WOMEN AND AFRICA'S SECOND REVOLUTION
According to many scholars, Africa is undergoing a second Revolution. This revolution is a self-transforming grassroots movement. These transformative grassroots economic, social, and political movements draw their origin and strengths from the abusive, irresponsible, and incompetent elite leadership experiences which over the past thirty some years, has not only corrupted and bankrupted African societies, but also led to loss of life genocidal proportions.
As we surmise, the first African revolution was an anti-colonial struggle for true independence.
It was elite-led and the masses only executed the designs of the elite. At the dawn of independence, the elite that led anti-colonial struggles replaced the colonial masters in State power. What followed the initial euphoria of independence, and its promise of human dignity and prosperity in Africa, is a matter of a living history of misery, indignity, oppression, and mismanagement of State and national resources. This has led to the current state of despair and disintegration in Africa. The people-led grassroots second revolution is a reaction to this sustained disaster.
Many of Africa's declared sovereign countries are referred to as "expired states". Others were called "soft states". Only a few like Botswana, Gabon, and Ghana are believed to follow actions that may help them enjoy prospects for coherent nationhood and increased prosperity, growing out of their internally consistent social philosophies and cultural underpinnings. In other African countries, decades of mismanagement, cruelty to citizens in every way, and unaccountable and irresponsible financial looting and corruption have led societies to hang on the verge of total disintegration. These States have little or nothing to offer citizens, much less inspire the emergence of a viable civil society under law and order. These chaotic states are variously referred as "soft " or "expired" states, depending on the degree of alienation from the people and their irrelevance to the lives of people.
Unable to deliver any of the function of states like development, peace harmony, and prosperity that seemed within reach in the 1960s, heretofore mismanaged African that entertain some good will towards their people have simply receded to the background and the people are able to do their own experiments to make economic, social and cultural sense out of the mess and ruin of so many years of mismanagement and corruption. In this new grassroots experiment, called the Second Revolution African women are the front runners, in fact often the sole runners, picking the broken pieces of a worn out civil society and slowly putting them back together. The most vibrant domestic production and circulation of good and services in Africa are in the informal sector created by Africa's women.
Against tremendous international and domestic odds, African women are braving new life, courageously organizing and facing up to the challenge of rebuilding destroyed civil society from the bottom up with very little means and the burden of male oppression. Theirs is a grassroots movement dedicated to the rehabilitation of human spirit, the environment, African cultural values and the creation of human, social, economic and political environments in which the best in a society both male and female can emerge and thrive. Their efforts have already led to tremendous achievements.
To mention a few concrete cases, the Green Belt Movement in Kenya, basically a women- led environmental movement covering 27 of these country's 42 administrative districts. It has upward of fifty thousand direct membership and millions more men and women followers organized into two thousand local community groups. This network forms the single most effective network of citizen organization that informs and mobilizes people on political, environmental corruption, of issues of human and civil rights abuses.
While it is busy rehabilitating and denuded countryside ( the movement, assisted by moderate donor grants, has planted over 20 million trees by early 1990s), it also tackles the fundamental systematic problems that have disemboweled people and alienated their culture from serving as the anchor for national transformation. So far, this network led professor Maathai Wangari now has such international prominence that it plays a central role in mentoring government decisions in almost every area. Among some recent achievements that mark the strength of this women led, grassroots civic movement are; Arap Moi's 1992 concession to multi party political participation and the scrapping of huge, World Bank financed building project that would have defaced Nairobi's most beautiful and expensive national park. In both cases, the women led mobilization of civil society resisted unaccountable government practices. In April, 1997, Niger under went the usual African political convulsion when an army coup unseated a duly elected government and jailed the entire cabinet. Women in Niger were angry and frustrated by this resumption of cycle of mindless violence.
They spontaneously gathered in growing numbers and sat around the army headquarters demanding the release of the cabinet members. Even mothers of infants participated. Their husbands attended the infants and brought them to the mothers for breast-feeding every soften. The women continued their sit-in protest until, confused about what to do with the women and embarrassed by international attention, the government released the prisoners. With their first mission accomplished, the women left the army premises.
