To the African Youth: ...be proud of your African heritage and cherish your African identity

Special Message To The African Youth On African Union Day




African youths are the future

AFRICANGLOBE – “We have the blessing of the wealth of our vast resources, the power of our talents and the potentialities of our people. Let us grasp now the opportunities before us and meet the challenge to our survival. “ Address to the National Assembly -Kwame Nkrumah, 26 March 1965.

Fellow Africans, today as we celebrate 50 years of the Organisation of African Unity (now called the African Union), l have a special message for the African youth. To the youth I say first of all, be proud of your African heritage and cherish your African identity. We need to constantly remind ourselves that the African way of life is beautify. We have a beautiful culture, glittering from the most enviable continent in world.

Our beautiful culture can be found in the quality of our indigenous food, our music, our dance, our fashion among others. Therefore the African youth must begin to see themselves as the most blessed people on the planet earth. For this reason, let us all say NO to any attempt to divide the African people at any time.

Let us UNITE and move Africa forward together, with the understanding that we are one African people with a common destiny. AFRICA IS OUR ONLY TRUE HOME and we got to do our best to make it the best place for our children. For this reason, hard work, positive self-esteem, confidence, pride (not to be confused with arrogance), and selflessness should be our hallmark. We the youth need to decolonize our minds and begin to accept the Africa’s current challenges as our opportunity to transform the continent for the future generation.

Across other parts of the world, young ones are working hard to put the development of their countries as their ultimate priorities. It is time for us in Africa to show such patriotic spirit. From this day, we the African youth must accept the fact that we are leaders and we ought to take the destiny of Africa into our own hands without waiting for any help to come from the East nor the West.

Today when I interact with many young Africans on the internet, I foresee a new generation young leaders who believe that something ought to be done in order to change the status quo. I commend the works of the many young African entrepreneurs who have in one way or the other contributed massively to create jobs that are helping in the fight against youth unemployment. For these efforts, whenever I look into the future of the continent, I see a continent booming with a lot of opportunities.

However, the road to the promise land is not going to be smooth. As hard as we may try to put the interest Africa first on the agenda, there is definitely going to be a lot of distractions, confusions and manipulations coming from all aspects. In spite of this, we the youth must not allow ourselves to be manipulated by any of these circumstances. Today, the media still remains the most powerful weapon in the world. The entertainment industry is waging a war against the African race. From scenes in moves, video clips, foreign fashion among others, attempts are being made to confuse the African youth to shun their African identity altogether and embrace alien culture.

Our movie industry is trying hard to portray the black woman as the most confused woman on earth. From bleaching cosmetics to indecent exposure, unnecessary sex scenes on our TVs among others, the minds of our African women are being programmed to see themselves as nothing more than sex objects. From Brazilian hair to Chinese hair, Peruvian hair was how it started. Today we have pig hair, dog hair, horse hair, goat hair blonde hair, brunette hair everywhere. All these have been the result of media influence designed to confuse the minds of the young ones As a result, our own natural hairstyles have gone.

Sadly, the young men have not been spared either. They are seen wearingdog chains everywhere. Violent, barbaric and crime scenes have become the new standard for movies that air on our TVs. As far as I am concerned, there is nothing African about these. Indeed the war against the African race is getting more serious and it is time the youth realise that the challenges confronting us today are far too many for us to be distracted by external influences.

I am therefore calling on the African youth to open their eyes and see through the “clouds”. It is time to go back to our roots and realise the real beauty of Africa. For we all have a collective responsibility to ensure that the African pride which our forefathers shared with us today is duly preserved for the future generation.

As I write this, I’m sinking in the water of hope that Africa will be united and totally independent from mental slavery sooner or later.

Because today, many of the African children are still wondering: when will we stop crying ?when will we be free forever ? Oh mother Africa, you will shine one day sooner or later.

On this special day, I challenge the African youth to be proud of Africa and boldly show off their African pride. We must resist any attempt which seeks to confuse the minds of the young ones to feel inferior about their African identity.

While urging the African youth to remain focus and passionate about Africa on this great occasion, I also urge the entertainment industry to make every effort to promote the beauty of African culture to the outside world. The era of Africa’s inferiority complex must end.

Above all, let us all unite and contribute significantly to the development of Africa. Just as Nkrumah put it: the masses of the people of Africa are still crying for unity than ever.

Long live Africa
Long live the African diaspora.

