Monday, June 8, 2009
Omar Bongo (President of Gabon) Passes Away
Omar Bongo of Gabon has passed away in a hospital in Spain. His passing shows us that no matter how rich you make yourself and how long you stay in power, when you die, you die like everyone else. In his last moments I doubt he was thinking about the vast amount of riches he had scattered around the world. I doubt he was troubled by the fact he was to be unable to cart them off to whichever after-life (if he believed in one) he was to inhabit next. He died like other people die, with nothing. His wealth is now there to be enjoyed by someone else. What a pity he didn't use it for something to advance his country and the region.
Friday, June 5, 2009
The Struggle Against Exploitation
I have come, through my experiences, to view all human beings as possessing a quality of humanness that is not limited to one race or another. I perceive all of us as being one and the same in what makes us humans, which is not physical but rather an intangible quality that has puzzled many for as long as man has existed. What is it to be a human being? Is it being black? Is it being white? Is it being tall or short? Is it possessing all bodily parts and organs? What is it to be human? Is it to possess a “soul?” If so, what is a soul? Does it only abide in certain people and not others? How do we know we all possess it? Could it be that it’s possessed by some and not others?
As I have come across many kinds of people and have been allowed to share their cultures and experiences, I have come to realize that there is something in all people that makes us all humans. I can not describe to you what it is exactly, but I can identify it and I am sure that you can, too.
When I write about African independence, you may notice that I say that as Africa goes so will the rest of the world. I have come to view Africa as the cradle of anti-exploitation as much as it is the cradle of mankind and civilization. However, after reading one of the most influential books I’ve read, I realize that for that struggle to succeed it has to concurrently be fought around the world. A world where even one person’s rights as a human being are being trampled upon and withheld by another human, is a world that is unfit for all of us humans. The struggle is no longer about the black man, the struggle is about the exploited man. Most often, it is true that exploited man is a black man, but it is not true that every exploited man is a black man. We, descendants of Africa, should see our struggle as universal. We should take it to the highest organizations on this globe. We should realize that we, ourselves, can not succeed without the help and support of our fellow exploited brothers around the world.
Why do I see the struggle as being for the exploited and not for the black? Because some of those exploiters are black people. The exploiter is Oriental and Indian as well as white. There are also millions of exploited whites that are longing for justice as much as we are. The whole divide and conquer technique has worked against the exploited so well that it rarely is even noticed. We are divided in different races while we all suffer under the same system. The rich get richer while the poor toil more and more for less and less. The poor have come to accept this toiling as requirement for getting ahead. The exploiter’s propaganda of working hard to get ahead has been ingrained in our very being, while that same exploiter spends days playing golf, gambling, and sprawled at some exotic resort inaccessible to those that work harder in a week than he will ever work in a lifetime.
El-Hajj Malik El-Shabbazz, also known as Malcolm Little, better known as Malcolm X. A man who I, in my ignorance of the man’s life, formerly viewed as a radical whose life and views, of which I knew little and I was grossly misinformed about that little, have radically changed me. Now so, more than ever, the man has shown me how linked we are in our struggles with the oppressed and exploited around the world. We can not view our own problems and struggles as just limited to our own communities, cities, or countries. Over twenty years before I was born and about forty years before I was fully awakened to this realization, Malcolm X was the only African-descended leader in America who selflessly realized that for the black man to be free, he had to begin by freeing his mind. While others were promoting physical freedom, Malcolm X tried to get the masses to understand that what stood between the African-descended American and total freedom was mental freedom. See, you cannot be free if you regard yourself as inferior because you don’t look, act, or believe the same as your master or former master. You think by behaving as the master you can become free like the master. The master views himself as superior and that’s what helps him rule over you. As long as your mind is set in imitating him, you are his slave. You can get yourself to dress like him, act like him, look like him (as best as you can), but you will never be him. As long as you are not like him you will always strive to be like him, which is impossible. The best thing is to free your mind. This freedom is what Malcolm X was striving to get the people to understand.
Twenty-two years after Malcolm X’s assassination, another leader was assassinated for bringing equality, dignity, and freedom to his people. Capitaine Thomas Isidore Noel Sankara. Sankara was a man who freed his people mentally then proceeded to improve their lives physically. In four short years he turned the second poorest country in the world, GDP-wise, to one that produced enough food for its people. How did he do it? He didn’t do it by courting foreign aid. He didn’t do it by inviting foreign corporations to invest in his country. He did it by freeing his people mentally. One of his accomplishments was to change the name of his country from Upper Volta to Burkina Faso, meaning “Land of Upright People.” I think we should change the name of our continent from Africa to Burkina Faso. That’s just my opinion. Wouldn’t we all love to say we come from the Land of Upright People? Sankara was able to make the people the owners of their own fates. Their circumstances, good or bad, could be dealt with if the people realized that the only ones to benefit from them were themselves. He cooperated with others such as Cuba to vaccinate children and fight against other diseases. He promoted the fight against the desert to preserve arable land for his people. He advocated for the rights and advancement of women before it was fashionable to do so. Here was a man so selfless that he died with but a few possessions. Sankara, however, did not die a poor man. Like Malcolm X, who also died penniless, they realized the danger and the entrapment of garnering material riches while in position of leadership. They did not sell out their views for a piece of the pie.
However, these are not the only leaders to mention, there are many who have been like these two. Many who have sacrificed their earthly pleasures to ensure justice and equality for all. Many who have traded in a peaceful death in old age for a youthful, violent one. Many who have viewed the struggle as being between the exploited and the exploiter rather than between races or religions. To all these leaders, we owe the continuation of the struggle. The Bible says the race is not to the swift. Our battle is not short-term. Results may not be seen in our generation or the next, but we owe it to our descendants to prepare a world of equality and justice. A world where the word freedom is cherished and enjoyed by every human.
