Celebrating the Promise of a Borderless Africa

Happy Africa Day to all who believe in the idea of an indivisible continent called Africa whose inhabitants share a common belief in the indivisibility of humanity and that Africa is a home for all who choose to live in it.

Africa is the geography but the people are not for they are mobile and cross borders in search of a better life.

Human beings who live in Africa can also pursue happiness outside the continent. As we reflect on this day, on the meaning of the people of Africa converting their numbers into organized structures to best aggregate their individual pursuits into a quilt that is connected by a common thread that speaks to the power of scale in delivering accelerated and least-cost outcomes.

Who has a better claim on the resources endowed by the creator to Africa? Some would naively conclude that the creator solely intended to limit the accessibility of these treasures to the indigenous people of Africa.

Others would say, the resources were created and gifted to humanity as a class and not a tribe. If so, then it would follow that ownership of the resources or economic nationalism ideologies would be informed by the reality that the earth’s greatest treasures lie in the personality of the actors who can add value to them.

Is land an object of no value absent the human personality in its use or land is a property in and of itself? What is a property without human agency in converting time and space into tradeable value?

Land on its own and absent the rule of law is of no value. Human beings and animals share the land space but it would be absurd to import the language of EXPROPRIATION WITHOUT COMPENSATION into the animal equation because they possess no power to convert land as is given into anything of value.

The above is brought to you as food for thought by members of the 1873 Network who believe that it is the individual who is the driver of change and not a grouping of people.

The future of Africa is given expression by the thoughts and actions of the individual.