African Sheep are Wool-less, Nor Does It Snow in Africa

Well with the exception of parts of South Africa, the peaks of Kilimanjaro or the Atlas Mountains in North Africa. The point is the average African child knows not what snow or wool is.

Mary had a little lamb, it’s fleece is white as snow…..a nursery rhyme every English speaking African child memorized was nothing but a bunch of meaningless words shoved down the throats of confused kids with teachers who had no clue what they were teaching either.

In almost all nursery rhymes sung by kids, the meaning is lost to them, if in fact they assume the words to mean anything. Take the popular Baa, baa black sheep for example, how confusing will that be to an African child to ask a sheep if he as any wool? Not because we literally can’t talk to sheep, but because what wool is, is lost to him. Sheep in tropical regions don’t need to grow wool, a fact learned many years later. And to top off the confusion, one bag of wool is for a dame!

Who is a dame? What does it mean? The answers to that too come years after leaving school, if one is curious enough.

The realities in Africa are not reflected in the curriculum and children just plod along school corridors repeating words they have no clue as to what they could mean. The formative years, it will be safe to say, are lost to mumbo jumbo. A lot of the good grades scored in exams is attributed to memorization, what we call “cramming”. Literally copy the words in your mind and paste them to the relevant section on the exam paper.

If education has to be meaningful and topics of discussion well understood, then a lot needs to change at the very least. One would be tempted to call for a complete overhaul of the education system, but such ideas are fought repressively from conception.

This notion of redesigning the school curriculum across Africa to be more meaningful to Africans will be dismissed as impractical at this point from many Africans, especially the so-called intellectual class.

How about simpler issues like the national anthems of the various African nations? If these songs are to inspire patriotism and national pride in citizens, why then are they still in languages that a greater majority of citizens do not understand, the languages of the oppressors? In fact they do not know what a national anthem means. At the bare minimum, all that is required is a translation into some common dialect, but here too calls of tribal bias and ethnic favoritism are evoked to deter any such move. At some point, we just have to stop worrying about such issues and do right by our people collectively.

With the exception of a handful of southern African and East African nations and the North Africans, all national anthems, especially in West Africa are in French, English, or Portuguese. Even school children hardly pronounce the words rights talk less of understanding them, imagine then what the highly “illiterate” masses think of it.

A Ghanaian state minister once suggested exactly that; that the national anthem be changed from the English to native dialects to enhance the sense of nationalism. His suggestion was dismissed as having ethnic undertones. This is the sad reality of our situation.

African societies were traditionally set along ethnic and tribal lines, a fact that was disregarded by the Europeans. We were bundled into nation states with no regard to traditional values. Granted, it may be too late or even unwise to re-draw these national boundaries, but being stuck in this scenario or rejecting any of our local dialects in favor of foreign ones to avoid any kind of ethnic or tribal disenfranchisement is absurd. We are actively helping the killing of our own culture and values with such claims.

Children’s curiosity and thought process will be greatly enhanced if they are taught in languages they understand and use every day, even better if the learning environment is familiar with relatable characters and familiar sounding everyday things. That much we owe to the future generation. Strides are being made in this regard but there is still a great deal left to do.

As to what language to choose, that could be determined by a lot of factors such as lingua franca, or whatever language or tribe the majority belong to, or a combination of many languages. It won’t be easy to develop, but any great accomplishment is always worth the challenges they come with.

Compare the anthems of Africa’s two giants; South Africa and Nigeria and see which has a greater impact on you, even though you may not understand the South African languages used. The African sounding lyrics in them impact the heart more; and awaken that sense of pride more than Nigeria’s. 

We need to start somewhere and the sooner the better.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBKjWRjwMkY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avPeagYhbgo

An African Union

A child in need, hurt and aching; calls out to her mother, longing for her touch, her comfort and her assurance. It is said that even dying men call out for their mothers. Africa, home of the black man, is that mother to people of African descent. They have suffered all forms of injustice, indignity, and suffering. Even in lands that have been set up as their home away from Africa, they find no peace. Black people are looked at with contempt, disrespect, and belittled in every way imaginable.

In April and May 1964, Malcolm X sought the help of independent African nations to help the course of the black civil rights movement. This visit led to his formation of the Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU) with such goals like restoring the connections with Africa, educating diaspora Africans about Africa as well as setting up economic ties with Africa, all in the hope of reorienting blacks to a positive image of Africa. Africa, through the newly formed Organization of African Unity (OAU) wasn't very effective in furthering the course of the civil rights movement, neither was it in a position to put any pressure on the US to recognize black as citizens of the US with rights like any other citizen of the US. Besides, apartheid was at its worse right under its nose too but collectively, the continent couldn't save her own citizens on the continent. One may say this is due to the infancy independence and the lack of structures to effectively lobby for any course.

Fast forward to 2015, Guyana's new government is asking for support from the African Union amongst other international players to help diplomatically resolve the border dispute with its larger neighbor Venezuela. This help too will not be forthcoming unfortunately due to the ineffectiveness of this continental body. A sad situation however one looks at it.

Black people as a race, have collectively been fighting for their dignity longer than any group of people, they have suffered the most, collectively as a people. They are the most oppressed. No reprieve, no hope for better days, they feel so down and beat almost to the point of defeat; then they look up to Africa for help, and what do they see? Their hopes are dashed, dreams crushed, salvation unlikely, because the mother herself is in bondage, suffering, crying and bleeding more than they are, yet we can’t seem to do much to help. Even the oppressors cite conditions in Africa to justify their oppression of blacks, because our leaders are worse. Then, unwillingly, we accept our status and the labels put on us. We’ve lost the physical fight, we’ve lost the mental fight, and the spiritual strength is waning fast. 

But if history taught us one thing, it is that you cannot break the spirit and will of the true black man to true self-determination and dignity. And fortunately, there is still a lot of those true spirits left and they are not resting, they are fighting on.

The Israeli prime minister recently called for Jews 'persecuted' in Europe to come back to Israel and will be received with open arms, even though it may be back to some stolen land, they have a place to go with hopes of a better life. What African leader could say the same to oppressed blacks elsewhere who choose to look up to Africa for salvation? They cannot even stand up to face leaders of countries openly dehumanizing black people and tell it to their face because collectively their words amount to nothing even at the assembly of nations. 

Listen to the voices of some of your oppressed brothers and sisters and for once see things from their position. When the Emperor Haile Selassie gave Sashamane Land to the blacks from Jamaica who wanted to resettle in Africa, he did it with a higher goal in mind, the unification of blacks across the world.

Black unity should be understood in the context of brotherhood amongst people with so much in common and not as a plot to dominance over any group. It is a fight for dignity and independence in the true sense of the word and not a power struggle. Africa can be independent of the rest of the world in every sense of the word, so Africans need not dominate or colonize others for any reason.

Nkrumah said it decades ago that if we do not unite, we will perish, the situation in Africa today is proof of that.

But just like we emerged from colonialism, so too will we emerge from neo-colonialism. The dawn of Africa’s true independence and subsequent unification is upon us and we should embrace it.

“Unite for the benefit of your people for its later than you think...Cause Jah children wanna come home” (Bob Marley)