Maravi

African unity

African unity
By The Post
Tue 05 July 2011, 04:00 CAT

The call for African unity never ceases. The desire for African unity that culminated in the formation of the OAU (Organisation of African Unity) now renamed the African Union, is still being expressed by many people on our continent.

We united to fight classical colonialism on our continent and we triumphed. In unity, we achieved many things. Our spirit of Ubuntu, that profound African sense that we are human only through the humanity of other human beings – is not a parochial phenomenon, but has added globally to our common search for a better world.

The ultimate strength of our continent will lie not in the type of military weapons we acquire or how much we spend on our armies, but in the unity of our people, of our nations.

And we must be mindful of this one thing, whatever the trials and the tests ahead. United we defeated colonialism. Our reward will come in the life of freedom, peace and hope that our children will enjoy through the ages ahead. What we won when all our peoples and all our nations united must not just be lost now in selfishness.

Let us not forget our past. We say this because it is said that those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it. Our lives teach us who we are. We have learned the hard way that when you permit anyone else’s description of reality to supplant your own, then you might as well be dead.

Africans will do well in a strong and decent continent of nations with principles and standards and common aims and values. Today’s international politics is about the search for security in a changing world. We must build the strong and active continent that can provide it. We must do it together. We cannot buy our way to a safe world. We must work for it together.

We must plan for it together. Let us build a united continent with pride in itself; a thriving continent, rich in economic prosperity, secure in social justice, confident in political change. A continent in which our children can bring up their children with a future to look forward to.

Let us remind ourselves, once again, what Nelson Mandela said in June 1998 in his address to the OAU: “For centuries, an ancient continent has bled from many gapping sword wounds. No doubt Africa’s renaissance is at hand – and our challenge is to steer the continent through the tide of history.

The people of the continent are eager and willing to be among the very best in all areas of endeavour. The peoples of resurgent Africa are perfectly capable of deciding upon their future form of government and discovering and themselves dealing with any dangers that might arise.

We need to exert ourselves that much more, and break out of the vicious cycle 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 the 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 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.

The continent which, while it led in the very 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 deeper 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.”
These are very serious observations which deserve favourable consideration from us all. It is time we started treating the question of peace and stability on our continent as a common challenge.

And as Mandela has correctly observed, 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 of us the formerly colonised and marginalised people take our rightful place as makers of history rather than the possessions of others.

And as we stand on the threshold of a new African era characterised by democracy, sustainable economic development and a re-awakening of our rich cultural values and heritage, African unity should remain our watchword and the African Union our guide. Of course, there has been a lot of rhetoric about this unity. The challenge is to move from rhetoric to action, and action at an unprecedented intensity and scale.

No true unity can be built on the shifting sands of evasions, illusions and opportunism. It is immoral to keep quiet when any one of our governments on this continent seeks to reduce an entire people into a status worse than that of beasts of the forest.

Let us not forget that the driving thrust of African unity was to forge pride and unity amongst all our peoples, to foil the strategy of divide-and-rule, to engender pride among the masses of our people and confidence in their ability to determine their own destiny.

And let us not forget that belief in the possibility of change and renewal is perhaps one of the defining characteristics of politics. It is the dictate of history to bring to the fore the kind of leaders who seize the moment, who cohere the wishes and aspirations of the people.

And more often than not, an epoch creates and nurtures the individuals that are associated with its twists and turns.
We Africans should realise that to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the lives of others.

And those who are ready to join hands overcome the greatest challenges.
The reality can no longer be ignored that we live in an interdependent world which is bound together by a common destiny.

Let us join hands to ensure that the political rights of our people are recognised and the independence that our nations have gained, shall be translated into peace, prosperity and equity for all.

Let it never be said by future generations that indifference, cynicism or selfishness made us fail to live up to the ideals of Nkhrumah, Mandela, Nyerere, Kaunda and many other heroes of our liberation struggle and African unity.

Labels: AU

posted by MrK @ 3:37 AM