So their friends come and
they don’t go any further. They stop and they look at the monkey. This story could be compared to Africa. It is a continent with a wealth of beauty,
but this beauty is hardly brought to the screen by the media. It’s ignored. For years, Mother Africa has
been disfigured as a dark continent with litany of evils. She has been
stereotyped as a continent synonymous to war (slaughter-fields) corruption,
hunger, drugs, Malaria zone, incompetence and illiteracy. Some people have even
considered Africa as a one country. A friend of mine working as a missionary in
Bogota surprised me when he told me that some people in
that city considered
Africa as a
one country run
by President Mandela. This is
ignorance.
The continent of Africa
is one of the richest in terms of the natural resources. Mother Africa
has platinum, gold,
oil, gas, and fertile
soil, rare breeds
of wildlife, awesome weather, excellent brains and talents. She can take
care of the whole world if managed properly.
This Mother is able to feed everyone, without harming herself. Unfortunately, pollution and exploitation of
our environment in the name of building better economies, is massive.
Africa is a ‘Canaan,
flowing with milk and honey’. She has water bodies that could generate large
amount of power. River Congo alone can
supply Africa with all the power that she needs. In fact, its power could even
be exported West as a surplus, and remodel the Africa’s distorted image. What
about Indian Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean? Is it only good for outing or place
to relax in those warm beaches? Definitely not. Their tides could be tapped to
generate clean electricity. Oceans could be harnessed for the eco-friendly energy.
What is needed is to “put politics aside” and get to the business of making our
Africa shine. Great Britain, Denmark, France and Germany get their electricity
from ocean tides and currents. Needless to mention is the wind and sunshine
that is waiting to be utilized.
If we don’t define
ourselves, others will define us. We all
have a noble responsibility to fight this unjust stereotyping that has killed
our self-esteem as Africans. It will not be easy to kill this mindset that West
has planted. We need to tell ourselves that there is no country that doesn’t
have problems. We need to show them that Africans are not the sad, hungry
looking folks as normally depicted in the media. We can do this if we live the philosophy of
Ubuntu. When famine struck
East Africa region,
Kenyans organized ‘Harambees’(fundraising)
and other countries like South Africa came in to give a genuine help. Is this
not the beauty in our continent that west hardly sees?
We need to rediscover
African values that will reshape our Mother. Pope Benedict in Africae Munus
calls Africa a spiritual Lung of humanity. True! It’s indeed a lung that will
breathe African values that promotes family unity, love of the neighbor, and
hospitality. Charity begins at home. The possibility of having healthy lungs breathing African values
will be determined by how well we
raise our children,
how well we form couples,
and how well we
form Religious people.
Scritto da Anthony Gathambiri.
