My Third and Final Epistle of Jamaica and Bob Marley to the Minority Group in Parliament.
In an interview with Gil Noble on his television show ‘Like It is’ in 1980, Bob Marley cited Marcus Garvey of Jamaica and Haile Selassie of Ethiopia as individuals who significantly influenced him as a musician, a reggae musician for that matter. One would notice from the footages of Bob Marley’s live performances on stage that the pictures of Haile Selassie and Marcus Garvey were always displayed in the background alongside the Ethiopian flag with the Lion of Judah embossed in it.
Admittedly, these are two stalwarts of pan-Africanism; one has been referred to as the “Black Moses” (see Edmund Cronon’s Black Moses: The story of Marcus Garvey and the U.N.I.A) and the other is a founding father of the Organisation of African Unity (O.A.U). Themes of freedom, social injustice, racism, poor working conditions of Africans, colonialism, impoverishment in Africa, black pride and solidarity, and African unity resounded in the speeches and writings of these dignified men of black origin.
In the words of Campbell, throughout Marley’s career as a singer and writer, “he distinguished himself as a spokesperson for the Rastas and other oppressed peoples in a manner which had not been attempted since the time of Garvey.” Instinctively, this affirms my assessment of [Kwabena] Marley as an African philosopher (pan-Africanist). In Africa Unite, Marley adopts the words of Psalm 133:1, how good and pleasant it will be before God and man to see the unification of Africans, to prove the need for unity among black people.
During his performance at the Santa Barbara County Bowl, Bob Marley repeated that “Marcus Garvey said it so let it be done” and was clear on why the unity of Africa is imperative: Unite for the benefit of your people (children)…unite for the Africans abroad; unite for the Africans ah yaad (at home). Similarly, in Africa Must Unite, Kwame Nkrumah writes: We in Africa who are pressing now for unity are deeply conscious of the validity of our purpose.
We need the strength of our combined numbers and resources to protect ourselves from the very positive dangers of returning colonialism in disguised forms. We need it to combat the entrenched forces dividing our continent and still holding back the millions of our brothers. We need it to secure total African liberation (Nkrumah, 1963:217).
However, in Top Rankin’ (1979), Marley warned that it is not the dream of the oppressors to see Africans unite: They don’t want to see us unite All they want us to do is keep on fussing and fighting. They don’t want to see us live together All they want us to do is keep on killing one another. And Dr. Kwame Nkrumah in his speech at the Casablanca Conference in 1961 declared that “I know, of course, that the colonialists and imperialists are greatly disturbed and most unhappy about our talk on African Unity. They are not going to sit down with folded arms” (Obeng, 1997:3).
Moreover, Agenda 2063 envisions that “Africa will witness the re-kindling of African Solidarity and Unity of purpose of the Founders that underpinned the struggle for emancipation from colonialism, apartheid and economic subjugation (AUC, 2014:16). Campbell (2011) admitted that this call for African Unity by Bob Marley from the masses was as pressing as it was 31 years ago. Simply put, “Bob Marley was very conscious that the African revolution and African unity were inseparable” (pg. The situation of Africa is nothing to write home about, just as it was 8 years ago, when Prof. Horace Campbell espoused the relevance of Bob Marley’s pan-Africanist stance on African Unity.
African leaders ought to be mindful of the plight of their people and map out a collective response to their predicaments through an unbridled unified effort. Now, the choice for my title is necessitated by the paradox of Africa, which, to me, remains an unfathomable reality of a continent so blessed with innumerable natural (mineral) resources. This chimes in with the point of African Unity, which holds immense potential as the panacea to the continent’s myriad of problems confronting its progress.
In Rat Race (1979), Bob Marley declares that “In the abundance of water, the fool is thirsty.” Prof. Wangari Maathai expresses explicitly in The Challenge for Africa that “Africa is not poor, but that she has yet to learn to protect her wealth for herself” (Maathai, 2009:91). Just as Nkrumah declared in his address at the All-African Peoples Conference in 1958, “It is Africans who are poor, not Africa.”
One shudders to call another or others “fools” but considering the words of Marley and the conditions prevailing in Africa, the question is: Who gets thirsty when there is an abundance of water? Sadly, Africa is thirsting (poverty) while there is an abundance of water (natural resources) available to her. The resources of Africa should and must contribute to uplifting the peoples of Africa from their destitute conditions; for too long the industrialized nations have benefited tremendously from Africa’s resources much to the detriment of the African people on whose land these resources are found.
Aspiration 3 of Agenda 2063 projects that the peoples of Africa “will also have their fair share of the exploitation of natural resources and will be using them for the benefit of all by 2025” (AUC, 2014:17), while aspiration 1 forecasts that there will be “the growth of regional manufacturing hubs, around the beneficiation of Africa‘s minerals and natural resources in all corners of the continent” (AUC, 2014:13). It is expected that in 2063, in the abundance of water (resources) there will be no fool (Africa) thirsting (stuck in poverty).
As we remember Bob Marley, revolutionaries will seek his inspiration to push for a significant leap beyond the world of capitalist oppression, dehumanization, and injustice. [Kwabena] Marley’s revolutionary stance was unmatched and his words continue to inspire the fight for total liberation and redemption of Africa. Also, his music resonates in the AU Agenda 2063, which promises prosperity for Africa by the said year via placing pan-Africanism at the forefront of the project of reconstruction and transformation of Africa.
With the implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCTA), which is intended to discredit the artificial barriers imposed as a result of colonialism as well as remove trade tariffs between African countries, and the imminent common currency of the West African sub-region, ECO, there appears to be a glimmer of hope for an effective unification project of the African continent. By so doing, Bob Marley, Kwame Nkrumah, Haile Selassie, among other champions of African unity who have passed on will smile in their graves as they see the children of Africa uniting for a worthy cause.
Conclusion
The NPP members of parliament, as the minority faction, should be somewhat reasonable. What do we stand to lose by President JDM's gift to Jamaica at such a critical time when a brother really needs our help? The NPP, as I stated in the first epistle, has no understanding of what a due process is and cannot preach it moving forward. Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah did the same in Guinea, and the NPP ousted him from power as president, all out of mere greed. They know nothing but misgovernance, and the people should not listen to them. This is the people's government, which is why the NDC, a true party, has been massively elected to office for nearly a year.
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