| Contact |  |
- Add to Favorites |  |
Comment - Bottom of article |
TWRToday Twitter &  - TWRToday Facebook  - Tweet
|
||||
TWRToday Supports These Sites: |
||||
Tweet |
||||
This article is from Toyin Agbetu from the Pan African Drum where he remembers the comments of French President Nicolas Sarcozy... In August 2007 during African Remembrance Month the current French President, Nicolas Sarkozy said; “The tragedy of Africa is that the African has never really entered into history ... They have never really launched themselves into the future,”
Sarkozy continues;
“The African peasant, who for thousands of years has lived according to the seasons, whose life ideal was to be in harmony with nature, only knew the eternal renewal of time ... In this imaginary world, where everything starts over and over again, there is room neither for human endeavour, nor for the idea of progress… The problem of Africa ... is to be found here. Africa's challenge is to enter to a greater extent into history ... It is to realise that the golden age that Africa is forever recalling will not return, because it has never existed.”
Sarkozy then went on to defend the role of France in the enslavement of Africa by claiming that while it may have made “mistakes”, it “did not exploit anybody”.
It’s amazing how soon we forget.
In this instance he clearly ‘forgot’ about the causes of the Haitian Revolution or the Dakar-Niger railway strike of 1947 so brilliantly documented by Ousmane Sembène.
In fact, by conveniently forgetting Maafa his fiction of the African being absent from history, airbrushed or more accurately - whitewashed away the facts of the many other inspiring tales of African resistance to French barbarity and gross human right abuses by arab and european invaders.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/aug/27/southafrica.france
http://www.opendemocracy.net/article/democracy_power/africa/sarkozy_africa
Unsurprisingly, in the UK today there is a repugnant political debate taking place about the future of human rights. Some people would have us believe that it is acceptable for us all to earn the right to be treated as humans.
In their muddled heads, the very notion of people being guaranteed fundamental freedoms, political, civil and physical should only be granted to those of the public sanctioned by an elite class of politicians for obeying their laws. In this new world with a British Bill of Rights - anyone who opposes the state can be targeted for human right exemption according to our political‘worth’.
This is dangerous (legally silly) and frankly moral sick thinking.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-15140742
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/oct/06/kenneth-clarke-enforced-retirement
Although europeans recognised and codified a european interpretation of human rights in 1950 after their second major war for global domination in this modern era, the enslavement and oppression of African people remain a testament to the reason why we are and must remain the most powerful advocates for human rights, not just for ourselves but even those people we do not like or as some would label ‘criminals’ or in another vernacular ‘economic slaves’.
Our history teaches us this.
Look at the dates of key instruments in the development of Europe and other western nations and then learn our history. There are no coincidences for where the two cross over, this is the unsuing legacy, the civilising influence of African British history.
It reminds us that our African history is world history, that a politically and spiritually mature African philosophy of freedom can and has provided the moral foundation for all nations.
At its simplest level, the ultimate purpose of human rights is to protect the individual from the abuses of a corrupt state. Our history teaches this, it also teaches us to be proud of our Ancestors who were not only the world’s greatest freedom fighters for their own families and community, but also champions of universal human rights. I say we should be proud but not everyone agrees. In a surreal discussion with a Canadian university professor I was recently told; “while all blacks are of African-descent, not all blacks consider themselves to be African.”
The author whilst admirably being a staunch anti-racist seemingly opposes being called an African.
http://www.montrealgazette.com/life/Opinion+Blackface+incident+shows+racism+alive+well+Canada/5467094/story.html
Yet every action we take is shaped by reflection on our personal and in turn collective contemporary and Ancestral experiences. Therefore if our awareness about ourselves amounts to little, then the decisions we make leading to the actions we take are likely to do little to further our self interests.
In short I’m saying the stuff we and those around us know, shapes the stuff us and those around us do.
If we choose to continue to give overwhelming support for our performances as sportsters, entertainers, and also take narrow dramatic roles characterising us as criminals and culturally vacuous 'urban' (think MOBO) buffons , then that is what we will become.
However if we choose to follow the lead of our freedom fighting Ancestors, thinkers, workers, scientist, poets, educators, artists, musicians, doctors, designers, healers, builders, astrologists and philosophers.
If we continue to remember their work, their deeds, their sacrifices and the numerous opportunities they provided so we are able to walk with our head up high and say, despite all that they did we still survive.
If we do this, then we will succeed at all we seek to achieve.
Toyin Agbetu is a writer, film director, poet, and founder of Ligali, the pan African human rights based organisation.
Send in your views to TWRToday Here