Values are the driving force behind any glorious future

Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, the first President of the independent country Ghana write many articles before setting his country free from British colonialism. He had much time on hand to develop his idea of a better Ghana and more so united Africa in years to come. He envisioned the black man standing united side by side on the international stage as equal or even above the community of the whites from the East to the West. He outlined the conviction this could only happen based on common African values before they will find their expression and power in strategies, systems, and money matters. In his person, he impersonated these values, he lived them in his body.

Nelson Mandela, former President of South Africa had 27 years in prison enough time to perfect his vision of a just, inclusive, and better Nation which once was home to Mahatma Gandhi before he liberated with the value of peaceful demonstrations his country of India.

Any human being is born and raised with values whether born out of wedlock or planned well in advance. Parents' values are passed on to the next generation. Some parents want to correct mistakes done to themselves or see values that will always stand the test of time are passed on.

Any great leader is aware when he does not pass on his or even better values to the next generation of leaders he had failed in a way only to be seen as a lighthouse of a meaningful past.

African spirits of selfishness and greed, living for the moment, and family and friends overshadow values easily and are replaced by strategies and hunger for money and fame. Democracy enables in Africa new elites to take over the newly established systems with little or often no understanding of the underlying values that had made the new country possible in the first place.

The European Union at first in the minds of Robert Schumacher and others was based and created on common European values across the historic divide seen in heavy wars of the past. The USA was built on common values of freedom and the right to look for happiness. Both countries used strategies and systems to manage these values and make them practical. In this process organizations, institutions and value-orientated groups emerged and started to live a life of their own.

For any newborn society, the transformation from values thought off and embodied in isolation or the shadow of the moment is crucial. Loyal disciples are essential to building a bright future for the people of a nation. Personal egoism is the opposite of values as values are plural and directed and shared by many while ego is singular and only for one person.

The followers in the high office of Ghana and South Africa have not come up with a great concept all by themselves based on old or new values but repeatedly proclaimed what others before them had put out into the public domain standing and using the structure of the country created to make themselves visible in armored cars and foreign lands to go down in history at least as a footnote.

Karl Marx and his book 'The Capital', the concept of communism, was entirely based on values before strategies and systems overturning the leadership of the largest country in the world dividing the political landscape.

In democracies like in any other form of governance, individuals embody values or strategies, systems or money, and fame. But in democracies electorates have daily the chance to believe others or to mistrust them and take needed actions to get hold of humans embodying values needed to perform for them.