21st Century Dreams
Dreams.Dreams.What is there to do in the 21st Century Africa by a 21st century African. I have always wondered. When I was young I wanted to serve in the government like my father…in my teens I wanted to explore the continent and write about it and talk to leaders, stop the wars.
In my adulthood I am faced with the stark reality of living Africa. Staying put and overlooking all its failures and corruption and dishonesty and finding a small place big enough for me and my family and then shutting my eyes, living a long trouble free life ,long and lasting life, eyes wide shut.
That’s all they do. The doctors, the engineers, the lawyers, the bankers, the investors. They hibernate and embrace a tiny world. The rest will somehow take care of themselves.
I am faced with this life of delusion. And I am reluctantly trudging on to this dark path of dishonesty and indifference .The time tested criminal cowardice of the African intelligentsia ,that readily steps aside leaving the ship of state in the hands of the buffoons and the undereducated.
Most African intelligentsia have solid belief that the task in Africa is too much ,too demanding that maybe this burden could be shelved to the younger generation or to the West. After all,”the West caused all the problems.” It is the perfect excuse, and it has worked perfectly well for the last 40 years.
Yet Africa‘s pain and underdevelopment is a direct result of our dishonesty and lack of honour.Lack of service and sacrifice. A primitive kind of selfishness. Ali Mazrui would never admit this. We are in this state not because of colonialism but because of ourselves. Our values. Our lack of honor.
That is why this continent crashes the dreams of so many o its people. The youth in Africa. They would leave the continent to the older selfish generation if they had somewhere to go. They would flee the old continent and seek a new land free from the old tribal prejudices, immorality, and corruption and ineptitude. The older generation is too inexperienced and too ready to cling to power. The younger generation is poorly trained and in deep desperation.
They have lost the faith in the land in which they were born. This why Africa is headed for doom. It is the place where dreams are not fulfilled and those that sprout are swiftly extinguished. In such land only despair drives the soul of its occupants. The land undergoes a slow and steady death orchestrated by the foolish leadership.
So 21st century Africa will be once more, a century of nightmares.