We mention the current African instance of a new form of civil society in evolution with women at the heart and center of it. The aim is to highlight the failure and crises that can create new opportunities for change and transformation for that is real and balanced. Also we see a number of factors playing out of this new phenomenon of the second African revolution. First, that the African continent is beginning to see light at the end of the dark tunnel because women who value human life and the culture that nurtures it and gives it primacy are beginning to act. Second, this unexpected women-led continental rival is coming at a time when the total chaos in Africa had led most observers to conclude that the continent is helpless, and even contemplate the need for "recolonization" of the continent. The widespread grassroots social, economic and political movement is now attracting new international attention.
Many social scientists are taken by surprise at these new developments and are calling for careful study of the socio-cultural and economic phenomenon unleashed by women.
There are no other women on the continent who are burdened with abuse and uncertainty of destiny. Ethiopian women have lost their dignity, being subjected to rape, disease, poverty, malnutrition, and untold stress of internal and external exile. This leads to mental illness, suicide, and other forms of misery known to mankind.
Ethiopian women can and must be a big factor in creating an action and goal-oriented crusade that can quickly refocus and redirect all social, intellectual, and material energies; to doing concrete things, not fiddling with intangible and endless exercises in rhetoric.
Without women playing a resolute role, there can be no enduring and practical solutions to the extreme challenges facing us all.
We must step down from the treadmill of each wanting to tear and reorganize existing restructures created by others merely to reshape them after one's image. This can never work. But work does work.
To this end, Mela opens its pages to practical dialogue and useful and useable analysis of things that have worked and working or can work in the Ethiopian women community in Diaspora and in Ethiopia.
As we strive to stand up and be counted on, we hope to join hands with all enlightened people who realize that salvation is only a commitment away and that together, we the women will be in the driver's sit of a destiny guided by our best humanity.
We are learning as we go along, that our unique collective assets and potential are diverse, plentiful and awaiting rediscovery.
According to many scholars, Africa is undergoing a second Revolution. This revolution is a self-transforming grassroots movement. These transformative grassroots economic, social, and political movements draw their origin and strengths from the abusive, irresponsible, and incompetent elite leadership experiences which over the past thirty some years, has not only corrupted and bankrupted African societies, but also led to loss of life genocidal proportions.
As we surmise, the first African revolution was an anti-colonial struggle for true independence.
It was elite-led and the masses only executed the designs of the elite. At the dawn of independence, the elite that led anti-colonial struggles replaced the colonial masters in State power. What followed the initial euphoria of independence, and its promise of human dignity and prosperity in Africa, is a matter of a living history of misery, indignity, oppression, and mismanagement of State and national resources. This has led to the current state of despair and disintegration in Africa. The people-led grassroots second revolution is a reaction to this sustained disaster.
Many of Africa's declared sovereign countries are referred to as "expired states". Others were called "soft states". Only a few like Botswana, Gabon, and Ghana are believed to follow actions that may help them enjoy prospects for coherent nationhood and increased prosperity, growing out of their internally consistent social philosophies and cultural underpinnings. In other African countries, decades of mismanagement, cruelty to citizens in every way, and unaccountable and irresponsible financial looting and corruption have led societies to hang on the verge of total disintegration. These States have little or nothing to offer citizens, much less inspire the emergence of a viable civil society under law and order. These chaotic states are variously referred as "soft " or "expired" states, depending on the degree of alienation from the people and their irrelevance to the lives of people.
Unable to deliver any of the function of states like development, peace harmony, and prosperity that seemed within reach in the 1960s, heretofore mismanaged African that entertain some good will towards their people have simply receded to the background and the people are able to do their own experiments to make economic, social and cultural sense out of the mess and ruin of so many years of mismanagement and corruption. In this new grassroots experiment, called the Second Revolution African women are the front runners, in fact often the sole runners, picking the broken pieces of a worn out civil society and slowly putting them back together. The most vibrant domestic production and circulation of good and services in Africa are in the informal sector created by Africa's women.
