I’ve read stories, watched movies and sat at the feet of historians. The tales of how our forefathers fought our independence as a continent reflect the true nature of Africans.
Brave. Brawn. Brains.
Yet after many years of our purported independence, nay, neocolonialism, we have not been able to open our borders to conduct businesses freely in our continent. We are still hostile to each other yet very kind to foreigners. The level of frisking an African will conduct to a fellow African in a mall or a hotel compared to how they do to these men and women with white skins is a sign of how much we don’t trust each other. In this country, the blacker you are, the darker your past.
In the classic case of the pot calling the kettle black, we are quick to point fingers at our forefathers who collaborated with our colonizers yet we treat the same people like the gods they are not. My vision for Africa, unlike Ghana, will never be close to ‘No Poverty.It is about African attitudes, perception and their view of life.
I share the same insights with Bob Marley, who died before we could spliff a blunt together, that we need to emancipate ourselves from mental slavery. For a very long time we have been colonized in our thinking and walking like we have freedom. I believe the Bible mentions something about the renewal of minds.
We need to realize we are not in a competition with anyone who is not African. We should not compare ourselves with people who are not Africans. We keep searching outside, looking outward, watering the grass on the other side, salivating for the meal in the other pot. Africa’s solutions will not come from Europe. Africa needs Africans to rise up and grow up. Helloooo? It’s time to taste our own.
After all, the darker the berry?