By Mso Ndlovu
Africa, otherwise known as Alkebu-lan, is home to fifty-four sovereign countries, a continent this writer was born over four decades ago, is probably the most beautiful piece of land God ever imagined in His architectural dexterity.
Endowed with vast natural resources, the best climate in the world, vast arable land and the most loving and caring humans blessed with God’s choice melanin paint was envied by those who joined the queue after the artist had run out of melanin. God, the architect, and painter truly chose Africa as His model constituency for humanity.
But who is God?
This writer is not deeply religious. But this disclaimer must not be misconstrued to mean lack of religious circumcision. God is omnipotent and omnipresent. God is not seasonal. Religion is a means through which a people can interface with their God. No one religion has been verified as the only vehicle through which to access God. Africa knew God way before missionaries visited our shores to “discover” our land and all its inhabitants. Africa had its own ways of speaking to, listening to, and worshipping their God in a language that God understood and quite frankly, preferred before some “missionaries” exported the gospel of Christianity garnished with a potent concoction of ignorance and arrogance.
The beginning of the demise of Africa.
Africa lost her way immediately after her encounter with our cousins of Caucasian extraction. While they brought with them a religion that reveled and promoted slavery as an acceptable social doctrine, as evidenced by several scriptures in the Bible, including but not limited to: Ephesians 6: 5-8, Colossians 3: 22-24, 1 Timothy 6: 1-2 and Titus 2 : 9-10. Many will try and argue the spiritual meaning of the above verses, and possible gaps in interpretation, it is important to understand how these verses (and teachings behind them), are a direct attack on the basis of African social ideological doctrine of Ubuntu. It is now common cause who the slaves were, and who the masters were, who deserved to be respected and obeyed much the same way we should obey God! Put differently, the Holy Scriptures were simply telling us who God descendants were. Unfortunately, Africa is yet to recover from this distortion wrapped in scriptures.
Religion
As illustrated above, the most effective tool used to colonize us was religion. We were taught that we were inferior. We were taught that paradise is a resort whose visitation is only possible through the passport of death. That earthly possessions are evil, unnecessary, and unworthy the joys of an obedient slave. This message was delivered by a messenger who risked the volatility of raging seas, diseases, and plagues to travel miles upon miles to acquire land and all resources beneath its belly in pursuit of earthly possessions. They not only parcelled among themselves our beloved Alkebu-lan, but they also took us for their possessions and created their heaven on earth. Today, religion has been turned into a social enterprise, sadly not by its original purveyors, but by the children of Alkebu-lan herself. Our own kith and kin are teaching us that social ills like poverty and hunger can be cured by a dramatic man speaking a strange language laying their hands on you. That you don’t have to work hard and get your hands dirty, but you can overcome adversity just by the shouts of “fire, fire, fire” and “holy ghost”. This has given rise to numerous self-proclaimed so-called men of God across the length and breath of Africa from Nigeria, Malawi, Zimbabwe etc. While the rest of the world is advancing through technology, Africa is stuck on theology. While the rest of the world is focused on artificial intelligence, we are stuck on prophetic intelligence.
Healthcare
Our forebears believed in eating well to prevent and fight opportunistic diseases. Today we are actually encouraged to eat the most disgusting of foods in return for acquiring medical aid and death schemes disguised as life insurance. Where we ate produce from the land nutritious enough to preserve our health, now we eat strange flours covered in cheese masquerading as pizzas. Where we tilled the land to keep our bodies fit, and walked long distances for other social needs, they have erected malls in every street corner so that we walk less, buy everything under one roof, and actually feed on strange foods before we leave these malls. The destruction of our social village life has gradually led to the deterioration of our health standards and the proliferation of health pandemics that we are struggling to deal with. But that’s not all. They also created a pharmaceutical industry dedicated at not curing these food induced epidemics, but managing them while we are conditioned to be reliant on the pharma medicines until we drop dead. Our fruit and herbal medicine have been relegated to the dark ages.
Education
Africa is waiting for some rocket scientists from Mars to understand that the poison given to our children in schools continues to produce walking zombies. Our children are taught about the history of international thugs like Christopher Columbus, Cecil John Rhodes, and Jan Anthony van Riebeeck at the expense of focusing our education that answers to questions around our land, minerals, herbs, nutrition in order to extract full value and export both knowledge and produce to create wealth. An education system that seeks to produce the best student globally is competition. An effective education system should seek to equip its children to adapt to local conditions and bring the best out of what you have.
The Japanese have their model that works for them, that is why they lead in the technology space. The Jews have their own model, that is why they have produced leaders in commerce, science, and humanities. The Chinese have perfected pilferage, and it is working for them. But Africa believes Cambridge exams are the best for their children. How does Cambridge relate to the fruits our forebears ate to survive pandemics? How does Cambridge relate to the wealth hidden on our land? An education system which seeks to produce the best immigrants to Europe is nothing, but government-sponsored slavery which Africans must reject as a revolutionary duty.
Population
As Africans, we need to interrogate the disparities between our population demographics in our communities. Why do we have squatter camps in our countries when there are acres upon acres of unoccupied and unused land? Why are our people living in squalid conditions without food when we have land to produce food? Why do we have more land than people to use it? Why is polygamy outlawed but same-sex marriage acceptable? Why are we a consumer race instead of producing enough to feed ourselves and the world?
Conclusion
The answers to the above questions lie in the de-colonialization of the African mind to start questioning the sincerity and competency of our leaders who, for decades now, have pursued the path of those we fought against. We must never be naïve in our evolution and integration into the market of mankind. We must learn, and adapt but compete on our terms on our own turf. We must develop a unique African competitive advantage. We should cooperate where necessary, and seek accommodation where necessary, but we must create a battalion of researchers, scholars and thinkers that will help us tap into the vast opportunities around us. Above all, Africa must unite and create a force that can face adversity as one.
A united Africa can turn the tide from being a beggar and dark continent to a theatre of innovation, production, and contentment. We must promote and preserve the freedoms of religion but must never allow cults to continue indoctrinating our unsuspecting poor people. It should be a criminal offence to use the pulpit to turn an African into a religious zombie whose vocabulary begins and ends with “Yes Papa”. We need to invest more studies into the production of organic nutritious food and herbs to promote health and vitality instead of investing more on medical aid and death policies. Our education system must be remodelled to speak to our conditions, resources, and social values. The claim that Zimbabweans are the most educated when they are led by successive incompetent regimes which has led them us to become economic refugees is not only ludicrous but also a perfect example of a useless education system. Being educated is not fluency in a foreign language.
In the end, our people should begin choosing leaders for public office on the basis of their understanding of these and more fundamentals which have been molested first by those who colonized us, and then continue to be perpetuated by those who liberated us. The pursuit of these ideals should be the next phase of the liberation of our mother continent, Alkebu-lan. It is homeland or death.
Mso Ndlovu is a senior member of ZAPU and its former National Spokesperson. Views expressed are personal but a reflection of the direction his party should pursue. Mso can be reached on msondlovu8@gmail.com
