How Africans Underdeveloped Africa: Unpopular opinion it’s not the Leaders
We need to WAKE UP! I believe we could have cursed Africa with our own words.
We don’t realize how much our constant negativity creates more negativity within our continent. It’s the simple concept of the power of the tongue- life and death is contained there in.
Could there be a different way to look at our leaders...?
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CAUTION: Before I proceed, I would like to make it clear, I am aware that the challenges we face in Africa aren’t simplistic. I am fully cognizant of the complexity at play. I know positive speech alone may not fix everything.
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However, I am increasingly struggling with how we seem to be looking for any possible chance to find something wrong with what our Leaders do.
They go to the US, “they’ve sold us for a photo in the white house”.
They go to Korea- “They have no brains of their own and respond to summons by a single nation.”
They try to work locally, we say they can’t cooperate…
They stay at home, we call them lazy ...
WORDS WORDS WORDS. We have been cursing our Leaders in Africa at any chance we get.
We call them corrupt. WORDS. I know many would argue that saying “AFRICAN LEADERS ARE SO CORRUPT” is a “Fact” … but I hate to break our egos, self righteousness and delicate sensibilities… That is a CREATIVE statement. We continually create that reality with our increased negativity.
It’s like Jesus said, “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks…”
Have considered that perhaps we speak with such vile and unloving language to our leaders because that’s what actually in our hearts? Why do we feel so justified in our vicious criticism towards them?
It makes us feel sooo good to express our “anger” against them … but the whole time we do not realize that we are speaking from what qualifies as hatred. We are speaking in judgement. We have looked at the “dust” in the ‘eyes’ of our leaders… and felt justified and right, and righteous… we do not even see the log (error) in our own ‘eyes’ (perspective)- or the creative power and influence it has on the direction our continent moves.
Could we have underdeveloped Africa, our continent with the amount of negative speech we send out each time we open our mouths to speak about our own people as if they were our enemies?
Why isn't it possible to find anything good with any efforts our leaders make?
Haven’t we heard of the parable of the talents ... The one who invested nothing, even the little the had was taken. Could we have had even the little we had post-colonialism taken from us due to our poor stewardship… poor stewardship expressed in our ever-negative speech?
The power of life and death is in the tongue ... With our tongues we can create life or death... We speak with such disdain, criticism and a level of not trusting our leaders because we do not actually ever expect them to do something good. Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks ... For all the "energy" and "manifestation" talk of the 21st century... If what we “send out” such “negative energy” about Africa each time we open our mouths about our leaders … what do we expect?
How are 54 Leaders supposed to stand up to the negative, hateful, untrusting speeches of 1.4 billion people (African Population) and not fall into the power of those speeches ?
I know even my own friends may come after me for saying this … but perhaps the biggest barrier to African Development is not neo-colonialism, or “the west”, or “corrupt leaders”…
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IT IS US. We are our own greatest enemy, and our own greatest barrier. We are creative beings with mighty creative power within our tongues, and 99% of us ignorantly create death against our land each time we open our mouths and speak negatively about our Land or Leaders.
I’ll repeat it until we get it. IT IS US. WE ARE THE PROBLEM. OUR SPEECH IS THE PROBLEM. OUR HEARTS ARE THE PROBLEM. We wouldn’t speak with so much indignant criticism against our leaders if there was love in our hearts.
Would it hurt us to Cheer our leaders on even as we hold them accountable?
Even Psychology agrees with me. The parent who name calls their child to “set them straight” only hurts them. You don’t calm your child, “Stupid… Useless… Cow… Goat… Drug addict… A waste of time”… and the like and help them. They may become avoidants, or perfectionists, or people pleasers so that they never have to hear such hurtful speech against them, from their own parents … but they aren’t helped. Such a parent only adds trauma to their child… and an unnecessary future budget on a trauma therapist for such a child … so that they can overcome the low self esteem, rejection and sense of unworthiness they feel due to how their parents spoke to them … due to the WORDS their parents said to them.
