Day: September 22, 2009

My mind and my knowledge of myself is formed by the victories that are the jewels in our African crown, the victories we earned from Isandhlwana to Khartoum, as Ethiopians and as the Ashanti of Ghana, as the Berbers of the desert…. All this I know and know to be true because I am an African!

Because of that, I am also able to state this fundamental truth that I am born of a people who are heroes and heroines… The great masses who are our mother and father will not permit that the behaviour of the few results in the description of our country and people as barbaric. Patient because history is on their side, these masses do not despair because today the weather is bad. Nor do they turn triumphalist when, tomorrow, the sun shines.

I am born of the peoples of the continent of Africa. The pain of the violent conflict that the peoples of Liberia, Somalia, the Sudan, Burundi and Algeria is a pain I also bear. The dismal shame of poverty, suffering and human degradation of my continent is a blight that we share… Whatever the difficulties, Africa shall be at peace!

I have read a few stories in the past about this inspirational woman, France’s junior minister for youth and sports. At only 32 she has already penetrated the French politics. She was born in Senegal before her mother moved to France where she grew in  an immigrant neighbourhood. Yade is a brilliant  black muslim woman.

She has a book which I am yet to read titled “Blacks of France,” which according to the Washington Post “analyzed the place in French society occupied by African immigrants’ children and other French blacks.”   The paper says the book reminded people that, despite her own swift rise in a conservative movement, Yade carried the heritage of a black woman in a predominantly white society.

A friend of mine Shaazka has also brought to my attention that  Yada  boycotted official functions for Muammar Gaddafi last year in Paris. She said Gaddafi should be made to understand “our country is not a doormat on which a leader, terrorist or not, can come wipe the blood of his deeds off his feet.”

Go gal.