Change of Philosophy - Key to the rise of Afrika’s youth
As the day of reckoning edges closer to me, I become more and more disillusioned about my generation and other contemporaries. Our forefathers and their forbears had enough courage for millennia to tackle bread and butter issues head on before you could swallow your spit. Yet we, the potbellied, cigarette quaffing, status hungry, sex crazed, morally decrepit and beer guzzling nonenties of civilization take to social media to air out our emotions at other progressives who treat us with disdain for our lack of fortitude, industry, enterprise, courage and futuristic yet frugal mind-set that is able to delay gratification and toil for its own progress and that of its offspring.
Our fathers went to war to seize the means to their dignity. Alas, their legacy has since been fed to the dogs of history and squandered by us; the prodigal generation of born frees perpetually stuck in a time warp of ‘free for all’ mentality without engaging our faculties in production and enterprise. Active citizens today register to vote. Other civilizations have created media to control Afrika’s thoughts and actions. Others toiled for decades quietly and unassumedly and now enjoy the fruits of their hard labour by invoicing the world for their prosperity and comfort. They have embrace the philosophy of ownership whose tentacles stretch to include the very resources under our feet whilst we sweat and toil to live by their antiquated standards.
Here we are as young Afrikans, on Twitter and Facebook making billionaires out of other civilizations with emotional platitudes devoid of action, devoid of any way out whatsoever except to rally fellow colleagues with similar ‘victim’ minded and vindictive yet purposeless attitudes that dig us even deeper into the quicksand of has-beens and also-rans with eyes glued to the rear view mirror of our destiny whilst the rest of the world marches on - piggy backing on our sorrows to make fortunes and fuel further progress for their civilizations.
As youths, our greatest tragedy is not our lack of knowledge because more of it is now freely available for the discerning to use at will. Our greatest undoing is our inertia, our love for theatrical pub talks and possession by the demon of conspicuous consumption. We are the one minute crowd that wants things now in their finished and processed form. We want to eat now! We want to wear the finest clothes that others have produced, drive the latest most expensive cars which other civilizations toiled and perfected beyond our means. We want to holiday in the most exotic places, but have done nothing in the past 4 centuries to redeem us as a people. We are but the world’s market- simpletons who have mastered the art of blah blah blah. Great singers, great poets, great writers, great actors, great artists - yet none strive to truly own what they create, we are content with our 10 seconds of accidental fame and fortune. Terrible commercial sense. Zero philosophy of ownership.
Afrikan youths (and adults) continue to beg, wail and hide in classrooms and universities rather than face life and be an active and progressive civilization to reckon with. A civilization that produces products and services that it truly owns via copyright and trademark and invoices the world to generate profit for the material and social development of its people. We are our own worst enemies, to be judged by our young generation for squandering God given opportunities in favour of pieces of silver. Today’s progressive Afrikan is one who always sees an opportunity where others see a problem. The modern active citizen is the lever of human civilization that sees everything with a commercial eye; always in flux, exploring opportunities to better their lot. Empowerment of others without personal upliftment is a myth. First be the change you want to see in the world and change yourself, break down your barriers and let go of your victim mentality and embrace the mentality that you are the catalyst for change that will galvanize those around you to jump to action. The honeymoon of praise and worship is over. Go out there and live the life God created for you. Be productive, be frugal, work hard, be enterprising and prosper. Afrikan youths, you are the youngest population in the world for the next 20 years for a reason. You have the energy and the wherewithal to take the baton of our political liberators to the economic dimension. Make it count. The time is yesterday!