Whenever we speak so hatefully against our leaders in Africa, we are not better than that Parent who breaks their child’s spirit through negative speech. You’d think the negative speech would warn someone off… but the words only make them more of the things we don’t want them to be.
Our Leaders in Africa hear the same negative things from us so much, that they may actually have become those negative things against their own will.
You know why? It’s like this example of a racing car driver that I read somewhere. Apparently, whenever a racing car driver is told to “not hit the wall”, they always end up actually hitting the wall because now their focus becomes “not hitting the wall”. To “not hit the wall”, they must focus on the wall instead of the road ahead. Where your attention is, you go. The drivers attention on the wall so as to make sure they “don’t hit it” only results in the opposite desired outcome.
Our constant negative speech against our leaders could be like that “don’t hit the wall” speech… so in their attempts to avoid the “wall”, they keep hitting it.
Each time, we only seem to keep looking for the negative. Perhaps it’s no wonder it is what we see. I once heard that, “What you keep looking for is what you’ll get”. Perhaps it’s our own biases against our leaders that make us keep seeing things that only seem to confirm those negative biases against them.
No one has to be a believer to know that life and death is in the tongue... If it helps, those who think we’re being foolish can think of it as the power of self fulfilling prophecies in psychology, we keep attracting this underdevelopment to our continent due to the amount of hate we seem to carry about our own people as if they were our enemies. We are one house as Africa, a divided house falls apart
I encourage us all to try better ... How can we support our leaders, and our economies to grow instead of this constant, unending negativity...
I don't think there's any other continent that speaks negatively about its leaders as we do in Africa....
We need to do better ... We must do better. There is room to both love and correct without having to create death with our tongues each time we open our mouths.
Next time, before you spend your time, mind and energy to type some negative hateful thing about an African Leader- whether a local member or Parliament or a president within the African Union Heads of State- I encourage us to consider if your comment is driven by love, or criticism for the sake of feeding our ego.
Love isn’t so “pure” that it doesn’t consist of room for rebuke. We can both love and hold people accountable at the same time. None had to come at the cost of the other.
We can both love our Leaders in Africa , and support them, and encourage them while also holding them accountable.
Our hateful (though many of us wouldn’t think that’s what it is) negative speeches against our leaders have not worked to create a different reality for Africa all these many years post colonialism.
Perhaps it is time to try a different tactic. Love could do the trick for us now that hateful anger, complaining and criticism hasn’t worked.
After all, I think we’ve all been readers or listeners long enough to have come across the quote that, “Only a mad man keeps doing things the same way and expects different results.”
It’s high time we came to “our senses”. A good loving word don’t cost a thing. Try that next time instead of some mean tweet, post or comment.
Imagine what it would be like if we used our collective speeches to love, encourage and build? Imagine if all 1.4 Billion of us in Africa choose to love, and correct in love … Imagine all 1.4 billion of us collectively encouraging our 54 Leaders and our local leaders in patient love? Imagine what the force of 1.4 Billion encouraging speeches would do to our continent?
We can Course Correct in our speech as a Continent.
We MUST Course Correct.
Shalom Africa.
#Africa #Love #OneHouse
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Hey there. My name is Risper Wanja Njagi. I am an Advocate by Training, Writer and Voice Over Artist, currently living and working in Kenya.
I am a believer in Jesus Christ… and I dare say my life has gotten richer for it… in all aspects.
I love Africa as I love to serve God… and I am committed that even if it only starts with me, we shall revive hope in the African Continent Through Love.
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I’m happy to partner with as many people pursuing a love-driven Pan-African Agenda… especially those also incorporating concerns for young people in their work.
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You can reach me for any partnership engagements on coursecorrectbyrisper@gmail.com
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Also, you can support me by following me on Socials where I go by the handle “Course Correct by Risper”. Thank you and Shalom!
