Africans Rising is a growing and self-selecting collective of social movements, NGOs, peoples and popular social justice movements, intellectuals, artists, sports people, cultural activists and others, across the continent and Diaspora. People who have given input to the development of the movement agree that African unity reflected by greater social, political and economic integration is critical for Africa and its peoples, nations and nationalities – a united civil society should be the vanguard of such a movement for justice, peace and dignity.
The President of 50/50 Group has officially launched the Africans Rising Movement in Sierra Leone, over the weekend. Dr. Fatou Taqi said she was pleased to be part of history; of what she described as a wakeup call to a sense of nationalism, among Sierra Leoneans.
One of the key aims of the Africans Rising launch is to ensure that Africans Rising inspires millions of African people to demand from the government good governance as they all work collectively towards common goals of peace, social inclusion and shared prosperity. “We aim to let our leaders know that we have had enough of this unfair and unjust system and we want to make clear our intention to work together, to build a new Africa,” according to the Africans Rising website.
Taqi said Africa is still not free from socio-economic strangulation from the west. “I’m not being racist but it is time for Africans to come together and decide its destiny for economic emancipation”. Taqi added that with education and unity, Africa, despite being independent, will have economic freedom from former colonial masters as well as the new scramble for re-colonization of Africa as a result of its natural resources.
According to the Africans Rising website, Africa is a rich continent. It has been impoverished by colonialism, slavery and now by new forms of economic injustice. We can’t undo history and the mess that we find ourselves in but we refuse to allow our political and business leaders to blame everything on colonialism.
History is not to blame for the human rights violations happening right now, for the gender inequality, for using fossil fuels when we have some of the best conditions for renewable energy. These wrongs are current and Africans Rising is about calling out our leaders on these failures and building a better, more just, more peaceful and sustainable Africa. www.africans-rising.org
Dr. Charles Silva, lecturer at Fourah Bay College, stated that the over-emphasis on Government is seriously affecting the growth of the country. He said Government is responsible for citizen’s welfare and economic well-being, but after elections those elected officials fail to establish a concept of statehood, which citizens allow the government to manipulate their lives.
He said, Africa needs national unity just like the European Union and the United Sates of America, which are still united, but Africa with all its wealth is still crawling to be on the world economic stage.
Team Lead for Africans Rising, Ngolo Katta, said, “If Africa is developing, why do so many go hungry and thousands die in the Mediterranean Sea trying to migrate out of Africa?”
Speaker after speaker called for mass public education to educated the people on the importance of nationalism, to create a sense of awareness to know the difference from a state and a government, noting that in recent times majority of the people pay allegiance to the government, than the state, which makes those in governance too powerful, and as a result they become less sensitive to the development aspirations of the people, from promises made during elections campaign.
At the end of the launching, members of the movement held a candle light session, at the memorial on Stadium Car Park, in honor of all those who died in the struggle for others to survive.
By Ade Campbell
Monday May 29, 2017.