Your Wakanda

While in London I saw the movie Black Panther. It was showing at the Harrow Town Centre multiplex. It is a good movie that has the potential to positively influence the Black diaspora. From the Caribbean to North America, from London to Cape Town it has become a great financial success. Why? because we long to have positive depiction of us and our countries.  In the US the media shows only the poverty-stricken areas of our countries. In the UK the media chose to show pitiful ads from foundations asking for financial aid for impoverish abdominal distended children in parts of Africa.  Impoverishment is the only image they present of us.  It’s like poverty does not exist in the UK, Europe and the USA. You would never know that because they project themselves in a positive frame by showing beautiful cities like New York, LA, London in their representation.  What you are not told is the role we people of African descent as well as the countries of Africa has played in making those countries wealthy nations.

Despite its fictional setting we the audience desire to identify with this isolated technologically advanced African nation. Superficially it appears dirt poor, but its people has not been subjected to and scared by the brutality of slavery and colonialism. Beyond its superficial appearance, it is a mineral rich country whose leaders has used its mineral to make it a prosperous country with superior technology to that of the East and West.  This nation which has chosen to remain isolated is now being exposed to the world. If only it was not fiction.

If we can imagine it we can do it. The path to success start first with a vision and then the steps in plans we take to achieve it. Note we have had several obstacles that has set us back. We had to cope with slavery and colonialism. We have been vilified, we have been dehumanized, we have been exploited by Europe and the USA. Our nation’s political base and government has been destabilized.  The Europeans have picked and placed in power the people they want as leaders of our nations. They are men who are friendly to Europe’s interest and not the interest of the people of their countries.  So, even after independence we are still govern from London, Paris, Brussels and Washington. They buy our countries minerals to develop their nations while they deny us the technology to develop ours. We have been stymied by our corrupt leaders who sell our countries minerals to the west for pittance and use it to line their pockets instead of building schools, hospitals, infrastructure and support its entrepretural base so as to develop their own Wakanda.

Yes, we dream of our children’s’ success as we send them away to attain higher education. We hope they will take on the challenges of developing their black countries instead seeking to continue being the engine to the West’s wealth. We hope as they migrate to more fortunate countries to pursue higher education, that they return home upon completion to start building theirs. We hope they realize their good fortune and the importance of their role in developing their country into something to be proud off. We hope they embrace the fact that they are the key to ignite the engine of development in their country. Remember US President Donald Trump statement describing these Caribbean and African nations as being the shithole of the world. We must prove him wrong, even if your country is dirt poor. You must think positive and help it grow. Most nations that are now wealthy were once dirt poor. Check European history, the Black Plague practically wiped out more than fifty percent of the population of Europe. Europe was then considered a shithole country.

I know it is hard to dream when you are overcome by poverty. It hard to visualize when you know not of your next meal. It hard to think of anything else when you are not able to meet your basic needs for life. So, we must strive to meet them so we can allow ourselves to dream, to have visions to know that the wealthy Wakanda can be a reality all throughout the diaspora. But to make that fictitious country a reality our best and brightest must seek to develop their countries into it and not seek to reside in Europe or North America upon completion of their degrees.  Our journey to make our dirt-poor countries become Wakanda must start with them affirming their love for their dirt-poor country and for themselves. They must know that they are capable of taking it from being dirt-poor to be a wealthy nation to be proud off. It starts with embracing education, higher education, to be engineers, scientists, business people, etc. They must learn the skills required to undertake that journey. They must develop the infrastructure of their countries. They must build learning institutions in their countries so others like them will not have to leave their borders for higher education and subjected themselves to the Donald Trumps of the world. They must become responsible for all as they nurture their country to become the Wakanda of the world.

New York was not like this one hundred years ago, neither was London nor Paris. They all grew and evolved due to men and women with visions of what they knew they wanted their countries to be.  We saw a vision of a black city in a fictional black nation, now let us find among us black men and women to build wonderful cities in their countries as they pursue their dreams to prosperity while they transform their shithole countries into their version of Wakanda.