As much as I despise the process that put Andry Rajoelina in power in Madagascar, I do applaud his decision to nix the deal to lease a large tract of land to a South Korean firm for the purposes of growing corn, not for the Malagasy people but for the South Korean people. This corn would have been grown and taken thousands of miles while people were starving right there.
I propose that the authorities invest in the necessary infrastructure to turn that same tract of land into a field to grow crops meant for domestic consumption. If the Koreans wanted the land it's because they knew it could be done. The Malagasy authorities need to turn that land into what the Koreans wanted to turn it into.
African land should be used to provide for the African people, first and foremost, and then for the rest of the world.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Madagascar: A step in the wrong direction
What has taken place in Madagascar is unacceptable in that the military has taken steps to remove its commander in chief. Another word for that is coup. So there have been a coup in Madagascar and the world has just stood by. If we are to move in a more productive and developed future, we have to abide by constitutional law whether we like it or not.
We call upon the African Union leadership to suspend Madagascar from the Union, to impose a trade embargo against the island, and to relocate the Union meeting scheduled to take place there this summer.
The organizers of the coup should be arrested and tried for treason and punished as such. There should absolutely be no room in Africa to depose a democratically elected government without due process. The military is a tool to protect the people, not oppress them.
Khadaffi should step up the pressure to reinstate the democratically-elected government. Rajoelina should be tried and punished for failing the Malagasy people by disobeying the constitution and deposing those elected to protect it.
We call upon the African Union leadership to suspend Madagascar from the Union, to impose a trade embargo against the island, and to relocate the Union meeting scheduled to take place there this summer.
The organizers of the coup should be arrested and tried for treason and punished as such. There should absolutely be no room in Africa to depose a democratically elected government without due process. The military is a tool to protect the people, not oppress them.
Khadaffi should step up the pressure to reinstate the democratically-elected government. Rajoelina should be tried and punished for failing the Malagasy people by disobeying the constitution and deposing those elected to protect it.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Moving Towards Complete Independence
What is the best way to move forward? What is it that we need to do to free ourselves from the shackles of imperialism? How can we move our crippled, paralyzed political and economic systems from the hold of the colonizers? Should we adopt their models of development? Do we have our own models that we can follow? Do we know enough of our history to judge from what our ancestors did before the coming of the invaders? If we know our history, can what they did be applicable in today's world? Can it be modified to fit this lifetime? What can we do to move towards complete independence as an African people?
I take great pride and joy in being African. I am not swayed by petty issues that keep us fumbling in the mud pit rather than finding a way out. We squabble about issues that have nothing to do with our future success but which keep us pre-occupied to notice our overall condition of imprisonment.
We need to move towards unity. We can accomplish all we need to if we were working hand-in-hand as brothers and sisters that we are. Our differences are like those of flowers. If you put them together you make a beautiful bouquet. More beautiful and appeasing. To become a bouquet, we need to realize that our differences are what makes us beautiful and strong. The looks and beliefs of others are not a threat to us, they complement us. We are not competitors, we are collaborators. The master will push onto us the competitors tag in order to keep us pre-occupied with petty issues that further erode our already collapsed sense of unity.
What do we need to do to become one? In an ideal situation I would rather we got rid of divisions inspired by outside forces, such as religious affiliations, political parties, and political borders. I have the strongest misgivings about these three because they have done more to shed African blood than any other differences.
Religion. It's necessary for most of us. I am a spiritual person. I believe in God. I see his miracles in my life all the time. But which God is this that I serve and looks out for me? What does he look like? Did my people not have a God before the invaders arrived? Did this God come with the Arabs or with the Europeans? If these people brought their God, does their God condone the acts they inflicted upon our motherland? Does God really say kill all those that do not believe in him? Why then did he create them? Or did someone else create men? If God kills and his arch foe, Satan, kills what is the difference between them? If God hates those that don't believe in him, why doesn't he stop creating them? Afterall, he knows everything including how those people's future beliefs will be, right? Could there possibly be another idea about a God that we ought to be worshiping? A God that does not seek to conquer with the edge of a sword? Which God did my ancestors worship before the coming of the invaders?
My grandfather was a pastor and a missionary all over the Democratic Republic of Congo. My great-grandfather was one of three Rwandans who helped establish Seventh-day Adventist missions in Rwanda. I was raised in the church and learned to read by reading the Bible. I have strong roots in the God of the Bible. However, the God I read about in the Bible is nothing like the God that I see people talking about today. So, I know these people push the book on us without reading it themselves. In reality, the God of the African, the Jew, the Christian, and the Muslim is one God. It is the God that created us all, the God that is one and undivided. Why, then, do our ideas of who he is divide us and shed our blood? Why can't we just stand up and realize ourselves as his children and throw out those burdens that we need to carry to differentiate ourselves from our siblings? Does it matter if you are wearing a green coat and I'm wearing a brown one? Do we differ on the air that we breathe? Is your brain made from a different substance than mine? How about your bones? Aren't we all humans?
The second issue is that of political powers. I am against political parties because their concept is lost upon us Africans as they are not our invention. We have no respect for the concept and we look to take advantage of them to further divide ourselves. It is no secret that rulers will establish or infiltrate opposition parties to their own ends.
The future of Africa lies in a unified Africa whose rulers are after the good of their people as a whole and not just for a segment of the population. We need to do away with political parties, they are not our concept, they do not work in our communities, they polarize, they divide, they are against our nature.
As for political borders, I have talked against them many times in the past. Not even one African was at the Berlin roundtable. Not one. Why do we all, then, follow those boundaries as if they were God-given? We never needed them in the past, not blindly drawn borders that failed to take into consideration the culture and peoples of the land they divided. We had our own way, a way that can work even today.
