Afrika Day Press Statement
The Afrikan apartheid hero Nelson R Mandela once wrote this emotional statement and said “All of us know how stubbornly racism can cling to the mind and how deeply it can infect the human soul.”
Today as we commemorate the Afrika day I implore my fellow countrymen/women to take time to ponder and reflect on this statement. The imperialist had a hold over the Afrikan continent for more than 500 years and subjected us to unthinkable dehumanisation treatment which I believe permanently maimed our moral ability for self-determination. The self-fulfilling prophecy theory has it that a person usually turns out to be what others say or expect of them. After being subjected to sub-human treatment for years we seem to have accepted that we are as the whites say we are and in most cases act the same. Colonial administration systems which we were subjected to created a low self-concept in the black race. We were made to believe that everything black is bad and everything white is good.
Afrika seems to be stuck with imperial control of the whites and this is clearly evidenced by the way many Afrikan governments have turned out. For years Europeans rubbed it into our minds that we are incapable of self-rule. In some instances grown up men were forbidden to wear trousers because whites wanted us to believe that an Afrikan could never mature to be able to match the academic levels of white adults. For centuries whites ruled us and denied us the right to vote and belong to parliament. Ian Smith once said if Afrikans were allowed self-rule the cities would be covered in heaps of rubbish until we all believed that was normal. When a country like Zimbabwe reflects on such utterances the temptation is to believe that maybe Smith was right. It’s a pity that our young generation seem to believe this notion.
During the span of colonial rule Afrikans were subjected to forced labour, scornfully referred to as “Chibharo” in Zimbabwe. Under this system Afrikans were dragged from their homes and forced to work under appalling conditions in industries, farms and mines in return for paltry wages.
This systematic exploitations created a permanent hatred for work among the Afrikans but also created a work for money mentality among our people. Such an experience has created in us a mercenary approach to work and removed that patriotic responsibility we have to move our country forward. The corruption displayed by our kind is a result of a culture of sabotage that we developed as a result of being subjected to institutional slavery. We even have come to believe that a black person cannot run a successful enterprise because we were trained to be labourers.
Land alienation was another tool used to subjugate us and create not only a mentality of failure but a dependence syndrome. As our parents and grandparents toiled in the reserves they were allocated ,for decades they were excluded from commercial and meaningful production. This made us believe that white people are better farmers than us. Today when all land is in our hands we continue to rue and wish the return of the whites because we believe that commercial farming is a preserve of the whites. Many Afrikan countries tried to make land productive in the hands of the blacks but the results are a sad story. Of late we have South Afrika getting cold feet on the issue of whether to embark on robust land reform for fear that she may turn out like the rest of Afrika. The forbidding question is whether this is true or not that Afrikans cannot farm.
Let also take a look at the skewed legal system which made us second class citizens. Through years of injustice black people became antagonistic against the law and the courts. Today you talk to a black man about the law and the courts they think they are tools for oppression. Even the taxation system used made us hate taxes. Today the majority of us will try by all means to avoid paying any form of taxes if we could. This is because we believe taxes are a tool for exploitation. This is the reason why constitutionalism is a problem in many Afrikan countries. Those in power think that the law is meant to control the masses whilst the masses are antagonistic towards the law because they think it’s meant against them.
Another issue haunting Afrika is Neo-colonialism. The Europeans know and are afraid that if we keep trying as Afrikans there will emerge a generation that will rise up to the occasion. To make sure that this will not happen they have come up with neo-colonial schemes meant to continue frustrating any efforts at self-determination we make. They have designed master slave groupings meant to entrench the big brother mentality onto our leaders. The Commonwealth is a good example. They also use international banking institutions to keep us in debt and begging and also use Non-Governmental Organisations to create a donor dependency syndrome. When all these appear to fail and an Afrikan country manages to shake off their control as in the case of Libya they use their military power to bring it to ground zero.
Now the case before us as Afrikans is a catch 22 situation. We just need to solve the puzzle and find a way out. The starting point is through our education system and media. We need to embark on a deliberate effort to educate our people and decolonise the mind. This is not easy especially with the west and its citizens continually dangling money at our leaders. The other method is to use reverse colonization. Just as Europe colonized Afrika, its time for Afrika to come up with a scheme to colonize the West. They used the bible and military might to colonize us but we are not going to use that method. Let us as Afrikans educate our children and send them to Europe with a mission to penetrate every aspect of their life until the Europe is ours. I want to give a standing ovation to Barak Obama a son of the Afrikan soil for leading the way.
In conclusion, I want to celebrate our continent Afrika and all Afrikans who are proud of their Afrikanness today. LEAD is a PAN Afrikan, Social Democratic Party which aims to find pure organic Afrikan solutions to make Afrika a first world continent. Happy Afrika Day.
Linda Tsungirirai Masarira
LEAD President
Comments
About Author
