain together until yesterday. Then a handful of us - the smart and the lucky and hardly ever the best – hard scrambled for the one shelter our former rulers left, and had taken it over and barricaded themselves in. And from within they sought to persuade the rest through numerous loud speakers, that the first phase of the struggle had been won and that the next phase – the extension of our house – was even more important and called for new and original tactics; it required that all argument should cease and the whole people should speak with one voice…’

But let us not forget also what Saint Just said: “He who makes a revolution by half digs his own grave.”

Lastly, let’s get rid of impotent thinking from our minds. We shouldn’t pin our hopes for progress on the kindness, benevolence or sensibleness of our former colonisers, or imperialism and its lackeys. We will only triumph by strengthening our unity and persevering in our struggle.

There is no revolution that ever comes to an end.

Labels: AFRICA FREEDOM DAY, KWAME NKRUMAH

posted by MrK @ 3:10 AM