A Time for Everything

In Jewish and Christian lore, King Solomon is credits with having achieved the highest IQ score of all times. While it is true that the practical contributions to civilization made by the wisdom literature of Solomon is negligible, there is still an abundance of sound advice in the books that bear his name. Case in point is his declaration that there is a time and a season for everything under the sun.

According to Solomon, there are seasons of birth, death, planting, uprooting, killing, healing, tearing down, building up, weeping, laughing, mourning, dancing, scattering, gathering, searching, giving up, keeping, throwing away, tearing, mending, silence, speaking, loving, hating, war and peace. The dualism in the mind of Solomon is on full display as he reminds us that life is punctuated by what we perceive as positive and negative occurrences.

Frilly, other earthly conceptions of life are therefore at odds with the best of Judeo-Christian spiritual traditions which make allowance for killing, scattering, tearing down, hating, and making war. Just a cursory reading of the Old Testament should be sufficient to dispel the notion that the religions of Judaism and Christianity are all about love, peace, joy, and happiness.

Since there is a time and a season for everything under the sun, people of African ancestry would do well to ponder what time and season we are currently living under. It cannot be denied that Black people on the continent of Africa and in the Diaspora have made some strides forward over the last century. The dismantling of apartheid in South Africa and the rise to power of the African National Congress signaled the end of open Caucasian political rule on the African continent.

Prior to the collapse of apartheid, the independence wave had swept away all the former colonial governments resulting in Black political rule in Sub-Saharan Africa. In 1980, Zimbabwe was the last former British colony to achieve its independence. In 1990, Namibia achieved its independence from Germany thus becoming the last African country to achieve independence.

Self-rule has proven to be both a blessing and a curse to many African nations as would be strong men, often backed by the military, assumed power and refuse to relinquish the scepter of authority. Africa has the dubious distinction of having some of the longest serving presidents in supposedly democratic countries. Not even monetary incentives have been sufficient to lure some African heads of state to peacefully transfer power after elections.

The lust and thirst for power among African politicians may very well be the Achilles heel of the African continent, home to many of the world’s poorest nations. African poverty persists in spite of the well know fact that Africa is one of the most mineral rich continents on the planet. The inability or reluctance of African leaders to forge political unions, thus creating more viable economic and military blocks in Africa, may have inadvertently activated the curse of the ancestor Kwame Nkrumah who prophesied that Africa would unite or perish.

Demographers seem to be in agreement that reproduction rates among Caucasians are well below the threshold needed to prevent population decline. A declining birth rate among Caucasians means that their societies will gradually become aging societies with a super abundance of geriatrics. In contrast, there is a population quake taking place on the African continent. It is estimated that if current birth trends continue on the African continent, by the end of this century, Africa could be home to a quarter of the global population.

The implications of such a staggering increase in the human resources on the African continent should be sufficient to persuade African politicians that a new paradigm of thought and action is necessary if a disaster of apocalyptic proportion is to be averted. If jobs and opportunities cannot be created for its growing population, the African continent could implode on itself as social unrest makes life unlivable and unbearable for a majority on the African continent.

This current time therefore has to be one of dynamism and change on the African continent. Both wealth and power have to be prized from the fingers of those who now have a death grip on the destiny of the people of Africa. If the United States of Africa is too ambitious a project for this time, then something less ambitious must be attempted. African nations should be thinking about collapsing their borders and pooling their resources to build needed infrastructure to facilitate the movement of people and goods.

A well-equipped multinational military, dedicated to ensuring the security needs of each of the regions of Africa is a must, especially in an age where the threat of recolonization looms large. The African continent already has the manpower for the creation of a fearsome fighting force. What is lacking is the training and the modern weaponry to guarantee success on the battlefield. Acquiring the needed training and weapons should be one of the chief priorities of all the regions of the African Union.

Power will never be relinquished by its wielders without a fight. It is unreasonable for Africans or people of African ancestry to expect the traditional holders of power to just roll over and acquiesce to the just demands of the Black masses. Not only must people of African ancestry be prepared to wrest power from the hands of those who wield it, but we must also have a plan in place to counteract the backlash that is sure to come.

Lenrod Nzulu Baraka is the Founder of Afro-Caribbean Spiritual Teaching Center and the author of The Rebirth of Black Civilization: Making Africa and the Caribbean Great Again.