On the 4th of June 2009, President Barack Hussein Obama at Cairo University said among other things that:
“I am a Christian, but my father came from a Kenyan family that includes generations of Muslims. As a boy, I spent several years in Indonesia and heard the call of the azaan [the Muslim call to prayer] at the break of dawn and the fall of dusk. As a young man, I worked in Chicago communities where many found dignity and peace in their Muslim faith.
The relationship between Islam and the west includes centuries of co-existence and co-operation, but also conflict and religious wars. More recently, tension has been fed by colonialism that denied rights and opportunities to many Muslims, and a cold war in which Muslim-majority countries were too often treated as proxies without regard to their own aspirations.
As a student of history, I also know civilization's debt to Islam. It was Islam – at places like al-Azhar University – that carried the light of learning through so many centuries, paving the way for Europe's Renaissance and Enlightenment. It was innovation in Muslim communities that developed the order of algebra; our magnetic compass and tools of navigation; our mastery of pens and printing; our understanding of how disease spreads and how it can be healed. Islamic culture has given us majestic arches and soaring spires; timeless poetry and cherished music; elegant calligraphy and places of peaceful contemplation. And throughout history, Islam has demonstrated through words and deeds the possibilities of religious tolerance and racial equality.
The United States has been one of the greatest sources of progress that the world has ever known. We were born out of revolution against an empire. We were founded upon the ideal that all are created equal, and we have shed blood and struggled for centuries to give meaning to those words – within our borders, and around the world. We are shaped by every culture, drawn from every end of the Earth, and dedicated to a simple concept: E pluribus unum – "Out of many, one." I know there has been controversy about the promotion of democracy in recent years, and much of this controversy is connected to the war in Iraq. So let me be clear: no system of government can or should be imposed upon one nation by any other.
For many years, Iran has defined itself in part by its opposition to my country, and there is indeed a tumultuous history between us. In the middle of the cold war, the United States played a role in the overthrow of a democratically elected Iranian government.
I've come here to Cairo to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world, one based on mutual interest and mutual respect, and one based upon the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap and share common principles, principles of justice and progress, tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.” (Excerpts from his speech) But President Barrack Hussein Obama must recognise that that the azaan is the creation of Bilal of Ethiopian Orign, a black man from Africa, who in his melodious voice created that institution which today is the Muslim call to prayer. Muhammad, may God bless him, when he heard that melodious call, approved it as the call to prayer. Africa’s economic relationship with both Islam and West also includes centuries of co-existence, co-operaton, conflict, economic and religious wars and colonialism that denied our human rights and opportunities to Africans because of the colour of our skin. In our case since 1957, it is the United States of America and its Central Intelligence Agency that continues to treat us as proxies without regard to our legitimate aspirations as the original race from which all people and nations including the United States sprang.
Civilisation owes a debt to Islam. But the Islam to which civilisation owes a debt is Africa. Africa created Islam and Monotheism, millions of years before the Holy Koran was revealed, and not our Arab brothers as his speech implied at Cairo. It is we Africans with our black skins who are the source of Europe’s Renaissance and Enlightenment. We translated works in European monasteries before they emerged from darkness. It is not the Arabs. The White Man is our son; the Arab is also our son; they are both offsprings of the black dominant gene. We are the originators of Western Civilisation. Africa is the origin of the Islamic culture that has given the world ‘majestic arches, soaring spires, timeless poetry, cherished music, elegant calligraphy and places of peaceful contemplation’. Africa itself is the Garden of Eden. It is the peaceful (Islam) Original Man, the Black Man that has demonstrated the possibilities of religious tolerance and racial equality.
Africa, the modern Africa of nation states, as Marcus Garvey dreamed of, and the Kwame Nkrumah vision of a United and Strong Africa as the only guarantee of a peaceful world in which Africans of all ethnicities are respected and Africans also respect themselves was also born out of revolution just as The United States: the unfinished African Revolution. The United States contrary to what Barack Obama said was never founded on the ideal that “all are created equal”. If it was, Africans in The United States would not have been denied their human rights until the success of The African Revolution in The United States itself as the Civil Rights Movement and the laws it engendered in the 1960s.
