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Date: Thu, 21 Dec 2000 06:18:18 EST
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Subject: [wa-afr] Africans MUST Work Together!!!
AFRICANS MUST WORK TOGETHER
THE Ambassador of the Republic of Guinea to Ghana, Haj. Mamadou Falilou Bah,
has called on African nations to step up their level of co-operation to help
enhance the development of the African continent.
“The persistence of crises and conflicts everywhere and wide gap between the
North and South indicate that our countries must be more and more united in
order to solve the different problems that our states face,” the Guinean
Ambassador stressed.
Speaking at the State House in Accra where he presented his letters of
credence to the President, Flt. Lt. Jerry John Rawlings, on Tuesday, Haj. Bah
pledged to use his tour of duty of the country to boost Ghana-Guinea
co-operation for the mutual benefit of the two peoples and the African
continent as a whole.
The need for Africa to unite, step up co-operation amongst the various states
and harmonise the resources of the component states for the collective
well-being of the peoples of the continent has more relevance and urgency
today than when it was first mooted and championed by Osagyefo Dr Kwame
Nkrumah, founder of the nation of Ghana, President Ahmed Sekou Toure of
Guinea and other pioneers of African liberation.
In the late 1950s and early 1960s when African leaders, fresh from the
political battle of emancipating their peoples from the yoke of colonial
domination, called for the unification of the continent, they (the leaders)
were principally motivated by the need to avoid the undermining of their
newly won independence and the slipping back of their states into a fresh
round of colonisation through a more subtle form dubbed neo-colonisation.
Such a state of affairs, they believed, would marginalise the continent and
push it to the fringes of global decision-making, entrench its dependence and
seek to permanently relegate it to the status of producers of primary
products and importers of finished or manufactured products.
Today, the challenges which propelled the call for African unity are even
more daunting.
Though the East-West bitter ideological divide which was referred to as the
cold war has ended, the phenomena of the globalisation and economic
liberalisation have, among others, posed a more potent threat to the
well-being and survival of peoples of the continent.
Whilst these concepts are critically designed to bring the different
continents and peoples of the world closer together to pursue and promote
common interests as well as share in the benefits of such global interaction,
the truth is that Africa ends up more marginalised than before, with her
share of global resources decreasing at a high rate than before.
The effect of these has been the denial of a voice to Africa in key
decision-making fora at the international level where major decisions which
affect its destiny are made. This has put the continent at the receiving end,
increased the levels of poverty and deprivation and entrenched the dependency
syndrome that keeps Africa subservient to the interests of the developed
nations.
It is important to point out that whilst these already economically advanced
nations continue to strive to consolidate their positions through the various
political and economic blocs, such as the European Union (E.U.), North
America Free Trade Area (NAFTA) and the Association of South East Asian
Nations (ASEAN), the nations which for all practical purposes are in weaker
positions remain fragmented, with each fruitlessly pursuing solitary measures
and matching itself against powerful economic blocs.
The Graphic strongly believes that from such a standpoint, no single African
nation, on its own, can triumph and secure for its people the level of
economic and social well-being as obtained in these other nations which find
their strengths in active co-operation and harmonisation of their resources.
The only logical and rational way out for Africa is to unite now and pool
resources to enable the continent to live up to the challenges of the
competitive bloc politics of this century.
The Graphic, therefore, calls on African leaders and people to commit
themselves more to the ideals of their various sub-regional groupings, the
success of which would facilitate the eventual unity and integration of the
whole continent.
There certainly would be challenges and pitfalls along the way to unification
(the Europeans have had and continue to have a fair share of such problems in
their unification bid) but these, being natural, should only spur us on to
work harder to achieve our sacred objective of unifying and integrating the
entire continent.
Daily Graphic EDITORIAL * December 21, 2000 * Accra/GHANA
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