It is incredible how uninformed most Africans are when it comes to the issue of Pan-Africanism.
According to them, any call for Africans to take their own affairs into their own hands is tantamount to reverse racism and anti-white.
When you ask them why the 27 European countries who formed the European Union are not accused of anti-Black, these fellas go mute!
It is said, but it is clear that many Africans have been so miseducated and so thoroughly brainwashed that they suffer pathological self-hatred!
How else will a normal human being equate self-love with the hatred of others?
The truth of the matter is that Europeans did not join together to form the EU because they so much love one another. No, they did not. The Poles cannot stand the Germans (few people can). The Hungarians have problems with many European countries especially on cultural issues.
But, despite all the divisions and feuds, they coalesced to form an economic union in order to get good leverage in their dealings with the non-European world.
It has nothing to do with either love or hatred; it is simply the promotion of self-interests.
Sadly for us in Africa, we continue to consider international relations as lovefests whereby we seek friendships instead of the promotion of our national interests.
A few days ago, I penned to following to a friend who spewed some bs about Pan-Africanism.
To those who keep on deriding Pan-Africanism (PA) as a hopeless dream, I say:
1. The future, they say, belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.
2. Stop confusing Pan-Africanism with African-Romanticism.
PA is not about falling in love with your fellow African, it is about combining our strength to face a very hostile, dog-eat-dog, man-eat-shit, Social-Darwinistic world where might is right, and the weak are swallowed whole.
I can imagine your falling in love with the geographic expression of the colonial garrison you choose to call a country. I can even understand your need to beat your chest, wave flags, and belch anthems as you feel giddy with excitement and awe at the display of the appurtenances of your ostensible independent country.
What I cannot understand is why it is beyond you to see how puny and pathetically insignificant your beloved country actually is in the global scheme of things.
Apart from Nigeria, South Africa, and Egypt none of the other countries in Africa packed enough punch to rate high in geo-strategic, geopolitical or geo-economic calculations.
So, Mr Patriot, try to imagine yourself the president of say, Benin Republic, going to negotiate a trade deal with, say, Germany.
What exactly will you bring to the table?
Your economy, all of US$14:39 billion GDP, is significantly less than that of any of the states that made up the Bundesrepublik – North Rhine Westphalia tops the list at US$711.4 billion, the lowest, Bremen, stands at US$33.6 billion.
Try to do the maths!
At US $ 3.9 trillion, the German economy makes your national economy looks very tiny in comparison.
The Germans will simply roll over you.
That’s just the teaser.
I know that, for many of us, thinking deeply is an encumbrance, but try not to forget that Germany, being part of the EU, no longer negotiate bilateral trade deals with other countries.
The EU does that on its behalf.
If the German economy makes your national economy looks tiny, the behemoth of the combined EU economy at US$ 18.8 trillion reduces your national economy to virtual invisibility.
Since we are still imagining things, now try to imagine if, instead of you going alone to Bonn ( actually Brussels) to negotiate a trade deal as the Beninois Minister for Trade and whatever, you are part of an ECOWAS negotiating team.
By sheer scale of the combined population of the ECOWAS (300+ million), your prospects have dramatically improved. Your chances of being considered a serious player have increased exponentially.
You can also try to imagine if the owners of the Kasapreko Distillery in Ghana can consider the entirety of the ECOWAS as its natural market. Can you begin to imagine the scale of operation or how many jobs would be created?
I know that thinking is a very difficult thing for most of us in this part of the world, but try to imagine yourself as a struggling app or web developer in Ghana who suddenly has a 300+ million strong market to satisfy.
Try to think about it even if the efforts will render you comatose!
It is a great tragedy that instead of African tertiary institutions teaching our history and the cultural unity of Black Africans, they waste time and resources promoting national, ethnic, and tribal divisions. Instead of helping to promote regional and continental unity, they promote pseudo-patriotism of the neo-colonial garrisons the Europeans set up to make us eternal hewers of wood!
Have a wonderful day.
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