“Africa is a vast continent, a
continent of people, and not a place of exotica or a destination for tourists”.
Chinua Achebe. There have been people who have labored, set teeth on edge to
change and transform Africa. These African men and women did what they could do
when they could do it. Today Africa is where it is because somebody did
something. Now, whether Africa is moving forward or retrogressing is far
afield. What is important is that today, unlike fifty or so years ago, we can
decide freely, move freely, interact freely and help build Africa together.
There may be some little tailwinds, but we are steady in our progress. Slow but
sure.
Many can still recall the battles we
fought; the Mau Mau in Kenya, the Shona and Ndebele uprisings in Zimbabwe, the
struggles against apartheid in South Africa and many other violent and peaceful
independence struggles. Even the problems we are afflicted with today are bare
for everyone to see. The Alshabaab in Somalia, the Boko haram in Nigeria, the rebel
movements all over Africa, the Arab springs; these are problems typical of
every developing economy and we shall overcome them.
Then we’re faced with the challenge
of neo-colonialism and the big brother conundrum. Africans are courteous people
and the big brothers are all welcome for as long as they do not interfere in
our internal affairs. As for the neo colonialists, they know full well, and our
history is richly available, that we can break their backs anytime, if we
choose to, but would such a choice benefit anybody? I can choose to write about
our valor, our struggles, and our challenges for years on end and believe me,
two decades from today someone would still write a similar story. That is
revisionism. That is why I find it prudent that I write about something that
presents an opportunity for Africa to grow and change for the better. This is
the issue of Africa’s identity. If there is a thing that I desire to change,
that is our mindset. The question of who we are. What is Africa? Where is Africa?
Who is an African? Such are the questions that are pontificated in the global
political arena, not because there are no answers, but because there are so
many answers, a good number of which teem with uncertainty, fear and manifest
hopelessness. Isn’t there a single answer that would out-rightly identify
Africa and Africans? If there has ever been such an answer, then it was
‘strife’.
They say Africa is a wasteland, yet
everyday they hanker to alienate the rich arable lands of Ethiopia. Tony Blair
calls Africa a scar on the conscience of the world, yet hundreds of thousands
of African toiled and still toil to make Britain a world power. They have
chosen to separate the names ‘Africa’ and ‘Africans’. Where Africa is a place
of savagery, Africans are humane and hardworking. Where Africa is a sea of
humanity, Africans are rogue warlords. Surely, why the double standards? In
reality, Africa and Africans should be indistinguishable. In the 1960s Africa
was truly the cradle of mankind.Then, we had a continent fresh out of
colonialism with a lot of promise and potential, a paradise in all but name. We
had Africans who knew what it meant to be sons of the soil. Kwame Nkrumah,
Nnamdi Azikiwe, JuliusNyerere, HaileSelassie, Tom Mboya were no ordinary
people. They were Africans who believed in the spirit of an all-African unity,
then called Pan-Africanism.
In the later years, we had Thomas
Sankara, Tajudeen Abdul Raheem-selfless pan Africanists. Then of course we had
Nelson Mandela and they referred to him (posthumously) as the paragon of our
time. Amongst many other things, these great African leaders knew and taught
that Africa could not be run on perennial dependency; neither could its future
be premised on western hate. They simply advised that Africa had to be Africa
and Africans had to be themselves. They saw potential and possibility in us and
in their own small ways helped us harness that potential and make our
possibility that of a more secure and peaceful Africa. They taught us to engage
in global politics as equals, not as lesser players. Today, even something as
simple as using an African name is a problem. We’ve had people completely
westernizing their names in a bid to appear more western and less African. They
want to make us believe that an African name is shameful and that Africa is
backward, but I wish to argue otherwise. Africa is not merely about the name,
or the color of skin. Its not even about our fidelity to traditions, deemed
evil, no! Its about something of a greater moral standing, something innate,
yet physiologically unidentifiable. Its about our humanity, our valor, our
character. That is Africa to me. That is the change that we so much yearn to
see effected.
Africa boasts of giving rise to
phenomenal writers;Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe,Ali Mazrui,Ngugi wa
Thiong’o,Taban Lo Liyong,Chimamandah Ngozi Adichie among others. These writers
have historicized our past as well as presented in quite unequivocal terms that
Africa is growing, but before the furtherance of such growth, we must first be true
to our identity. They advise that it matters not to have a beautiful image with
a stale reality. So, are we to lose this battle of image to win the war on
reality? Whatever the case, Africa must grow and this growth must precipitate,
pride, joy and peace. African unity and identity must be poignant in all its
aspects. On African leadership, the term has always been; ignominious. In
Africa’s most formative years, we had leaders who inspired courage, patriotism
and statehood. The organization of African unity was a brainchild of leaders
who wished to see a more united Africa. Later leaders undermined the efforts of
the OAU, perhaps out of the normal sovereignty fear that guides regional
integration, but recent occurrences make African unity a necessity or how can
Africa bargain forcefully if it is pulled back, time and again by incessant
civil wars, warlords, insurgents, human rights violators and tribal despots?
Many ask the question why the normal African dreams of one day visiting the
western countries and why this African apes the European, from name to demeanor
to misdemeanor.
Who wouldn't want to identify with a
supposedly superior race, an image that has been deified that it would pass for
God’s race? The Americans built their identity through several years of serious
self-denial, of implacable determination and of appraising reality as it was
and working on it relentlessly. Today, an American embodies pride, prestige and
development. America is the pristine model of democracy. Africa can transform too.
Through leaps and bounds, Africa can be a model of humanity. For this to
happen, the African needs to first ascertain where he stands. If he feels
inferior, he must relinquish that feeling and understand that all human beings
are equal. If an American can fly, an African can fly. That should be the
spirit. This spirit should be maintained inviolable. This story I tell, this
story of resilience, of an upright African identity, of setting teeth on edge,
this should be the African story. “Honor is the subject of my
story…”Shakespeare. Viva Africa!
DAVID OTIENO SIKURI is a leading
political analyst and a History, Political Science and Public Administration student
at MOI University