Against tremendous international and domestic odds, African women are braving new life, courageously organizing and facing up to the challenge of rebuilding destroyed civil society from the bottom up with very little means and the burden of male oppression. Theirs is a grassroots movement dedicated to the rehabilitation of human spirit, the environment, African cultural values and the creation of human, social, economic and political environments in which the best in a society both male and female can emerge and thrive. Their efforts have already led to tremendous achievements.
To mention a few concrete cases, the Green Belt Movement in Kenya, basically a women- led environmental movement covering 27 of these country's 42 administrative districts. It has upward of fifty thousand direct membership and millions more men and women followers organized into two thousand local community groups. This network forms the single most effective network of citizen organization that informs and mobilizes people on political, environmental corruption, of issues of human and civil rights abuses.
While it is busy rehabilitating and denuded countryside ( the movement, assisted by moderate donor grants, has planted over 20 million trees by early 1990s), it also tackles the fundamental systematic problems that have disemboweled people and alienated their culture from serving as the anchor for national transformation. So far, this network led professor Maathai Wangari now has such international prominence that it plays a central role in mentoring government decisions in almost every area. Among some recent achievements that mark the strength of this women led, grassroots civic movement are; Arap Moi's 1992 concession to multi party political participation and the scrapping of huge, World Bank financed building project that would have defaced Nairobi's most beautiful and expensive national park. In both cases, the women led mobilization of civil society resisted unaccountable government practices. In April, 1997, Niger under went the usual African political convulsion when an army coup unseated a duly elected government and jailed the entire cabinet. Women in Niger were angry and frustrated by this resumption of cycle of mindless violence.
They spontaneously gathered in growing numbers and sat around the army headquarters demanding the release of the cabinet members. Even mothers of infants participated. Their husbands attended the infants and brought them to the mothers for breast-feeding every soften. The women continued their sit-in protest until, confused about what to do with the women and embarrassed by international attention, the government released the prisoners. With their first mission accomplished, the women left the army premises.
We mention the current African instance of a new form of civil society in evolution with women at the heart and center of it. The aim is to highlight the failure and crises that can create new opportunities for change and transformation for that is real and balanced. Also we see a number of factors playing out of this new phenomenon of the second African revolution. First, that the African continent is beginning to see light at the end of the dark tunnel because women who value human life and the culture that nurtures it and gives it primacy are beginning to act. Second, this unexpected women-led continental rival is coming at a time when the total chaos in Africa had led most observers to conclude that the continent is helpless, and even contemplate the need for "recolonization" of the continent. The widespread grassroots social, economic and political movement is now attracting new international attention.
Many social scientists are taken by surprise at these new developments and are calling for careful study of the socio-cultural and economic phenomenon unleashed by women.
There are no other women on the continent who are burdened with abuse and uncertainty of destiny. Ethiopian women have lost their dignity, being subjected to rape, disease, poverty, malnutrition, and untold stress of internal and external exile. This leads to mental illness, suicide, and other forms of misery known to mankind.
Ethiopian women can and must be a big factor in creating an action and goal-oriented crusade that can quickly refocus and redirect all social, intellectual, and material energies; to doing concrete things, not fiddling with intangible and endless exercises in rhetoric.
Without women playing a resolute role, there can be no enduring and practical solutions to the extreme challenges facing us all.
We must step down from the treadmill of each wanting to tear and reorganize existing restructures created by others merely to reshape them after one's image. This can never work. But work does work.
To this end, Mela opens its pages to practical dialogue and useful and useable analysis of things that have worked and working or can work in the Ethiopian women community in Diaspora and in Ethiopia.
As we strive to stand up and be counted on, we hope to join hands with all enlightened people who realize that salvation is only a commitment away and that together, we the women will be in the driver's sit of a destiny guided by our best humanity.
We are learning as we go along, that our unique collective assets and potential are diverse, plentiful and awaiting rediscovery.
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