Dr. Sylvanus Adetokunboh Ayeni says Sub-Saharan Africa must recuse itself

 

Sylvanus Ayeni 

By Renarda A. Williams (aka Abari Sankofa)

In a new book, retired neurosurgeon and Nigeria native Sylvanus Adetokunboh Ayeni explains why it is vital for leaders in Sub-Saharan Africa to recuse their nations from poverty, corruption and poor governance,and instill into their societies a culture of independence, good governance and love of their fellow citizens. 

Rescue Thyself: Change in Sub Saharan Africa Must Come from Within (Hamilton Books, Lanham, MD, 2017) addresses the fact that the nations of Sub-Saharan Africa urgently need visionary leaders who truly care about the ordinary citizens and not just about themselves, their families and their cronies. Ayeni stresses that the leaders should strive toward providing better education, infrastructure and healthcare systems for the people, most of whom are languishing in poverty.  He goes on to state that leaders should implement their own form of government, best suited for their traditions and culture, instead of blindly copying outside forms of governments. 

African leaders must empower the citizens of their nations and not continue the culture of dependence on the rest of the world, Ayeni further points out in the book, adding that the widespread leadership failure in Sub-Saharan Africa has devastated the region and that the situation must be reversed.

In an interview with The Empowerment Initiative Online Newsletter Blog, Ayeni said the most devastating blow dealt to Africa went on "between the mid-15th century and 1867, when the last slave ship left central West Africa for Havana, Cuba."

"During this period, African chiefs sold the sons and daughters of their native land to the traders from across the Atlantic Ocean. Nothing can compare to what happened to the continent during this pre-colonial period," he said.  

The second devastating blow to the continent came with the Berlin Conference of 1884-85, when the European powers divided the continent without any input from the people, Ayeni said. Political independence was won by these countries, mostly in the 1960s, after difficult struggles led by prominent African leaders, including Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Nnamdi Azikiwe, Tafawa Balewa and Obafemi Awolowo of Nigeria, Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya, Patrice Lumumba of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Leopold Senghor of Senegal and the "colossus" — Nelson Mandela of South Africa.

Unfortunately, according to Ayeni, colonialism was replaced by other problems including leaders' "inordinate zeal for power" and "a catastrophic lack of deep thought." 

"The root of the calamity in these nations is much deeper than corruption," he said. "There is total lack of concern for the welfare of the ordinary citizens, including the children and the elderly. It is something that most of our people do not want to address. It is time we address it. 

"Here's an example of how ... corruption has degraded the lives of Sub-Saharan Africans," Ayeni continued. "If you live in Little Rock, Arkansas ... you will be able to live in an area with access to the basic necessities of decent human existence, like clean water, electricity, sanitation, education and other resources. Most Sub-Saharan Africans don't have access to clean water. Many students go to school without basic materials for learning. There is [a] deep lack of love for the ordinary people by the leaders who only look out for themselves and their immediate families. The selfishness and corruption is so deep.  How can people be so selfish and demonstrate such deep lack love for fellow human beings? This is why I wrote this book."

Ayeni said he makes his strongest arguments in Chapter 5, "The Citizens As Potential Producers"; Chapter 2, "The Pitfalls of Misconceptions of the Purpose of Life";  Chapter 4, "The People: Vision Leadership Needed in the Face of Significant Divesity";  Chapter 7, "Education"; Chapter 9, "Governance and the Rule of Law"; and Chapter 10, "The Role of Donors and NGOs."

The best hope for the rescue of Sub-Saharan Africa lies with the children, mostly below the age of 10 years, Ayeni said. This is because they have not been polluted by corruption. “One of the saddest things about the failing nations of Sub-Saharan Africa is that the next generation of leaders, who are now in their 30s have only been exposed to corruption, selfishness, looting of the treasury by the leaders," he said. "That is what they have seen, experienced and learned throughout their lives. They have never experienced good governance,  never seen great schools, nor seen leaders whose top priority is taking care of society. They have only seen leaders who are totally invested in taking care of themselves."

Ayeni, who is also president and founder of the nonprofit organization Pan Africa Children Advocacy Watch Inc., wants everybody of African descent to read his book "so we can put our house in order." Indeed, anybody who is concerned about the fate of Africa and who donates money for foreign aid through a church, association or organization, is encouraged to read this book.

