The wheel of change
in our world today has been set in motion since the beginning of human
awareness and consciousness. The human mind had been in motion since that blessed
day, making the impossible possible, creating and destroying, building and breaking. Today, we look at how far our race has sailed
on the tides of time and we cannot but feel the tingling happiness of pride and
accomplishment. It is the observer’s belief that if the human race had a rival
(let’s say from mars), they would have been left in the trial of our
accomplishment and demoralized with jealousy.
It is a known fact
that humanity has done well for itself over thousands of years and will do even
more as it travels on - on the sea of time, but looking within, anyone with
eyes and a mind of progress will observe that the lion-portion of humanity’s
evolution work was done by a section of humanity. True, human evolution cannot
be credited to a group of people; it is also apparent that a particular group
of people have contributed little or nothing to humanity’s advancement… The Africans.
This may sound
racist or judgmental from some schools of thought/ point of view, but the
racism can be put to bed knowing that the observer here is an African (born and
bred). Well, as for the judgmental school, the observer hopes that mind-set is
altered as we go on.
Africa for quite
some time has been called the black continent or Dark Continent, and seemingly
so (the color of our skin). And like a black hole, no one from outside a black hole
understands what goes on within a black hole. A black hole absorbs everything
from solid matter to light and still remains black to the outside world. Africa
has remained at the bottom of every positive chain for much of human consciousness;
the black continent has so little recorded contribution to human advancement.
One deep journey through human history will confirm this untended fact. The
most prominent of all African histories will be the slave trade tale where
millions of Africans were sold (by fellow Africans) across the Atlantic to
Europe and the Americas (a sad and bitter history the observer detests sourly and would give
anything to ensure it is wiped off the historical slates).
The African
situation has continued to ripple through eras and has sketched the African picture
we have today; a continent of people torn apart by struggle for understanding
and self worth. We as a people have failed to build our own immediate world
hence barring ourselves from contributing meaningfully to our race and lending
a helping hand to our own specie. Instead we have been the dead weight for our
own race; we have continually been the anchor holding down the rest of
humanity. African states have just refused to grow despite alleged helping
hands extended by the advanced worlds. Internal crisis, corruption and rigged
election are the headliners of most African states, resourse rich nations are
riddled with extreme poverty. Africa just does not function and the light at the end of our African tunnel never seem to be visible.
The rest of the
world say they discovered Africa and then colonized Africa…well the politics of
Africa and the rest of the world is a topic for another day, but what the
observer will stress today is this; the continent of Africa should not be the
handicapped child in humanities story. The time has come for us to be ashamed
of our woes and chart a course to raise ourselves and the rest of humanity
alongside. The observer is not clamoring for peace in war torn African states,
neither is the observer praying for fair and credible elections or any
socio-economic advancement. What the observer hopes to see before the end of
his days will be the realization of Africa’s responsibility to our world, our
race and the power that put us here (that is what we owe).
Africa will forever be a black continent, as
earlier mentioned we will always be the black hole in the galaxy of humanity,
but like the black hole we are the most extraordinary element around and I
believe it is time to use our uniqueness to fuel our progress and that of our
specie through the times ahead. In a thousand years, the observer hopes the
African story will be different and another observer (from the future) will
look back across the centuries and document the true contribution of Africa to
the rest
of the world.
Abejide Ayodeji Temiye is a 300 level building student of Unilag, an active writer, poet and punster.
THIS ARTICLE IS AN EXTRACT FROM A LARGER WRITE-UP BY THE AUTHOR.
E MAIL abejideayodeji@ymail.com TO GET THE FULL ARTICLE.
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