RESPONSE: Why an Obama loss in the elections would be good for him and the world

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"Do your little bit of good where you are; it's those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world."
~ Desmond Tutu

This is my response to a very interesting article I just read on "Why an Obama loss in the elections would be good for him and the world" (Read it here) I was initially posting a comment, then realised I had too much to say so I decided to link a blogger response instead :)

I have a lot to say about this article, but the bottom line of my argument comes down to a couple of issues I believe are most important; Why is it that we, in Africa want to dwell so much on foreign aid? Why is it that this Article, though reasonable in the issues highlighted to some extent, dwells so much on what/how good Barrack will serve the rest of us if he loses as opposed to winning and being a "good leader" for the U.S citizens? 

See, we spend so much time trying to get people outside of Africa to pay attention to our problems, but the real question is, WHAT ARE WE DOING ABOUT THEM? It is true that there is no African at the moment in the league of all those mentioned in the article, in terms of their international influence, but Africa did produced the likes of Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, John Garang De Mabior and Wangari Mathaai, among others, so why do we always act like we don't have hope? We have so many Africans with the ability to change our situations in terms of leadership, economy and education. 

Our focus, should not be what good Obama's loss will serve but rather how to get all those in Africa with the ability to change things to look at the situation, not from a distance, but as a problem of their own. How to get us, to support all those striving to make a difference in our continent. We need to get rid of this beggar mentality and build our futures through hard work. Therefore, instead of focusing on what Obama can do, ask yourself what are YOU(author of the art.) as an educated person with the ability to voice messages through your writing to a good deal of people, doing with that influence?

As John Berger puts it, "The poverty of our century is unlike that of any other. It is not, as poverty was before, the result of natural scarcity, but of a set of priorities imposed upon the rest of the world by the rich. Consequently, the modern poor are not pitied but written off as trash. The twentieth-century consumer economy has produced the first culture for which a beggar is a reminder of nothing."

Our biggest problem, as Africans, is that we have lost our sense of UBUNTU and as a result, we have created a big gap between the 'rich' and the 'poor' as we have all become individualistic, we have allowed tribalism to blur our judgements and forgotten what the saying "I am because we are" envisages. A better future can only be guaranteed by the actions of every single one of us. Influential or not. It's not like you couldn't feed a hungry child today, build a home for some homeless children, or sponsor one child's education if you made that choice. Now imagine what difference we could all make, if only we made that conscious decision.

In a TEDx talk, Drew Dudley said 

"As long as we make leadership something bigger than us, as long as we keep leadership something beyond us, as long as we make it about changing the world, we give ourselves an excuse not to expect it everyday from ourselves, and from each other. Marianne Williamson said that 'Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us'. And my call to action today is that we need to get over that. We need to get over how extraordinarily powerful we can be in each others lives. We need to get over it, so we can move beyond it. And our little brothers and our little sisters, and one day our kids, or our kids right now, can watch us start to value the impact we can have on each others lives, more than money and power and titles and influence." 

Today, I ask you ALL, to take time to understand and reflect on what side you're on. The oppressed, or the oppressor? After that, make a choice, make a choice to DO something. STOP WAITING ON THE WORLD TO CHANGE AND ON OTHERS TO BE THAT CHANGE. Waiting on the world to change simply means one thing, THERE'S A PROBLEM WITH YOU! You need some fixing too! Once you fix YOU, you will fix the world, you will realise you are the change this world needs, you will be that change, you will begin to change the world one article at a time, one poem at a time, one protest at a time, one life at a time, one drawing at a time, one song at a time, maybe one dance at a time. Stop waiting on 'SOMEONE' and acknowledge the 'I' in the equation.

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