What is there to celebrate on the African continent?

Our continent is in mortal danger; we suffer from an acute, man-made disaster of under-development

THIS month many people will be celebrating Africa Day.

This gives us an opportunity to reflect on how far we have come and where we are going as a continent.

Last week I was invited by the student representative council of the University of the Western Cape to be a guest speaker, together with Professor Kwesi Prah, on a panel about celebrating Africa.

My question was a simple one, what is there to celebrate? I posed this same question to my Facebook friends and after a long discussion it was clear that there is, in fact, very little to celebrate about Africa.

Our continent is in mortal danger; we suffer from an acute, man-made disaster of under-development.

Africa's problems can be traced back to slavery, followed by colonialism against which our people fought and won independence only to wake up to a new set of colonialists.

Those who were in the forefront of the anti-colonial struggle became black colonialists.

Instead of independence, freedom and prosperity, the majority suffered as they did under white rule throughout post-independence Africa.

This led scholars like Frantz Fanon to criticise our leaders and to call their rule "neo-colonialism".

The strange thing is that revolutionaries have no shame occupying the same positions as the white settlers they fought against.

Instead of answering people's needs, our leaders remind us of their struggle against colonialism.

This is a ploy to avoid taking responsibility for their betrayal of the people.

How can the ANC, for instance, blame whites for lack of land redistribution after being in power for 17 years since apartheid?

Indeed there is very little to celebrate.

All we can celebrate is that we have survived slavery, colonialism, apartheid and hopefully we shall survive the black colonialists phase as well.

But we can't just hope; measures to rescue this continent must be contemplated. We have to learn from efforts of people like Thomas Sankara who, with almost no resources at all, inspired his country to a new era where all were taken care of.

Unlike our leaders who speak big about being African but serve colonial and apartheid masters, Sankara turned Burkina Faso around through hard work, sacrifice and real people's participation.

Our leaders have expelled the people from making history. We are only called upon once in five years to make a little X against a face or name of a party and go home.

The people grow thin from hunger, those they give their votes grow fat from access to state resources.

This is true for South Africa and almost all African countries today. What makes this even harder to accept is that Africa is not poor.

God gave this continent enough resources to take care of each and every African. Our leaders choose to eat alone and give the continent to exploiters in the name of trade and investment.

This is the new imperialism run by our leaders.

The solution to Africa's problem is political. Until the masses wake up and demand to be taken seriously there is no way this continent can serve its people.

Right now we are a defeated people. We must become a victorious continent.