"I am going to be very blunt," Ayeni said. "Nobody outside Africa [including African Diaporans living in the United States, Canada, Caribbean, South America, Europe, etc.] can save Africa. Only Africans can save Africans! Africans must put their house in order! There are 1 billion-plus Africans .... they have all the human and natural resources!"

Rescue Thyself: Change in Sub Saharan Africa Must Come from Within is available at amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, Bamm.com, (Books A million), Roman.com, (the publisher’s website) and Walmart.com.

(NOTE: I hope brothers and sisters in the Diaspora would not get offended by Ayeni's statements. He just wants the world to know that it is time for the ''Motherland" to help itself because it has everything it needs to help itself. We — Black America and the rest of the African Diaspora — should at least be on standby to provide support, because we are brothers and sisters in the struggle. — A.S.)

Wilmer J. Leon, III, Ph.D. examines race, war, ethics and the politics in new book

 

Wilmer J. Leon III

    

By Renarda A. Williams (aka Abari Sankofa)

Wilmer J. Leon, III, Ph.D. leaves no stone unturned in the powerful set of essays in his book, Politics: Another Perspective: Commentary and Analysis on Race, War, Ethics and the American Political Landscape in the Age of Obama (AuthorHouse, Bloomington, MN, 2016).

Leon goes in depth in describing the essence of what the president, and the country, tried to do, as for counteracting the ideology of separatism. Unfortunately, he points out, there were no strong countermeasures by liberals to eliminate a bi-liberal society in America. Leon's analyses shows that factions of the Tea Party, ultra-right-wing conservatives, and white supremacists who did everything to dismantle the openness that America hoped to lead toward in the latter 2000s.  

The Empowerment Initiative Online Newsletter Blog interviewed Leon about Black America's expectations of former President Obama, Dr. Martin Luther King's real legacy, and the need for American communities, especially Black communities, to start empowering themselves and speaking out for social justice,

Leon said the greatest disappointment in Obama came from those with the most unrealistic expectations. 

"There were a lot of people in this country that were looking for President Obama to be able to solve [all their problems]," he said. "Some of that was based upon things he said during his campaign. Other elements were things that people in the electorate placed upon him. 

"But a lot of it is due to the fact that he did not govern, nor did he seem to try to govern to his base. ... He never seemed to use the bully power of his pulpit to explain [matters] to his base, or pressure his opposition. I think that there are a number of elements [that explain] why there was, in the minds of many people, that sense of disappointment."

Leon said he believes that Obama embraced a progressive liberal platform to try to give the impression that those were his politics. 

"I think, as of this day, that he was a 'corporatist,' " Leon said. "The real beneficiaries of a lot of his policies have been corporations and banks. I think there were a lot of factors. I don't think that it was as simple as a lot of his supporters wanted it to be .... saying, 'You just don't understand what he was up against' " to critics.

He understands that Sen. Mitch McConnell, along with just about everybody else in the Republican Party, wanted Obama to fail, Leon said. But, he adds, he didn't really see Obama using or challenging what he was up against; instead, he tried to negotiate with his opponents. He never seemed to understand that he couldn't negotiate with people who wanted to see him fail and were doing everything in their power to undermine him at every turn.

"Some of the people who worked in the administration told me: 'I rarely saw him come out at press conferences and say: "Look ... this is what Mitch McConnell is doing and this is what I am doing." It was rarely I heard him come out and say: "John Boehner is saying this .... but here’s the real truth,' '" Leon said.

"Let me give you a clearer example: I think that the biggest mistake that the president made was at the early stage of the Affordable Health Care Act. He should have gone to Kentucky -- right in McConnell's backyard -- and held a press conference and held a town hall meeting. And explained to those people in Kentucky what McConnell and the other conservatives were trying to do. He should have said: 

" 'Look, I know he is not telling you .... . Here is what I am trying to tell you. I know you don't like me ... . I am still your president. I'll do everything within my power to make sure everybody in this country has health care and entitlements. You don't have to vote for me ... . I am still working for you because I am still your president! And if Mitch McConnell still wants to oppose the ACA, you all need to go see him and ask him what is he giving you or providing for you that is better than what I am offering.' 

