The Audacity of Hunger

Let's face it.....if history has taught us anything, it is that demagogues - though hard to shift - can be pushed over the precipice with a collective will. A will borne from such a special place, that it is always seismic and historical when achieved.

As millions across the globe yank at the chains shackling them, it appears the resultant noise has somewhat left us all befuddled and perhaps disorientated. Let us then for the benefit of this post, focus on Africa and ask ourselves how the injustices from the Cape to the Nile, go on unchecked. Worse still, when we begin to get aroused by the so-called 'springs' from the North, it inevitably transpires we have exerted our nerve endings in futility.

As attested to in the post-tsunami environments from whence the likes of Mubarak and Gaddafi, have been swept away with euphoric relish, the underlying conditions of instability, corruption and insecurity, still persist.   The poor are still poor, whilst the rich have never been richer. The cats at the top table all bear a disturbing resemblance to Kim Jong Un and the dogs waiting for the scraps at the bottom, are a mirror image of the poor canines rescued from an abusive breeder.

The question of course is this: how long can this go on?

The Undeniable Power of the Collective 

Forever, if you ask me.

I say this because there is no concrete evidence the trodden masses, especially in Africa, want any change. It appears pestilence and famishment have inexplicably become the opium of the masses. Somehow, people have been ravaged and kept down for so long, the ground is beginning to feel comfortable and more reassuring than a promised place at the middle table. I may be wrong, but it appears Africans have contracted that dreaded disease of not believing in a better future....a perfect scenario for its ruling elite.

My only note of warning for those who currently fly above the weather and appear impervious to the realities on ground is this: a few decades ago, Ghana (the current political poster boy of Africa) had an uprising, where the incoming leader went back almost two decades and rounded up every leader that had overseen the country's malaise. They were all summarily executed....the incoming leader was Jerry Rawlings (for the uninitiated).

At the time, he uttered these iconic words:

"I don't know any law and I don't understand economics, but I know it when my stomach is empty."

To take one's country back, one has to be prepared to do what hasn't been done before and in all the African states, a united opposition is the only way forward. The continent desperately requires patriots, who will do anything to protect the continent's pride and place, not diplomatic bitches who have become weak from repetitive bending of the knees!

The ruling elite is not infallible, but it is buoyed by our failure to unite, as it continuously applies the tried and tested ammunition of 'Divide and Rule,' passed down by you know who.

It is time though that people let them hear the violent rumblings of those empty stomachs.