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How far are we with liberation?
What you need to know:
- The heroes and heroines of independence were full of ideas, mobilised Africans through writings, training and in the supreme service of humanity our comrades unflinchingly dedicated themselves to the exciting task of African liberation and African unity, as patriots and Pan Africanists.
Yesterday, May 25 was African Liberation Day (ALD), the day that honours the signing of the charter that established Organisation of African Unit, now African Union.
It is the day that Africans continue to pledge their solidarity for liberation of Africa.
So far OAU must have received, a forest of “ insults” for doing “nothing,” especially on wars that are still going on in Africa.However many of the criticisms are understandable even if not all of them are deserved. The heroes of independence started OAU twin purposes of finishing anti-colonial struggle in 1960’s and also uniting Africans.
It was successful on the liberation of South Africa, Bravo to comrade Julius Kamberage Nyerere who led the frontline states, we salute our comrades who rescued South Africa from the racist settler regime of apartheid led by De klerk and his cronies. Therefore as we celebrate the African Liberation day, our focus should be on priorities, Africa’s over reliance on exporting primary commodities is detrimental to its economic development and undermines its ambition for greater integration and prosperity, this keeps Africa trapped in a colonial model of economic trajectory, everybody wants to see Africa industrialising, that is where we need leadership with ideological clarity, leap frogging into the fourth industrial revolution, we are tired of threats on visa’s and loans.
This will take reducing barriers to intra-Africa investment, all that requires economic actors on the continent to take a holistic view of the trade ecosystem. Therefore today more than ever before, we are called to come to grips with the challenges of our time as we enter the decisive phase in the struggle for total liberation and unity for African continent.
On May12, President Museveni while swearing-in at Kololo said “by 1900, the whole of Africa had been colonised, except for Ethiopia, this was a big shame to Africa. It was all due to political fragmentation of Africa into small kingdoms and chiefdoms, some of the traditional headers tried to fight to preserve their independence they were however defeated one by one” meaning that if they were coordinated and united they could probably have survived the vultures with their colonial appetite who by 1884/5 Berlin Conference shared Africa like bread.
The heroes and heroines of independence were full of ideas, mobilised Africans through writings, training and in the supreme service of humanity our comrades unflinchingly dedicated themselves to the exciting task of African liberation and African unity, as patriots and Pan Africanists.
They served our generation with unparalleled distinction, they removed the chains of imperialist supremacy and inspired African nationalism, as the President Museveni advised, we must, therefore, build a centre of gravity for the African race. We cannot afford to continue to be part of research, statistics on poverty and backwardness. As Nkurumah once said, backward never, forward ever.
Authored by Stephen Asiimwe, PanAfricanist, RDC , Gomba
