It has been a while since I commented on what's going on in Africa on this space, but I feel my self-imposed exile is over. It doesn't take much to realize that our leaders are mostly bigots who care for their own pockets and hides. Situations in Sudan, Guinea, Zimbabwe, South Africa, and elsewhere have taken a turn for the worse; hunger and disease still wreck havoc wherever they please; and we are still begging for more enslaving foreign aid.
Today, however, I want to put forward a worst-case scenario for Zimbabwe and its fledgling unity government. There are several things going on in Zimbabwe that we have to keep in mind; 1. The generals are wholly behind Mugabe. 2. These generals will not support an MDC-dominated government. 3 . Mugabe is only in power because he continues to protect the interests of these privileged few. 4. Mugabe and his supporters are currently under sanctions (travel and otherwise) while MDC leaders are not. 5. Mugabe's ZANU-PF agreed to the power-sharing agreement in hopes that these sanctions would be lifted- which has not happened. 6. Mugabe and his supporters deem this a sign of the West being biased against them. 7. Mugabe is old (85???) and won't be around much longer...his fellow freedom fighter comrades are being buried daily. 8. There is no clear successor among his ZANU-PF leaders.
Having said all that, what would happen if Mugabe suddenly died of a heart attack or, simply, old age? Would the generals back Tsvangirai? Would the people have enough courage to stand up and ask for him to be installed president?
I personally believe that there would be a coup, Tsvangirai (if he's in the country) and his supporters would be executed en masse, and democracy would take a step back to the Middle Ages...at least in Zimbabwe.
I believe the best option now is for the Western governments to remove their sanctions, appease Mugabe and his henchmen, and let Tsvangirai continue to help their economy. The economy wasn't hammered by Mugabe, anyways, but by those very same Western sanctions. This is the time when the African leaders should step in, shun the actions of the west (I mean, show that they really are against them by taking actual measures to show that rather than just talking about it) and strengthen the Zimbabwean economy and government.
If Mugabe dies, expect all that the West has done to be wasted effort, sanctions never really accomplish much, I can guarantee you that Mugabe and his folks are not starving, dying of cholera, or lacking in bullets to enforce their rule. Look at Cuba, Iran, North Korea, and Iraq before the invasion...it's the common person that suffers, and that common person is busy scrapping for means to feed himself that he has no time to scheme the removal of the dictator you are trying to depose.
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
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.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Madagascar: No Land Deal with South Koreans
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.
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.
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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