One Africa

What is the relationship between Pan-Africanism, development of one’s country and continent and oneself?

As much as Pan-Africanism appears a wonderfully idealistic and abstract concept, it is meaningful. We talk about “One Africa,” and I’m sure we’re not the first set of people crying Pan-African!! But perhaps because we are innately selfish, we need to take the selflessness out of that claim.

So no more we: I’m not asking that you care about this continent, hopefully that will come later. I’m not asking that you try to make it better, at least not directly. I’m not asking for a “Pan” or an “Inter” or whatever else connotes “we”, I’m asking that you and me, not “we” make our own paradise. Although this can be about all of us and one day it might be, I’m here asking that you think primarily about yourself.

I want to ask you what your life is like now? Why is it that way? What is your life like now? What are you doing for yourself? What does your job and the other things you do, contribute to you as a person? What does your life now, contribute to your life tomorrow? How wealthy are you, and I don’t mean this monetarily? How wealthy are you, and I mean that how much do you have that you can give and how relevant is it? What are you worth to those around you? What are you worth to those beyond you? What are you worth to those beneath you? What are you worth to you? I must ask all of you what makes you relevant? How have you changed the world you came to meet? Who have you inspired?

And if you are inclined to wonder what all this has to do with your selfish desires? Someday you’re going to look back and ask yourself these questions. Your answers will determine how satisfied you are at the end of it all. So in that regard, I’ll tell you now that whether you are 30, 40, 50 or 60, time hasn’t ran out yet. And by that I mean you do not have an excuse. I am looking at your generation and it is human nature to judge.

Specifically to my peers, I’ll ask the same question, what is your life like today? Who makes it possible? Do you think that it’s going to be the same a decade from now? Or your plan is for it to be different? Well Whatever and Wherever the case let me just say that wherever you go except where you belong, you will always be the outsider, mo matter how long you remain there, no matter what your new passport says.

This is about you and me, today and tomorrow as well. Later we might need the we, but for now you need to come back to your home and make it. Unless you are content with being a big fish in the little pond that is America, come back home and really try to swim with the sharks. You need to come back and establish yourself. You need to go back home and make sure that you own the big business not some Lebanese or Chinese family. Right now no one needs you to come and heal the world, or Africa. You are being asked to come back and fight for yourself, to make yourself, a big fish in a very huge pond. Most of us have only about 50 years of post-independence history, there’s so much room for your name. The streets have not all been named yet, you could get your name on them. There is no real big business because it has your name, not Africa or Pan-African on it. No one is asking you to come back and hold hands as we sing peace songs, we’d love to but you don’t have to. I am asking that you come back and till your own soil, stop going back to toil on the soil where your forefathers were enslaved or does the slave only know the route to his master’s house? Come and till your own soil! Come and spend your money here, come and build your empire here. We’re even more respectful of tradition, we’ll remember you longer. I want you to immortalize your name when it is still possible to do so.

This is not about we, it’s about me and you. It’s about what makes it worth it for you. It’s about not going back to voluntarily slave where you were once forcefully enslaved. Africa may have done nothing for you and so you feel no need to do for her, but since when did any African become shy to put pepper in any one’s eye. Come back and show us why we should have supported you. Come back and show us.
“Do not willingly make yourself what you were made unwillingly”

Obama may have distinguished himself as a Kenyan and Black American. But he has merely attained the highest office of service in another man’s country. He has reached the highest office of enslavement, and it is not even for his own people. I’m not criticizing him, I don’t think I have the right to. All I am saying is this:

Let us suppose you owe Africa nothing and Africa owes you nothing. What you cannot deny is that you owe yourself a great deal. You owe your person greatness. And greatness like charity begins at home.