Honourable Saka

The writer is a Pan-African analyst, anti-corruption crusader and the coordinator for the Project Pan-Africa. He can be reached on E-mail:honourablesaka@yahoo.co.uk


May 24, 2013

African Globe

Bahamas Blog International

Taking further stock of Africa's half-century of Independence

KEEBLE McFARLANE




ONE fascinating and encouraging aspect of human affairs is that nothing and no one is ever entirely good or evil. Case in point: my discussion last week of the past half-century of Africa's political history undoubtedly left a totally bleak impression.

A senior academic at the University of the West Indies took issue with the case I tried to make. Professor Rupert Lewis of the Department of Government noted that I failed to talk about the evolution of democracy in several African nations. I take his point, and while I still believe there is very little to celebrate, the picture in the mother continent is by no means one of total gloom and despair. There are, indeed, several encouraging examples.

Tanzania, which has suffered significant economic setbacks because of misguided, failed experiments, has never strayed from the path of political stability, unlike several of its eight neighbouring countries. The spearhead of its independence, Julius Nyerere, left office voluntarily and his successors have all been chosen democratically. The country was known as Tanganyika until 1964, three years after it severed colonial ties with Britain. That's when it merged with the neighbouring island of Zanzibar.

While it is a functioning democracy with regular elections, Tanzania is effectively a one-party country, with the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi holding well over 90 per cent of the seats in the National Assembly. That is not, though, the result of political repression. Interestingly, the constitution requires political parties to have women comprising at least 20 per cent of their representatives. And Zanzibar has its own assembly responsible for matters peculiar to the island.

On the other side of the continent, Ghana started out with considerable promise but quickly descended into economic chaos and political morass. Kwame Nkrumah, first prime minister and then president of the new republic, had been influenced by agitators like Marcus Garvey, CLR James and WEB Du Bois. He never achieved his dream of uniting Africa but played a significant role in founding the Organisation of African Unity, which became the African Union eight years ago.

Nkrumah fell into the common trap of the personality cult, calling himself Osagyefo (The Redeemer) and engaged in a number of ambitious projects which, unfortunately, came to naught. The Americans, feeling that he had become a liability, engineered a military coup in 1966, the first of several ending with the seizure of power by Flight-Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings in 1981. Rawlings later ran for office and won the presidency, re-winning it until he was prohibited by the constitution. Since then the country has had peaceful changes of government and appears to have settled into a state of stability.

Then there's South Africa, where a handful of descendants of Dutch and British settlers ruled the roost for a considerable part of the 20th century in a quasi-democracy only for their benefit. The black people, along with the "coloureds" and a relatively small number of immigrants from the Indian sub-continent, made up the overwhelming majority of the population but had essentially no voice. The Boers, as the Dutch settlers were known, played the Cold War game to the full, accusing anyone who opposed their diabolical schemes as "communist" and throwing them in jail.

At one point almost the entire senior leadership of the African National Congress was in prison, but through a steadfast belief in the rightness of their cause and stern discipline, they held their heads high until the system ultimately collapsed under its own weight and from tremendous domestic and international pressure. Nelson Mandela, a man of supreme sagacity, moral courage and tremendous grace, emerged unbowed after more than a quarter-century of hard prison time to lead his country into the fold of truly democratic entities. South Africa still has many problems - widespread unemployment, lack of prospects for hordes of young people, high urban crime and sub-standard housing in many places. But after observing, since 1994, the way South Africans have embraced the vote and all that goes with it, there's hardly any doubt that democracy has taken root. Mandela's example and leadership have inspired and encouraged people all over the continent.

Rwanda is another case where we can see more than glimmers of hope. Sixteen years ago, tribal hostilities boiled over at a cost of hundreds of thousands of lives. Members of the Hutu tribe, who had long harboured resentment against the smaller Tutsi ethnic group, lashed out and slaughtered Tutsis and Hutus who objected. There had been previous cases of internecine brutality, albeit on a much smaller scale, in neighbouring Burundi, which shared the same ethnic makeup as well as German and Belgian colonial rule. The slaughter went on for 100 days until the exhausted nation collapsed from sheer fatigue. The outside world looked on and did nothing.

Rwanda has slowly and painfully clawed its way back to some semblance of normality and last week held its second presidential election since the massacre. The man who led the rebuilding, Paul Kagame, was elected to a second seven-year term. His years have been marked by high growth and a significant increase in foreign investment, the building of infrastructure and tourism. But all is not roses; he ran almost unopposed and has come under criticism from opposition figures and human-rights groups for suppressing dissent. We will have to wait to see how this one will turn out; critics say Kagame is a mixture of nation builder and autocrat.

There are other cases of stability and reasonably good governance, but the overall picture remains dire.

