The world is in a crisis. Now, more than ever, everyone in the world, poor and rich, male and female, of all races can attest that the human family is in a deep crisis.
In fact, just by using the Google search engine to find the world’s major crises, the first crisis in 2022 is hunger which according to UN report had already affected more than 800 million people in 2021. In addition to the exacerbating hunger situation in the world, climate change and wars are other major crises striking our world. For instance, for 2022 year alone, dozens of countries in the world have faced severe floods that have devastated lives, and entire livelihoods, and when it comes to conflicts, Yemen, Ethiopia, DRC, Mali to name but a few countries that are in conflicts.
In the face of this reality, we can assume that the efforts of most people (especially conscious people) are to try to understand the nature of these crises and address them, and indeed they are doing that. However, we will be deceiving ourselves by thinking that there is a uniform way of assessing these crises, and solving them in the interest of all, hence, through this short expose, we are going to argue that there are two ways of assessing and interpreting the world’s crises. Specifically, there is what we can call the elites interpretation of the world’s crises, and there is also the people’s interpretation of the world’s crises. The crucial point to understand is that: each assessment and interpretation, paves a way to a particular solution. In other words, the elite’s assessment and interpretation of the crises and solutions thereafter are not the same with the views held by the ordinary people about the same phenomena.
Often, it has been the elites’ interpretation of the crises, and their solutions that have been dominating the world’s paradigm, to the point that, the way of the masses has been suppressed, thus leaving us, with one perception of reality and choice-the elites choice. Also, oftentimes, most of the major social changes initiated by the masses were hijacked by the elites, and thereafter transformed them, into formulas to achieve their own desires. Consequently, the ugly picture of the world painted above is directly or indirectly the result of solutions implemented by the world’s elites, solutions embedded in their assessments of the world.
Therefore, we argue that, perhaps the hope of the world in general, and of Africa in particular lies with the interpretation of the crisis and the solutions to it, to be proffered by the masses. However, before we tackle what we call the solutions by the masses, it will be important to elaborate on what we believe to be the failure of the elite’s solutions.
First and foremost, the peaceful masses are not always the priority of the elites. It can be argued that every time the elites of our world and countries gathered to discuss the world’s needs, they will primarily discuss their urgent needs of protecting and conserving their own power and privileges, only then they can address some actions to keep the masses peacefully suffering. It is through this power and privilege that they are able to solve the world’s crises according to their own analysis, which mostly is the opposite of the majority’s analysis of the crises. Indeed, we say ‘opposite’ because the slaves need of liberation and self-determination are always considered as threat by the enslaver who builds his lifestyle through exploiting them. In the same way, the people’s solution (i.e., the majority-rule system, reducing inequalities, eradicating extreme poverty and producing enough food for everyone), is a great threat to the international capitalist elite, that leads the world towards its own destruction for economic benefits.
Essentially, the aforementioned solutions desired by the masses to make the world a better place for all, have not been given a chance to be tried, or to succeed. Rather, it has been the ideas of the world’s elites, that have dominated every aspect of the modern human life. For instance, the elites have succeeded through their tools of propaganda, to convince the masses that, for economic development to take place, the rich must get even richer, and when they have amassed enough wealth for themselves, it will flow down to the rest of the people (the idea of trickle-down economy).
Nevertheless, there is no pre-determined measurement of when and how the wealth amassed is enough, we are faced with a situation of an unlimited and unstoppable wealth accumulation by the elite classes, whilst we are still waiting for trickle down to happen. The question thus, should be, will trickle down happen for us the masses only when Jesus returns, or after we are dead? Simply, we can argue that it will never happen, until we make it happen ourselves, by reformulating and operationalising, our own solutions to the world’s crises. Without which, the elites will continue to grow more richer and powerful, while we are getting poorer and weaker.
For example, they have come up from all the way down, and the limit is not known; yesterday they were millionaires, and today they are billionaires, what next?
Moreover, the neoliberalism has served well the world’s elites, so that the wealth accumulated is not put at good use for public interest. Previously, the common belief about the economy emphasised that the accumulated money that is reinvested is to produce goods and services, hence creating more jobs for the masses, and improving the overall situation of society, and only to make matters worse with boom and bursts economical circles deliberately induced.
