But seriously, Afrika! We need fresh stories.
Chioma Phillips is the Editor of Msingi Afrika Magazine and…
You know, sometimes it gets so tedious reviewing the accounts of injustices being visited against Afrika and Afrikans and I’ll tell you why. When you listen to Afrikan leaders, they are only fully aware of the lies and manipulations of the globalists – but they continue to toe the lie and use their power and influence to allow globalist control to take over their nations’ populations.
“Fire this many people, hire that specialist foreign consultant, reduce pay in this manner, increase taxes like this, turn around three times and count to one billion and then we will give you $100 million in debt to continue to use to manipulate you.” That’s basically it. And the ‘leaders’ oblige, albeit some (and maybe a very few) are gritting their teeth in irritation or anger, while others tremble in fear… because they know, this cycle will continue on and on and on and they and their people will NEVER be free of it. Until REVOLUTION comes.
Just as bad as these ‘leaders’ are the native shills, the Afrikan brothers and sisters who work for the globalist organizations that push these nefarious schemes on their own people so that they can get a paycheck. Some amongst them have no idea that they are mere pawns in a bigger global game, while others DO and they turn a blind eye to the long term consequences and schedule an appointment with their local minister for Finance or Education or Agriculture or Health or Internal Security or ICT or Development… you get the idea… and sit down with them to shove the loan conditions down their throats, arm twisting and coercing so that they enforce them as policy.
Worse yet are the complicit upper to middle class who stand on the sidelines as cheerleaders saying that “After all, we want our country to be as developed or advanced as countries in the west, so this is the way to do it. We just have to tighten our belts and cooperate.” They say this without giving due consideration to the long term effects of these policies on themselves or even the next generation (i.e. their children). This is because they are playing out the effects of the brainwashing that has been infused into the education system, and the entertainment and news media that has consistently modeled what ‘acceptable’ behavior is. And since all these classes know how to do now is mindlessly obey – they capitulate without so much as a whisper and agree to have the World Bank, the IMF, the WHO, the FAO the UN who are really conspirators with the WEF and some clandestine operators penetrate their nations and run things for them – or even using them.
So, how did I get to the point of writing this piece this time? I read this article by Grieve Chelwa in the Lusaka Times called IMF Deal: Cry My Beloved Zambia, the conditions are heartless and even though I just knew – by the headline – that it would be a litany of the same old nonsense that Afrika and Afrikans have had to put up with… I clicked the link and read it. And, immediately, I felt exhausted. In one of our recent releases, I referred to Abel Merawi’s article Democratic People and Institutions as him (as the song goes) “strumming my pain with his fingers, singing my life with his words”, because he so aptly captured the sameness and mundaneness of what has become the Afrikan political scene… Chelwa’s article is the IMF version. The IMF says to Zambia (a sovereign state) that in order for them (the IMF) to release any funds to this sovereign state, they will have to fulfill certain conditions. Not only that, a closer look at what he shares reveals that Zambia, like Kenya and many others are living on subsidies in various key sectors… why this pattern? And now the IMF wants the subsidies removed, which in Zambia’s case the author says they are of positive benefit to the citizens. The IMF wants their government to broaden their VAT base to include products that were benefiting lower income people and is targeting an increase on taxes on salaries.
Whenever you meet someone from the continent and they share stories about the challenges their nation is facing, it is all too familiar and relatable from corruption cases to IMF and World Bank loans, debt, inflation, poverty, and political drama the patterns are the same. When it comes to mapping a way out of the issues, it is always the same: widen the tax base, borrow money, implement World Bank or IMF reforms, create or eliminate subsidies, support agriculture, build hospitals and roads… all of them – problems and solutions – seem to draw from the same playbook all the time. Nobody seems to be doing anything radically different. It’s like everyone went to the same school to learn the same economic and political principles and they are busy applying them even though evidence from the US and UK shows that they do not work.
So, what are we doing Afrika? Over and over and over we try to do what we are shown is meant to transform our economies and over and over and over it proves to be unworkable and then we go back to the same people who gave us these ideas and their solutions are worse than the problems and then we repeat the same thing again… and again… and again.
