By Abuchi Obiora
“We bled Africa for four and a half centuries. We looted their raw materials, then we told lies that the Africans are good for nothing. In the name of religion, we destroyed their culture and after being made rich at their expense, we now steal their brains through mis-education and propaganda to prevent them from enacting black retribution against us.” – Jacques Rene Chirac, Former President of France
Part one of this work traced the etiology of poverty and underdevelopment in Africa to the colonial masters and the machinery of western European and American imperialism hoisted in the continent of Africa by these former colonial masters. This part two of the work discusses the factors militating against mass movements in African countries to challenge the menace of imperialism in Africa. It also recommends certain actions by Africans which will lead to the attainment of true independence by African countries.
Having taken Africans on slavery, the next thing Western Europe and America did was to destroy the identity of Africans and infuse in their consciousness, a feeling of zero worth, of nothingness. With that onslaught, they destroyed the very foundation of African civilization.
Leopold Sedar Senghor (9th October 1906 – 20th December 2001), a Senegalese politician, poet, cultural revivalist, theoretician of Negritude, founder of Socialist Party of Senegal and the first President of Republic of Senegal between 1960 and 1980, said that “Civilization is the combination of facts and social phenomena, structure and values which characterize any given society. Culture is within the framework of this civilization, the combination of its values in one word, its spirit. It follows from this that each race, each ethnic group, each nation, indeed each society has its own values. Because there is a black race and a black ethnic group, there is similarly, a black civilization and a black culture”.
In his own words, a two-time President of Nigeria, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo who had suggested using African traditional arts to dismantle apartheid in South Africa during the reign of the Boers in that country, in substantial agreement with the words of Senghor, added “People and culture are inseparable. For culture is the aggregate of concepts and values which characterize a community. It then follows that a people without culture are in themselves not in full existence”.
The dilemma of Africans is that colonization destroyed the superior civilization of Africa and in its place, cleverly installed an alien, weaker civilization maintained through the machinery of imperialism. For black Africans and blacks of the diaspora, the issues of a non-distinct African consciousness and identity have compounded their resistance to imperialism.
The second black and African festival of arts and culture (FESTAC), held in Nigeria between January 15 and February 12 1977, was, among other things, “to ensure the revival, resurgence, propagation and promotion of black and African culture, and black cultural values and civilization”. As a teenager, I always ran to the television in the family’s sitting room at Onitsha on hearing the song. “Haiya a, haiya, haiya, o ipi tumbi ya…..” which was the NTA’s (Nigerian Television Authority) opening song to herald the FESTAC event of the day. I would be glued watching the television for hours on end enjoying the captivating FESTAC events of the day.
The FESTAC attempt to re-enact African culture and values was one in the right direction. But it was not enough. A sincere and genuine effort at re-discovering the spirit and the civilization of the black race, is sure to launch Africa back to her lost glory as God’s first human race, as well as the indisputable custodian of the most cherished resources available on earth. This sincere and genuine effort for awareness creation for African revival must transcend the boundary of a cultural jamboree as FESTAC and involve social and political activism to sensitize Africans into re-asserting their subdued identities and rediscover their civilization.
Like never before, there is an urgent need for pan-Africanists all over the world to institute an annual get-together, not just to celebrate a dying culture and civilization, but also to brainstorm on the political and economics of Africa with a view to drawing action plans for the liberation of Africans. I do not mean the type of ‘motion without movement’ which OAU (AU), once described as a toothless bull dog, has been doing since the inauguration of that lukewarm organization.
One factor that is sure to impede the coming together of African countries to reclaim their economic independence is increasing African foreign debt profile. This is very serious and may have been used to establish an unending generation of poor Africans who will not be able to look to their creditors on the faces and ask for what rightfully belong to them.
Most unfortunately for African countries, the People’s Republic of China is coming on strong having joined the western European countries and America in the infamous league of modern imperialist masters, courtesy of China’s borrowings to African countries.
A recent research by an internet blogger articulated the debt burdens of ten African countries indebted to the People’s Republic of China. With the comparative strength of the Yuan (the Chinese Currency) to the United States Dollar and the British Pounds Sterling, the People’s Republic of China has emerged as the new port of call for African countries in their endless bids for external borrowings to service their limitless appetite for corruption and, may be, a few suspicious irrelevant and non-cost effective projects.
These African countries in their superior orders of indebtedness to China are:
- Angola: Over $25b
- Ethiopia: $13.5b
- Kenya: $7.9b
- The Republic of Congo (Congo Brazzaville): $ 7.5b
- North Sudan: $ 6.4b
- Zambia: $6.5b
- Cameron: $5.5b
- Nigeria: $4.8b
- Ghana: $3.5b
- Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC): $3.4b
The rising debt profile of African countries from China is alarming. Though the Ugandan authorities have denied it, another Online report says that Uganda has lost its international airport of Entebbe to China who demanded that they take over the airport and manage in order to recover money owed them by Uganda. Zambia too has given up their radio station in lieu of the debt owed to China. My beloved country Nigeria is said to have accepted the Chinese Yuan as a reserved currency. For Nigeria and her co-debtors, Chinese re-colonization is on the way.
It is important to understand that like Shylock in the book, “Merchant of Venice” by William Shakespeare, China does not smile with countries that are indebted to her. China, like Shylock, always would want a pound of flesh, rarely agreeing to debt forgiveness and very often re-schedules debt on very stringent conditions that smack of the tactics of the imperialist masters. So, it is now clear that by dint of corruption and fiscal indicipline of African leaders and economic managers in Africa, China has arrive the scene to compete with the western European countries and America in the modern scramble for Africa and re-colonization of Africans through the subtle means of unbalanced international trade and external borrowings. Disregarding the consequences on the continent, it has become the normal thing for African leaders to sulk to the imperialist financial table to beg for loans which these African leaders eventually squander, leaving their countries vulnerable and their citizens poor?