President Hussein said no system of government can or should be imposed upon one nation by any other. But The United States through its CIA, USAID and similar intelligence and military arms continues to impose Neo-colonial Liberal-Conservative Governments on Black Africa and has been assassinating or murdering progressive leaders or imposing Governments on African Nations and impeding the desire of Africans to build a united and strong Africa since the more tolerant British decided to grant us the independence we fought for. The United States may have been shaped by every culture from every end of the earth, but The United States and its White Establishment is the progeny of Black people and a recent arrival on this earth as a Super Power and has a certain and definite end not too long from now. The future is African and it is black. It was not only the elected Iranian government that The United States played a role in overthrowing during the cold war and long after that. The United States also played a role in the overthrow of The Government of Ghana on 24th February 1966. The atrocities The United States assisted by The British High Commission in Accra dished out to us are captured in many media including Kwame Nkrumah’s “Dark Days in Ghana”. If “America can never tolerate violence by extremists” Ghana also abhors violent extremism of all kinds championed by The United States with its illegitimate permanent interests in all cases involving the illegal overthrow of Governments whether it is in Africa, Latin America or Asia.
Ghana welcomes President Hussein. But Ghana has a Sovereign right to expect a new beginning on behalf of all Black Africa too and not just Muslims on African soil. Egypt is part of Africa but Africans are not all Muslims. Ghana wants a new beginning between the United States and Africa as a whole. It must be based on US humility and not arrogance, respect and not disrespect because we Africans are their parents and upon the truth that America and Africa - a United and Strong Africa that is highly industrialised and prosperous - are not exclusive and need not be in competition. We also believe that they overlap if the United States is even capable of upholding the basic principles of justice and progress, tolerance and the dignity of we Black people especially. Not light-skinned Africans or those of Mixed-race but all Africans especially the majority with very dark skins like our daughter Michelle Obama.
Africans have always believed that humanity has “the power to make the world we seek, but only if we have the courage to make a new beginning, keeping in mind what has been written.” We know because our Great Ancestor, Mawu-Lisa or Dada Segbo-Lisa or Ataa-Naa Nyomoo or Tweduapon Kwame-Asase Yaa made the self-propelled Solar System with a fixed Sun of diameter 853,000 miles; and planets revolving around it, while the earth, one of the planets 93,000,000 miles from the Sun is rotating on its own axis and leaning 231/3 degrees revolving at the speed of 1,037 miles per hour. We also know because we wrote all that has been written in the Holy Koran, the unadulterated Bible and the Talmud. We know that “the people of the world can live together in peace. We know that is God's vision,” because God (Mawu-Lisa) is our own Great Ancestor who lives in us. To build such a world The United States must dismantle all CIA Operations in Africa and return all CIA personnel home NOW from the current American Embassy in Accra. The United States must stop paying Ghanaians to undermine the project to build an equal, just and united nation here in Africa. The United States must abort the policy mission to make Ghana the military base of AFRICOM to secure Africa’s resources especially oil for The United States. President Barack Hussein Obama must order the IMF-World Bank to stop imposing unjust, unequal and unfree Free Market Policy Conditionalities on Africa that they are not prepared to implement at home whether in The United States or UK in an economic depression which Africa continues to suffer from. The IMF and the World Bank must stop interfering in the domestic economic affairs of Ghana and Africa. They must stop resolving all struggles over Africa’s resources in favour of non-Africans. They must stop championing discredited economic policies that have all been reversed in the United States, UK, China, Germany, and Japan amongst others. Finally, through them working with USAID, the United States must stop funding depopulation policies in under-populated Africa while they fund white families to have more white children.
Africa demands a new beginning; it is our human right.
Background:
• President Obama's speech on June 4th at Cairo University
• Kwami Agbodza is an African Ewe and a member of Kwame Nkrumah’s Convention People’s Party (CPP) and is currently it’s Regional Education Secretary of CPP UK & Ireland. Kwami is a Ghanaian and an Nkrumaist trained in Nkrumaist thought and practice. Kwami is an economist by profession.