The Sunday Mail
There is an old Chinese tale in a book titled “Han Feizi”, dating to the third century BC, that tells of a salesman who is merchandising a spear and a shield.
The salesman tells a potential customer that the spear is so powerful it can pierce any shield, and that the shield is so strong it can repel any spear.
The would-be buyer asks what would happen if that spear was thrown at that shield. Naturally, the salesman can’t answer.
The story presents a hypothesis some students of Philosophy come across in their studies as the “irresistible force paradox”, or the “dilemma of omnipotence”.
It brings forward the question: “Can an omnipotent god create a stone so heavy that the god cannot lift it?”
In Occidental thought, it is also posed as: “What happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object?”
If there exists an irresistible force, there cannot then exist in the same universe an immovable object. And the obverse is true. This makes the question a largely metaphysical one, but an interesting one nonetheless.
That does not mean that in the physical world we do not from time to time encounter situations where we feel an irresistible force is bearing down on an immovable object.
The first Africans to take up arms against colonialism probably felt that they were dealing with an immovable object.
On the other hand, the genuine aspirations of millions of oppressed people were an irresistible force. In short, the irresistible force of the liberation struggle had to dislodge an immovable object called colonialism. Little by little, we found that colonialism was not an immovable object and we all — with the exception of the people of the Saharawi who are ironically still colonised by an African country called Morocco — got our own flags, national anthems and constitutions. This political independence was a significant victory, a huge marker in our march towards total emancipation. However, the war is still on. Africa is still to become economically independent.
The African Union’s Agenda 2063 sets the continent on that path to economic independence by way of developing our infrastructure, services and institutions. With the continent marking 52 years since the establishment of the OAU — now AU — there really is no reason why we still live in fear of confronting the seemingly immovable object called foreign domination of our economies.
Zimbabwe has started walking down that road through its land reforms and indigenisation, but many of Africa’s leaders live in fear of taking the revolution to its next logical stage, which is economic liberation.
There is no excuse for shipping our raw minerals and metals to other continents for peanuts and then importing processed goods at great cost, sometimes even borrowing from Western-controlled financial institutions to pay for those imports.
The irresistible force of total liberation should not cower in the shadows of the global village as if Africans do not have the legitimate right to be the primary beneficiaries of their own resources. Flags and anthems are not enough. The people of Africa deserve more, it is their birth right! The continent’s leaders have an obligation to deliver that birthright without apologising for doing that which we elect them to do.
Colonialism is movable, liberation is irresistible.
EDITORIAL COMMENT: Time to deliver the birthright
The Sunday Mail
There is an old Chinese tale in a book titled “Han Feizi”, dating to the third century BC, that tells of a salesman who is merchandising a spear and a shield.
The salesman tells a potential customer that the spear is so powerful it can pierce any shield, and that the shield is so strong it can repel any spear.
The would-be buyer asks what would happen if that spear was thrown at that shield. Naturally, the salesman can’t answer.
The story presents a hypothesis some students of Philosophy come across in their studies as the “irresistible force paradox”, or the “dilemma of omnipotence”.
It brings forward the question: “Can an omnipotent god create a stone so heavy that the god cannot lift it?”
In Occidental thought, it is also posed as: “What happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object?”
If there exists an irresistible force, there cannot then exist in the same universe an immovable object. And the obverse is true. This makes the question a largely metaphysical one, but an interesting one nonetheless.
That does not mean that in the physical world we do not from time to time encounter situations where we feel an irresistible force is bearing down on an immovable object.
The first Africans to take up arms against colonialism probably felt that they were dealing with an immovable object.
On the other hand, the genuine aspirations of millions of oppressed people were an irresistible force. In short, the irresistible force of the liberation struggle had to dislodge an immovable object called colonialism. Little by little, we found that colonialism was not an immovable object and we all — with the exception of the people of the Saharawi who are ironically still colonised by an African country called Morocco — got our own flags, national anthems and constitutions. This political independence was a significant victory, a huge marker in our march towards total emancipation. However, the war is still on. Africa is still to become economically independent.
The African Union’s Agenda 2063 sets the continent on that path to economic independence by way of developing our infrastructure, services and institutions. With the continent marking 52 years since the establishment of the OAU — now AU — there really is no reason why we still live in fear of confronting the seemingly immovable object called foreign domination of our economies.
Zimbabwe has started walking down that road through its land reforms and indigenisation, but many of Africa’s leaders live in fear of taking the revolution to its next logical stage, which is economic liberation.
There is no excuse for shipping our raw minerals and metals to other continents for peanuts and then importing processed goods at great cost, sometimes even borrowing from Western-controlled financial institutions to pay for those imports.
The irresistible force of total liberation should not cower in the shadows of the global village as if Africans do not have the legitimate right to be the primary beneficiaries of their own resources. Flags and anthems are not enough. The people of Africa deserve more, it is their birth right! The continent’s leaders have an obligation to deliver that birthright without apologising for doing that which we elect them to do.
Colonialism is movable, liberation is irresistible.
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