What excuse is there for the present culture of continuing to watch other peoples come and take advantage of natural resources which Black people can so easily exploit, process and add value to themselves, writes Andrew Wutawunashe in his book Dear Africa-The Call of the African Dream that The Patriot is currently serialising
I feel persuaded that Africans are God’s favourite people. Before you dismiss this statement, consider that the bulk of the world’s resources for wealth building—be it minerals, wild life, fertile land, vegetation,—the list goes on—were deposited at creation in Africa.
Colonial and slave trading nations enriched themselves through the rape of African natural resources and the abuse of African human labour resources.
Black people can be excused for this era of dispossession by force. But what excuse is there for the present culture of continuing to watch other peoples come and take advantage of natural resources which Black people can so easily exploit, process and add value to themselves and then use to compete with as exports on the global economic playing field?
If African leaders and people can begin to think in this way, it won’t be long before the tables are turned and the world looks to Africa for economic aid.
Black people must assume a new determination to enrich themselves with Africa’s resources and industriousness in the same way they enriched those who plundered them in the past.
There are three simple messages which it is imperative for this economic education and training to contain.
The first message to the Black person and to the Black child must be the message of ownership. When Black people everywhere were dispossessed through slavery and colonialism, this was done through violent plunder followed by a sustained programme of forced expropriation. Through this, it was demonstrated to the Black person that he had no right to ownership of any meaningful material resource in the land bequeathed to him by his ancestors.
In the case of slavery which is the root of the present day poverty of such Diaspora Black people as African Americans and others, it was violently demonstrated to the Black person that he did not own even himself nor his children.
Even his wife could be raped by the slave owner at will. His labour for the master was not remunerated. In the case of colonialism the unfortunate Black people on the African continent were violently dispossessed of any fertile or productive land and even livestock.
Relegated to barren tracts of land, they were employed for meagre wages to do the bulk of the work needed for the colonial master to exploit for his own profit the resources of the land of the birthright of the colonised.
The mind of the Black person was, through this trauma sustained for four hundred years, trained to accept that he really had no right to ownership of wealth and resources even on his own continent.
Even today, the propensity of Black people to be objects of charity, to receive rather than to give, is rooted in the deep psychological trauma of years in which they could not own anything except that permitted, left over or handed to them by the white master.
It is this unfortunate heritage which makes it very difficult for the Black person to visualise or take for granted his right to ownership of wealth and resources—even of good things which people of other colours consider as necessities.
In many Black families the acquisition of even a small automobile is considered as a monumental achievement for which the entire village must gather for celebration.
Yet it is just a simple necessity for transportation.
It is for this reason that the mind of the Black young person must be radically retrained and re-educated.
He must be made to understand that he has the right to ownership of resources and a key role in the creation of wealth in the global village, and especially in his own land.
In the political arena, this re-training needs to be underlined by programs which facilitate access to resources for the purpose of wealth creation for disadvantaged Black people.
Though this will never amount to the reparations which should have been done to restore the economic foundations of Black people, it will be a right, albeit small, step in the right direction. Coupled with this must be energetic training programs in wealth creation and educational modules in economic ideological re-orientation.
Civil society, whose unwitting message to the Black person has by and large been a message that he must be a perpetual object of charity needs as well to redirect its efforts and message to facilitating access to resources meant for wealth creation, and means of production for Black people.
Simple modules on wealth creation and entrepreneurship for young people will achieve much more sustainable development than endless hand outs of consumables.
The continuous stereotyping of Black people by civil society as the perpetual poor and needy of the earth is doing more harm than good.
Though it jerks tears which lead people to fill the coffers of charitable organisations, it needs to be urgently replaced with concepts which place a definitive accent on facilitating the ascent of Black people to the culture of indigenous wealth creation.
Religious teaching must also be faithful to the clear Divine emphasis that the poor and oppressed must be tutored and led into economic exoduses, fighting all odds in order to enter into material promised lands in which they will in Deuteronomic fashion “multiply flocks, dig brass and build goodly houses and dwell in them while eating bread without scarceness.”
In fact one fundamental issue in which it is critical to re-train, re-educate and inspire the minds of Black young people is the issue of ownership of the land.
A direct result of the strategic damage inflicted by slavery and colonialism upon the minds of Black people in general, and Black young people in particular, is apathy and disinterest towards land ownership, especially rural and farm land ownership.
Land is the root and foundation of all wealth.
Whether it is precious metals such as platinum, gold and silver, or precious stones such as diamonds, industrial raw materials such as chrome, copper and iron, or food stuffs such as corn, meat, and vegetables, or materials for manufacturing furniture and clothing such as wool, cotton and timber-all wealth originates in the land. It is in fact rural resources which build cities.
Most of the African cities we have so far seen were created under colonialism from rural resources.