Think Big!

By Mukazo Mukazo Vunda.

23 march 2001

It has long been time to Think Big for Sub-Saharan Africans. In fact, it is always good to think big. It is well known that the pot of goodies always goes to the man who thinks big, and not to the man who thinks small. Raise a bet, but raise a big one. There will always be time to go back to the good old small and secure bets if the big one doesn't succeed, and besides, there is no feeling more satisfying than to go away knowing you did the right thing. The pot always goes to the man who raises the biggest bet, or bank. Always remember this.

With this in mind I present the latest, and most ambitious project ever thought of in Africa, by Africans. The plot of the book "Black Fathers, White Fathers" mentions an African Intelligence Agency. Now that is thinking big. Imagine how the OAU wishes to bring about African Unity when they do not have a similar organization in place to help fix the odd ends in the various trouble spots of the continent. Ridiculous isn't it. They could achieve much more if they thought like I do, if they thought big that is, but then our African leaders, or their representatives who populate this organization have not been known to be big thinkers, now have they?

The OAU is doomed to failure and besides, they have an adversary who thinks big. An intelligence agency is in place in Africa already. But it is not run for, or by Africans. It is very advanced and uses all the tricks in the book to achieve its aims. The OAU and other regional intelligence agencies are jokes when compared to this.

But then again I am straying from the point. The raising of the great pan-African intelligence agency is another Think Big project that someone else will have to devise somehow. Come to think about it; these are the kinds of projects for which you can get maimed by god-knows-who; even for just thinking about them, let alone the propagation of such ideas.

The project I have in mind is quite different from this. It is about our pride as a people, what pride can do in giving an incentive, and directing the creative process of a group, providing for a social conscious, making the African proud of himself; and the impact historical scripts and monuments have had on this collective pride. Here I am referring to for example scripts in the Bible defining cultural practices which are similar if not the same as African cultures still alive and active today, about old Egypt and its achievements, and the similarities in culture, even language, of the old Egyptians and their culture; about Nubia, about the Koran and some truths contained in it which find no reference among the possessors of the religion today; about black people in particular, and the self image that our history gives us, and how this makes us feel about ourselves (for an example of this, see the speech by President of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki, at the United Nations' University. Click here to be taken to the archive section to read this article).

Moral boosters for the Africans indeed. But then these are not tangible. Other, non black peoples have inherited these lands and scripts, and the inheritors of these lands and scripts have erased all but a few of these references to Nubians. Vanity and the history they have given us prevents them from giving us the respect we deserve. Doing so would expose their foolishness at first contact with Africans. Their actions and mandates on the African after conquest were misdirected, misled, foolish, gratuitous, and fallacious. Accepting this truth is hard for any human being. And so the legend of the primitive minded African lives on; in the minds of the children of the robbers of the African culture, and the Africans themselves, because we do not have our share of control of the media yet to change this.

The Romans traveled the world bringing profit to those they touched. They gave names to those without any. Our conquerors on the other hand called us infidels, barbarians, and forced names on us when we already had these, forgetting, if not driven forward by the fact that they got their names and cultures very recently. Silly, isn't it. But then the most the African can do is complain and argue his point.

He who controls the past controls the present! Very true. What is the African left with in this framework. Nothing! No pride, no morale, apathetic and very unlikely to show initiative.

Now think about this. What if Africans with green ($) power, coupled with donations from the masses at large, decided to set up a city within the continent, in a neutral country where the least government interference will be expected, and dedicated it to the rebirth of the continent; to a prosperous and affluent Africa. The best minds could be set in on this project, and the best minds hired from all over the world to occupy the most important posts and positions to ensure that the project survives. Within this city could be erected tourist attractions, shrines to African heroes who fell when better blues were all we asked for, etc., etc. A self contained economic entity in Africa is not an impossibility. If made, it could help develop the rest of the continent too.

Now, this idea may just sound too much, but think about it. Wouldn't it be nice to have a replacement that is not defiled. In times of solitude and confinement, or decrepitude and degeneration, think of our progeny, our own children, our descendants not finding in Egypt, the Bible, or vague historical records and crumbling but majestic, occupied and altered monuments, their inspiration and pride, but finding their pride and inspiration in this city, its achievements and relics, initiated by a thought as simple as this, founded and still occupied by their own, in their time.

Do think about it! Someone will beat you to it.

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