Change is African

I don’t know what it is about the term African that it’s expected to remain stagnant in an evolving world.
No wonder the African youth are mostly caught between two worlds.
The phrase “ UnAfrican” is so common that it is slowly becoming what we most identify with.
How can what we are as Africans BE UnAfrican?
It’s clearly self contradictory.
We need to define what African is first and foremost before we understand what is not.
And that for me is what is lacking in the African critique.
What is African?.
1.

And so we are left to defining African by the negative – what it is not.
Anything that is progressive, take a pick, random as it maybe, it will undoubtedly end up in the UnAfrican pile.
That is our biggest short coming.
We cannot exist in a never changing bubble in an ever changing world – it’s unrealistic.

It is also very dangerous and narrow minded of African leaders to reject progress as is common practice and opt for the slogan that it is UnAfrican when the opposite is not clear to anyone.
How can we subscribe to an ideal that we are not clear about? Where does that leave or lead us to?
One constantly hears talk of “Africans solving problems the African way” what does that even mean? The problem is not the aspiration to solve problems the African way but that this way is not clear to or inclusive of all concerned.

A case in point is homosexuality which is continually declared Un African throughout Africa, and therefore African leaders refuse to acknowledge and hence provide leadership for it, some of the reasons cited for this are that…you guessed it, it is – “Un African” and that our ancestors were not homosexuals.
That is only one example, i won’t mention more, my point is we cannot live by the exact same laws that our ancestors lived by, simply because we live in a different time.

Africanism is not immune to change, it must evolve to suit the needs of the people or it will be swept off the face of the earth by the winds of change.

Evolution does not translate into extinction rather the opposite as time has taught us.

What legacy has Africanism to offer the present and future generation. What can they identify with but still be proud of, that doesn’t alienate their dreams and views/ideas of themselves.

Everything that we are as African IS African – this can be Black, White, Yellow, Red, Coloured, Homosexual, Intersex, Single mothers, unmarried men and women, working women, women who own land, transgender, career women, modern, models, progressive, creative, poets, DIFFERENT etc, simply because WE are IT! The term African cannot be put it into a neat little box and trimmed nicely to suit a few people’s needs, the people have evolved and changed, and the laws governing them must reflect this change and suit the needs of the time in which we find ourselves.