Unfortunately, things have not changed much in recent decades, the largest part of the world’s economy is used in gambling such as financial markets and stock exchanges, rather than in the production of real goods and services that can employ more people. This is clearly stressed by the sociologist William I. Robinson in his book Global Capitalism and the Crisis of Humanity (in Phillips 2018:6), he argues that the world’s elites have centralized and over-accumulated capital to the point that investment opportunities are limited, and that there are only three mechanisms of investing excess capital: risky financial speculation, wars, war preparation, and the privatization of public institutions. In other words, as stated above, are the elites’ solutions to the world’s crises, with plus $200 trillion global economy, they are unable to eradicate hunger and extreme poverty for the world’s masses. The way forward for them is to invest more into wars and transforming states into privately controlled entities, at the same time making the states responsible for social, economic and ecological disaster managements.
By looking at the present realities of our world, and by thinking about the future of the world under the current conditions set by the elites’ analysis of the crises and their solutions as briefly discussed above, we can certainly reiterate that the future lies with the people’s solutions. Stated differently, now is the time for the masses to step up, analyse, formulate their own solutions and finding the mechanism of operationalisation of them for the future we all want. Africa in particular belongs, not only to the 1% elites, but to all Africans, at home and abroad, so we have equal rights to enjoy the resources of our land as well as our children, and generation yet to be born. Moreover, that cannot happen within the current framework setup by the elites who keep trying by all means to undermine the rights of the masses, and therefore, it must happen by our own initiative and framework. Essentially, it must become clear to all of us that any approach away from the current framework is called ‘revolution’, (this is going to be, through lawful means) which is necessary for the people’s way and solutions to take place. Also, one must always remember the words of Marcus Garvey when he said, chance has never yet satisfied the hope of a suffering people, only self-determination and work can do that.
Often, the term ‘masses’ is always accompanied with a negative connotation of cowardice and fatalist people who always need to be taken care of by the elites, this assumption is sometimes justified by the attitude of the masses. Mostly, the masses criticise rich and powerful people for their misuse of power and money which further create more inequalities and injustice in the world, and they are right to criticise them. However, for most people, the world’s crises can be eliminated if the elites rid themselves of their power and wealth in an attempt to establish a rapport with the poor people. Unfortunately, it is the opposite that is true, meaning, it is the poor and weak people who must rid themselves of their poverty and weakness, in creating the balance of power with the elites for the world to become a better place for all. Furthermore, this power balance requires that we must begin to organise ourselves around goals and objectives that will give us the power we need to bring forth our solutions. Organisation is the keyword.
In fact, Marcus Garvey argued in the last century that disorganisation was the powerful weapon used against Africans, the same thing can still be said about the Africans of the 21st century. Disorganisation was, and still is and remains our major setback in the struggle for liberation and emancipation.
Especially so, when we can no longer wait for the elites to change their mindsets and stop thinking about themselves and do for us what we are supposed to do for ourselves. Stated differently, we cannot rely on the good morality of the elites to solve the world’s crises in the 21st century, because that will be a suicide. But they cannot commit a suicide to themselves by themselves, someone else must force them to do it, and that will be us the masses, and we will do that, not by prayer or moral truth alone, but by, as Marcus Garvey mentioned, that which is powerful-implements of destruction.
The masses of the world, please let us step up and organise ourselves. Create our own alternative solutions for our world in parallel to the elites’ solutions imposed on our lives.
The masses of Africa, please let us step up and organise ourselves. Create our own political solutions in parallel to the two-party system imposed in Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa and everywhere else on the continent. Because the future of the world lies with our solutions.
If you are an African who want to make the voice of the masses meaningful through organisation, we invite you to join or support some organisations that are already working tirelessly in making it happen, organisations such as:
- African Continental Unity Party (ACUP): for political solutions.
- Free-Minded Pan-African Academy: for educational solutions.
- Organic African Paradigm: for educational solutions.
- Ubuntu Group: for economic solutions
We will see you at the top.
Peace and power.