Be Inspired!
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Tamara Peters
It’s difficult to be inspired as an African, as a Black person…to look on the bright side of things and be optimistic about the future.
We look around us and see evidence of poverty and war in Africa, violence and crime in the African Diaspora; we seem to be plagued with all the ills of the world, Aids, Malaria, High infant mortality rate, Illiteracy. It’s a wonder we resist the temptation to accept with some resignation our fate as the Wretched of the Earth, Les Damnés de la Terre.
Yesterday it was Sudan, today the Congo, tomorrow Haiti, next week New Orleans, and next month Hackney, East London. The problems seem insurmountable and the solution nowhere in sight. The media, dominated by our former colonial masters seems to relish in fuelling the fire. The types of stories that interest them are limited when it comes to Africa and its people – fraudulent elections, war, corruption, famine, gun crime, crack-cocaine addiction and black children underachieving. That is until last week, Tuesday November 4th 2008, the day that a Black man, half African, half white American made history in the United States of America. The following day every media house in the world from Japan to Russia, Syria, North Korea, France, China, Germany, Australia, Spain, and undoubtedly every African country recognised and celebrated his achievement.
Every Black person regardless of their political convictions celebrated his victory as their own in some way. Weary of the negative press, of colleagues asking us how we feel about the rising level of black on black knife crime in South London or the crack cocaine problems on the streets of Brooklyn or child slavery in Benin or aggravated robberies and gang warfare in Kingston, we could finally breathe a sign of relief. We felt gratified that finally the world could see us how we see ourselves, as ordinary, hardworking, dedicated men, women and children. Although most of our white colleagues would not acknowledge this or necessarily link Obama’s victory to us as black people, we knew its significance and acknowledged it amongst ourselves. We smiled at each other on the way to work on that Wednesday November 5th, we held celebratory parties wherever we were in the world, we made sure our children got used to saying the name President Barack Obama and we even declared a public holiday.
Obama’s victory meant something to us that perhaps white people will never understand. It inspired us to be the best that we can be and to believe in all honesty that our hard work can pay off, that all things are indeed possible. It is a phrase that we often repeat, quoting the Bible (With God all things are possible) but rarely believing.
It is so easy for us to forget how great we are as a people, how much we’ve endured and far we’ve come in spite of our past when we look at today’s media, be it the BBC and their stories which reinforce the message of a continent that went downhill after ‘we gave them independence’ or France 24 whose message is ‘Nous devons reprendre l’Afrique pour leur propre bien’. The message around us is the same and megalomaniacs like Laurent Nkunda or Robert Mugabe don’t make the colossal task of feeling inspired by our continent and its people any easier.
For our own sakes and for the sake of our children, we need to look around us and search for role models that are closer to home than we realise. There are so many around us, the African market woman who puts all her children through university even though she can’t read, the African-American assembly line worker who holds two jobs to put food on the table, the Kenyan Phd holder who has chosen to work in her village to make a difference and the Trinidadian diplomat who champions her island and other small ‘powerless’ nations’ causes in the UN General Assembly. There are thousands of Great Black men and women who have made our paths possible and whose achievements we should acknowledge on a daily basis. We too easily forget the magnanimity of Nelson Mandela and the admiration he inspires the world over. We disregard the words and music of Bob Marley and his ability to move people across racial, cultural and linguistic lines. We pay little attention to Martin Luther King whose oratory skills move us all regardless of colour to tears. We overlook Toussaint L’ouverture, Queen Nzingha of Angola, Jomo Kenyatta, Malcolm X, Marcus Garvey, Kwame Nkrumah, and countless others who paved the way for President to be Barack Obama. Even though their names and achievements did not feature on front pages of the World Press, their achievements no doubt made our’s possible and we should talk about them to our children and remind them that we have always been a great people!!
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