African Unity- Can Jesse Jackson and the diaspora help enhance the dream?

For someone looking for something to critique, is is not always difficult to read stories and theories into people's words. Though many a times I have found myself reading things in a flashlight mode searching for answers to questions I have held for a while, I read Rev Jesse Jackson's assertion that the Diaspora needs voice in the Africa government with much interest and openness of mind. I did believe in what he said, at least the core message. Take away the artificial labels that have been used for years to divide our people, we are essentially one people in the same way a son and daughter from different mothers are family, or the same way an African elephant born in a Zoo in captivity is essentially known as African or in the same way the Israelites born in exile in Egypt were essentially Israelites. We are born out of Africa, into a different experience depending on the physical location of where that birth and nurturing occurs, but still are Afrikan.So for me, the wars of identity we sometimes fight are so much to do with who gets what breadcrumbs where, even though we are essentially one people. We as a people have so much in common than what separates us, which is why Jesse's message resonated. But, I must confess that when I first read I was thinking of the diaspora in a limited sense of those who came on Boeing 707s to the West- something which highlights our years of mis education.

So, what did Jesse say? He emphasized the need for unity between Africa and her children across the globe and that if the dream of a United Africa is to be attained, it has to have moral authority. While I applaud Jesse for speaking for the need to develop relations amongst ourselves, I fear that some of his sentiments are borne out of the same ideas of subjugation we are fighting. When Jesse says that, " Washington had made a mistake by reducing its influence in Africa at the same time as China stepped up its presence, sourcing raw materials on the continent and investing in infrastructure. While we (America) are pushing back, China sees this raw material base."

I wonder whether Jesse, like the people at the white house, see Africa simply as a resource base instead of a home for a people who have been scattered across the world by years of conflict and cultural, political, and economic subjugation. Jesse, seems to sound a bell whose ringing always worries me. I often worry about American Africans and some of our people born outside Africa who return to the continent only to replicate the same unbalanced and exploitative power relations that exist between our people and their down pressers. Exploitation is worse when it is conducted by our own, which is why Africans in the diaspora have to be wary of adopting and embodying oppressive values that have led us to where we are today.

I have always been an advocate of the politics of relationship building to gain strength. By that I mean if you look at the dominant groups who move world affairs you will note that they are largely integrated in some way through relations that spun continents. You could even map the social networks among these people. The World Economic Forum brings chosen people to meet with the old guard. It is where relations are formed. New people are inducted into these relations through institutions and forums that bring them together to share ideas and mingle. Potential leaders emerge in these contexts and they are socialized into a certain world view and return to their countries, where they follow up with lunches on yatchs to cement relations and business deals.

And this is what I feel we underestimate as a people so much so that our institutions are threatened because we build them up here and forget to invest as much time in building personal relations. We know from history that those who exploit have used divide and conquer for years, but when we go out to build institutions to fight the symptoms of our oppression, we somehow forget that. Many of us forget that you cannot build trust simply through talking about the need for trust. You need to talk, eat together and from that comes a degree of understanding people beyond meetings, which builds trust as well as lubricates the wheels of conflict in the event that it occurs. It is what then gives us strength, without which we are weak even if we are strong individually. Many of us forget about the need for a unity of relations before the unity of purpose. We forget that divided we stand, but only as the lone pole on whose strength the weak tomato plant grows to bear fruits that the pole will never enjoy.

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