The Africans Heart

“We didn’t want anybody telling us anything about Africa, much less calling us Africans. In hating Africa and in hating the Africans, we ended up hating ourselves, without even realizing it. Because you cannot hate the roots of the tree and not hate the tree. You cannot hate your origin and not end up hating yourself. You cannot hate Africa and not hate yourself”. Malcolm X.

QUESTIONS OF THE AFRICANS HEART
1. Who are we? (Identity)
2. Where are we going? (Destiny)
3. What can we do? (Potentials)
The legitimacy of what we consider to be African has lost its pride in its own people. As the colonizers redefined our identity and gave us new ones, much was lost and intertwined and the influence of their philosophies. I cringe to think that the African diaspora sometimes thinks that Africans don’t have identity anytime I ponder over such things.

One of the challenges that people of African descent continue to face from the days of slavery is the question of “identity”. Many of us still do not know who we truly are. Africa, the world's second largest and second most-populous continent. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of its total land area. With 1.2 billion people as of 2016, it accounts for about 16% of the world's human population.

This was largely done by design. The slave masters stripped Africans of their names, their languages, their cultures and customs, and of their history. Not only this, but Africa has always been depicted as a negative place filled with savages and cannibals.

Generations of African people living in the Americans only knew of Africa as the “Dark Continent”.

Africa, who are we? Can we define who we are by comparing ourselves to where we have come from? And are we in danger of forgetting who we are as we rapidly grow and develop economically and socially?

It is easy to forget because we have been forgetting for a long time. During the scramble for Africa we endured assimilation (on ideological basis of French colonial policy in the 19^th and 20^th centuries where French were coerced into adopting French language and culture while abandoning their own) and the ‘divide and rule’ strategy that broke up the traditional power and community relationships throughout Africa while telling us our language, dress, culture and customs were inferior to that of the west.

“We were divided – by race, tribe, class, gender and skin color and the poor African was at the bottom of the heap. We believed the lie that we were not good enough and forgot that we are a beautiful, hardworking, kind and loving people”.

The question now is where is Africa going? The possibility that most Africans know the road mark of their continent is nothing to write home about. The inhabitants have their hope on nothing simply because, they do not know and understand the journey they are being taken upon. Why such a thing should happen; the Destiny lies in the hands of the people but if the leaders do not make it clear to them how would they know.

Leaders in Africa, should we call it because of power struggle, oh yes, the competition for a mantle, a situation where two or more people compete for influence, and the winner is the person who makes his structure prevail. But the problem now is they become “power drunk”. A by-product of leadership is power. The danger with power is that it is intoxicating. Like wine, the more you have, the more you desire.

What is leadership? A simple definition is that leadership is the art of motivating a group of people to act towards achieving a common goal. This leadership definition captures the essentials of being able to inspire others and being prepared to do so. Effective leadership is based upon ideas (whether original or borrowed), but won't happen unless those ideas can be communicated to others in a way that engages them enough to act as the leader wants them to act.

With the above definition I believe strongly African leaders have not played any good role in providing a better life for its people in terms of development. Why is Africa seen as a developing continent? What are the topics and discussions that goes on whenever there is AU summit? There is still a question mark somewhere, we know every country has his or her own ideology but what makes it prevent us from developing…. Is it unity, embracement of different system of government…….NO, is unity…..indeed “Africa must unite”….. Ghana’s former leader Kwame Nkrumah fought for the unity of Africa but Africans never saw the need to wake up from their lying bed. Leaders should go back and revisit the plans and ideas of this great personality in order to awaken the African spirit……Africans are blessed with so many natural resources but still keeps on dropping. Let’s give the people the chance to exhibit what they have, China, today is at where it is because they believed in their people and gave the young talents the chance to come up with what they know, in China, everything is possible………..why can’t we adopt such ideas to help build our mother Africa.

Also not only leaders are to be blamed in this segment, the attitude and response of the people are to be questioned.......are we supportive, ready to fight for our mother Africa. Because people see themselves to be educative they find problems with any developmental projects or any productive ideas raised by leaders..........”what can we do” this is a question every young talent on African land should ask him or herself, just because the Africa tomorrow is in our hands, what good can we do, what extraordinary things or development can we do to distinguish what our previous leaders did from what we will do. What are we doing with our intelligence, rather sit back and pin point one problem from the other, bombard presidents, leaders, representatives from their plans and not being supportive of development?

Sometimes I sit back and feel sorry for Africa, why because with all this that Africa possess and still cannot contribute to developmental growth is a thing African leaders should come together and work towards.

“Power does not bring development, but the power of multi-task system will yield development”. (Gyimah. A. William) African leaders should embrace the power of multi-task system in order to help raise the banner of mother Africa high.

BY: GYIMAH WILLIAM AFFUL
[email protected]
+86 18651401647