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Our Founding Fathers and mothers
A spate of anniversaries have been announced, remembered and then gone and perhaps forgotten. There was the 10th Anniversary of the Genocide in Rwanda. There was the 10th Anniversary of the liberation of South Africa. There came the 50th Anniversary of the famous Brown versus Board of Education decision in the USA that abolished legal sanctioned discrimination in the school systems and by extension the whole society. And other Anniversaries.
There are other Anniversaries to come: for me the 40th Anniversary of Zambia's independence is poignant. I am from Zambia. But instead of celebrating one country's 40th independence Anniversary, I would rather celebrate the 40th Anniversary of the independence decade of Africa.
More than three-quarters of African countries got their independence in the 1960s, making this decade their 40th Anniversary. Countries like Nigeria, Kenya, Malawi, Senegal, Congo, Tanzania, Cameroun, you name them. The OAU was also founded in the 60s. That was a decade of hope and jubilation in Africa. It was also a decade of great achievement in the civil rights movement in the USA. Most Caribbean countries also acheived independence during that decade. It was also a period of sexual and familial liberation across most of the world.
Individuals have written books and made movies about that magic decade. It was also a decade when some of the most charismatic leaders were assassinated: Lumumba, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr, John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Che Guevara or imprisoned: Nelson Mandela, Joshua Nkomo, Ndabaningi Sithole, Albert Sisulu and so on.
In researching this article, I discovered that there has never been an article or book praising the efforts of our founding fathers, especially in comparison to some of the characterless and corrupt leaders that followed and are mostly governing now. Our founding fathers were corrupt but most of them had visions and put a great deal of the scare resources to very good use. They laid the foundation that still exists to this day, whereever it has not been scwandered. Take the example of Zambia. There was free everything and there were national institutions that went along with national development. Then came the corrupt Chiluba government in 1991 that tore down everything and made looting of state coffers a national sport. The mistake Kenneth Kaunda made was to stay too long in office, the same mistake Julius Nyerere in Tanzania, Jomo Kenyatta made in Kenya, Senghor made in Senegal, Kamuzu Banda made in Malawi and so on. But these leaders had redeeming qualities which are utterly lacking in modern African leaders. (On Zambia, see my book: CLASS STRUGGLES IN ZAMBIA, 1889-1989 AND THE FALL OF KENNETH KAUNDA, (UNIVERSITY PRESS OF AMERICA, 1992).
Even the early military dictators of Africa were better than those that came after. Take Gowon of Nigeria. That road infrustructure that currently traverses Nigeria was built by him using oil dollars. Military leaders that came after were only interested in lining their pockets.
I think it is very important to remember and commemorate our Founding Fathers and mothers. There is much to admire and thank them for, even as we remember their misdeeds. Some of our founding fathers and mothers are still around: The Kaundas, Mandelas, Winnie Mandelas and others of this world. In Canada, we have our founding fathers and mothers. We need to dig them up from obscurity and celebrate them.
