Africa My Motherland XI

By A. Abeku Haywood-Dadzie

My motherland Africa is always in the news, most of the time for all the wrong reasons. But these days it seems there is an upsurge in the rate at which contemptuous comments are being puked on the motherland. We are a continent of wealth and paucity. In the abundance of almost all the natural resources: “50% of the world’s gold, most of the world’s diamonds and chromium, 90% of the cobalt, 40% of the world’s potential hydroelectric power, 65% of the manganese, millions of acres of untilled farmlands, as well as other natural resources”, the continent lacks almost everything. We have become professional beggars and "dregs of humanity", always begging for almost everything from anywhere. A content analysis of media publications across the world on the continent produces one theme “we are a continent of loans, grants and aids.”

Strangely enough the problem is nothing else other than our mind set, it said that the mind is a terrible thing to temper with and once tampered with becomes the most vicious adversary. Yet on the continent of Africa we constantly and consistently allow our minds to be tempered with. Today the most dangerous enemy we face on the continent of Africa is the slave mindset that infects the African generations after generations. “ the mindset that promotes self instead of unity. the individualistic mindset that cannot see we are all connected together. the mindset that fails to realize what one of us does impacts on all of us. the very slave mindset that helps other groups oppress us, play us against each other and destroy us.”

According to Carter G. Woodson, a famous historian and a black brother. “If you can control a man's thinking you do not have to worry about his actions. When you determine what a man shall think you do not have to concern yourself about what he will do. If you make a man feel that he is inferior, you do not have to compel him to accept an inferior status, for he will seek it himself. If you make a man think that he is justly an outcast, you do not have to order him out through the back door, he will go without being told; and if there is no back door, his very nature will demand one". This is the plague that beset’s Africa like a generational curse.

On the continent of Africa our elite always dress like the slave master, walk like the slave master, talk like the slave master and act like the slave master, so as to be accepted as equals by the slave master. Ironically, in our minds eye, we still see ourselves as slaves in their sight and believe that is the opinion of the slave master of us. This feeling of inadequacy ensures that we are not treated as guests at the negotiation table but as waiters and recipients of handouts and crumbs from the master's table.

Not long ago we were said to be “scar on the conscience of the world”, Tony Blair. Then president Donald Trump reportedly used the words “shithole countries” to describe us, in response to plans by the U.S. lawmakers to restore protection for immigrants from the continent. Then comes a "fake news" purported to have been said by president Vladimir Putin but speaks to the issue on the continent “When an African becomes rich, his bank accounts are in Switzerland. He travels to France for Medical treatment. He invests in Germany. He buys from Dubai. He consumes Chinese. He prays in Rome or Mecca. His children study in Europe. He travels to Canada, USA, Europe for tourism. If he die, he will be buried in his native country of Africa. Africa is just a cemetery for Africans. How could a cemetery be developed?"

So why are we as a people fixated with poverty, graves and cemeteries, Mo Ibrahim has the answers ----- “in Africa, men in wheelchairs who can't raise their arms still stand for election?,,,,,, We only pick up people at 90 years old to lead us; to lead us where? To the grave?

But come to think of it,is it worth listening to some of these effusion, after all in whose interest will it be if Africa remains poor. In January 2001, a year before the end of his first presidential term at Yaoundé it was reported that Former French President Jacques Chirac said "We drained Africa for four and a half centuries. Next, we plundered its raw materials. After that, we said: they (Africans) are good for nothing. In the name of religion, we destroyed their culture and now, as we have to act with elegance, we are picking their brains with scholarships. Thereupon, we are claiming that the unfortunate Africa is not in a brilliant condition, and is not making elites. Having enriched on its back, we are now lecturing”. He was quoted as saying that: “We have to be honest, and acknowledge that a big part of the money in our banks come precisely from the exploitation of the African continent.”....."Without Africa, France will slide down into the rank of a third [world] power”. Strangely enough he shared this view with his predecessor Fran?ois Mitterand who “prophesied” that: "Without Africa, France will have no history in the 21st century. So question is it a matter of "an ill name is half hanged.?"

Africa deserves better than this! the motherland deserves our devotion.

“Africa needs more men and women who do not have a price at which they can be bought; who do not borrow from integrity to pay for expediency; who have their priorities straight and in proper order; whose handshake is an ironclad contract; who are not afraid of taking risks to advance what is right; and who are honest in small matters as they are in large ones.

Africa needs more men and women whose ambitions are big enough to include others; who know how to win with grace and lose with dignity; who do not believe that shrewdness and cunning and ruthlessness are the three keys to success; who still have friends they made twenty years ago; who put principle and consistency above politics or personal advancement; and who are not afraid to go against the grain of popular opinion.” Unknown Author