ELUSIYAN TOLU’ FRANCIS
We
are not Africans because we were born in Africa, but we are Africans because
Africa was born in us; and as such whatever happens on the continent of Africa
is in us and it revolves round us.
Going
back to the history of slave trade in Africa could actually be a waste of time
because we are all familiar with this pathetic historical trajectory, even
though we the children of the present day were not part of the enslavement of
our fathers but am very sure we can still feel it in our modern world. But can
we keep swimming in the massive ocean of this pathetic experience and allow it
to affect our present day. We have to forget the past, even though it is not
easy to forgive the colonial masters on how we were treated and underrated,
some have said in the past that we all
lived in the world of blindness, but assuming we were not treated in that
mannerism, what could have be our history? Some are of the opinion that the
pathetic experience launched Africa in to her full potential such that Africa
was able to realize her strength, what she’s capable of doing and what she
can’t achieve on her own.
But
is she going to remain a toddler forever, when is she going to grow to
withstand every other continents? Are we going to remain in our state of blind
foldedness thinking of bachelorhood days? When are we going to stand up to the
challenges before us? Or are we going to weep over and over again just because
of our pathetic enslavement in the past? After all we are now free, what have
we achieved? Are we even preparing to do anything at all? A fool at forty is a
fool forever. Oh Africans, we have to stand up to the challenges before us, we
are great continent that has been blessed by God with so many things like
cultural values, natural resources, talents, metaphysical powers and beautiful
concepts etc... We are powerful, we have strength, we are intelligent, and we
have great wisdom about life, what else do we need? We cannot have all this and
continue to close as if the weight of our melody had pulled into shut, and our
lips pressed together in a half-smile.
When
will the goat be strong enough to kill a rat? We don’t use bare feet to search
for hidden thorns which we have seen in day time. Perhaps, the gods only hear
one wish at a time, and nothing more. A herbalists that refuses to ask laymen
what leaves he looks for in the bush must have difficulties getting what he
wants. It is a pot of water that is already half full that the world would like
to help in filling to the brim. Oh! Africans, let us make conscious effort to
make Africa a better place for her citizens.
Let
me quickly borrow the words of olufemi taiwo in his book ‘African must be
modern’ he says ‘Africa must embrace individualism as a principle of social
ordering; make reason central in its relation to, activity upon, understanding
of, and producing knowledge about the world, both physical and social, that it
inhabits; and adopt progress as its motto in all things. The position just
stated is rarely encountered in discourse about, in and on the continent or its
Diasporas. On the contrary, no thanks to the militancy and stridency of the
nativists, those who wish to celebrate Africans genius at adapting the wisdom
of others and, by so doing, domesticate modernity for the benefit of Africa,
Africans, and their life and thought, are practically shouted to silence or, at
best, limited to furtive expressions of their preference’
And
there is no doubt that with the widespread diffusion of white supremacy in the
world’s relations with Africa, the roots of which can be traced to the slave
trade and slavery as well as the peculiar form that colonialism took in Africa,
it is almost required of an African intellectual that she or he be hostile to
modernity and its suppositions. It is almost as if an African like me who
deliberately embraces modernity as a way of life that promises at the present
time a better template for making life and thought in Africa must be a dope;
one who is suffering from pathological dependence on white people as well as a
severe case of self-hatred. This charge, this awful name-calling has managed,
over the course of the last century, to silence many in the continent who would
and could have been the spearhead of positive change for Africa’s
long-suffering peoples. What else? He who does not look ahead always remain
behind; so charms do not perform miracles on the shelf; they perform for those
who are brave.
WAKE
UP FROM YOUR SLUMBER! OH AFRICA!
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