If Africans at home cannot save themselves, nobody will. We are always looking up to Heaven for manna and saviors instead of looking within us for help. Well, we are now shifting that task to African children in Diaspora. Some of us are so desperate in rage because of the unrealistic expectation placed on our children abroad as if they do not have enough to deal with. They are supposed to get into politics like Israelis, as some have already done: free Africa from demons.
This is such an unrealistic burden on poor children trying to survive and accomplish against all odds in Europe and America with all the obstacles placed in their ways. The whole premise may sound optimistic and knocking it may sound pessimistic but empirical evidence already dictates that we have produced politicians in Europe including Russia and some in America. The notion that they can pass for whites like Israelis and come home to lead our rescue so farfetched.
The best way to illustrate it is by looking at the most successful African politician in Diaspora. Who else but Obama! Was there anything Obama could have done to save Kenya in particular and Africa in general? History dictates a little. Even returned slaves created classes as in Liberia. Before going into how difficult it is, it is pertinent to know the difference between individual and collective achievement. The first has never been in doubt while collective achievement has always eluded us for variety of reasons after the Independent fighters of the 60s.
Indeed, as this writer has emphasized many times, until Africans at home achieve economic independence or salvation and start producing for themselves and others, no black man or woman will be respected anywhere in the world. The place to look up to our children is right in an environment where they live, breed and privileged. Fascination with everything outside our environment has given us the notion that survival is easier where we struggle against all odds.
Individual achievements should reinforce our confidence that there is nothing wrong with us. Using enabling environment for lack of achievement is another mechanism for excuse why we cannot succeed at home. By putting the enormous pressure on our children outside as if our children inside Africa cannot achieve what will move Africa forward is self-defeating. It even encourages our children at home to look up to Diaspora for salvation. So they take to the sea!
Indeed, anyone that can afford it, steal or borrow the money, educate their children outside by giving up on the educational system at home instead of fighting to improve it for the majority that cannot afford to escape. We have set up our expectation, psyche and prospect for failure inside our own environment. Not only is this dangerous for our future, it has compromised our culture, behavior and outlook. Yet, nobody in Diaspora will give us privileges we left at home.
Any African in Diaspora that has achieved some success in a leadership position as a manager must have had some influence on policies. The most frustrating part is how to use that policy to move his or her people forward without losing (i.e. fired) for pursuing agenda more favorable to the minority. It is such a tenuous and frustrating position for managers promoting diversity.
You pay a price for mentoring your people left behind in the ghetto, in dead-end jobs, under-employed and frustrated. One of the most frustrating situation our children find themselves after being accepted and graduating from Ivy League schools is looking around to see that majority of those left behind without an offer into that prestigious hospital, law firm and Wall Street; are children of color. Obama couldn’t secure a prestigious job; settled as a social worker.
Even then, some of our children get the big offers. The advice to those ones is to save all the money they could because their time with those firms may not be as long as that of their colleagues. When these reputable firms sneeze, our children are the first to catch a cold. Those that have managed to hang on, have variety of stories to tell on what they had to do.
Africans place so much premium on degrees, they forget that it is what you do with it that matters, not necessarily displaying it to collect dust. In the words of one activist, once the white man gives you an education, what you do with it is up to you. Those of us that went back home to use it were lucky. Today, African countries can’t guarantee employment for most graduates produced by the universities. Skill plumbers, iron or oil workers contribute as much if not more!
We are short of skilled workers needed for infrastructure but not Diaspora degree graduates if they want to go back to Africa to contribute. Those that have secured opportunities in Diaspora would not do anything to jeopardize their positions including putting the interest of Africa first above that of their firms or countries. The same way their parents in Diaspora would not give up their two or three jobs. It’s the only way many are seen as the most successful of all blacks!
Coming back to Obama. Some driving force in his country, no matter how small, that took over the command of a major political Party: refused to accept him as American. Not only did they refuse, they publicly vowed they would do anything to make sure he failed. Obama worked against all odds and brought United States from the worst economic recession since depression to the number one most successful economy in the world. It was not enough!
Nevertheless, they paint his achievements a failure. Every program he proposed to elevate the poor, they struck down including the ones they supported in the past like rebuilding decaying infrastructure. After cutting the unemployment to about five percent and that of blacks by half, they blame him for their systemic discrimination that kept 25% of blacks in poverty.
The same people that put disproportional percentage of native American, blacks and Hispanic in a bind are blaming it on Obama. The point here is Obama, the most successful African child in America has his work cut out for him. Expecting him to lift up Africa or African Americans just because he is the President of United States is myopic and too much expectation from those that do not understand the intricacies of western culture and democracy. Freedom is overrated
Africans in each country have to wake up and wrestle their economies away from vagabonds that call themselves politicians. If they do not lead, no African children in Diaspora or people of goodwill can do any better. Even if they come home and try, they will be frustrated out as those that tried before them and ran out. Too-knows! Only those at home know how to stone devils.