2008-07-14

One People

This may seem like a strange article to link to for the extended riff below, but this is the vibe I felt after reading this article on Moment.

This article struck me as I see Jews as an excellent model for which to achieve Afrikan Unity - just as the Americans are and the Europeans are and the Indians are and the Chinese are and the Arabs are too. When you are trying to do what others have done - why not model your approach on what they did?

Creating an Afrikan Unity (more than just a political Afrikan Union) does not mean that all peoples of Afrikan descent will hold the same opinion on any one set of issues. Just as that is not a pre-requisite for any of the other "unities" that exist across the societies of the globe. Instead, what an Afrikan Unity means is that we will see ourselves as members of a collective body of people. And this collective will coalesce together to defend itself against those who are perceived to be outsiders.

How many languages are spoken across India? And how many still remember the partition with Pakistan and Bangladesh? And yet there are enough members of this group we call "Indians" who have a common definition of what that means, such that they can all come together and celebrate national achievements like becoming a nuclear nation. And the same is with China: many hundreds of languages are spoken across the mainland of China and yet they can all come together and celebrate events like the Olymipics and mourn events like this last earthquake.

The same goes for Jews:whether Reform or Conservative or Orthodox or convert - they all agree on the right for the state of Israel to exist. And even for those who disagree with that point or believe that the Palestinians have been abused, they still agree that there exists such a people known as Jews.

So I believe that Afrikans should be more like Jews and more like Indians and more like Europeans and more like Americans too. Afrikans need to see ourselves as One People; Afrikans need to realize that their is so much more we can achieve with the larger scale that comes with dropping national borders and even more that can be gained by realizing that tribal differences are merely branches of the same family as opposed to separate families that hold grudges against one another. Today, the peoples of Afrika are divided against each other and we have known for decades what happens to a house divided.

Once we realize that Afrikans are members of one family - One People - we will be able to provide the assistance to one another that is within us today, but that we are blinded from seeing by the filters of nation and "tribe". Removing these blinders will enable the Afrikan People to throw away the yoke of the IMF, the World Bank and the welfare state. We need this sort of "assistance" from those who would control us and our resources not.

One People. One Family. Many Tribes. That is our source of strength and it should never be used to divide us and set us one against another.

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