How commendable that once more it is taking a European to push for what every sensible African should have had the common sense to recognize by now. My question is why is this always the case? How does it feel to always be stretching out one’s hands for some aid or pittance from abroad , and who will be accountable for the billions of aid that are delivered each year? Some years ago I was in Angola and started a conversation about slavery and its impact on Africans across the globe, the reactions were typical denunciations and disgust as well as little inclination to discuss the issue or give any real credence to the role of African leaders to the trade or the plight of bothers and sisters whose ancestors were dragged kicking and screaming across the Atlantic in ships. It was interesting to see however the enthusiastic reactions to talks about reparations for Africa.
The people who reach out to help Africa should be encouraged and even applauded for efforts in many cases. I sometimes wonder however, if it is often acts in futility. How committed are Africans themselves to concrete development I wonder. Take Oprah’s initiatives in South Africa, what I often ask is the end goal? To spend 40 million dollars to build an elite school that is geared primarily for girls when women are still treated as second and third class citizen? In 2005, South Africa had the highest Aids epidemic in all of Africa, and the world at large. It figures were estimated as five and a half million living with HIV, or roughly 1,000 deaths every day. [1]Yet its President was living in denial as to the authenticity of the HIV/ Aids claim. [2]At the same time young virgin girls were being raped by male AIDS victims as this was profess by some to be a cure.[3] Unfortunately, the outrage throughout the continent, remained limited is virtually non- existent.
Millionaires like Ms. Winfrey should be free to do what ever they wish with their money, but to spend such exorbitant figures on a country that is as wealthy as SAs and with such a callous attitude to girls and health is a travesty. More than 90 million women and girls are survivors of female genital mutilation; close to 49% are victims of violence, with 1 in 4 doing so within the past 12 months.[4] The gestures again are excellent, but can achieve very little if a culture of full equality and economic development for all not become the norm.
The genocide which took place in Rwanda, as the world stood silent, took some 800,000 African lives. The same is occurring in Sudan and Congo with similar reactions. Angola, Liberia, and Sierra Leonehave seen its share of barbarism with halfhearted responses by the global bodies. What was even more frightening is the tentative role played by the African Union as it awaited the world to do its biddings. Unfortunately Africa will never be a priority because Africans themselves condones the behavior and fail to see the citizens as a priority.
So guess what, Bono would soon get his Nobel Prize, Oprah and her entourage can bypass other African trouble sports with her billion dollar plane as she lands in Joburg or Pretoria in route to one of the American styled five star hotels that flourished during Apartheid.
. The African people must decide that tyranny will no longer be a fixture on the continent. They must also dismiss as outright useless religions such as the Catholic and Islamic faith that push selective moralist values as abstinence as opposed to condoms uses. Bumbling anachronistic buffoons and puppets such as Daniel arap Moi should be stripped of power , stoned in the city square, and family members prevented from enjoying his pension accumulated after over four decades of tyranny and corruption in Kenya. It was this fool that suggested that Kenyans abstain from sex for two years, because he did not want to encourage government plans to import 300 million condoms as a preventative mechanism against the spread of AIDS and to appease the sensibilities of Sheik Mohamed Dor of the Council of Imams. The latter saw this policy as encouraging sexual experimentation among young people, and in essence committing suicide.[5] Yes Sheik Mohamed, you certainly have a problem with sex by the young. At the same time a man is free to have 10 wives if he wishes, with each being 20 years younger than the previous. Likewise the Catholic church can allow pedophilia by morally sound priest to run rampant in Third world countries especially in Africa, while they forever preach abstinence among the flock. I wonder what Mr. Bono, Angela Joli or Madonna would think about that. Not much I believe. I will hold my breath for a united Africa. Away with Anglophones and Francophone, correct? Care to end the charade?
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[1] http://www.avert.org/aidssouthafrica.htm
[2] http://shm.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/19/3/521
[3] http://www.scienceinafrica.co.za/2002/april/virgin.htm
[4] http://www.whrnet.org/docs/issue-second-0609.html
[5] http://www.actupny.org/reports/churchblows.html
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