The United States of Africa!

June 13, 2001
By: Kirk Moss
mosskirk@hotmail.com

"Africa, Unite 'cause we're moving right out of Babylon,
And we're going to our father's land.
How good and how pleasant it would be
Before god and man, yeah
To see the unification of all Africans, yeah
As it's been said already let it be done, yeah
We are the children of the Rastaman
We are the children of the Higher man
Unite for the benefit of your people
Unite for the benefit of your children,"

--- says the great Bob Marley.

It has been mentioned several times before, and became a heated topic that fueled the Pan-African movement during the 1960's. A time when various African countries were shaking their colonial oppressors off their backs, and becoming independent nations. They were consequently starting from ground zero. But today, the United States of Africa is still a burning issue that is been raised within the context of reparations and repatriation.

This cohesiveness is the key to the survival of African Peoples as a Race and an entity of the Human Family. Presently, we are the illegitimate children of the Human planet, who were kidnapped from our homelands, and our continental families have been subdued into impoverishment. This paradigm of the United States of Africa must begin with a rigorous overhaul of our motherland in order to form a solid distinctive cultural foundation. First, Economic Power. With this unity of African States comes the economic Power to fight white supremacy and capitalist conglomerates on a global and local level. It would prevent Africa as a continent, and individual African countries from falling prey to various forms of economic stagnation. In particular, embargoes or trade sanctions initiated by the neo-colonial and imperialist powers of Europe and the Western capitalist societies. This opens the door to a new sense of self-reliance, a fundamental principle that Marcus Garvey, the great Jamaican Pan-Africanist, profoundly expressed.

African States would rely on each other, trading within the parameters of the 52 African nations. In terms of natural, agriculture, domestic and manufacturing resources, Africa is the richest continent in almost all of these brackets. There is nothing on this planet that Africa does not produce for other countries profitability, leaving them empty-handed. Less we forget Africa was the first continent to be coerced into the filthy act of human trading.

A firm economic foundation would be one of the most important steps towards African Independence and Universal Freedom. No more international unilateral agreements, structural adjustment programs and corporate infiltration or exploitation of African land. Once and for all the WTO and World Bank would have to find a new victim to dehumanize. As dead prez said; "somebody is paying for the way we (black people) have to suffer and slave, assassination."

Second, demand reparations and repatriation. For almost seven centuries African Peoples have slaved and continue to be enslaved today by their colonial governors. Black hands built these so-called Western democratic nations, for free, and this pattern of subjection fueled the Industrial Revolution in Europe. But Blacks have never been considered for any form of reparations, even though several other groups have attained such compensation.

Having a United States of Africa would uplift the Black diasporic masses to a new level of nobility, and a firm sense of confidence in demanding reparations. Africans would get reparations "by any means necessary" for their countless years of free labor, psychological and physical racism and other forms of ethnocide and genocidal actions. There would be an aggregation of "all African" people's historical and contemporary struggles, which would stimulate their drive for reparations.

Various reggae artist like Bob Marley, Sizzla and Capleton (aka the fireman) also chant repatriation songs today. This is a key element that would blend cohesively with the United States of Africa paradigm. As Africa regains it's sense of universal belonging and self-definition, it would become a more pleasant society for all Black people throughout the world to embrace. As Mutabaruka, a famous Jamaican dub poet once stipulated "it no good fi (to) stay inna (in a) white man ('s) country too long." Thus, can your imagine how empowering and delightfully glorious a day it would be when Africa "Unites" and diasporic Africans set sail back to their own motherland.
I can!