Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. James 4:7,8

According to reports the economy of Africa consists of the trade, industry, agriculture, and human resources of the continent. As of 2019, approximately 1.3 billion people are living in 54 countries in Africa. It is a huge giant and a potent mineral-rich resource continent. Recent growth has been due to growth in sales in commodities, services, and manufacturing from West Africa, East Africa, Central Africa, and Southern Africa in particular are expected to reach a combined GDP of US$29 trillion by 2050. It is not surprising that the control and management of this vast continent has been the subject of various less than flattering or beneficial to the peoples of the continent spanning centuries, and many times laced in both open and veiled strategies to control, manipulate, and suppress it by its so-called western and in recent decades Asian friends. Such strategies have sometimes invited the crafting of the White Paper and with IT advances, video presentations.

With all the media (both social and traditional) frenzy taking place in Malawi and beyond, Africa which officially transcended from its loose configuration of states under the OAU (1963) into the African Union in 2002, must unite its collective resources and attain and keepthe eagle eye on the big picture of the global shifting spheres and its history.

It must champion for the continent, its 54 member states (that includes Malawi), it must resist the theatrics at country and continental level where guests to the continent and nation states alike prance about like they own the place. They don’t.

Despite a 2013 identification of the giant as the world’s poorest inhabited continent, the African continent is home to 352,000 millionaires, minerals such as gold, diamonds, rubies, uranium, oil, among others.

A look to its ancient and recent history, Africa is home of the 400-year enslavement of the Hebrew nation of Israel, home to the great Carthaginians that took elephants to the Swiss Alps, home to the ancient west African civilizations of Ghana, Mali and Songhai, the home of the legendary Mansa Musa the rich man of Africa whose pilgrimage to Mecca and his large consignment of gold through Egypt cause the value of gold in Egypt to drop lo record lows for 12 years.

Africa is home to the ancient Christian kingdom of Axum and its famous cross-shaped rock-hewn church, a landmark  that can be viewed from space. Africa is home to the great Masai, giant cattle-keeping nomads of Kenya, Great Zimbabwe and Shaka, the Zulu Ngoni king of southern Africa. Other ancient civilizations are the Ashanti, and Oyo.

Africa is my home. Africa is resilient. Africa is the giant that will not, despite efforts, go away, disintegrate, or cease to exist. It is there!

The blood-curdling rush to manipulate and control the continent has through the years should make all hands on deck clap for Africa. They say Africa is poor. That it is. They say Africa is corrupt from leaders all the way down to the citizens. That it is too. (FACT CHECK: the word corrupt is an English term). They say Africa is riddled with diseases such as HIV and recently COVID-19. This too, is so true.

To the defense of my Beloved Africa, there has been a series of vices that have besotted the continent. Among these are the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

Ironically, there are forces within the United States that want to wipe away the teaching in its schools of this unappealing unfortunate racially-laced 200-year epoch of the enslavement of and discriminate plunder of Africa’s human resource, the numbers are not there, but thousands of men, women and sometimes children were transported to the new world called the Americas.

On the heel of this vile historic incident called slavery, came European colonization, where modern African nations states of the continent were haphazardly carved up in a conference hall in Berlin.

The audacity of this amazes analysts to this day. But it was good the 1963 Organization of African Unity Addis Ababa session chose to recognize the Berlin-inspired national boundaries, respected to this day.

Following colonialism came the two world wars, the rise and fall of Nazi Germany, the extermination of six million Jewish people in German concentration camps, followed by the Cold War.

A divided Germany (Berlin Wall), and the ever-persistent ugly head of neo-colonialism, infused with the participation of the United States of America, the giant of modern democracy, big brother of the Western Allies enshrined in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

In the middle, came the creation of the United Nations and the codification of the Universal Declaration of Human rights.

Thus, entered into the mix, into the continent, the chief slayer, orchestrator of almost all and any aspect of Africa’s advancement or lack of it sometimes known as underdevelopment.

Through multilateral organizations such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Western allies have kept African nation states holding onto bootstraps, goaded with huge interest loans that has led to the continent to develop to just livable levels, but not too much.

Despite being a mineral-rich area, Africa is the beggar continent of the planet. Ironically, despite being formed to end all wars and enhance the development of the less developed world, the United Nations has become the key co-star with the Western allies and plays roughshod with developing nations, hard-managing them with the puppet masters in the wings.

