Power To The People

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"Without hard work, nothing grows but weeds."

Gordon B Hinckley

What does your country, mean to you?...
I mean really, what does the continent Africa mean to you?...
What's your nation; Sudan, Kenya, Liberia, perhaps Burundi worth to you?...
No really, what is Africa's worth to you?...

So the iPhone 5 was just released. I know, I know, I want one too. But here's the problem, the phone costs £529 and living on a student budget, that's not really an option. Good thing about life, is that there's always another option. In this case, the Chinese clone, which I could probably bargain for, because there's no way I could possibly walk into an Apple store and start negotiating a price change at the cashier but I know for a fact I could walk to any ordinary phone vendors and buy a dual sim iPhone 5 at a satisfactory price which wouldn't clean me out of my last penny. 

Let me to tell you a story about two farmers. One spent time on his farm, weeded it before planting the seeds and after planting he made sure his plants were watered regularly. When harvesting time came and it was time to go to the market to sell his produce, the man understood the hard work he had put in to get to this point and he would rather come back home with his crops, than sell them at a throw away price. The second, simply threw in the seeds, hoped it would rain and when harvesting time came, he took what had grown of his crops and was off to the market. He knew his crops were not the best in the market and would sell them to the first buyer for pocket change.

Now there's a reason our governments manipulate our daily lives. There's a reason in Africa we accepts deals that only benefit the other parties and not our nations or continent. Governments have managed to incite ethnic clashes, tribal wars, religious wars, among others. They have failed to listen to the people and instead based their decisions on self interest. Recently oil companies have come into Africa and many have been left homeless after promises of being resettled so that oil can be extracted from the lands they were living on.

Take a minute, and think about this question. What makes up a country?

A nation is made up of three main factors. THE LAND. THE PEOPLE. THE GOVERNMENT. The land is of no use if the people aren't growing, building and developing it and the government is there to work for the people because without the people, there is no government. The people have the power to vote in leaders and impeach leaders so when all these politicians are up there standing, speaking to you saying how they will do this and that for you, sounding like they are doing YOU a FAVOR and you turn around to the next guy saying how "he's a nice guy", no my friend, it's his duty.

See the reason that farmer would rather come back with his crops than just sell them at give away prices, is because he knows the worth of his hard work. The reason I respect the iPhone 5 and know I can't even try bargaining for it, is because I recognise the hard work Apple have put into developing it. Apple have set their standards, like it or not, you will buy the iPhone 5 at the given price in whichever country you are in or just rock your Nokia phone. So why haven't we, until now set our standards for our nations?

Until we, as a people, realise and are conscious of the fact that these are OUR countries and that Africa is OUR continent, and work hard to build our nations, together, selflessly and without prejudice against one another, we will always remain a "third world" continent. It doesn't matter how much oil, diamond, gold or iron we have, they will never be of benefit to the African children until the day we realize our worth. The day the future of our countries, our people and our continent matters more than our selfish interests and prejudice thinking, we will surely know our worth, we will have the power to say no to rotten deals, say no to rotten governments and yes to the future of the African child. When you know your worth, others recognise it too. Our governments will no longer play us and traders will no longer lay one sided deals on the table for us.

So again I ask,

What does your country, mean to you?...
I mean really, what does the continent Africa mean to you?...
What's your nation; Sudan, Kenya, Liberia, perhaps Burundi worth to you?...

NO REALLY, WHAT IS, AFRICA'S WORTH TO YOU?

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Human Excellence

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"The tragedy of human life, is its past, the challenge to human life, is what to do to move forward. This is what made the likes of Mandela, they took the challenge instead of hanging on to the past. We must recognise the need to not necessarily forget the past, but to forgive, in order build a new society."

Yasir Arman.

