The following is an abridged  response to an article that appeared in The African Executive magazine entitled: Indices on Africa: Do they Hold Water?

I read the commentary and agreed with the brother's summation. Since we are currently wrangling with the issues of the relationship between the 6th Diaspora (Blacks in the US) and Africa, I think it extremely important for us to cultivate communications between our brothers and sisters here in the US and in Africa; as well as interact with those brothers and sisters who are here in the US.

There is still the perception we seem to have pervasively that "the white man's ice is colder" (Johnnie Cochran) and that our best interests lie with them. The operative word in this sentence is "lie" because it is a lie. The fact that African Americans built America - African Americans being those Africans who were kidnapped from Africa and dragged kicking and screaming to serve as slaves in America - is evident of the fact that we can and have produced wonders.

You see, we have long been under their thumb, from the Brits, Spanish, French and Portuguese who first started the trans-Atlantic slave trade, to the Americans (former Brits) who kept it going well into the middle third of the 19th century. We have been subjugated to their standards. We have not made the paradigm shift to set standards of our own that would be universally recognized and enforced by Africans - at home, in the Caribbean, South America and in the US. What is our criterion? Where are our standards? How are we educating our people? Do we have some sort of mass program to help those who are among the most illiterate to learn to read, write, and a skill? Who is to do it and who is to implement it?

Africa was inundated by missionaries who brought in a religion that was basically anti-African. Africans were considered "heathens" and were subjugated to all kinds of egregious acts. The same thing happened in America to the kidnapped Africans now known as African Americans - only far worse. Not only were they taken from their homeland hundreds of thousands of miles away so they could not easily return; but their language and traditions were literally beaten out of them. Reprisals such as castration and lynching - not to mention rape and the loss of limbs, selling off of children, were the penalties for trying to hold on to any semblance of African tradition or belief.

Do we now need to regroup and recoup? Are we owed a huge debt? Of course we are. But we are going to have to wean ourselves from having any intimate interaction with European money; we are going to have to begin manufacturing our own goods and providing our own services, regardless of whether or not the Europeans buy or value them. We have to come up with a paradigm shift as huge and as effective as what Japan has been able to do to make them stand up, pay attention, and at the same time gain our own self respect.

Japan has a very high standard of quality. They started from as low a level as Africa currently faces. They introduced quality control - and made sure it was taught and adhered to from the most elementary and rudimentary endeavor to the most complicated and intricate job. They threw out antiquated methods that did not serve them, and learned how to retool their companies so that they would be able to produce products that were high quality.

Now I'm not going to pretend that the concept originated with Japan. They used to manufacture the crappiest products, that would fall apart before they got off the assembly line. It took a professor W. Edwards Deming, who was actually exiled from the US business industry, to help them make the change. But, oh what a difference he made! Americans were actually going to have this guy killed for his recommendations. He was literally sent to Japan to protect him from angry US manufacturers because he suggested that they build in quality to all their products, and introduce longevity so that they would hold up under any circumstances. American manufacturers, however, were going after "planned obsolescence" so that a product would not last more than three years, that would force the consumer to have to replace it and purchase a new one. It was Deming who was sent to Japan after WWII to work with them. Well they listened where the Americans wouldn't. And the rest is history.

A Toyota is a better car than a Ford; a Cannon, Panasonic, Sony, or any other product produced in Japan will far outperform those of America, Germany, Russia, France, England - Africa - on any given day (I had a Toyota Cressida that had 250,000 miles on it when I purchased it, and it lasted longer than my neighbor's new car.)

Did the Japanese sell their newly designed products in the America/European market place? Not initially. They actually sold to themselves and each other. They taught each man, woman, child the value of quality and cleanliness. They began to tout to teach other the superiority of their own products, made by their own hands. Not in an ego-trip kind of way. They also opened the channels of communication so that a person could make a suggestion for an idea, no matter what their station or rank was; and if it was used, they would be acknowledged and rewarded. In other words, they got rid of the European standard of hierarchy and realized that every one had a contribution and a value.

The biggest lesson is also that once one person knew how to do something new and innovative, they made sure that everyone knew how to do it, or at least knew about it. Like Africa, Japan has a tradition of celebrating every victory or success, no matter how small.

