THEN AND NOW BY VERONICA OLAYINKA ADESINA
THEN, many tribal chiefs transferred the wealth of Africans
To the white man in the form of human slavery,
in exchange for mere necessities that glittered and promised false securities
THEN, our ancestors were gagged, tied and starved aboard filthy, airless ship and auctioned to slave owners for profit.
THEN, our ancestors were called niggers, good for nothing and equaled to mere possessions.
A possession that worked on the plantation fields,
A possession that yielded profit for the slave owner
Separated from their loved ones and motherland,
But deeply understood and highly valued the meaning of togetherness.
NOW, we, the new generation of Africans, travel to America And the European nations of our own free will
but fail to understand the meaning of togetherness.
We seem to have forgotten the past.
We seem to have forgotten the pain, the struggle,
The shame and the humiliation our ancestors bore.
NOW, we, the new generation prefer to thrive on the Me, Myself and I, survival mentality.
THEN, aboard the slave ships, many African babies were thrown into the seas because they were deemed worthless and unprofitable.
NOW, many unfortunate African babies are abandoned by ambitious parents forced to look for profit in faraway lands due to the incompetence of many of their African leaders
THEN, many enslaved African women jumped into the sea after their drowning babies.
NOW, many free African women drown in their sorrow of hopelessness,
Amidst their freedom due to the scarcity of growth opportunities.
NOW, many of our leaders willfully transport the wealth
Of the Africans to the white man’s land,
In the form of looted hard currency and natural resources
NOW, many African leaders unintentionally build and
Support other lands with the looted African wealth
That is stored in the European Swiss Accounts.
NOW, many African countries kill their own people during civil dissensions, in an attempt to weaken its own kind
Through separation, allowing the enemy to lie to them, again.
When are we going to learn, when are we going to change?
When are we going to learn from the past?How long must the citizens suffer at the ignorance of their leaders?
When are the citizens going to stand up and fight for their God-given privileges?
When are we going to get past the Me, Myself and I, survival mentality?
AFRICA, we have unknowingly supported every continent except our own,
We have inadvertently built every continent except our own.
NOW, the same continents that have prospered with the sweat, the toil, and the shed blood of our ancestors are laughing at our vulnerability, our ignorance and our frustration.
They are thriving on our natural resources while our people continue to suffer from the lack of the very resources that should sustain them.
We, the new generation, must remember the past
And come together to build a new AFRICA.
A new AFRICA which protects its own,
A new AFRICA that no longer watches helplessly
As her people die on the streets.
It is up to us, AFRICA.
We must come together and build
A new AFRICA that will unite and eradicate
The germs of greed, poverty and hopelessness that are
Breeding all over Africa
These germs are growing stronger every day because we continue to refuse to wash our hands of the filth that fosters its breeding.
We continue to feed these germs with the filth of pride,
Anger, get rich schemes and betrayals which, in turn,
Allow poverty to continue to rule our lives.
Our refusal to come together will continue to strengthen
The breeding ground of the infectious illness of separation
That might one day kill us all.
We, the new generation, must learn to wash our hands
Each time we are exposed to the germs
Of backwardness and ignorance.
We must rise above the Me, Myself and I, survival mentality
And build back the land of Africa,
For the sake of the next generation.
The building back of Africa must start with us,
The New Generation.
If we don’t, history will repeat itself.
