Many desperate people from Africa, Asia and Middle East are now making perilous journeys in thousands in their attempts to reach Europe seeking greener pastures. They’re risking everything to cross the Mediterranean Sea. Italy’s and Spain’s ports have become the modern-time Kilwa, Mafia, Dakar or Lamu for Africans entering Europe as it was for European colonial agents entering Africa. Europe is grappling with the heavy load of invaders just as Africa did when Europeans invaded and colonised it in the seventeenth century. Those poor but energetic and ambitious Africans, Arabs and Indians are called a calamity there due to the danger they pose to Europe’s culture and economies.
Nevertheless, it is sad to note that Indians and Arabs are not seen with the same lenses as Africans are. Is it because of racism or ignorance? Why don’t they feel pity for them after considering how dangerous and adventurous their voyages are? Is the history repeating itself; or is the law of reciprocity, based on times, displaying its nature? It is time to tell Europe to stop worrying for no reasons. These folks are heroes who want to help poor relatives made poor by black colonialists that are always in bed with Western ones. Africa’s economies can’t support their population thanks to playing a service role to Western economies. If the situation remains the same, Europe must brace itself for even more. Maybe, this is the new way of deconstructing the archaic and anarchic system of exploitation enacted by the same European countries under colonialism, slavery and imperialism. This is why I fully endorse this exodus of the people. For, I know. It will help all of us to see the problem as ours not African or/and third world’s one as those who created such a dichotomous schema have always wrongly maintained for many years.
Importantly, Europe needs to open doors, borders and hearts the same Africa did when first Europeans inundated it seeking spheres of influence or spheres of greener pastures that later became colonies. Sadly, Europeans seem to have forgotten a simple fact that they once gone to Africa colonised it and destroyed its economy and ways of life. What did they expect out of an unequal and inequitable trade relationship the world evidences today? When European colonial agents went to Africa, they did not have passports the same way the so-called illegal migrants are doing now. They’re called floods that’ll wipe out European good life standards. So be it; if they wiped out Africa's life standards before introducing slavery and colonialism. Swahili sages have a saying kula na kulipa. You eat and pay for what you’ve eaten. Or when you eat expect to be eaten. Aren’t we eaten by bacteria after our dead bodies undergo rigor mortis, chemical changes, when we die? The Europeans went to Africa; and robbed it everything. Fortunately for them, Africans are not going there to rob or colonise Europe. They’re going there to work because they’re hard workers. They are honest and innocent victims of man-made exploitation in their continent. Again, the Europeans are the same creators of the forces forcing Africans to flee their continent. If European colonial agents inundated Africa in the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries, what’s wrong with Africans replicating the same in the twenty first century as the sign of reciprocity?
I honestly think European countries need to learn about globalisation they introduced to the world. They must do so by using the waves of economic migrants. Time for colonial monsters to pay what they ate is now. European countries need to understand that what’s ongoing is, essentially the real product of their plundering policies championed by capitalism. Africans have a saying that the capital of a poor person is his or her energy. This is why Africans are looking for better life and jobs in Europe after colonial monsters conspired with black ones to deny them works at home. These folks are looking for the means of living dignified and meaningful lives. Invest in Africa and create jobs. You won’t see the assemblages of Africans coming to your doors to destroy and infringe on your cultures and standards the way you destroyed theirs. Redress Africa, you won’t see them.
Stop exploiting their countries by using black colonialists. Guess what! Without coltan from the DRC, all computers and cellphones will die. Without uranium from Africa the so-called superpowers won’t have powers to threaten each other. Do you know that the nuclear bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan on 6 august 1945 was made of uranium from the DRC? Although colonial monsters don’t admit, there are many things that they depend on that Africa produces. Without chocolate from Africa Western kids would cry without a soother. Without cheap coffee from Africa, coffee will become a drink for tycoons only. Without the market for their weapons, they’ll turn them against each other. Without black colonialists to steal and stash money in their banks most of their economies will come to a grinding halt. Furthermore, without black colonialists to conspire with them, many regimes will fall. Again, is there any logical reason for despising Africa really? Go ask Chinese. Their economy will be nothing if they don’t supply Africa; and be supplied by Africa as far as raw materials are concerned.
Go asks India. Without Africa accommodating millions of its citizens scattered all over Africa not to mention buying its substandard products, India's economy is zilch. This is Africa, the giant of giant that’s been put on anaesthetics for generations. The day it wakes up from the slumber all will shiver and quiver even more. Now Africa is exporting its children to Europe as a way of paying a loan to Europe that once exported its colonial agents and thugs to plunder Africa. The difference is the fact that Africans aren't going to Europe to colonise or rob anybody. If Europe keeps on expelling them, soon they’ll go back home; and gang up against West’s stooges; and make real changes that’ll affect the West by chopping its taps off.
In sum, Western countries need a new way of looking at, and doing things. Africans who were treated as half beings for many years due to being colonised and enslaved are no longer the same today. Young people know what; and where decent life is. They know how to use internet to gain information that’s been the power that propelled Europe to success on the expenses of others. Time for Europe to stop the lie that Africa will remain the same is now. No more lies about Africa. The Dark Continent is now opening up brightly taking on those who brought it down. Colonialism forgot one thing; history has one permanent predisposition. It repeats itself. This is why today crowds of African modern-time missionaries, explorers, merchants and whatnot are taking on Europe to pay it back.
Source: The African Executive Magazine.
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