We need to stop doing things the invaders' way, we need to do them our way. Only by doing them the way of the African will Africa have thrown of the chains of the oppressor.
I take great pride and joy in being African. I am not swayed by petty issues that keep us fumbling in the mud pit rather than finding a way out. We squabble about issues that have nothing to do with our future success but which keep us pre-occupied to notice our overall condition of imprisonment.
We need to move towards unity. We can accomplish all we need to if we were working hand-in-hand as brothers and sisters that we are. Our differences are like those of flowers. If you put them together you make a beautiful bouquet. More beautiful and appeasing. To become a bouquet, we need to realize that our differences are what makes us beautiful and strong. The looks and beliefs of others are not a threat to us, they complement us. We are not competitors, we are collaborators. The master will push onto us the competitors tag in order to keep us pre-occupied with petty issues that further erode our already collapsed sense of unity.
What do we need to do to become one? In an ideal situation I would rather we got rid of divisions inspired by outside forces, such as religious affiliations, political parties, and political borders. I have the strongest misgivings about these three because they have done more to shed African blood than any other differences.
Religion. It's necessary for most of us. I am a spiritual person. I believe in God. I see his miracles in my life all the time. But which God is this that I serve and looks out for me? What does he look like? Did my people not have a God before the invaders arrived? Did this God come with the Arabs or with the Europeans? If these people brought their God, does their God condone the acts they inflicted upon our motherland? Does God really say kill all those that do not believe in him? Why then did he create them? Or did someone else create men? If God kills and his arch foe, Satan, kills what is the difference between them? If God hates those that don't believe in him, why doesn't he stop creating them? Afterall, he knows everything including how those people's future beliefs will be, right? Could there possibly be another idea about a God that we ought to be worshiping? A God that does not seek to conquer with the edge of a sword? Which God did my ancestors worship before the coming of the invaders?
My grandfather was a pastor and a missionary all over the Democratic Republic of Congo. My great-grandfather was one of three Rwandans who helped establish Seventh-day Adventist missions in Rwanda. I was raised in the church and learned to read by reading the Bible. I have strong roots in the God of the Bible. However, the God I read about in the Bible is nothing like the God that I see people talking about today. So, I know these people push the book on us without reading it themselves. In reality, the God of the African, the Jew, the Christian, and the Muslim is one God. It is the God that created us all, the God that is one and undivided. Why, then, do our ideas of who he is divide us and shed our blood? Why can't we just stand up and realize ourselves as his children and throw out those burdens that we need to carry to differentiate ourselves from our siblings? Does it matter if you are wearing a green coat and I'm wearing a brown one? Do we differ on the air that we breathe? Is your brain made from a different substance than mine? How about your bones? Aren't we all humans?
The second issue is that of political powers. I am against political parties because their concept is lost upon us Africans as they are not our invention. We have no respect for the concept and we look to take advantage of them to further divide ourselves. It is no secret that rulers will establish or infiltrate opposition parties to their own ends.
The future of Africa lies in a unified Africa whose rulers are after the good of their people as a whole and not just for a segment of the population. We need to do away with political parties, they are not our concept, they do not work in our communities, they polarize, they divide, they are against our nature.
As for political borders, I have talked against them many times in the past. Not even one African was at the Berlin roundtable. Not one. Why do we all, then, follow those boundaries as if they were God-given? We never needed them in the past, not blindly drawn borders that failed to take into consideration the culture and peoples of the land they divided. We had our own way, a way that can work even today.
We need to stop doing things the invaders' way, we need to do them our way. Only by doing them the way of the African will Africa have thrown of the chains of the oppressor.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Bashir, Tsvangirai, Congo, Rwanda, and the rest of the news this past month
I have wanted to sit down and write something during the past month and I had many things that I wanted to share, but I just felt that the moment was not right to write anything yet. I decided to sit and wait, wait for events to unfold. And unfold they did. Things happened. Al Bashir, president of Sudan, was warned of a heap of evidence against him by the International Criminal Court. After the warning came the actual warrant making him a fugitive. Rwanda and Congo finished out their joint operation against the FDLR rebels operating in Congo, and Rwanda followed on its promise to return its military forces back to Rwanda. Although the FDLR rebels deny this occured and claim that thousands of Rwandan troops are still active in the jungles of Nord Kivu province in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Mugabe and Tsvangirai have also seemingly come close to form a government of unity which holds out hope for improvements in Zimbabwe. Lately, however, Mrs. Tsvangirai was fatally injured in a car accident that left him hospitalized. Some are crying foul, but what does it matter? An innocent life was taken in a terrible accident, or what seemed like an accident. Our prayers go to the Tsvangirai family.
What do all these developments mean for our mother land? Is there a way to arrest Bashir and bring him to justice for the atrocities in Darfur? Did Rwanda pull all of its resources out of Congo and end its profitable proxy occupation of mineral-rich East Congo? Did Mugabe seek to take out Tsvangirai himself in the accident?
Mugabe and Tsvangirai have also seemingly come close to form a government of unity which holds out hope for improvements in Zimbabwe. Lately, however, Mrs. Tsvangirai was fatally injured in a car accident that left him hospitalized. Some are crying foul, but what does it matter? An innocent life was taken in a terrible accident, or what seemed like an accident. Our prayers go to the Tsvangirai family.
What do all these developments mean for our mother land? Is there a way to arrest Bashir and bring him to justice for the atrocities in Darfur? Did Rwanda pull all of its resources out of Congo and end its profitable proxy occupation of mineral-rich East Congo? Did Mugabe seek to take out Tsvangirai himself in the accident?
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