If the west and east don’t have it right and they keep coming to Afrika to steal our resources and corrupt our officials and ability to produce for ourselves unhindered then that tells you one thing. That, obviously, their strategy for how to get ahead – in terms of economy and politics and whatever – is not the one they teach in their universities or in their workshops and special seminars or executive MBAs. The real strategy to ‘get ahead’ remains the one they have applied for centuries – rape, rob, pillage, plunder, murder, enslave, deceive, con and manipulate. That’s their real formula to ‘genuine’ wealth and success. That’s why, the world over, they engineered a false pandemic in order to implement a fresh transfer of wealth to individuals. The stories of covid ‘billionaires’ echo from nation to nation, each one gaining more money through some shady means. That’s why they create fake wars, to instigate social crises that in the aftermath will reveal the ‘wise few’ who were able to overcome or invest in a savvy manner and grow richer rather than poorer. That’s why they cook up false economic crises in order to weed out the ones they do not want prospering and ensure that their people get ahead. But it’s not as if we didn’t know this already. We did. We do.
We try to live in these tiny little pods called countries and act as if our challenges are so diverse and exotic that nobody else could ever understand them and so we must therefore face the challenges by ourselves without looking for help from one another… but, as in the case of Zambia, above, there’s nothing different that each of the 55 nations of Afrika are facing. We’ve just held on to some kind of fake story that there is a difference. But there isn’t. The narrative has been strong and convincing that we cannot work together to help each other out – but that’s also not true. We’ve just been singing and dancing along to some evil tune that somebody else created to ensure that we stay divided and see ourselves as rivals instead of friends and family that were torn apart through the interruption of colonialism.
So why are we, as a continent and a people so intent on following someone else’s script? What is it about the west and east, about capitalism, about money and power as envisioned by them that so enamors Afrikans that we just won’t break away from the pursuit of these things to create something genuinely new and special for ourselves? Whatever the hook is, it has driven itself deep into many people’s psyches, so much so that it finds ways to reinvent and recreate itself for each successive generation – through socialization – such that Afrika remains trapped in a reality that was never of our own creation. It’s not difficult to define. Greed and desire. The quest for power and riches and the lifestyle that those secure have caused a mighty and ugly wave of selfishness to take hold of the hearts of our people. It’s poison and it has hurt us long enough.
Well, it’s time to break out. It’s time for our leaders to stop believing that its citizens will not understand the burden of oppression that the globalists still level against Afrika. Time for them to treat us like adults and give us the details of the evil schemes so that we can work together to kick out that manipulative beast. It’s time for individuals to realize that thriving is a community affair, not an individual one. Otherwise, they will have to keep building higher walls and installing greater security systems to keep out the people they fear will take their stuff. Instead, we need to see one another and remember that each person has a need and each person with a resource has a responsibility to another person or family. That working together we can actually improve one another’s conditions. That these acts of simple love and brotherhood will end the envy and the jostling for position and turn us into real people once again. Those stories will bolster us to deliberately create communities that work and that work to benefit one another – across the continent and the oceans. Those stories will create more stories that will challenge the competitive irritation that capitalism carries with it by reminding people that each individual has a place, purpose and destiny and that we all benefit from the other’s success at being their best – and that there is such joy in strengthening the other to attain their destiny, without looking for personal benefit in it.
This is the restoration of Afrika’s real soul that will help to heal the deep chasms that have been created between brothers and sisters across the continent and truly help us to transform our people into the life-givers that we are underneath all the armor that we have had to put on in order to deal with the nonsense that modern day living and lifestyle creates.
A new story in Afrika looks like what Namibia and Botswana have agreed to do – to allow their citizens to cross each other’s borders using only national identity cards, recognizing their commonalities rather than their differences. That’s new and a breath of fresh air. It’s yet more proof that we can make this work like it did before.
When you recall that just about 63 years ago, Afrikans of various nationalities were working in government positions in Kenya at the time when colonialism was being transitioned to whatever it is we have now it shows you the possibilities for our people. It was not strange to the mind to have a Ghanaian colleague in a government office then – and it shouldn’t be strange now. We each have so much value to offer one another. The Nigerian billionaire businessman popularly known as Obi Cubana, looking for Afrikans who can build smartphones for him to invest in, need only pop into Rwanda and find out how to get a custom device created for him by the manufacturers of Mara smartphones. Dangote’s recent attendance of the recent President Ruto inauguration has in it certain ripples of pan Afrikan promise and a new story.
So, it is possible. And, I’m sure there are more similar stories playing out on the continent that need to be highlighted… and emulated. Let’s do that with more vigor and dedication now than ever before. Change comes by the hand that commits to effecting it, not the mouth that speaks endlessly with no action.
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Chioma Phillips is the Editor of Msingi Afrika Magazine and the host of Msingi Afrika Television. Her hope is to see the Truth shared, with all who will listen, for the transformation of the people and the continent of Afrika - and the world. She believes passionately in the critical role that Afrika and Afrikans have to play on earth right now and hopes to ignite the spark that will cause them to see and believe who they are, so that they can live out their Truest lives for the remainder of their days.