African Liberation Day Message to the World During the Pandemic: Ubuntu — Dr. Thelma Phillip-Browne

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May 25, 2021

In September 2015 the United Nations ratified the Sustainable Development Goals 2030 described by that body as a  “blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all” noting that they “address the global challenges we face, including those related to poverty, inequality, climate change, environmental degradation, peace, and justice.”

The Year 2020 has been designated by that said organization as the beginning of the decade of action aimed at ensuring that the world does achieve those goals that are rooted in the 5 p’s of people, planet, prosperity, peace, and security. The COVID 19 epidemic has highlighted the importance of a new world order certainly more focused on these goals.  A world order that as Riane Eisler states in her book The Real Wealth of Nations embraces a different paradigm which, “ while preserving the best elements of current economic models, takes us beyond them to a way of living and making a living, that truly meets human needs.” 

Achieving these laudable goals will not be easy for continental Africa and its children.  Andre Perry, author of Know Your Price, wrote, “The deliberate devaluation of Blacks and their communities has had very real, far-reaching, and negative economic and social effects.”  

Dehumanization of Blacks was of course a consequence of British legalization of chattel slavery. Blacks were mere property and proof of that is the payment by the British government in 1834 of 20 million pounds to slave owners in the West Indies in exchange for their loss of “property” that being  664,970 slaves.

 By this time Michelangelo had already painted the Sistine Chapel with all biblical characters White, despite the fact that from a historical and biblical perspective, the Garden of Eden was in Ethiopia and the origin of civilization in Africa. Indeed, a blonde blue-eyed Jesus could never have gone unrecognized in Egypt for 2 years. Yet despite these biblical truths,  Carolus Linnaeus was allowed to classify humans made in the image of God, by colour of skin with Homo Afer at the lowest level of the human chain.

In her book Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome, DR. Joy Degruy alludes to the fact that one of the most “insidious and pervasive symptoms of Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome is our adoption of the slave master’s value system….the belief that white and all things associated with whiteness are superior; and that black and all things associated with blackness are inferior.”  Such sentiments are by no means easily overcome. Indeed, decades of rape of historical truths by colonizers were as radical as they were ruthless. The psychological assault like a branding iron was as steadfast as it was searing!

For Africa and its diaspora, therefore, this decade is a highly critical one and the celebration of ALD on May 25^th is a pivotal moment. It is a time to take our destiny into our own hands and chart our future course. To do that we must heed the voice of Bab Marley in his Redemption Song, by which he adjures us to “Emancipate ourselves from mental slavery, None but ourselves can free our minds.” Bob understood that the battle begins in one mind, one individual at a time until the walls of racism and inequality are stormed and destroyed paving the way for a better tomorrow for all the world’s citizens.

As we embark upon the Decade Of Action for the attainment of the SDG 2030, doubts are already being expressed as Africa already lags behind on many indicators. However, Africa’s children must believe that if you can envisage it you can achieve it, that as a “man thinketh in his heart so is he.” Africa’s children must no longer be governed by low exogenous expectations, but be propelled by grace and the endogenous creativity, strength, and ingenuity that characterized the world’s oldest civilization. Africa must have faith in the world’s youngest and fastest-growing population empowered with the globe’s most abundant natural resources.

These children of Africa must once again reach for the mountain top of their resilience and creativity and ever strive for Ubuntu;  “I am because we are,” the belief in a “universal bond of sharing that connects all humanity.”

#AfricanLiberationDay #AfricanLiberationDay #AfricaDay #PanAfricanism #PanAfrican #ALD #sdgs #SustainableDevelopmentGoals

Thelma Phillip-Browne, a medical doctor, is Ambassador to the US from St Kitts and Nevis. Dr. Philip-Browne graduated from the University of the West Indies (UWI) Mona, Jamaica, in 1978, and received training in Public Health at the John Hopkins University School of Medicine and is also a graduate from the Cardiff University School of Medicine in Wales, with a Diploma in Dermatological Science. Besides being a social and political activist, Ambassador Phillip-Browne is a sports enthusiast who represented St. Kitts in netball for many years and was a member of the Caribbean Netball Association’s Championship Team in 1973.