Tuesday, March 12, 2013

My Evolution

I am evolving and I’m loving it. I’m like fine wine, tasting better as it ages. But I have questioned “how did I learn this journey?” Did I learn it in Biology (Darwin’s theory)? Have I been taught in primary or secondary school? Was it one of the courses I offered in the University? The answer is none of the above. This journey has been initiated by the many travails of growing up coupled with the ‘privilege’ of living in a society as this. There is this channel inside which I have termed ‘my discovery channel’ which I have known about which I have somewhat been unable to fine tune the frequency as a teenager. Sometimes I pick signals from this channel and get some views and information but the many distractions of growing up, relationships, religion and the burden which our society laid upon the soul had made it impossible to keep the channel streaming. Moreso, it was not interesting considering that the norm was (and still is) ‘fast’, ‘flashy’ and ‘fine’. I was literally forced to keep at finding this channel until the ‘eureka’ moment when I dared to look and stay tuned. Though on the surface it seemed the programme airing was boring, I stayed with it. I have thereafter developed a love for this channel and have stayed permanently tuned on the inside to it. And like D’Banj says ‘fiile, don’t even attempt to touch that dial’, I subconsciously warn myself (and laugh out loud sometimes). I have met people who have stayed tuned to their own channel and I discovered that there is a connection. It most often won’t be the same programme airing on the individual channels but the overall purpose somehow aligns…I have felt a sense of shared purpose to some of these people. On the outside, I tune to other channels and relate to useful learnings. 

One of the programmes that aired on my channel was my natural hair journey (I just have to start a blog about this I keep reminding myself). I have often wondered why I had to hide away (or alter) the hair that grew from my hair follicles out through my scalp. I asked people around me but many seemed to have excuses as to why I ought to keep the status quo of weaves and relaxer up. There was not one attempt to answer this till I connected with some others who had asked similar questions. I got the answer staying tuned to that channel and ever since I have nurtured my natural hair and love the feel and the versatility of it. Amazing discovery it is to know that without chemicals (harmful), a woman can still be beautiful and like Donnie sang ‘We live from the head down and not the feet up, and I'm adorned with the crown..’.
(Stay tuned for my natural hair blog chronicling my hair journey more than a year now).

Interesting thing about my father’s name – Achor - is that it meant ‘a search’ and for as long as I have remembered I have been searching only now have I managed to come to the path where some answers have been provided to some of my questions. I have good reason to believe that names push their bearers to actualize their encoded meanings. I haven’t come to the end of my search, I don’t think we ever do rather like a Zen quote says “at the end of all our searching we will arrive at the place we began and know it for the first time”.

There is chaos in the world because there is so much emphasis on the outside (material) rather than the individual ‘insides’ (spiritual). There is much more chaos in this part of the world because our natural evolution as a people was truncated violently and rudely and there has been no attempt to get us back on the path….sadly. I believe the peace we search will only come when many people start tuning to their frequencies and staying with the programme even if they don’t like what is airing. The appreciation of the good, the bad and the ugly sides of ourselves will bring a new kind of insight on what nature desires of us and how to go about it. We need not be forced to tune to our channels hence my conscious commitment to guide my children and others to be able to tune in early (note the word early) to their channels in order for them to discover the uniqueness, creativity, beauty, and clairvoyance laden on the journey.  We need not be like a drunkard staggering here and there through life till a bucket of cold water is poured on us. I was one of such even though I had a strong mother who gave the best instructions she knew how best to give and believed in God. I believe the stumblings of the older generations need not be repeated by subsequent ones hence the emphasis on early attenuation to the natural frequency. And if you think National Geographic Channel on TV is interesting, I dare you to tune to your discovery channel and find out some of the world’s most brilliant events - unseen and unheard of yet.

Enjoy!

Monday, March 4, 2013

EUROPEAN UNION IS BACK IN AFRICA, PUSHING FOR ECONOMIC RE-COLONIZATION

Guest Post

By Naiwu Osahon………………………………………
Every African receiving documents from me is free to post them on their timeline and send copies to everyone they can reach via e-mails, through blogs, other internet groups, sites or newspapers to publish as a means of informing every African alive and mobilizing us into one family.
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The Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) negotiations in 2007, between 79 former European colonies in Africa, the Caribbean and Pacific (ACP), and the European Union (EU), was to make the ACP countries more dependent on trade with Europe than with each other, and to further severely retard African development prospects to ensure more deaths from hunger. The discussions centered on the ACP countries systematically liberalizing 80 – 90 per cent of their trade with the EU, in other to gain duty free access to European markets. The ACP countries would thus only be able to use tariffs to protect about 10% of their products from competition with European goods. Africans then said that while Europe consistently puts in place measures to protect its economy, ACP countries are being forced to open up their economies for foreign goods and services.