"After Obama finished his speech, he should dropped the mic and walked off the stage. And then he should have gotten on Air Force One and headed to South Carolina and [done] the same thing to Lindsay Graham. He should have gone to Mississippi, Louisiana .... and done the same thing to Bobby Jindal. He should have gone on a Southern Tour entitled The Affordable Health Care Act Drop The Mic Tour. He should have gone into all of those states' backyards and said what Franklin Roosevelt said: 'They may want the White House, but they will have to come through me to get it! .... and I got the key in my back pocket.' "

One essay in the book -- "Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., It's Not the Dream; It's Our Nightmare" --  best drives home the point that it will take more than a Black man, or a woman such as Hillary Clinton, to turn America around.

Most people, Leon said, don’t read the first part of Dr. King's "I Have A Dream" speech; they only read from the middle. The first part of the speech was an indictment of America ... an indictment during which King told listeners, "I am not advocating violence, but if you all don't pay attention, this stuff is going to go off!"

"All of that analysis is ignored, or not articulated," Leon said. "Dr. King has been [seen] as a dreamer. Dreamers are safe because they are asleep! But Dr. King was straight-up woke! He [called] America out!"

Another incendiary speech King gave -- "Why I Opposed the War In Vietnam" -- was the one that got him assassinated, Leon opines, and nobody really wants to talk about that.

"What you’ve got to do is combine that speech, where Dr. King stated 'war is an 'Enemy of the Poor,' with President Dwight D. Eisenhower's 1960 Farewell Address To The Nation, [which] warned us against the Military Industrial Complex," he stated.

Leon said someone on Facebook asked him the question: Who would he rather have, Malcolm X, or Martin? 

"I wrote back, 'You must have the ying and the yang ... . You can't really pick one over the other one. One couldn't been as effective without the other," he said.

Leon said Americans, as well as Black communities, need to empower themselves and protest against such injustices as voting rights suppression and police brutality. 

"I think looking at [President] Donald Trump should be motivation to truly understand the need for grassroots organization. It is going to enable us to empower ourselves and develop the type of context that we are going to need to go forward," he stated.

"Our politics will have to mature. Unfortunately, I think there are too many people that are in the process, and they are not nearly as effective because they are so concerned about being race-neutral ... . These de-racialized politics are going to do our community a disservice."

Press Release For Immediate Release Gang intervention specialist Carolyn Hobbs and former Step Up Support Center executive director (the support center provided four Gang intervention and prevention programs in the early 90s) talks about solutions for rise of crime in Little Rock

Press Release
For Immediate Release

Gang intervention specialist Carolyn Hobbs and former Step Up Support Center executive director (the support center provided four Gang intervention and prevention programs in the early 90s) talks about solutions for rise of crime in Little Rock

Little Rock, AR (July 10, 2017) -- Hobbs addresses solutions about the rise of crime, gang violence, and the recent shootings at Ultra Lounge, where 28 people were wounded.

Hobbs highlighted the interventions and solutions that ended the gang crisis in Little Rock in the early 90s in her book Sipping Tea for the Spirit (Orange Universe Press, $15) in the chapter Empowerment of Little Rock Youth. Hobbs highlighted the interventions and solutions that worked for the city of Little Rock in the early 90s.
HBO documented their perception of the violence in 1994 on a special documentary  entitled Gang War: Bangin' in Little Rock, which was shown on cable television nationally.

Unfortunately, youth violence has returned to the city. The majority of the crime has taken place in underserved neighborhoods. The youth in the underserved neighborhoods have expressed to Hobbs that they feel that it appears that people do not care about them.  

It appears that the youth have low aspirations because of their feelings of hopelessness  that makes them vulnerable to negative and violent activities.

"We need to look at what was successful in the early 90s," Hobbs said. "I worked directly with all those children that were involved in that, as well as the public officials at that time."

The problems in the 90s were devastating for the city of Little Rock. Hobbs was inspired to write detailed information about that period of violence in Little Rock.

According to Mrs. Annie Abrams, who has been an outstanding community leader throughout the years in Little Rock, stated Ms. Hobbs book Sipping Tea for the Spirit gives a detailed blueprint on how to deal with community issues.

