The future of Africa is today: Mlilo

By Nqobizitha Mlilo

Over the past few years, young people, Pan African at heart and in their intellectual disposition have sounded the melodious drums and horns of a brighter, peaceful, democratic and prosperous Africa.

They have made known their inclinations and intentions, born of a conviction that Africa’s people deserve better, that the Africa of tomorrow will be a prisoner of success and buoyancy.

Day after day we read of the massacres happening on the African continent; be it Somalia, Sudan, Guinea, Madagascar, Ethiopia, Eretria and such countries.

The pictures of child soldiers branding deadly machine guns, yet wearing the most ubiquitous smiles on their faces and visibly comfortable with such deadly weapons in their hands have literally so easily taken over our screens.

We read of the tiring and uninspiring acrimony in Zimbabwe’s politics; accusation and counter accusations of corruption, of having forgotten what really matters “to the masses” of Zimbabwe, that this one  is selling out the country to imperialist, be they in the west and or in the east.

The so-called service delivery protests in South Africa; the call for this and that Minister to return one million rand cars bought with tax payers’ money. The nationalization or be it, the socialization of mines and the Reserve Bank of South Africa.

The small boy in Swaziland (some people call him ‘King’ Mswati III-or something like that) is not to be outdone, one expensive jet and another shopping spree. We read and hear of the undertone of Zambian politics, that one cannot hold the office of President unless they have a degree.

We hear in Nigeria that they are on each other’s throat and courts over whether or not the ill President must surrender power to the Vice President. The attack on the Togo football team and the response by the leadership of African football-on this the less said the better.

Of late, we learn that Somalis are facing arrest on the major highways in Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe taxi drivers call them “hot luggage”!

We hear all these stories and many more.

Inevitably the question will come; is the future of Africa truly bright or we are laboring under the rubric of our fantasies? Is it our Pan African emotional inclinations we mask as theoretical dispositions which point uncontrovertibly to a bright future?

Is it that we know we are shadow boxing, attractive and yet meaningless, mounting public posture and yet we know that there are deeper inherent contradictions which militate viciously against the Africa we talk of?

We must bear in mind that this dream, both in its emotive and theoretical dimension is neither new nor unknown to many outside the geographic borders of our continent. A general scan of African liberation movements and their leadership offers a worthwhile thesaurus of both the emotive and theoretical grounding of the imagination of a prosperous African continent.

It would be almost blasphemous to claim to know, have incontestable answers to these, and no doubt many well meaning people’s doubts about Africa’s future. However, something seems to keep saying Africa has the capacity to do better and rise to the promise made at the beginning of time.

It seems the future of Africa can only be bright if Africa’s citizens take ownership of the continent. If it were a company, we are the directors and have a fiduciary duty to protect its interests. If we are the shareholders entitled to dividends thereof on demand.

Taking ownership in tells a call to unity for all Africa’s people. That we have a collective responsibility to the future of Africa. It means African citizens must speak with one voice in a clear and unambiguous anti-imperialist trajectory.

Nowhere in Africa should we have equivocation on the rightfulness of Africa’s people to deal with their challenges and resolve them.  Why would the United States government be so indispensible to the stability of a Kenya as if the people of Kenya are sub human and cannot deal with their own issues-I have always wondered?

Notwithstanding the grandstanding and rhetoric of one geriatric fascist dictator in Zimbabwe, why is the United States, the United Kingdom and such Western countries always featuring in one discourse or another on the intricacies of Zimbabwe’s politics? Why?

Economic dependency always leads to sycophancy and loss of right to self determination. It therefore means we must strengthen our economies and teach our citizenry the value of hard and honest work.

For this to happen we have to realize there has to be deliberate investment in young people. One of our biggest cancers is that, unlike in the purity of our African past, young people lack mentors to teach and take them through the contradictions of life.

In the end they are unable to focus on things that really matter for themselves and the collective benefit of Africa. They are locked in the fruitless and indignifying battle to get the very basic provisions of life.
In this ever demanding life, the would be mentors, or people to whom young people may look to are locked in their own conversation with demands of life in general.

In the end, young people, especially those coming from peasant and working class backgrounds who, for one reason or another have potential, are left to wrestle the affairs of life on their own. The result seems to be spiral of poverty, and thereby poverty of the rest of the continent.

The point therefore is a clarion call on those true Pan Africanists who have excelled in their chosen fields to make deliberate and conscious effort to mentor young people of Africa. They must make young people to be  imbued with values African, take pride in the majesty of the continent, defend and articulate a collective African dream inextricably linked to freedom from all trappings of life which question our human dignity; be they political, economic, social and our interaction with those economically more powerful.

If we are unable to do this, the future of the African continent can hardly be inspiring.

Surely there are many Pan Africanists who are ready to get their hands dirty in building the future of Africa. Pick the young people; build the continent, not tomorrow but today for the future of Africa is today!

Nqobizitha Mlilo with Communist love from Zimbabwe