Africa

What goes through my mind when I hear that 6 letter word? Its just a mixture of emotion, facts, sadness, contradictions, misconceptions, mystery, intrigue and hope! I mean Africa for me is home. That is where my heart is. I love Africa, we have incredible spirit in Africa. People have suffered so much at the hands of nature, colonialists, wars, and bad leaders but they can still smile. Africa brings memories of innovation and doing what you can with what you have. I get that image of making a football out of string and plastic, playing on a field without an inkling of grass and having the time of our lives! People play football with rocks for God’s sake! Africa gives me hope. People sing songs at all occasions. Happy, sad, somber and uplifting songs! It’s a way to let out the emotion and get through the the day. Africa brings thoughts of hospitality, you must greet people when they come by you. It is important that you be the best possible host and show hospitality to your neighbor since you will need it some time! Africa is my favorite place in the whole world, is that a surprise? The thing is we (Africans) have lived in a cycle of suffering for so long and I am beginning to think that we are getting too used to it. I hope to see a day when people will flood back to their countries to lead various recoveries. A time when people do not have to leave their own countries in search of opportunity. There is a vicious cycle in Africa and our leaders are exacerbating it. We as a continent have made little economic progress and some people are worse of than they were under the colonizers. The first thing that I feel should be addressed is hunger. People should not be starving, there are ways and means to make this work. I am currently doubting Western capitalism, I feel that we should not necessarily strive for the same standards as the west, rather we need to ensure that our people have a sustainable way of life to start off. The fact is African spirit encourages supporting each other, ensuring the family is happy and really uplifting familial relationships in society, recognizing that we rely on each other rather than stepping on each other. I feel capitalism tends to promote competition more than co-operation. Our leaders have embraced capitalism and have exploited it to their advantage, the corporations are happy as they get cheap labor and big profits while paying off corrupt governments. Look at the oil money in Nigeria, is it really helping the regular guy? If he’s not working for big oil I’m not sure if he is gaining anything. Yesterday we celebrated Africa day, remembering the formation of the OAU and the formalization of Pan-Africanism. When I look at this phenomenon I see greedy or timid leaders propping each other up and resisting criticism. Very rarely do you hear an African leader really go in and criticize another leader. I guess it goes against their code of "ethics" because you never see it, this is one of the things that is killing us. The silence of other leaders is giving free reign to dictators to do their will knowing that they have the support of fellow Africans who refuse to criticize each other. How do we progress without opposition, we don’t. We stagnate like this. The people of Africa have suffered enough and I hope and pray that the younger generation sees the incompetence of our leaders and have the passion in their hearts to change things. We have a talented and intelligent generation of people all living abroad. We have the tools to lift ourselves out of poverty, we just need a window to get in. The more success stories there are the more other nations will seek to follow suit and Africa will be a better place! I hope to play my part by learning more about my continent and the things we need and actually inspire my peers to make a difference. Now is the time to act, there is no time like now!
written 6/26/2008