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NewsDay

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SADC at 30 reflections: We are Africans first

Opinion & Analysis
All political and economic dealings with external players such as Europe, USA, China, Russia and India must be conducted through that single massive African economy.

Arthur Guseni Oliver Mutambara Regional Sovereignty is more important than National Sovereignty.

Numbers and economies of scale do matter under globalization.

These national borders are not ours. They were constructed in a meaningless and disruptive manner.

Africans must not have any attachment or commitment to these borders.

Regional Prosperity will lead to National Prosperity.

SADC is a building block (It is just a means to an end) towards total continental integration:

  • A peaceful, democratic, united and prosperous Africa
  • 1.3 billion Africans with a collective GDP of US$ 2.5 trillion.

That is the collective and single economy – a colossus of an entity – that Africans must aspire to.

All political and economic dealings with external players such as Europe, USA, China, Russia and India must be conducted through that single massive African economy.

Yes, national leaders must fix their healthcare systems, fix their economies, and govern their countries effectively and justly.

If this is done, there will be no influx of non-South Africans into South Africa for jobs or healthcare facilities.

However, the unintelligent and incompetent remarks by the Limpopo MEC for Health must be condemned with the contempt that they deserve.

She manifested the ideological bankruptcy, lack of Pan-African consciousness and absence of regional solidarity that characterize most of the leaders in charge of the African continent today.

  • Narrow and ahistorical nationalism.
  • There is a dearth of leadership.
  • South Africa is a product of African solidarity and African sacrifice.
  • South African leaders must not be ahistorical.
  • Extreme (national) inward focus is unAfrican and, more importantly, unstrategic.
  • We are all Africans.

In fact, you are an African FIRST, a citizen of SADC SECOND, and then a South African THIRD, a Nigerian THIRD, a Malawian THIRD, a Zimbabwean THIRD, etc.

Put differently, the African continent is more important than the Regional bloc. The Regional bloc is more important than the Country.

That is the consciousness which is missing among us as Africans.

Africans must abandon irrational attachment to nation states which were never meant serve their interests in the first place.