REFLECTIONS ON LIVING ALTERNATIVES, LIVING FUTURES:YEAR OF THE AFRICAN YOUTH

Posted July 17th, 2008 by Mwaura Kaara

Alice Walker wrote that resistance is the secret to possessing joy.She did not write that it was the path to an easy life, just that it was the way to the freedom experienced in a life that is authentic, a life lived in questioning.

The story of the poor goes round and round. But what about the story of the rich? The story not been told is that of the beneficiaries of slavery and colonialism. The story of exploitation that has put us into this dispensation, commodified our own life for profit. They divided and ruled. Can we unite and live? Can we unite for the world that will be our world? In a very concise articulation, this captures the themes that have informed the bulk of the Africa Youth Agenda at its intersection with the Year of the African Youth.

Slavery, Colonialism, Neo-Colonialism, Domination, Control, Exploitation, the global political, economic and social architecture, African Integration processes, solidarity, reparations, pillage and plunder, commodification. The struggles of the African people have formed a big part of the debate.
The celebration of the Year of the African Youth forum offers a platform where we can showcase to the world the Africa reality. A platform to avail new dreams, to envision new futures, to develop new cosmologies, new metaphors that are devoid of violence and exploitation, a platform for embracing marginalized groups, for founding non-violence and peace building, asserting the democratization of people’s access to resources, reconstructing ethics and spirituality, promoting gender equality, economic and social rights.

In essence we must rehabilitate and reconstruct politics. We must liberate the world from the domination of multi-national and financial institutions. Of essence we must ensure universal and sustainable access to the common goods of humanity and nature. We have to ensure dignity, defend diversity and guarantee expression eliminating all forms of discrimination. By guaranteeing the rights to food, healthcare, education, housing and work we will be building a world order based on sovereignty, self-determination and rights of peoples, the essence of the Millennium Declaration as espoused by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

It is here in Africa that the names, addresses and relations of those presented by statistics as left behind by globalization would be made. As such, from a Pan African platform, the Year of the African Youth sets out a forum connecting the Africa struggles with the continental and global struggles.

This is premised on a number of arguments; the Youth today form the big percentage of the African population; the Youth are the major recipients of the collapse of the social state in Africa. In education, employment, housing etc; the youth offer the greatest site for mobilization and recruitment for rebel, ethnic and militia wars; the Youth are the largest target of the neo-liberal project as presented by consumptive habits, fashion, fads and aspirations and the youth are considered as the ones giving up on Africa as manifested on immigration patterns

As such, it is imperative that Africa Youth interact with the celebrations marking the Year of the African Youth as an important space where they could actually dialogue on critical issues affecting the youth. A specific attraction is the ability to interact with a multiplicity of alternative thinking that envisions the possibility of another world. Orientations away from the mainstream African Thatcherism staple that There Is No Alternative.

Let us rise up and begin to tell this story…….of why they continue to be rich, continue to plunder!