The race argument
Africa is an entire continent, with many ethnicities, a beautiful garden with flowers of many colours. We cannot allow ourselves to be divided along ethnic, colour, or religious lines. Our unity does not mean to forget our specific cultural values and practices. It means to remain on the road of love and inclusiveness opened for us by thefounders of panafricanism. Their Majesties King Mohammed V and Emperor Haile Selasie
I, were from different religious and ethnic backgrounds, but they understood they were from one same humanity. They fought for the dignity and right of every other african culture. It is their example of brotherhood in God, we want for every African child.
In his address to the United Nations, the great humanist H.I.M. Emperor Haile Selassie I declared “…until the color of a man’s skin is of no more significance than the color of his eyes…there shall be war.” Yet some of our african brothers are still caught in the dubious web of racial discourse, claiming that black skin, or being of the so-called ’black race’, automatically confers upon them some kind of inherent superiority over other “races”, as if the content of character had nothing to do with a person’s qualities, regardless of their ethnic origin. Not only is the race argument wrong, stupid, and offensive, but it has been used by the enemies of Africa, for as long as one can remember. Color of skin is the first thing to be shed inside the grave. To build entire thought systems based on skin tone, is an insult to intelligence, and constitutes an obvious attack on humanism.
Whoever tries to poison people’s minds with such divisive thinking can only be enemies of those people, tirelessly trying to dumb them down, in order to oppress them further. Whoever preaches the opposite of what H.I.M. Emperor Haile Selassie I said so clearly and unequivoquely, can only be working against panafrican success. Shocking examples of such discourses based on race, are to be found on the internet, in pretend afro-conscious websites, some with “Rasta ” names, claiming to be Rasta platforms. Some even have pictures of H.I.M. Emperor Haile Selassie I, to further the effect of wolves in sheep clothing. But as soon as one reads their articles, their message jumps at the eyes, as one can read unabashedly ethnic driven arguments. The use of genetic research is one of the favorite tools of these preachers of hate. They will speak of authentic stock, as one speaks of dogs and horses. They will say things like authentic Amazigh, authentic Igbos, or Yorubas, or Tuaregs, are such and such, and all the others are liars. They will say things like only black skin Arabs are true Arabs, and the rest are fake. Or that the only real Israelites are so and so, and the others imposters. We panafricans warn our friends, to temember that these racist trends are going against everything taught by the iniators of African Unity. These initiators fought for human dignity, so that no child should be ever be ashamed of their ancestry. We africans are free today to be Jews or Muslims or Christian or Vodounsi or traditionalists, dark or light skinned, equally, thanks to the efforts of the founders of panafricanism. Nothing we say or do is the same as before they came on the world stage, to heroically defend our rights to be who we are. Noone has the moral right to tell a light or brown or black skin Amazigh or Ethiopian child that he is inferior or superior to another person by the virtue of race. Only when a man has lost all arguments of worth, and has no valid thing to say about their function to others, does he retreat to the race argument. He’s not a doctor or even a shoe maker, so all he has left is his skin color, or his place of birth. But he’s not satisfied until he gets others to his lowest standard, now turned to the highest. However, if such a hypocrite was told that his very survival depends on a particular surgeon, he will of course never ask where that surgeon is from. The italian fascists and german nazis were followers of the race argument. We didn’t fight them to end up with their destructive logic in our minds. They also used pseudo-science and genetic arguments, to pit people against each other. But we won and now every nation has the right to its cultures, and to the belief in their specialness and mission. It is easy to exploit cultural narratives, and use them to create condescendence toward others, if we forget that the ones who fought for all our cultural rights, enjoined us to respect one another beyond our differences.