The foregoing analysis brings us to the question: what is to be done?
African leaders must break away from their present mindset of “Victim Consciousness” and square up to the challenges of developing their countries. But for this to happen, Africans must hold their leaders accountable, if need be, by force, and drive them, as I have said, if need be, by force, to do the right thing.
In one of his resource papers for economic development of African countries, titled “African worship (of) individual riches makes her overlook creating institutional wealth”, E.E. Okpa Jr. said “….sympathy in economic assessment does not have scorable value. Strategy does”.
Recommending an alternative and solution to the penchant for external borrowings by African leaders, E.E. Okpa Jr. who is an Economist and Global Affairs Analyst based in Dallas, U.S.A, says that “Until there is an entrenched and robust Afrocentric fund subscribed to by diaspora Africans and in-continent ones willing to enhance their development, the merry-go-round chasing air will end up catching nothing”.
To buttress his point, E.E Okpa Jr. continues that “Sovereign currencies are entitlements of every nation but when nations as the case with 54 African currencies (where) majority of them operate highly inconvertible currencies on global market (seek to benefit from it), their chances of survival become painfully long.”
In order to asset the obvious truth that incorrigible and patriotic leadership in Africa is a most necessary tool for economic recovery of Africa, E.E Okpa Jr. concluded that “There is solution though, but with weak leadership willing to bow to mild foreign interests, the will to change and challenge the status quo is diminished”.
Not until Africa and African countries forcibly disconnect themselves from the apron strings tied to borrowings from imperial masters which checkmate socio-economic growth and financial independence of African countries, Africans must continue to experience poverty and the citizens of African countries must continue to swim in hunger, poverty and disease.
For Africa to re-emerge, there must be what I prefer to call African Renaissance. African Renaissance should be defined as a “Renewed similar interest amongst Africans in general, concerning their position in the world” African Renaissance should embody enquiries, awareness and updates in the development of the continent to restore its position as the cradle of the civilization of man which started in Egypt in Africa.
African Renaissance should comprehensively re-inform Africans on the circumstances that led to the economic fall of Africa and articulate a common African opinion to address such circumstances. African Renaissance should understand the geographical and climactic advantages of the continent as the reasons for the imperialist efforts to either destroy or possess her and Africans must work to end all the imperialist efforts in this direction.
The works of Marcus Garvey, Walter Rodney, Omali Yeshitela and other great African patriots like them, should form the intellectual background for African Renaissance, while the economic revival resource papers by African patriots like E.E Okpa Jr. should form the foundation for self-sufficiency by African countries.
Thanks to corrupt and inept governments in African countries and readiness by Africans, African Renaissance will sweep across the countries of Africa like the ‘Arab Spring’. With African Renaissance, a new African civilization will be re-invented and sustained.
Africans must begin to align themselves with the African internationalist groups around the world so that jointly they will begin to bear positive influence on the leadership of African countries with a view to taking over the governments in those countries and implementing such agenda that will liberate African countries from general lack.
Friedrich Engels says that “An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory”, while another political activist warns that “we shall either live and die on bended knees as subservient slaves or we shall stand on our feet and fight to break free”. Is it not better for present generation of Africans to refuse to be enslaved and die wresting freedom for generations of Africans yet to be born than to be the progenitors of colonies of slaves for slave masters unto eternity?
No price is too much to pay in order to guarantee the future. Not even the price of a bonded and fettered present, to guarantee a future that will be assured with freedom and the dignity of man. Africans must quickly move on to action. The time is now!.
Frantz Omar Fanon, (also known as Ibrahim Frantz Fanon), the Martiniquen born French-educated psychiatrist, and psychoanalyst (20th July, 1925 – 6th December 1961) said in his book, “The Wretched of the Earth” that “Any bystander is a coward or a traitor”. African Renaissance should look out for both cowards and traitors in the struggle and accordingly deal with them as a deterrent to future cowards and traitors. The works of Frantz Fanon on the wretched citizens of his adopted country, Algeria, an African country, should also make the list of the intellectual foundation for African Renaissance.
To end this discourse, it is my opinion that African Renaissance should seek for a balanced economic order in the world through debt denials by African countries in lieu of retribution and reparation for centuries of forced slavery of Africans by the Western European countries and America. This minimum condition will be deemed to have atoned for ship loads of African human beings consigned to Western Europe and America as slaves for whom no amount of Dollar, Pounds or Euro could have bought were Africans to do the negotiation. That is, if human beings are meant to be put up for sale!.
The alternative to African Renaissance is what I fear most. As African countries are quietly submitting their independence to Western Europe, America, and recently China through imperialism and these three groups of world powers are offering Africans citizenship of their countries on humanitarian grounds, the soon-to-be unpopulated continent of Africa may turn an agricultural land for industrial fiber for these major world powers when Africans must have either died of hunger and disease and/or completely migrated to western Europe, America and China as a last resort to survive hunger and disease.
This process of tactical possession of Africa by the imperialist masters may have started by the forcible acquisition of lands from Sri-Lanka by China to balance up the debt owed China. Deadline for the completion of this genocide of African nightmare may not be beyond a hundred years from now and there will be no native Africans anymore.
Lest I forget, the ultimate agenda of appropriating African land and her resources may be at the base of the centuries-old grand conspiracy against Africa. It may also be the underlining reason for every overt or covert action we may have ever heard or known that was staged against Africa since the Portuguese economic pirates claimed they discovered Africa.
ABUCHI OBIORA
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Global Upfront Newspapers
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