AFRICA, MY AFRICA.

   I am an African was a speech made by Thabo Mbeki on behalf of the African National congress in Cape town on 8th May, 1996 on the occasion of the passing of the new constitution of South Africa. At the time Mbeki was the vice president of South Africa under the presidency of Nelson Mandela.
   "I am an African, I owe my being to the hills and the valleys, the mountains and the glades, the rivers, the deserts, the trees, the flowers, the seas and the ever-changing seasons that define the face of our native land" Thabo Mbeki.
   We are not African because we are in Africa, we are Africans because Africa is born in us. Africa has a large continental land mass to its individual parts, the scale is massive. Besides having the second largest continental surface area containing 54 countries within its boundaries, it is also home to the River Nile, the longest river in the world as well as huge deserts, rivers and lakes. In fact, it is the most expansive arid region on the planet.
     The African continent is home to more than 700 million inhabitants who speak more than a thousand different languages between them. Africa is a land of diverse and nonidentical culture, norms and value. Are we to talk of the diversity in the languages, the food, dress, ways of greeting, Festivals, Land and nature and so on. Africa is indeed a blessed continent and an envy to other continents.
       Shall we then for once deliver ourselves from the sardonic and acidous mentality majorityof us have towards Africa and redeem ourselves from our villarious conduct towards her growth. Shall we surrender our swords to the beasts of the field and bury our hatchets to the mother Earth. Shall we live out of the pain of yesterday and remove our countenance from the evils of yesteryears. Deliver ourselves from the hurry-scurry our continent is facing and run away from the agonies of our birth.
     I come of those who were transported from India and China,whose being resided in the fact solely, that they were able to provide physical labour, who taught me that we could both be at home and be foreign, who taught me that human existence itself demanded that freedom was a neccessary condition for that human existence.
     As I will have it say that freedom is the mother of human peace, without freedom there cannot be peace and vice-versa. The tears of yesteryears can only be cleansed by the degree of present day happiness, not until we walk above ethnic flaws, political and social segregation, inter-racial wars, societal discrimination and religious fanaticism and work towards the well being of Africa, embrace her neglected glory and virtues, then will our birds find a tree to perch on.
     Let the tears stop, let the castigations seize, let the corruption finds its way back away fron our nations and let Afrticans live the African way and co-habit the African way, let them discover the inborn abilities of its people and tap from the undiscovered talents hidden in the continent and turn them into a platter of finished goods where people can trade on.
    Patient because history is on their side, these masses do not despair because today the weather is bad nor do they turn triumphalist when tomorrow, the sun shines cos victory is the reward of patience.
    Whatever the circumstances they have lived through and because of that experience, they are determined to define for themselves who they are and who they should be. That is the spirit, our future can only be decided by us, not by anything else or by anyone.