Peter Maudelson, the EU Trade Commissioner, argued in 2007, that EPA would shift Africa’s dependency on tariff preferences, to one that promotes business competitiveness. “After 30 years of preferential market access, African countries still export a limited range of basic commodities, “he said, adding, “Most of these are sold at lower prices than they were, 20 years ago. This is not sustainable. It certainly isn’t sustainable development.” The Nigerian Commerce Minister at the time, Aliyu Modibo Uma, countered: “If 30 years of non-reciprocal free market access into the EU did not improve the economic situation of the ACP, how can a reciprocal trading arrangement achieve anything better? Liberalizing trade will further widen the gap between the two (blocks), and probably destroy the little development that some ACP countries have managed to achieve over the past years.”

Mr. Ibrahim Akalbila, the national coordinator of the Ghana Trade and Livelihood Coalition, comprising civil society and farmers’ groups, cites the high domestic subsidies that many European governments continue to provide their producers, allowing European products to undersell producers in poor developing countries. “Whether it is tomatoes and rice, textiles or iron rods, cheap imports, illegally dumped into our markets, are destroying whole areas of economic activities, and with that, the lives of millions.’ The Zimbabwean Trade Minister, Obert Mpofu said, “any new trade agreement with EU should reinforce, not undermine, the development of our economies, employment generation, wealth creation for our people and ultimately poverty reduction.” African civil society organizations rallying to stop EPA, during a global stop EPA campaign in late 2006, demanded that ACP governments must not sign the agreements unless significant changes are made.

At the World Social Forum in Nairobi, Kenya, in January, 2007, tens of thousands of civil society representatives, chanted and carried signs declaring: “Fight poverty…..say no to EPAs.” In April 2007, the African Youth Coalition Against Hunger, mobilized to the Gambia, more than 1000 activists from 20 countries, to launch a “big noise campaign,” to stimulate public debate against the EPA proposed agreements.

Africans stressed that although the EU is mounting pressure for the negotiations to be signed by December 31, 2007, there were still opportunities for the ACPs to develop real alternatives to the EPA. Africans insisted that while ACP nations cannot afford to pursue a policy of isolationism, there was need for them to strengthen efforts at regional integration. West African countries called EU bluff, by rejecting the EPA terms at the end of October, 2007, to assert their independence from pressures from their colonial overlords for the first time since their paper independence.

The EU was angry, of course. They accused Nigeria and South Africa of blocking their way. And what is their way? It is to continue flooding African markets with their manufactured goods since African manufactured goods cannot compete with theirs. Not satisfied with that, they massively subsidized their farmers to prevent the only advantage Africans have, African agricultural products, from competing in their markets.

Without African markets as dumping grounds for their excesses and decadence, their economies promptly slumped into grave recession with deep banking and public debt crisis. Unemployment in Euro zone has risen beyond crisis point and business morale is at its gloomiest ever. With consumer spending which generates half of Euro’s economic output receding, Euro turned to Asian and US markets, which themselves are not recovering fast enough from the Euro crisis to fire Euro’s revival. Portugal is helpless and confused about its future after years of getting drunk on Euro’s boom years. Greece could quit the Euro this year and Spain whose unemployment rate has gone above 25%, could exit next year.

Euro has again returned to Africa, February 2013, particularly to ECOWAS, to push for economic re-colonization, disguised as negotiation of economic partnership. They do not know that we now know that every time they are desperate and in a hurry to make deals with us, it is to satisfy their selfish interest in our continued exploitation. They have moved us from slavery to colonialism to neo-colonialism and now to death from unequal economic partnership, environmental pollution, HIV AIDS infestations and ‘gay’ rights politics, and we say, sorry sirs, we are not ready to die yet.

About Naiwu Osahon
NAIWU OSAHON Hon. Khu Mkuu (Leader) World Pan-African Movement); The Spiritual Prince of the African race; MSc. (Salford); Dip.M.S; G.I.P.M; Dip.I.A (Liv.); D. Inst. M; G. Inst. M; G.I.W.M; A.M.N.I.M. Poet, Author of the magnum opus: ‘The end of knowledge’. One of the world’s leading authors of children’s books; Awarded; key to the city of Memphis, Tennessee, USA; Honourary Councilmanship, Memphis City Council; Honourary Citizenship, County of Shelby; Honourary Commissionership, County of Shelby, Tennessee; and a silver shield trophy by Morehouse College, USA, for activities to unite and uplift the African race.

Naiwu Osahon, Sage, renowned author, philosopher of science, the spiritual Prince of the African race, mystique, leader of the world Pan-African Movement.