Perhaps the most egregious example is this one: on June 30, 1960, the Republic of the Congo came into being as an independent country, ending 52 years of subservience to King Léopold of Belgium. (I said last week that the new Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba was leader of the French, rather than the Belgian Congo; several re-reads failed to catch the error). It was a stormy passage and the beginning of decades of even more stormy times. Two mineral-rich provinces, Katanga and South Kasai, decided to secede.

The place was overrun by armed men in uniform - Congolese army and resistance groups, Belgians as well as blue helmets from a UN emergency force mustered to try to maintain some order. The fabled UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold made four trips to the Congo to try to procure peace and it was that quest that led to his death. In September 1961, his plane crashed in neighbouring Northern Rhodesia, which became Zambia upon gaining independence from Britain. Three inquiries failed to determine whether the crash was the result of an accident or hostile action.

Belgium, the United States and other Western countries connived to get rid of Prime Minister Lumumba and President Joseph Kasavubu. The eventual victor was Joseph-Désiré Mobutu, head of the secessionist movement in Katanga. The first two had set their country on a socialist path while Mobutu was deemed friendly to the west. He turned out to be a monster of enormous proportions - establishing one-party rule, a personality cult, widespread infringements of human rights and a kleptocracy of unprecedented proportions. He was eventually overthrown in 1997, but the wars continued, with forces from neighbouring countries coming across its borders to settle scores with their own refugees.

All these wars have cost the lives of almost five and a half million people, a toll dwarfed only by the Second World War. Truces and peace treaties have not stopped the brutality.

Clearly, while there are positive developments to applaud, the tasks facing Africa's leaders are truly monumental.

keeble.mack@smpatico.ca

August 14, 2010

jamaicaobserver

Bahamas Blog International

Pittsburgh and the Margarita Summit

Reflections of Fidel

(Taken from CubaDebate)

THE Leaders’ Statement of the G-20 Summit in Pittsburgh on Friday, September 25, would appear to be unreal. Let us look at the principal points of its content:

"We meet in the midst of a critical transition from crisis to recovery to turn the page on an era of irresponsibility and to adopt a set of policies, regulations and reforms to meet the needs of the 21st century global economy."

"We pledge today to sustain our strong policy response until a durable recovery is secured."

"…we pledge to adopt the policies needed to lay the foundation for strong, sustained and balanced growth in the 21st century."

"We want growth without cycles of boom and bust and markets that foster responsibility not recklessness."

"…we act together to generate strong, sustainable and balanced global growth. We need a durable recovery that creates the good jobs our people need."

"We need to establish a pattern of growth across countries that is more sustainable and balanced, and reduce development imbalances."

"We pledge to avoid destabilizing booms and busts in asset and credit prices."

"…we will also make decisive progress on structural reforms that foster private demand and strengthen long-run growth potential."

"Where reckless behavior and a lack of responsibility led to crisis, we will not allow a return to banking as usual."

"We are committed to act together to raise capital standards, to implement strong international compensation standards aimed at ending practices that lead to excessive risk-taking…"

"We designated the G-20 to be the premier forum for our international economic cooperation."

"We are committed to a shift in International Monetary Fund (IMF) quota share to dynamic emerging markets and developing countries of at least 5%."

"Sustained economic development is essential in order to reduce poverty."

The G-20 is made up of the seven most industrialized and richest countries:

United States, Canada, Germany, Britain, France, Italy and Japan, plus Russia; the 11 principal emerging countries: China, India, South Korea, Indonesia, South Africa, Brazil, Argentina, Australia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Mexico and the European Union, a number of which have excellent economic and political relations with us. Spain and Holland have participated as guests in the last three Summits.

The idea of capitalist development without crises is the grand illusion that the United States and its allies are trying to sell to the emerging economy countries participating in the G-20.

Almost the totality of the Third World countries that are not allies of the United States are observing how this nation prints paper money which circulates throughout the planet as convertible currency without gold backing, buys shares and companies, natural resources, goods and real estate assets and public debt bonds, protects its products, dispossesses nations of their finest brains and confers an extraterritorial nature on its laws. This is in addition to the overwhelming power of its arms and its monopoly of the fundamental means of information.

Consumer societies are incompatible with the conservation of natural and energy resources that the development and the preservation of our species require.

In a brief historical period and thanks to its Revolution, China ceased being a semicolonial and semifeudal country, grew at the rate of more than 10% over the past 20 years and has become the principal driving force of the world economy. Never has a huge multinational state achieved similar growth. It now possesses the highest reserves of convertible currency and is the largest creditor of the United States.

The difference is abysmal in relation to the most developed capitalist countries of the world: the United States and Japan. The debts of both nations, in their turn, accumulate the sum of $20 trillion.

The United States can no longer constitute a model of economic development.

