So far as the Real And Present Dangers facing the people of the African continent are awaiting no excuses in order to strike, the African people owe no one any excuses in order to respond and reverse these threats by any means necessary. The alternative is to risk paying with our lives, water, health, education facilities, peace, and social progress. To effectively confront the kind of challenges and levels of threats we face today as a people, we need the urgent involvement of each and every one of us in remaining vigilant, well-informed, and active in the intensive public debates on remedial actions, implications on institutional, social, and the anticipated behavioural changes.
Above all, as a people whose only strength lies in our unity of action, consensus building among us is crucial in order to effectively respond and reverse these threats. We have reached a stage where it is simply suicidal to leave such matters exclusively in the hands a handful of good and dedicated individuals, surrounded by a park of opportunistic and corrupt professional politicians, state bureaucrats and various international players of doubtful intentions and abilities. The absence of people-to-people contacts and a grass root continental platform cannot simply be explained away as accident of history, but an indication of a paralysis or an indictment on all of us who identify ourselves with the forces of progress in Africa.
Those who have everything to lose from our unity would naturally do their best to discourage and sabotage any such initiatives. There is no doubt that the neo-colonialist divide and rule tactic is not going to be voluntarily relaxed just for us to unite, even if our unity is needed to save us from extinction because of their inordinate and justifiable fear of what we could do with it afterwards, if successful. Our unity, just like our freedom and all the rest of our social and economic rights have to be fought for, and won. We simply cannot afford to lose the struggle for our unification. If we remain divided and unable to come together even to save our own lives, we are obviously a people without a future.
Most remedial measures tend to avoid the obvious necessity to put the people whose lives and deaths this is all about, and whose involvement in solving the problems is indispensable in any effective measures, at the epicentre of the requisite changes and responses to these challenges. Africa is already paying a heavy price for the centuries of colonial partition, neo-colonialist bantustanisation and ossification into isolated and non-viable backwater states. Whilst the depth, scale, as well as the intensity required of such a long overdue continental engagement among the people themselves is unprecedented in the history of any people on the planet, it must also be carried out with break-neck speed if we are not to be overtaken by events.
Thus, we do not have the luxury of isolated, sporadic and spontaneous responses as an option. And time is what we do not have. We need an urgent, systematic, comprehensive, organised and sustained responses for short, medium and long-term solutions. In order to properly respond, we have to know, at least, what is going on. How many of even our so-called leaders fully appreciate the magnitude of these challenges? Are we not supposed to play any role in our own salvation? Is it not strange that we do not even know much to make informed responses? What can ordinary people and individuals do about these challenges? How come in this age of information revolution, the concerned public are so much starved of information about Africa and her struggles for peace and dignity, and even for sheer survival? Who is listening to us? Should we not make them listen?
How many of even our so-called leaders fully appreciate the magnitude of these challenges?
Are we not supposed to play any role in our own salvation?
Is it not strange that we do not even know much to make informed responses?
How come in this age of information revolution, the concerned public are so much starved of information about Africa and her struggles for peace and dignity, and even for sheer survival?
Who is listening to us? Should we not make them listen?
What can ordinary people and individuals do about these challenges?
In the news:
The Right To Water• RESPONDING TO REAL AND PRESENT DANGERS •
GM Crops and Foods
Corporate, Foreign Government land grab
The United States Africa Command (US Africom)
Climate Change and Climate Reparations
Food Sovereignty and Security
Social
The Ecology
Health
Education
Peace and Security
The Wealth of Africa
• FACILITATING SELF-MOBILISATION •
CHALLENGING DOGMA AND PROPAGANDA
• EFFECTIVE NETWORK •
AMBUSHING AN IMMINENT CONJUNCTION
• THE ENDURING IMPERATIVES •
OF THE PAN-AFRICANIST STRUGGLE
• CONSOLIDATION OF INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY •
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