An African hierachy of self-abortion

Obama, show us the way …Beyond freedom ………

An African hierarchy of self-abortion.

It is appalling, Obama, to look at Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and discover that Africa, in this day and age, is still grappling with the needs down at the bottom of that hierarchy. It is gravely worse still to realize that her children and her women can not aspire beyond the need of security and survival. Their aspirations are killed by her rulers who take joy in aborting every meaningful ambition to prosper.
Even though the black man is obsessed with the attainment of glory; the black man has not achieved actualization, not in the way it is espoused in that hierarchy of needs.
Maybe the time has arrived for the black man and Africa to work out their own version of the hierarchy of needs. Psychologists have established that people have needs at varying life times and the various activities people are involved in create needs every now and then when other preceding needs have been satisfied or relief achieved. Therefore a needs analysis is not only the white man’s thing. For that matter, it can not be said that a black man can not apply the analysis to his make –up. The needs analysis is a human thing.
But can the needs analysis differ according the race, culture and / or geographical placement? Maslow’s option of need analysis can not be restricted to a section of the world’s population. It is universal. The main ingredient of the needs analysis is that to fly higher on the hierarchy relief should be attained, achieved. In this vein, where does Africa find herself on the hierarchy? A better question may be “what is Africa doing to step on a higher rung of the hierarchy?’
Everybody wants to grow, to realize and deal with different problems and achieve significant accolades from yesterday, last month, last year, the last century. It is quite acceptable for a human being to be upset when they find that they have to deal with the same problems week in, week out. It is quiet human for someone to be bitterly disappointed to find that a neighbour, a former colleague or anybody they know have not made any head way in life after a promising outlook.





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Therefore the question is: Is Africa disgusted that she teaches her children a history fraught with famine, tribal wars, nepotism, corruption, poverty, hatred. ignorance of humanly needs and nonsensical events only for the children to step out of the class room to be confronted by the same events? Africa’s children go home from school to find out that there is no food at home, or that the rebels have prevented an aids convoy from carrying out its mission. Workers go to work to be poorly paid and to be manipulated by both Africans and Europeans. Or they wake up to a coup. It is common for African politicians to discuss the problems of the past centuries in order to rectify their own mistakes and that of Africa. And then, again, of course, to repeat the same promises made during those past centuries, like a tape being replayed time and time again without satisfaction. Lack of progress is still blamed on the same people, the colonialists, and the same events, droughts, wars, nepotism.
Africa does not grow because her children are not encouraged to grow. Sometimes, somewhere in Africa her children do never know what being a child is. They deal and partake in adult problems from deep down when they are foetuses inside her womb. He children are denied the chance and opportunity to grow through the hierarchy of life. They are denied to enjoy life and to extol the emotions expected of them at that stage. They are denied the freedom of being children and the joy of looking up to their parents for guidance and protection. But alas! The very parents they look up to are criminals who loot the joy children should express and glow with. The very same parents rape and mutilate infant expression of innocence and of the need to be meaningful community members. The corrupt parents prevent development. They seek morbid glorification, they seek still seek support and praise when they withhold prosperity and freedom from themselves, and they beam widely when they maim their opponents, shout victory when they succeeded to oppress their own brothers into submission.
They do not contest elections. They take over.
That is how he attains satisfaction, growth and self-gratification, the black man. That is how his needs analysis work. To shame others and to project an image of cleansing the tribe by getting rid of the trouble makers. At the end of the day they mount the pedestal to tell the world how he got rid the colonialists who were against development in Africa. This victory speech will be repeated every time there is a festival of some sort. During that victory festival there will be those who will not understand the misplaced celebrations and they will see no point in it, but will question that victory
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parade. That will create a need for the rulers to crush them out, the rulers claiming to the world that they prevented another uprising against the ruling party. There will be another victory parade and the conditions will remain the same. And, of course, others shrug their shoulders in resignation, and apathy. They have seen it all, and they have heared it all. As long as they breathe and do the basic that life can offer, praise the Lord.
Obama, please help Africa to create a longing of a different achievement. Make her want to be at the summit of the hierarchy of needs. Help her fight a different war this time, let her fight for self-esteem, help her make new friends in worth-while friendships. Let Africa feed her children and put a roof over them. Help Africa educate them. Help the African children to realise their dreams. Let them grow up in an environment that promises prosperity and beauty, where a brother is a brother and sister the mother of the nation. Help Africa move on in life and become a meaningful member of the world community. Do not let others look down upon her when they discuss her problems.

Obama, show us the way…Beyond freedom…