Africa needs me, Africa needs you
I am not an expert on Africa. I have only encountered up close about 20% of the massive and diverse continent through living in, visiting and studying various places around the continent, my Knowledge and understanding has grown up to the point that all I can say as an indigene of Africa is that Africa needs me, Africa needs you. If you are anything like me, it’s easy for you to imagine all the ways Africa needs you and I.
According to Ange kagamke, daughter of Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame, shared her vision for Africa: “I hope in this generation’s lifetime we can …start to be defined more by our successes than the negative images that have become synonymous with Africa(poverty, war, disease to mention but a few)
A tree they say cannot make a forest; you and I have an important role to play in the development of Africa. Some of the reasons why I say Africa needs you and I is because of the ways our cultures have shaped us. When you come from a culture of abundance, it’s hard to imagine anyone living a simple life with less stuff and more joy, it does something to you and I, and you will start finding greater pleasure seemingly less, like eating a mango from a mango tree or resting in its shades on a hot day, how wonderful!
Desmond Tutu explained it well when he defined the ancient southern African Philosophy, Ubutu: “if is to say; my humanity is caught up, is inextricably bound-up, in yours; we belong in a bundle of life. We say; a person is a person through other persons, for us to become our brothers keepers we need to live together and share views of investment.
Africans are contributing to science and technology, literature and the world economy, but not to the peak of its success, that is why our contribution is of great importance. When you spend time in a culture that is less materialistic and less western than the typical American does, you think of how to improve it, that is why we are Africans. Africa needs you and I to determine the validity of African ideas and identities. Africa needs someone who can curate African ideas and shoot down unintelligent anti-African ideas.
Africa needs you and I to protect Africa from ignorance. Sometimes, foreigners think they can just come into Africa and invest without our permission, thereby taking our resources to their own advantage. If I may ask, why are we Africans when we can’t protect our resources? It is not supposed to be so. Africa needs you and I to implement complete unity among countries in Africa. Monsters in suits with no knowledge of our great continent began to draw lines and imprison us in our land. Imagine an African country that is nothing more than an imprisonment.
Africa needs you and I to encourage the return of Africans in the Diaspora back to Africa to invest the resources they have earned overseas in Africa in order to open opportunities for Africans.
Let us appreciate our motherland and her success. You and I needs to sow a seed for Africa’s development.
