EASTERN PROVINCE

NGOMA — Coflicts have damaged Africa’s reputation has as a continent of peace.

Africans historically could not separate their religious lives from the physical life; everything they did was in line with their ancestral practices.

They saw the world through their ancestral religion which created a "metaphysical" view.

Everything was done with careful consideration of the spirit world. With the coming of the Europeans, which later paved way for colonialism, Africa totally changed.

Total chaos: corruption, tribal feuds, among others has become the order of the day. Now almost every African country has faced a civil wars or is yet to emerge from it. Peace and unity that once ruled Africa is no more. These civil wars have won Africa an identity.

Africans who were formerly associated with oneness are enemies of each other.

We can not now say that Africans are poor because they are poor. Wrong. Wars, corruption, tribalism among others have made Africans poor.

A lot of time is spent wandering up and down because of civil wars. African leaders, who could have made their countries a secure place for the residents to engage in constructive work, are the ones who are most corrupt, causing civil strife, which have left the countries poor.

Africa is almost rich in everything. Like Nkwame Nkrumah, the first Ghanaian president said, Africa was (and still is) very rich in her resources. He said: "Africa’s land contained 96 per cent of the non-communist world’s diamond, 60 per cent of its gold and 42 per cent of its cobalt."

The justification for the colonialism was the need for resources of Africa that were deemed useless to the native inhabitants; until they fully developed, and yet they claimed Africa could not develop without European capital and skills.

Europeans could then pick children and enroll them in their schools where they were taught the European cultural element.

These selected ‘elites’ could also adopt the religion of their ‘oppressors’ and abandon their own.

As the generation pass, the impact of the colonial master has greatly affected Africa as a bloc. Civil wars are continuing to sway across the continent.

Countries like Chad, Somalia are now on the map not because they have done something good but because of civil wars. Look at the violence in the East Africa’s biggest economic country Kenya; which has claimed lives of over 1,000 people and displaced hundreds of thousands as bloody violence assumed ethnic dimension.

President Mwai Kibaki and the ODM leader Raila Odinga are fighting for power as the residents are being massacred here and there. Who knows where they are and what they are enjoying as the innocent citizens are crying for the blood of their innocent relatives or friends.

The violence not only has it affected Kenya, but the whole of East Africa.

An increase in fuel prices as a result of the violence has affected prices for other goods and services.

It can be equated to the events of April 1994 in Rwanda.

A country like Uganda is well known for Idi Amin’s regime. Indians who were given 90 days to leave the country can give a lead story. His regime claimed about 350,000 lives. The ongoing ‘Genocide’ in Darfur earns Sudan an identity while South Africa’s legacy is Apartheid.

The 1994 Genocide in Rwanda, which claimed the lives of about one million Rwandans, earned the country an identity, which is yet to be redefined by the current leadership.

Rwanda is trying to make a new image worth being proud of and unique.

Ends