Economist and Nobel prize laureate Amartya Sen has shown that most famines around the world involve a local lack of income rather than of food. In such situations, food aid, instead of financial aid, has had the effect of destroying local agriculture and serves mainly to benefit Western agribusiness which are vastly overproducing food as a result of agricultural subsidies. Such subsidies promote poverty in developing nations.

Food aid to Africa has kept Africa begging as hoards of its citizens flock to urban areas in search of earning an income.

John Mason’s book should inspire the nation states of the beloved continent: Don’t wait for your ship to come in….swim out to meet it. 

Africa, keep an eye on history: how did we get here? How can we get out of here to over there where the others are?

                                                                                            

I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected completed into one, so that the world may know [without any doubt] that You sent Me, and [that You] have loved them, just as You have loved Me.  — John.17.23

If there is one thing among all the other natural endowments that Africa has plenty of, it is undoubtedly the sun. lots and lots and lots of sun, and sometimes even too much sun. it was therefore very heartwarming to hear that Malawi President Dr. Lazarus Chakwera in Egypt as Chair of the Least Developed Countries (LDC) for the climate change world conference, presided over the signing of solar energy provision with the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet, a Norwegian company. This is a big leap in using natural resources without bringing harm to the environment. Discussions that were held between Malawi, Tanzania, Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, South Africa, Mozambique, and others pledged to work together to make advances in the provision of electricity in the region.

Such unity is to be admired and works well, especially for the continent of Africa, which has been the ground for either ideological contests that have seen numerous areas torn by wars or the plunder of human and natural resources. In many instances divisions have prevailed.

Such a stereotypical snapshot of Africa was far from the stage in Maputo when the African region of the ACP/EU Post-Cotonou negotiations was held. From start to finish, the African delegates were having none of the items being tabled and attempted to thrust them down the throats of the African delegations.

“We have made great tractions, a trigger has been made, and our concerns raised, “ Honorable Ashems Longwe Malawi’s leader of the delegation said.

Among the many contentious items were the Rules of Procedure, which he said the delegations agreed they would not adopt. He pointed out that there were other items that they would not agree on.

The delegations requested the postponement of the signing of the ACP-EU Agreement until all EU and African, Caribbean, and Pacific (ACP) countries feel equally respected in this agreement; thereby ensuring that this agreement will not violate national sovereignty on health and education issues – including Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) and Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE).

There was much time spent on the various elements that have been threaded into the Agreement that delegations from Uganda joined by Malawi and others in resisting placing items that the EU placed in the human rights. As the debates heated up, the delegation of Uganda affirmed that his country will never localize controversial issues of gay rights. Many countries weighed in and questioned the push for comprehensive and sexuality education.

As the EU Council President until June 2022, France pushes for the 20-year ACP-EU Agreement a.k.a. Samoa Agreement / Post-Cotonou Agreement to be signed in the first quarter of 2022; without considering the fact that several countries in the EU and in Africa are still questioning the implications of this agreement on their national sovereignty on social development and human rights issues.

For AU Ambassadors:

ü  Inform your Foreign Minister, Head of State, and your delegates in Brussels about the concerning provisions inside the ACP-EU Agreement and ask them to table the attached critical questions to the EU Commission. READ THE CONFERENCE DOCUMENTS.

For AU Heads of State, Foreign Ministers, and African delegates in Brussels:

ü  Ensure the concerning provisions inside the ACP – EU Agreement become an agenda point during the AU Executive Council Meeting, AU Heads of State Summit.

ü  Table the attached “FWI policy brief questions for clarification” to the EU Commission and during the AU-EU Summit on 17-18 Feb, mainly focusing on these 4 core issues:

1)       Request the European Commission to provide written assurances that no provisions in this binding Agreement will be interpreted to promote abortion, Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE), or LGBT rights, which have not achieved consensus at the UN.

2)       Clarify with the European Commission whether the Agreement trumps national laws.

3)       Clarify with the European Commission whether or not this Agreement will make developmental or trade agreements between EU Members and OACPS States conditional upon adherence of these States to provisions on “sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR)”

Clarify whether there is any mechanism whereby African states can make reservations or declarations exempting their countries from controversial provisions or provisions that conflict with their national laws.

As Africa joins the rest of the world in paving the way for living a carbon emission, the rest of the world must live up to its promise to empower Africa to rise up and join the campaign to make the world a better place. 

Africa unite!