Problems and Solutions

As this planet, which we call home, begins another annual journey around the sun I would like to invite the global Black collective to pause from our enjoyment of the beginning of a new year and give a little attention to some of the perplexing problems facing Black people on the continent of Africa and in the Black Diaspora. Since I am a firm advocate of lighting a candle rather than simply cursing the darkness, I would also like us to consider some of the solutions to the dilemmas facing the global Black collective.

Since time immemorial, disunity and a willingness to fight among ourselves for the most trivial of reasons has been the Archilles heel of Black people. The most optimistic among us were animated by the prospects of a fledgling economic system developing across the African continent that would have facilitated the free flow of Africans goods and people. This optimism to date seems to have been dashed as closed borders and visa restrictions continue to impede the flow of both goods and people.

Neither have the guns been silenced as wars connected to numerous ethnic and religious conflicts rage across the continent. Nigeria and South Africa, considered as the two Black giants on the African continent, are riddled with internal problems that threaten to tear these two nations apart. The ANC in South Africa after three decades of rule, lost its majority status in the South African parliament and is now forced to share power with its main political rival. In Nigeria, less than scrupulous politicians and a sophisticated criminal class has made that nation a very dangerous place to live or even visit.

Ethnic conflicts continue to plague Ethiopia. The Grand Renaissance Dam being built by Ethiopia is a source of conflict between Ethiopia, Egypt, and Sudan. Ethiopia’s efforts to gain access to a seaport in Somaliland has angered the government of Somalia which still considers Somaliland as a part of Somalia. The Congo continues to be the African version of the American wild, wild, West as numerous armed groups continue to fight it out for control of the mineral wealth of the Congo.

In the US and Brazil, it is business as usual as police and other state agencies continue to lynch Black people almost with impunity. The masses of Blacks in the US and Brazil eke out an existence in societies that systematically deny them equal access to power and wealth. Anti-Black violence coupled with fiscal and monetary policies that disproportionately impact Black communities have driven many Black families well below the poverty line in Brazil and America.

In the Caribbean many people are waking up to the hollowness of mere flag independence. Black people may occupy the parliaments in the Caribbean but Europeans, East Indians, and others still control most of the real wealth. Black people in the Caribbean depend on people of other ethnicities to supply them with most of the essentials of life. Banks, insurance companies, food, clothing, hardware importation and distribution, the car industry, and most of the big business that employ Blacks in in significant numbers are largely controlled by other ethnicities.

Many Black people in the Caribbean are therefore forced to work for people who do not look like them. By virtue of the fact that their employers own the banks, insurance companies, supermarkets, car dealers, hardware and construction material stores, Blacks in the Caribbean end up returning their wages and salaries to their employers. This has been the pattern of life in the Caribbean since emancipation in 1834. This helps to explain why the wealth differential between Black people and other ethnicities has not changed much in the Caribbean since emancipation and independence.

In 2025 and beyond, Black people on the continent of Africa must settle in their minds whether they want to continue fighting among themselves or whether they want to develop their continent. Since a United States of Africa is not about to happen anytime soon, neighboring states in Africa will have to lead the way by dismantling their borders and allowing the free movement of goods and people between neighbors.

Many neighboring states could perhaps benefit by centralizing their political machinery and by creating a number of mega-states across the African continent. The configuration of theses mega-states could be guided by the great African empires of the past. The weak molehill fiefdoms that currently exist on the African continent must give way to more powerful mountain-like nations with the military capacity to repel invaders.

The African continent with its super abundance of people, raw materials, and wildlife has much to offer the world. What Africa lacks is the infrastructure to fully exploit its own natural resources. Highways and railways connecting all of Africa would be a real boon to African tourism. For this to become a reality, Africans leaders would have to commit themselves to development and leave the fighting to the lesser evolved species so abundant on the African continent.

Black people in Brazil and America, if they want to be taken seriously by the police and other state agencies will have to demonstrate in no uncertain terms that there are consequences for individuals who perpetrate unreasonable violence against members of the Black community. Soul force must give way eventually to physical force. As our great ancestor Malcolm X said we have a duty to neutralize both the four and two legged dogs that want to devour us.

The Nation of Islam in my opinion still has the best economic program to affect the rise of the global Black collective. Black churches and other Black organizations should open their doors to members of the Nation of Islam so that Black people outside the Nation of Islam might become better acquainted with their economic program. Black Brazilians and Americans would be doing themselves a favor simply by listening to and implementing some of the economic and life strategies adopted by the Nation of Islam.

Black governments in the Caribbean can further the cause of reparations by implementing fiscal and monetary policies that benefit the Black masses. The government of Barbados under the Honorable Mia Motley has spearheaded an effort to secure funding for small developing states impacted by the climate crisis. The government of Barbados is engaged in an ongoing project to repair homes damaged by recent weather systems. The government is also assisting fishermen whose boats were destroyed during the passage of hurricane Beryl which unleashed its fury on several Caribbean islands.

Governments in the Caribbean should be pressured to do more to wrest land from the hands of the former plantocracy. Some of the best agricultural land is still firmly held by the class that formerly enslaved the Black masses in the Caribbean. Land and wealth redistribution continues to be a very touchy subject. Allowing a small group of individuals to monopolize land and wealth ownership in the Caribbean is not sustainable especially at a time when the global economy seems to be going to hell in a basket.

Caribbean government must find ways to bring the affluent and the wealthy land owners to the table to discuss how the land and wealth of the islands can be more equitably shared. Governments in the Caribbean must also lead the reparations charge by providing the masses with good health care, food security, old age pension support, and greater access to education especially at the tertiary level.

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.