There was once a time in America, when the black man did not share the same voting rights as the white man, he could not use the same bathrooms or live in the same neighbourhood. In the bus, the black man had to sit at the back or stand on the bus and give up his seat to the white man, while waiting for a train, they did not share the same waiting area and his kids, they could not go to the same schools as those of the white man... In South Africa, the year 1948 saw the enactment of Apartheid laws, which put racial discrimination into full force. The black man did not have the same job opportunities as the white man and a marriage between the two was prohibited by the laws passed, among others. Simply put, the black man, was a second class citizen. December 1, 1955 would mark the beginning of the great movement to end legal segregation in America. This was the day Rosa Parks, tired of giving in, refused to give up her seat on the orders of the bus driver in Montgomery, Alabama, to a white passenger, and, after years of struggle and defiance of the apartheid laws, the ANC under the leadership of Nelson Mandela, led South Africa to it's first multi-racial elections in 1994. 

The likes of Rosa Parks, Nelson Mandela, Oliver Tambo, Walter Sisulu, Chris Hani, Malcolm X, Mahatma Ghandi, Ismail Meer, Desmond Tutu and Martin Luther King, among others, all fought for one similar goal, EQUALITY. Fair treatment of all individuals as human beings and the sharing of equal rights by all. They fought to see the day no man would be above another, the day the black/coloured man would be free and the end of "white supremacy". Nelson Mandela and the ANC's vision at first is said to have been limited, only seeking to unite and gain independence for the African people, but with the help of Ismail Meer, they developed the understanding that others were not different, it did not matter that one was not African(coloured, indian or white), at the end of the day, they were fighting for the same cause. As a result they became open to the idea of working with the coloured and Indian people. 

These heroes did not fight for the supremacy of one race, but for the equality of all race. After years of standing for what they believed in, they succeeded in doing so and it is as a result of their persistence that I, as a black person, can freely share my views and opinions on this blog today. This now brings me to the point of this post. I'd be the most ignorant person to claim that racism doesn't exist anymore, sure it does, but how you deal with it is what matters. Today i'm not here to talk about white on black racism, but instead, black on white racism. 

The same black people who a few years back and at some parts of the world still seek equality and a break away from racism, have become racist themselves. On YouTube, a lot of times I see black people take it upon themselves to leave racist comments, and it really raises just one question, are you any better than any of these individuals out there that you call racist? There are songs out there speaking out against "black on black murder", claiming the black man is not your enemy and when you kill the black man you're taking down someone "who looks just like you". So does that make black on white murder ok because you look different? Some people feel that our past, gives us the right and justifies such low actions, I'm here to tell you IT DOESN'T! Your history should seek to make you a better person, it should inspire a move away from the things that caused suffering in the past. Besides, Two wrongs, have never made a right!

As one Shakespeare MwAfrica said, "...this life is too plastic, the woman or the clothes?", people have chosen to focus on appearance, rather than substance. In an interview with Ebony Magazine, Samuel L Jackson said, "I voted for Barack because he's black. 'Cause thats why other folks vote for other people, because of they look like them... [Obama's] message didn't mean [bleep] to me". So Jackson, could have been voting in another Hitler, Jong-II or Al-Assad for all he knew, but obviously this didn't matter as long as he looked like him(got to respect his honesty though). On Tumblr, one individual chose to rant on about how "one of the white guys" was holding up the Kenyan flag during the 2012 olympics ceremony and that this was wrong because Kenya is a "black nation", completely disregarding the fact that these were professional swimmers who had earned their place in the Kenya olympics team. (via. I AM KENYAN PROJECT)

People, black people, still hold on to the mentality that the white man is your enemy. We must understand that the era where the world was dominated by one race no longer exists. We need to stop dividing ourselves racially, and start looking at one another as one race, the human race. Most importantly, we need to realise that we are, our very own greatest enemies by taking the time to look at some of the problems we have caused ourselves, through our own actions. Take the Rwandese genocide, the Kenyan post election violence or the Sudanese Civil war for instance. Were these atrocities committed by a white man? 

We need to put an immediate end to xenophobia and stereotyping. The Iraqi war, for example, was not caused by the white race, it was caused by a few individuals with power, the power to manipulate the the masses into believing an attack had been launched against the U.S and that they were simply defending themselves and their honor by sending troops into Iraq. World politics is now wrapped around the hands of few individuals, they are those individuals that you will never hear about, or if you do, it will be years after a tragedy. The rest of us, well, we are all just victims to the same system that seeks to manipulate mankind so we must wake up because we must build a new society and not repeat the same mistakes of the past. 