Starting from the fact that in recent years the planet’s temperature has increased by 0.8 degrees Celsius, on the same day as the Pittsburgh Summit ended, the top U.S. news agency reported that "Earth's temperature is likely to jump nearly 3 degrees Celsius between now and the end of the century, even if every country cuts greenhouse gas emissions as proposed, according to a United Nations update."

"Scientists looked at emission plans from 192 nations and calculated what would happen to global warming. The projections take into account 80 percent pollution cuts from the U.S. and Europe by 2050, which are not sure things."

"Carbon dioxide, mostly from the burning of fossil fuels such as coal and oil, is the main cause of global warming, trapping the sun's energy in the atmosphere. The world's average temperature has already risen 1.4 degrees (0.8 degrees Celsius)," it reiterates. "Much of projected rise in temperature is because of developing nations, which aren't talking much about cutting their emissions, scientists said at a United Nations press conference Thursday."

"‘We are headed toward very serious changes in our planet,’ said Achim Steiner, head of the U.N.'s environment program."

"Even if the developed world cuts its emissions by 80 percent and the developing world cuts theirs in half by 2050…the world is still facing a 3-degree (1.7 degree Celsius) said Robert Corell, a prominent U.S. climate scientist who helped oversee the update."

"…still translates into a nearly 5 degree (2.7 degree Celsius) increase in world temperature by the end of the century. European leaders and the Obama White House have set a goal to limit warming to just a couple degrees."

What they have not explained is how they are going to reach that objective, nor the GDP contribution to invest in poor countries and compensate for the damage occasioned by the volume of contaminating gases that the most industrialized nations have discharged into the atmosphere. World public opinion must acquire a solid culture on climate change. Even if there isn’t the slightest error of calculation, humanity will be marching to the edge of the abyss.

When Obama was meeting in Pittsburgh with his G-20 guests to talk about the delights of Capua, the Summit of the Heads of State of UNASUR and the Organization of African Unity [African Union] was beginning on the Venezuelan Isla Margarita. More than 60 presidents, prime ministers and high-ranking representatives of South American and Africa met there. Also present were Lula, Cristina Fernández and President Jacob Zuma of South Africa, who had arrived from Pittsburgh to enjoy a warmer and more fraternal summit, during which the problems of the Third World were covered with much frankness. The president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Hugo Rafael Chávez, was brilliant and vibrant in that Summit. I had the agreeable possibility of listening to the voices of known and proven friends.

Cuba is grateful for the support and solidarity that emerged from that Summit, where nothing was left in oblivion.

Whatever happens, the peoples will become constantly more aware of their rights and their duties!

What a great battle will be waged in Copenhagen!


Fidel Castro Ruz
September 27, 2009
6.14 p.m.

Translated by Granma International

- Reflections oF Fidel

granma.cu

Bahamas Caribbean Blog International

Col. Qadhafi Calls For Compensation For Africa At UN

CaribWorldNews, UNITED NATIONS, NY, Thurs. Sept. 24, 2009: On Wednesday, in his first speech at the United Nations, Libyan Leader Colonel Muammar Al-Qadhafi, used the opportunity to call for compensation for Africans for colonization.

Qadhafi, in a 90-minute long speech that touched on many different subjects before a packed General Assembly, insisted that Africa deserved compensation, amounting to some $77.7 trillion for the resources and wealth that had been stolen in the past. He also said the African Union should have a permanent seat at the UN.

`Colonization should be criminalized and people should be compensated for the suffering endured during the reign of colonial power,` said the Libyan leader, while adding that Africans were proud and happy that a son of Africa was now governing the United States of America.

It is a great thing, said the controversial leader who was met by protests outside the UN. `... a glimmer of light in the dark of the past eight years.`

But Col. Qadhafi complained about the trouble some diplomats and their staff had in securing visas from the United States Government.

The Libyan leader also attacked the Security Council, insisting it practices `security feudalism` for those who had a protected seat.

`It should be called the terror council,` he said, underscoring that terrorism could exist in many forms.  `The super-Powers had complicated interests and used the United Nations for their own purposes. Qadhafi also said he was not committed to adhere to the Council`s resolutions, which were used to commit war crimes and genocides.  And he reiterated that the Council did not provide security and the world did not have to obey the rules or orders it decreed, especially as it was currently not providing the world with security, but gave it `terror and sanctions.`

Meanwhile, Qadhafi was denied the right to stay at his country`s compound in New Jersey while his tent on Donald Trump`s property was dismantled and his application to pitch in Central Park denied. The Libyan leader will now stay at his country`s Permanent Mission to the UN, which is an office and does not have residential facilities.

 

caribbeanworldnews