For the past year, I often see a map of Africa when meditating on the future of our world. It shows the Congo shaded in, indicating an area that needs attention. I've brushed it away out of ignorance of the subject. Recently when some clients called for readings and asked me to do a timeline prediction for them, again, I saw the Africa map with the central refion shaded in. It overlayed the person's reading. Then I got back to the clients’ readings but I later realized it’s an urgent message to our civilization.
I mentioned this constant vision to Paula, who lives in the Netherlands and sends me her visions from Read the Future nights. I can tell from her predictions that she is attuned to Africa. She sent me this article from the Netherlands Refugee Center which shows how dire the situation has become there. It makes everything that happens here at home seem pale in comparison.
In 2006, at my daughter's highschool graduation her favorite teacher, David McCullough, Jr., the son of the celebrated historian, David McCullough, spoke about Africa to the graduating class. Since that day, his words have replayed in my head:
Your world in all its parts. Your, for example, Africa... where nearly half a million children are dying of AIDS every year... where in 2010, the year most of you will graduate from college, the United Nations projects there will be 40 million children orphaned because of AIDS, 40 million--that’s the population of Massachusetts times six. Today in Zimbabwe life expectancy is all of 33 years. In Sudan, an Arabic word meaning “land of the blacks,” Arabs are, with their government’s encouragement, systematically killing tribal blacks because they find them inconvenient, from infants to the elderly--and in just two years the death toll is approaching 200,000. In Congo we’re witnessing the bloodiest human conflict since World War II. An estimated 1,250 Congolese are dying every day, with totals in eight years of war approaching four million. Now this is not National Geographic-Animal Planet-Tarzan movie-click-change-the-channel-who-cares Africa. This is, again, your Africa, everyone’s Africa, the only Africa we have. These are human beings (see if this sounds familiar) every bit as real and vital as you are, with loves and wishes and apprehensions just like yours, with, I’ll add, human rights every bit as valid and compelling as yours. And if anything is going to be done about these eminently preventable crises, these outrages, those in a position to help have to step forward and do it. I nominate you. -- David McCullough, Jr. Commencement Speech Wellesley High School, 20o6
Every year since that speech I’ve heard in my head, “your Africa. My Africa, the only Africa we have.”
I don’t know what to do with this message but I know there is a message from Africa to us. A healing we need to send to them, which is a healing for ourselves as well.
Your thoughts would be much appreciated.
As I wiped tears reading your post Jeanne, I think back to when DT said that Africans and Haitians came from "shithole countries". What David M wrote is so moving, powerful, 'your Africa, everyones Africa, the only Africa we have'. We could insert America, Yemen,(just read that there is a humanitarian crisis now) our planet earth...what happens in Africa effect us all. We can not continue to ignore the suffering of our fellow humans and think that somehow it doesn't affect us.
I think the message from Africa is a foretelling to all nations around the world that Africa and its suffering can happen anywhere. I think this quote from Martin Luther King Jr. so eerily resonates today as it did 50 years ago: "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."
Africa offers a preview of what climate change and environmental devastation can look like across the globe--desertification, limited access to clean drinking water, and massive population migration. I noticed that China has really stepped up to address clean water and energy issues on the African continent across the past decade. I wonder what China's long-term ambitions are relative to the continent and wonder if they might someday recolonize it for the same reasons European countries did--land, resources, cheap labor ...
I know I'm being a cultural relativist, but if women do rise in the coming decades, I hope their power eradicates female genital mutilation, the marriage of female children to men, and use of rape as a weapon of war and strengthens women's access to education, clean drinking water, employment, and healthcare in Africa. If clean energy is developed, its use might promote all kinds of possibilities in Africa. If there is a spiritual awakening, maybe the horrible conflicts between people of different faith and ethnic traditions will die and eradicate ethnic cleansing in Africa. If today's youth are going to transform the world, that means everywhere. Maybe these positive world predictions will transform what otherwise looks like a very dismal future for Africans.
The countries of Africa have long suffered under the curses of prejudice and incredible resources. To add on to what Gracesinger said, I also see the Chinese as "winning" in Africa. We already know they are making significant infrastructure investments, the better to pull out more resources. I believe they are also making some humanitarian efforts in health and education at the same time (but not enough to solve all the problems).
Just yesterday I observed a scene that was absolutely fascinating. I was walking in my neighborhood. Walking next to me was a [black] man, he was talking on his cellphone. I recognized the language as of African origin, possibly a patois. I always like listening to languages, even if I don't understand a word. As we get to a corner, he calls out to a Chinese woman who was sweeping in front of her small Chinese restaurant. He called out to her in Chinese "Ni hao!" (which I do understand), and then the two of them had a neighborly exchange in Chinese (sounded like Mandarin), waving to each other as he continued on his way. I was fascinated to see in action the extent of Chinese infiltration into the African continent/societies. Either this gentleman worked in the maritime trades, or he is from a country where the Chinese are having a lot of effect.