Now don't get me wrong, I am by all means encouraging you, and insist that you must take pride in who you are and where you come from but in the process, do not overlook others. Instead, acknowledge their existence, as people of equal being and look at that as the beauty of the world we live in. Let us learn from each other, educate each other on our different cultures, have a laugh together at how the Brit guy says "Jambo" or how the typical African guy says "pot'ah'to"(potato) and take pride in these things. Let us find unity, in diversity. 

You'd be surprised how much easier life is when you simply appreciate the things that come your way instead of digging deep for things that are completely unnecessary. For a wise man once said, "No one is born hating another person because of the colour of his skin... People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite"... So don' be a hater :p   

FIGHT THE SYSTEM, RESPECT THE RACE :)

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11 YEAR OLD ARRESTED

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"An oppressed people are authorised whenever they can, to rise and break their fetters"

Henry Clay

I will make this very simple. Please read on. 

If you have been on twitter recently or FaceBook, there's a popular hashtag #SudanRevolts that's been going round. After 23years of oppression and Human rights violation, the people of Sudan have decided to stand up against the dictatorial Regime of President Omar El Bashir that's committed mass atrocities. In the past three weeks there have been protests in the country. Friday the 30th of June 2012 saw a great number of women, men, students among others take the streets of Sudan chanting "Al Shaab Yurid Inzgat Al Nuzam", roughly translated as "the people want the fall of the regime". Protesters, activists and journalists were arrested (over 1000) and the police were violent. This is not a new thing when a revolution is taking place, but this is:

"...We waited for a while until a truck arrived carrying around 120 people, all in their twenties. Inside the courthouse, 4 judges were awaiting them. We noticed a little boy get off the truck - he looked to be about 11 years old; he was crying, and stumbling as he walked. At first, we assumed him to be ill. A man asked him: 

“What’s wrong with you, boy?” 

“The police arrested me for no reason” 

“What do you mean they arrested you for no reason? Weren’t you at the protests?” 

“I was on my way from AlDuroshab on my way to my grandmother’s house in Hillat Hamad when they arrested me” 

“Why are you stumbling around like that? Are you sick?” 

“I’m hungry, i haven’t had anything to eat since Friday” 

“They didn’t give you food?” 

“No” 

“Who from your family is here today?” 

“No one. My parents think I’m in Hillat Hamad, and my grandmother didn’t know i was coming, so they weren’t expecting me” 

My friend ran and got him a sandwich from a nearby shop. The man who was asking him the questions decided to post bail for him and, despite the judge’s persistence, took him home to his family. The boy’s name is Hussam, from alDoroshab, and was born in 2001." 

I'm sure you all agree that this is completely outrageous. Now although given the facts, it is difficult for media to cover the #SudanRevolts from the grounds, the people in Sudan have been putting up youtube videos and tweeting updates but it has not gotten enough media attention. I believe media attention is what my people need to be able to take back their country from this bloody regime! 

This is what I am asking you to do, simply tweet all the media houses that you can think of(small or big), the hashtag "#SudanRevolts" or post "Twitter: #SudanRevolts" on their Facebook walls or any other sites to raise awareness on the Sudan Revolts. 

By doing, this you will be empowering the protesters in Sudan as they will get international attention and help bring to light what they are currently enduring, and hopefully through that, they will be successful in overthrowing the regime. On friday they are planning a mass protest and your tweet/share could help their cause succeed. 

Thank you to every single one of you who will do this and kindly share this post(spam pages, spam inboxes - I hate it too but desperate times call for desperate measures) or simply copy paste the above on your blog, Facebook note, websites, send messages, emails and anything else you can think of. While the media is busy covering Tom Cruise's divorce, a whole nation is being oppressed(no offence I love Tom cruise, but this is more urgent), so let us change that. Thank you once again. 

Source: http://b45.tumblr.com/post/26378418882

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