Black, Green and Untold

Seeds of Slavery


Genetically Modified Organisms and the Role of the Black Revolutionary In the Struggle for Food Security
Introduction:


The notion of democracy in Afrika and indeed throughout the so called Third World is clearly a mixed bag of optimism, gullibility and dubious policy decisions. The questions I will to raise here are; who really controls the conversation, the flow of information, public relations, political will and whether there is any form of participatory democracy here in Africa and in Southern Afrika in particular?


Further, I will ask whether the ordinary Black Southern Afrikan is knowledgeable enough to understand the impact of GMO’s and globalization in his own life and that of his family and land. What kind of politics if any is required of us in order to achieve self-determination and satisfactory use of our resources e.g. Water, soil and renewable sources of energy?

Matters of global chaos (so called Global Warming); land ownership; nationalization, redistribution and progressive politics of Black Consciousness will be touched upon with a conscious effort to examine the role of radical political activism in the fight against White Supremacist ideas and actions. We will begin by determining the role of the ‘State’, civil society and the Afrikan individual in general.
Part 1: A Stateless mind-state


“We find ourselves at an intersection that presses us to consider, once again, the character of the state that we have created. The task for the immediate future is no longer the reconstruction of the fundamental principles, tools and institutions of democracy and a free market economy. All that has already been accomplished.

I do not believe that our future goal should be merely the creation of an efficient capitalist democracy. We need something more: we need to begin a serious discussion about the character of the democracy that we wish to cultivate – its roots, spirit, and direction.
With equal seriousness, we should also consider what needs to be done at the different levels of the reconstructed market economy so that its fruit may be enjoyed by the general public. We need quite simply, a new vision. One that is mindful of the future role of citizens, local government, and state– Vaclav Havel and Vaclav Klaus in Rival Visions, in Journal of Democracy ( Vol.7, number 1 – January 1996: Civil Society After Communism)

Let us get one thing clear and out of the way as soon as possible. Afrikan governments and Afrikan leadership has generally failed in its mandate to liberate us and wrest Black people from the mire of the neocolonialism. There is very little to prove that the Afrikan continent consists of truly independent states or nations. There is still an appalling dependence on Europe, Amerikkka and the rest of the industrialised world for the most basic goods.

The infrastructure of many if not all Afrikan countries is made in China, India, Scandinavia, USA and in some places the residue of Portuguese, German and British colonialism. In a word, we are still slaves who are socially, politically, economically and somehow – culturally dead.
We are not yet men and women; we are still sophisticated and egotistical beggars. Slaves to a depressingly fatalistic and materialist system.

But what is it that we arebegging for? This is the central theme of this paper. Precisely, what makes a wealthy person beg from a poor person? Or to put it in Peter Tosh’s melodic lamentation: “Africa is the richest place yet it still has the poorest race” – These are questions that are raised daily, in drinking spots all over the continent and indeed worldwide.

The question is raised in thousands upon thousands of academic journals, books, theses, seminars and convention centres. The Black person who is even the least bit conscious of her and his condition, is pursued by this nagging question daily.

But is there an answer? If so where can it be found; perhaps in a ‘political solution’, a supernatural dimension – in church, mosque or at the ancestral shrine? Whatever the case may be, it is abundantly clear that the answer must come sooner than later, since our problems are piling up, our governments are messing up and the gods and ancestors also seem clueless.

We must do what is best for the grandchildren and their children and that is to Think, thinking clearly and realistically about whether any idea of Africa is indeed required or not at all. WE must dare to think beyond the limits that have been set by either past ideologies or ethnocentrisms. As the comedic parody of modernity, The Gods Must Be Crazy shows, there is no such thing as the end of the world, without a conscious decision for us to consciously make it happen.

I say this about the gods and ancestors not because I mean to be disrespectful, for many are the active traditionalists, spiritual leaders, and ministers of the gospel who have offered humanity some formulae and suggested that we either return to the principles which prevailed in pre-colonial, pre-slavery Afrika or that we should heed the prophets who preach personal righteousness which would then translate to community improvements and national favour with the divine.

It is clear that we have generally heeded neither the messiah nor the messengers of the great ancestors. This means that people have not found any solace in their sacred groves, rituals and dogmas, the corrosive appeal of capital has turned everything into a commodity, a credit trap from which very few ever manage to escape.
Our situation seems far from any resolution, therefore the only option is a complete revolution – the form of which must begin in our minds, hearts and most specifically in the manner in which we produce, distribute and regulate what and how we eat. Yes, the Afrikan revolution is primarily in the land, the soil, the water and the type of seeds we choose to sow today. It is that simple. So the current role of global and Afrikan politics and business is a nothing more than a series of costly compromises, hypocrisy and downright delusion. We are essentially being fed poisons and the more silent we are on these issues, the sicker and more dis-empowered we shall become.

Our leaders have successfully put many of us under a spell and the Black Afrikan exists in a state of wretched duality. Once a modern worker-slave yet also a proud but land-less, vision-less shadow of the white person. In fact it is much more than a duality, but a catch 22.

Now let us look at the role that GMO’s and their multinational propagators have on the present and future prospects of Black Afrika and indeed the entire planet. We must question ourselves and the world we live in, how can we realize our fullest human potential when we are utilized as guinea pigs in a global scientific experimentation of forbidding proportions?
They may call it the Green Revolution for Africa but whose Afrika are they talking about,who is the one profiting from third-world peoples exploitation yet still destroying their livelihood?
If we fail to think and act and find a way to end the seemingly perpetual subjugation of our lives and lands, we will continue being used, but what kind of new thinking should we use to liberate ourselves?


"Thinking was for me as important as blood, perhaps more important. I had no intention of being a tribal being or a colonial being. I wanted to be an African, to think as an African, to live as an African.


"When I looked into my psyche, what I saw was a consciousness desiring first of all to bond with all Africans, to live out that desirable bond, thinking of the most creative ways in which Africans might be brought together, and bending my work deliberately, consciously, toward that aim. Such an aim is easily reduced to nothing by the realities of a status quo designed to make it seem impossible."
~ Ayi Kwei Armah
in "The Eloquence of the Scribes": (Published by Per Ankh: Popenguine, Senegal. 2006).