My Development Plan for Us.

Image courtesy of www.brazza.culture.fr

Africa is beautiful, home to a billion and some wonderful people. Most of my people are somewhat blissful and yet live under some of the hardest conditions on earth. Daily survival is our main concern, and so just as it is, daily, the survival of the world, mostly the capitalist states of this earth depends on the resources above and buried deep under the belly of this wondrous continent. To this, the world has been conditioned, sadly to  believe that our home continent is so poor, and can't do without the assistance of the western world whose agenda in Africa has been to kill, destroy and exploit since the days of colonialism. Sadder, is the fact that many are children born in the different parts of the region who believe that their fate lies in the goodwill of a nation other than theirs, they can just sit there and wait if not, for help from the west to arrive. With all that is going on, do we ever stop to question ourselves, the reason why western countries are so keen to be involved in African affairs?

Having said that then, I have come to identify some of our shortfalls, areas where we need to look into and address for our journey to a better future to begin. As long as we continue to ignore the very fact that we are being subjected to a system that has no value for our lives, a system that was carefully designed that even in our independence, we are still entirely dependent on it. The money system of the world was designed to serve but a few human beings on the face of the earth and they are evidently not our people mostly. The issue here is not about money, it is the least of concerns, the issue is our identity. As a people, we have been sucked into a system of beliefs alien to us, and most of us are content that way. This has created an ideological complex that has seen many of us being absorbed into any dogma that wafts across the sea to us, and we seem to be so ever grateful about such, even if its a poisonous lie about us. There is nothing wrong with knowing God and Jesus, but there is everything wrong with those who came to us under the guise of God and Christ so that they colonize our lands and make us subservient to them. Colonial masters they became until nationalist movements wave swept across the continent and what emerged when these Europeans were overthrown by Africans was a system that still served them and yet African rulers were in position. Now, how would such a development occur?

The African spirit of Ubuntu, meaning, embracing life, loving yourself and those around you, even when strangers appear among us, we embrace them and make them feel at home at our expense. The good nature of African people is what the visitors took advantage of. They set a snare and we all fell into it. The lives we have today, are determine by forces living the facade of dreams. These are the same elements controlling the elements that spell woes upon our people namely war and artificial shortages of basic resources. I believe we can do much better and combat them, rather than continue to live and being gullible. It is very easy to see that many multi-national corporate giants found operational in most African countries are exploitative of native peoples and the resources. On top of that, they are hateful and very greedy. They cheat on taxes and pay the worst salaries to their workers while their chief-whips make off with bucketfuls of cash to spend overseas. When workers demand proper remuneration, they are threatened to be and are killed, as has been the norm the world over. Consider the events in Colombia Coca-Cola plants and in South Africa, Marikana recently. These things are glaring issues that need to be addressed by the current governments. The major reason they are not is because governments in Africa are run by the rich elite who have tasted what they long since coverted to obtain from their white masters, power and wealth and are in no position to turn the tables around because they are in the middle of the fiesta. They are sharing the spoils of the exploitation of their people while they have yelled all that is bad against their former white colonial masters. Few have attempted to redress the scene, in Zimbabwe for example, Robert Mugabe threw into motion the land programme that actually spilled out to all other facets of the economy. However, his plan was not so well implemented before too long, his ministers and friends were having a party with the country's resources. Ordinary people shut out of this, their concerns were met with murderous lash-back.

We have revolutionary struggles, having happened in the past, during the colonial period, led by western educated individuals whose ideals of democracy or any other form of government have been originated in either the west or the oriental lands. Russia and China's economic ideologies were transferred to the revolutionaries from Africa and that gave the capitalist world quite a scare. But it was soon to be over, once the once revolutionaries turned profit seekers. Africa had a perfect educational system and an organized way of life that saw the people live fulfilled lives. Whatever happened to perfecting those ways and using them to match the current developments in the world. Neither has that been experimented with or given a second glance. Our people have just fallen for the ways of the west in all faculties, from education, religion to manner of dress and speech. The shameful part of it is, we have been trained by the system to look down upon the core elements that make us who we are. Many will not agree with these sentiments and probably I will be labelled as anti-western but I shall put it right here that I was compelled to write these words because of the love I have for my people. Hatred is the last thing I am willing to entertain at this point. The lack of proper policies that see the utilization of the available resources in the continent have made the countries rely on hand-outs from clever rich countries who then goad them on to give them their resources and put them in debt. Most of these governments can not even make their own decisions without getting the approval of their sponsor countries. I think that as we might suffer for a little while, if we severe ourselves from the global vein of finances, we will be able to bootstrap among ourselves as a continent and reinvent our ways, create a bloc that will completely or not so completely shut the world from us and then we can welcome them back. Are our people not tired of our resources being hijacked from our very own eyes? The people whom we trust to be stewards of these are selling out, selling mines and timber to Indian, Chinese and Western investors whose interest is to make themselves rich. Many whenever they speak, do so not on their accord  but they speak for their masters and that is wrong. They have been paid so well to not care about everybody else but their pockets to look out for.

As long as we shall remain under the political divides put up by the Berlin Conference? Until when shall we continue to live under the dictates of the laws passed in other countries across the seas most of which are about how to govern our own? And definitely we can not put up with rude people who got into power under the guise of being our revolutionaries and then refusing to let go and let people choose other leaders. Until then, we will live in complete adoration of what is not ours and belongs to the west, whose ideologies mainly are alien to our Africaness. Let he who hears listen.