The book can be found at Pyramid Art, Books and Custom Framing. It also can be ordered online at Amazon Books.
For more information about Carolyn Hobbs, request a review copy of her book, or arrange a newspaper, television, or radio interview with her, contact Mr. Renarda A. Williams at 501-765-1873 or renarda3@aol.com.

How Southern Food empowered the Civil Rights Movement

 

Frederick Douglass Opie

Movements for progressive change have always been sustained by the ideologies and strategies of the leaders and organizations pushing for said change.

When it comes to the Civil Rights Movement, one of the most powerful tools of its sustenance was, simply put, sustenance for the body.

In Southern Food and Civil Rights: Feeding the Revolution (American Palate, Charleston, SC, 2017), Frederick Douglass Opie shows how food was significant in nourishing the participants who marched, protested and strategized against injustice in the South. A professor of history and foodways at Babson College in Wellesley, MA, Opie has also authored Hog and Horminy: Soul Food From Africa to America (2008) and Zora Neale Hurston on Florida Food, Recipes, Remedies and Simple Pleasures (2015).

This extraordinary book details how restaurants such as Paschal's in Atlanta and Dookie Chase's in New Orleans offered a safe haven for the revolutionaries; how the Sandwich Brigade fed thousands of people attending the 1963 March on Washington; and how the Nation of Islam supported itself via the farming of crops and livestock, distribution of the food from these farms, and ownership of eateries in Washington, Chicago, Harlem, and Atlanta

The book is highlighted by numerous recipes modified from those that appeared in black and mainstream publications from the early 20th century up through the Civil Rights era:
Chicken Gumbo (Cleveland Call & Post, May 1950); Afro Cooking School Cheesecake (Afro American, November 19, 1932); Basic Fried Chicken (Baltimore Sun, Jan. 29, 1960); and Bean Pie (Chicago Defender).

During my interview with Opie, he used the Boston Marathon as one example of how food is a key component and ingredient in an event. The marathon would be nothing, he said without volunteers on the sidelines of the raceway handing out water or Gatorade to the runners. It was the same with the Civil Rights Movement — it would not have been sustainable had there been no one to provide food for participants during the marches and rallies.

Opie's upbringing influenced his authorship of the book; his mother was an activist, he said.

"I saw all her in all of the planning, strategy sessions .... and there was always food there. My mother would be on the phone coordinating with other activists," making sure these meetings were also potluck meals, he said.

People exhibit a sense of superiority when they think they have everything under control, Opie noted. That was the case with racist whites during the Civil Rights Movement. Because of their arrogance, they assumed Blacks would remain powerless and never outsmart them — in other words, they thought that "everything was on lockdown," he said.

Meanwhile, Blacks used their stores and restaurants as covers for movement activities. They would carry around pamphlets and fliers, surreptitiously dropping them others who were involved in the movement. The success of the 1955-1956 Montgomery Bus Boycott in Alabama was helped by bake sales, some of whose products were sold to whites who had no idea where the proceeds were going.

Tucked into the theme of food during the movement was the the sense of self-sufficiency that helped sustain the supply of food that sustained the movement. Opie pointed out that the Nation of Islam, for instance, believed in "never begging the white man for something," as Malcolm X would say. Some Black people forget that the Nation of Islam was similar to the Marcus Garvey movement, Opie added.

"The thing about Marcus Garvey that people cannot forget was, he was a cultural revolutionary. Booker T. Washington was his role model. He said Washington said, 'Don't ask the white man for nothing; build your own. ... When you are economically independent, you can do things like that." The Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA), which oversaw the bus boycott, was perhaps influenced by the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), Garvey's organization. "If you do your research, there may have been a UNIA chapter in Montgomery. Garvey went universal," he said.

Opie acknowledged that integration proved a double-edged sword. Blacks from all walks of life,  suffering the same oppression as a group, had no choice but to work together during the days of Jim Crow. But "when you had integration, [Blacks] left the community, he said. "You no longer had role models left in the community ... and this was an important factor," Opie added. "Today, I think we in the African American community forgot the lessons of the Civil Rights Movement."

Opie said his next book, that's still in the works, will be titled The Student Makeover. In it, he plans to discuss how college-bound young people should be able to answer the questions,
'What is your God-given talent? What can you do better than anybody else?'

"If you can't ask that question first, you don't know where you are going."