A Message to Africa

Source: Afritorial

The Sub-Saharan Africa is slowly raising out of the ashes and, if it plays its cards right, it will have a huge opportunity to join the big boys' club in a few decades. But first it must have the courage to have a healing debate about the colonisation period (both the positive and negative aspects of it);  it must empower its people (by allocating the necessary resources to education, health care and access to equal opportunities) and it must affirm its true African independence.

Sub-Saharan African nations are rich and their potential is enormous - the seed must be planted now. This fact has been acknowledged not only by the smartest people on earth but mainly by opportunists:

A. USSR: the communists convinced African nations that tribalism was bad for them (the colonisers kept this political system because it helped them to keep order and, because a Chief/King is in a much better position to know the needs of the locals. However, since the tribal system doesn't leave much room for corruption, the Soviets decided that it had to be obliterated). Regrettably, the so-called African political leaders, at the time, failed to realise that the USSR wanted to divide them to conquer - and so they did.

What was the result of the Soviet savvy? The spread of communism throughout Africa and consequently years of ration (due to scarcity of food and goods), re-education camps (where all sorts of atrocities occurred), suppression of freedoms and individualism (enjoyed during the colonisation period, mainly in the Portuguese colonies), persecution of dissidents, depletion of natural resources, widespread corruption and, ultimately, the condemnation of millions of people to spiritual death, mental numbness and physical weakness.

B. China: in its quest to develop itself (at any cost), it reached out to Africa to quench its energetic and mineral thirst. The Chinese did not use the colonisation card (which is beneath them); they used the monetary card instead: the Red Dragons spread billions of dollars around the African continent - they built roads (never mind if they would be filled with potholes after the first rains); they built buildings (never mind if they would collapse after a while); they built airports (never mind if, in return, they would demand timber or minerals - in quantities exceeding the cost of the project); they started businesses (never mind if they didn't give jobs to the locals); they built the African Union headquarters in Ethiopia (to grow its influence in the continent, now that Brazil wants a piece of it as well; and silence the AU members at the UN)...

What was the result of the Chinese savvy? Africans got to have a feeling that they were retaliating against the neglecting West - even though the Red Dragons were sucking them dry.

C. Iran: the Persian Deputy Foreign Minister for Arab & African Affairs, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, said "Iran attaches major significance to the expansion of the ties with African nations in the strategic continent and in Muslim states in particular"; and Iran started doing so by using the colonisation card. The Persians approached the African nations, that were strategically interesting to them, and convinced them that Iran could be "this reliable power through which the independence of Africa is preserved" (Ja'dar Qannadbashi) since the West had them under shackles for so long and Russia had led them to utter poverty. However, Iran has not ensured the preservation of Africa's independence; au contraire, it fettered Africa to more corruption, to more violence, to Islamic proselytism and to terrorism.

"Iranian and Hezbollah presence and activity in Africa, like the one in Latin America, goes beyond the legitimate political, economic, social and cultural levels and creeps into the dangerous area of terrorism & subversion; threatening not only outside actors and interests but the very stability of the host countries." - Ely Karmon

Africa is filled with beautiful people with a heart of gold. The time has come to put their welfare first and nefarious foreign interests last. Trade carefully and those who (whether we like it or not) once helped shape our beloved Africa's past will be the ones helping it to shape its future.

"Dine with a stranger but save your love for your family." - Ethiopian proverb