D'Empress

Black people don't work together as a community! How often have you heard the lament? Or, let's be real, how often have those very words come from your mouth?

As many countries on the African continent and further afield are gearing up to celebrate the 45th Africa Day, unity or our seeming inability to unite as African (read: people of African heritage) communities across the world is thrown into sharp focus.

Our history tells us that May 25 marks the day in 1963 when 31 African leaders gathered to form the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), now known as the African Union. Their mission was to accelerate economic development, self-determination and stability in their recently independent countries. Coined as the liberation movement, unity was the cornerstone of the vision. It still is.

Rhetoric or truth?

So, 45 years on, I wonder where the notion of 'black people don't work together' sits - as rhetoric or truth? Somewhere in-between?

The rub is that the painful cry is often anchored in poverty, disease, corruption and other debilitating realities that are real experiences across the world.

The issue of disharmony, whether among those living on the African continent or across the African Diaspora, is a proverbial noose around our necks which tightens each time we bewail the fact.

I am always intrigued to find that no matter which part of the world I'm in, I hear the same story. Given that black populations across the globe register at just over 1 billion, it seems unlikely that we are all working against each other.

If this is so, then why do so many of us choose to accept and verbally reaffirm what has become a stereotypical truth for African people? It's a convenient excuse to merge into a wallpaper of mediocrity. This undoubtedly manifests as a destiny call!

Tightly networked

It's likely that some of the 'other' communities we regard as being economically successful and tightly networked also have socio-economic issues, liars, thieves and backbiters among them. So how does universal human behaviour adjust your role in the picture?

The scene was set long ago. Long before the visionary leaders created the OAU, the ties that bind humanity were created at genesis. It starts with a decision not to plug into the 'we don't work together' vibration and make a conscious effort not to repeat and affirm it as truth.

In this light, I wonder what Africa Day means to people of African descent living across the world. Forty-five years on, the event is becoming increasingly relevant beyond the continent's borders as the world is now tuning into world perspectives which rarely gained popular exposure in the decades that have passed.

Forty-five years on, it's high time we place unity as our front and centre choice of being.

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