n, I speak of social justice. I speak of equality. I speak of religious and ethnic tolerance. I speak of access to education, to healthcare, to housing and sanitary conditions. I speak of respect for the dignity of the human spirit. These are the ideals that come together to form the vision. And that vision is what fuels democracy. Far too often, when Africa’s resources are listed, the most important one is omitted. Africa’s greatest resource is its people, and we cannot afford to continue overlooking this basic truth. As more and more countries on the continent strengthen their democracies through the rule of law—something both Ghana and Kenya recently did with the Supreme Court challenges to the results of our respective elections— the closer we get to the vision, and to the existence of that world in which so many have dared to believe. If past truly is prologue, then it is safe to say that the lull in the revolution is over now. There has been a resurgence of African literature and music. The poets are writing of protest, and the songs being sung are of extinguishing the fire on the mountain. There is a renewed sense of hope in Africa. A number of the fastest growing economies in the world are on the continent. Countries that had been ravaged by war, famine, genocide, apartheid, or extreme poverty are now experiencing a reversal of fortune. There is an emergence of strong democratic institutions in Africa that has ensured that African countries have not slid back into chaos and anarchy after disputes over election results. Today, there is heightened interest in Africa and its prospects for economic transformation. The debt trap and triple-digit inflation associated with Africa of the early 1980s and 90s have disappeared and indeed many countries such as Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa, and Namibia have attained single digit inflation, with prospects for further decline in those rates. In a recent report, the World Bank noted that economic growth in Africa for the first decade of the 21st century has averaged 4.7 percent, as against 2.5 percent for the global economy in 2012. A few years ago Ghana, my country, was among one of the most economically challenged on the continent. In the last couple of years Ghana has posted some of the highest GDP growth rates in the world, and remains one of the world’s fifteen fastest growing economies. At the present rate, Africa’s cumulative GDP is expected to rise from 1.5 trillion to 3 trillion by 2020. This means the potential for job creation, housing, quality education, improved healthcare, modern transportation networks, and opportunities for quality livelihoods, is limitless. Today, Africa is home to three of the world’s overall best performing stock exchanges, and Ghana’s stock exchange received the highest rating from Databank Financial Services as the best performing stock market in terms of returns on investment. Africa has taken advantage of the benefits of information technology to leapfrog its developmental processes. Today, subscription and usage of mobile phones in Africa has surpassed subscription in Europe and America combined, and the industry employs over 5 million people. Mobiles phones in Africa are more than just a device for making and receiving calls. They are instruments that facilitate access to agricultural support services, micro- finance, banking services, and healthcare among others. The world we live in today, with its laptops, smartphones and social media, is dramatically different from the world that existed in the late 1950s and 1960s. But the principles for which we fight remain the same. What also remains the same, is the hatred, greed, oppression, and the presence of individuals and groups who feel that their way is the only way. For these individuals and groups, the prospect of peace undermines their plans for dictatorship. Empowered people are difficult to oppress. Educated people are aware of their rights. People whose only hunger is for the ability to rise to their highest potential will take a stand for justice and freedom. But freedom is not given freely. It is not given at all. It must be won. It must be claimed, and the price of the ticket is steep. As a leader, it is my firm people that not only do people in a nation, in a world, matter, they matter the most. The policies that our governments promote must be for the betterment of our people’s lives. The legislation that is enacted must be for their protection. The democracies that are being built, must shelter the freedom for which we are fighting. And I know that despite the setbacks, despite the senseless violence, this is a struggle that will result in victory; so we must hang on. In a speech delivered at midnight, just minutes after Ghana became an independent nation, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah quite prophetically said, “The liberation of Ghana is meaningless unless it is linked up with the total liberation of Africa.” Nine years later, in 1966, Dr. Nkrumah’s government was overthrown in a coup d’etat. The years following that coup were turbulent ones for Ghana. The government and regime changes were numerous. During those years of turbulence, Professor Kofi Awoonor, like so many artisans of his day, became a political activist. He would go on to serve as the country’s ambassador to Brazil and to Cuba, as an envoy to the United Nations, and as Chairman of the Council of State. But before any of that, in 1976, he served a ten-month prison sentence after being wrongfully accused and convicted of allegedly plotting a coup. While Professor Awoonor was serving time in Ussher Fort prison, he wrote the following: “At times the vision of victory comes so blurred and dim. So much is a haze, uncertainty. But somehow in this frame flickers a little light which keeps on the search, a veritable instrument around which hope settles, quietly, stirring now, slumbering now, but hanging on, just hanging on.” Thank you for your time.
Posted on: Wed, 25 Sep 2013 21:50:19 +0000
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