I also want to applaud those amongst us who have worked diligently to keep the African spirit and history untarnished - Ali Mazrui, Leopold Sedar Senghor, Seiku Toure, Kwame Nkrumah, Jomo Kenyatta, Nnamde Azikewe, Frederick Douglass, Carter G. Woodson, Franz Fanon, among others. We have now to make it part of our curriculum, both in Africa and in the Diaspora to study and learn from and about these great ancestors. I recommend Franz Fanon's "Wretched of the Earth" and "Black Skins, White Masks"; Carter G. Woodson's "The MisEducation of the Negro" (they used to call African Americans "Negroes") as great reads.

One of our contemporary heroes, Congressman Donald Payne (D. New Jersey), has every year presented a forum on African/African American relations at the annual Congressional Black Caucus, held in Washington, DC in September. He brings leaders, businessmen, developers from Africa and the US together to begin impacting the issues in Africa.

Now why am I telling this? Because we have a multiplicity of challenges: It all starts inside out. It starts with us. It starts at home. The perception the euro/Americans have of Africa is not as important as the perception we have of ourselves. We have to be taught to love who and what we are, while at the same time developing the skills and talents (of which we have an abundance throughout the Continent) and dealing with the hostile media depiction of Africa. We, by no means should be waiting for them to see us in a better light. We have to see ourselves in a better light.

In reference to the money that has been devalued between Africa and the rest of the world, we have to decide whether or not Africa is really going to be contiguous nations or an United Continent. We have had the OAU, the AU, we now have to make the U - Unity part - work. We have to decide what our lingua franca (unified language) will be so we can communicate with each other -- that does not mean one should stop being multilingual. We just need to pick a language that everyone has to learn regardless of what their mother tongue, or who their colonial monster (notice I never say "master"?) were.

We have to begin to access and develop marketable and creative skills at all levels of our communities. We should by all means begin to develop a means by which our cultural traditions are transitioned into modern times, in much the same way the Japanese have been able to do theirs - because we so much of beauty that we have developed throughout the centuries.

In terms of oil, mineral rights, cultivation of our agriculture, development of our own African Automobile (the East Indians have theirs, we need to be developing ours); educational system, banking system - we need a unified currency like the Americans have their dollar bills and the Europeans have their Euro, we need our own so that there is no more of this nonsense of what is valued against what.

We need a mass training and education program to jump-start the training of our people, in much the same way they used to do in the US when they were training people for the Peace Corp - they had a 6 to 8 week program that taught language, tradition, and skills, among others, with thousands of participants at the same time, and one trainer. Yes it can be done.

Above all, we have to quell all these internecine (tribal) wars and get those people either on the right side of the line, or incarcerate them until they see the errors of their ways. We really can't afford to be killing each other. Every drop of Black blood is heinous and egregious and against God. We are precious in His sight, and have to be precious to each other. If we don't begin to develop that level of care and concern for each other and for human life, we will continue to destroy each other.  The reason the US succeeded is that they developed a them (Blacks/Africans/Japanese/Indians, etc.) against us (whites) ethos, and made it against the law for anyone who was non-white to hit or waste one drop of white blood. We have to be as vigilant about Black blood being shed - and we have to stop Black on Black crime through intra tribal wars in Africa, and gang activity in the US.

I don't know what we're going to do about the hand-picked "leaders" we've been saddled with in different parts of Africa - but we can no longer allow puppets to run  and ruin the country. This is the 21st century - the era of the internet and cell phone, among others.We now can communicate with each other instantaneously - in ways we have never been able to before. We should never have a situation where we are not able to update each other about what's up. We can actually put together whole educational programs; business systems; trade programs via the internet and work together. Likewise, when you have such technology, it should also be possible to inform and alert people when they are being subjugated to a straw dog, bought and paid for by a European backer to prevent them from moving forward. So there should be no deaths over an election. Just re-vote. An informed people won't willingly elect someone who is detrimental to them.(we have been blessed with Barack Obama, and with that, I think all things are possible - so I'm an optimist for our future elections in Africa).

I truly hope the rest of our brothers and sisters in Africa and the US are now listening and are ready to roll up their sleeves, make the sacrifices and get the job done.

By Gloria Dulan-Wilson
Eclectic Black People VIP