Let us, then, free our minds. Let’s love ourselves, our abilities, our ambitions, and our dreams. Let’s appreciate our differences, for in them we are able to comprehend the full picture of what it is to be human. Let us be pulled together to form the army of humanity. Some of us will be the infantry, others the artillery, others the cavalry, and so on. Our differences makes us stronger, let us not view them as weaknesses. Let them not divide us, for in dividing ourselves we lose our humanness.
We Shall Overcome.
As I have come across many kinds of people and have been allowed to share their cultures and experiences, I have come to realize that there is something in all people that makes us all humans. I can not describe to you what it is exactly, but I can identify it and I am sure that you can, too.
When I write about African independence, you may notice that I say that as Africa goes so will the rest of the world. I have come to view Africa as the cradle of anti-exploitation as much as it is the cradle of mankind and civilization. However, after reading one of the most influential books I’ve read, I realize that for that struggle to succeed it has to concurrently be fought around the world. A world where even one person’s rights as a human being are being trampled upon and withheld by another human, is a world that is unfit for all of us humans. The struggle is no longer about the black man, the struggle is about the exploited man. Most often, it is true that exploited man is a black man, but it is not true that every exploited man is a black man. We, descendants of Africa, should see our struggle as universal. We should take it to the highest organizations on this globe. We should realize that we, ourselves, can not succeed without the help and support of our fellow exploited brothers around the world.
Why do I see the struggle as being for the exploited and not for the black? Because some of those exploiters are black people. The exploiter is Oriental and Indian as well as white. There are also millions of exploited whites that are longing for justice as much as we are. The whole divide and conquer technique has worked against the exploited so well that it rarely is even noticed. We are divided in different races while we all suffer under the same system. The rich get richer while the poor toil more and more for less and less. The poor have come to accept this toiling as requirement for getting ahead. The exploiter’s propaganda of working hard to get ahead has been ingrained in our very being, while that same exploiter spends days playing golf, gambling, and sprawled at some exotic resort inaccessible to those that work harder in a week than he will ever work in a lifetime.
El-Hajj Malik El-Shabbazz, also known as Malcolm Little, better known as Malcolm X. A man who I, in my ignorance of the man’s life, formerly viewed as a radical whose life and views, of which I knew little and I was grossly misinformed about that little, have radically changed me. Now so, more than ever, the man has shown me how linked we are in our struggles with the oppressed and exploited around the world. We can not view our own problems and struggles as just limited to our own communities, cities, or countries. Over twenty years before I was born and about forty years before I was fully awakened to this realization, Malcolm X was the only African-descended leader in America who selflessly realized that for the black man to be free, he had to begin by freeing his mind. While others were promoting physical freedom, Malcolm X tried to get the masses to understand that what stood between the African-descended American and total freedom was mental freedom. See, you cannot be free if you regard yourself as inferior because you don’t look, act, or believe the same as your master or former master. You think by behaving as the master you can become free like the master. The master views himself as superior and that’s what helps him rule over you. As long as your mind is set in imitating him, you are his slave. You can get yourself to dress like him, act like him, look like him (as best as you can), but you will never be him. As long as you are not like him you will always strive to be like him, which is impossible. The best thing is to free your mind. This freedom is what Malcolm X was striving to get the people to understand.
Twenty-two years after Malcolm X’s assassination, another leader was assassinated for bringing equality, dignity, and freedom to his people. Capitaine Thomas Isidore Noel Sankara. Sankara was a man who freed his people mentally then proceeded to improve their lives physically. In four short years he turned the second poorest country in the world, GDP-wise, to one that produced enough food for its people. How did he do it? He didn’t do it by courting foreign aid. He didn’t do it by inviting foreign corporations to invest in his country. He did it by freeing his people mentally. One of his accomplishments was to change the name of his country from Upper Volta to Burkina Faso, meaning “Land of Upright People.” I think we should change the name of our continent from Africa to Burkina Faso. That’s just my opinion. Wouldn’t we all love to say we come from the Land of Upright People? Sankara was able to make the people the owners of their own fates. Their circumstances, good or bad, could be dealt with if the people realized that the only ones to benefit from them were themselves. He cooperated with others such as Cuba to vaccinate children and fight against other diseases. He promoted the fight against the desert to preserve arable land for his people. He advocated for the rights and advancement of women before it was fashionable to do so. Here was a man so selfless that he died with but a few possessions. Sankara, however, did not die a poor man. Like Malcolm X, who also died penniless, they realized the danger and the entrapment of garnering material riches while in position of leadership. They did not sell out their views for a piece of the pie.
However, these are not the only leaders to mention, there are many who have been like these two. Many who have sacrificed their earthly pleasures to ensure justice and equality for all. Many who have traded in a peaceful death in old age for a youthful, violent one. Many who have viewed the struggle as being between the exploited and the exploiter rather than between races or religions. To all these leaders, we owe the continuation of the struggle. The Bible says the race is not to the swift. Our battle is not short-term. Results may not be seen in our generation or the next, but we owe it to our descendants to prepare a world of equality and justice. A world where the word freedom is cherished and enjoyed by every human.
Let us, then, free our minds. Let’s love ourselves, our abilities, our ambitions, and our dreams. Let’s appreciate our differences, for in them we are able to comprehend the full picture of what it is to be human. Let us be pulled together to form the army of humanity. Some of us will be the infantry, others the artillery, others the cavalry, and so on. Our differences makes us stronger, let us not view them as weaknesses. Let them not divide us, for in dividing ourselves we lose our humanness.
We Shall Overcome.
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