Helmer,
I have to admit the fact that I like your reflection regarding the cultural changes that Mr. President Obama might influence around the globe. However, I totally disagree with the blaming the follower of Jesus for the world’s racial turmoil. I sincerely believe that Jesus has never encouraged the practices of neither racial operation nor racial segregation. It is not written in the biblical texts not taught by any follower of Jesus Christ who is in his/her right frame of mind and who bases his/her belief on the Word Of God. I am contradicting this idea not just because I am a follower of Jesus, but also because of a couple of reasons I want to point out: 1) Mankind needs to realize that religion cannot be held accountable for the mistakes made by any professed religious person. Everymen has to be accountable for his/her actions regardless of his/her race, belief and age - in some cases. 2) The world’s view will only change if we, the less fortunate ones in need of change, both individually and collectively believe on ourselves and work on changing our environments by using our capacities and skills to truly not just demonstrate but also prove to the world that we deserved what we are demanding for or are in need of. In my opinion, that is exactly what the exemplary men you mentioned in your article have done. I believe that it is time to stop looking for ways of criticising or blaming either religion, race or individual man ( like our African leader for instance) simply for the sake of criticising. Rather, we ought be acting, influencing and motivating the next generation to strategically challenge and change the chronic racial mental inferiority that is keeping us down as a people. Having these numerous successful examples like President Mr. Obama, makes our jobs as motivators much easier in many aspects.
Having said that, I would like to point out the fact that Mr. Obama’s has the same obligations to protect, the American People and address their problems as a people first – regardless of racial differences. Needless to say, that is exactly what Mr. Obama is going to do. Yet, the only reason I sited that is because if Mr. Obama’s obligations require him to take whatever the Americans need from other nations in order to provide for his people he is going to do it without any hesitations. Meaning that, if his obligations demand him to go to war in order to address American problems, he will – not as quick as any other American president might though.
Before proceeding farther, I want to make it clear that I do not intent to insult nor criticise anybody, but I simply want to share my opinion with everyone who is willing to read and reflect. I also have to alert you, the reader, that I am slightly changing the topic to what really bothers me with out mentality as people.
It is more than evident that we have critical problems throughout the entire African continent. And to narrow things down, our beloved country, Guinea-Bissau, alone has countless problems. However, instead of we, Bissau Guineas, focus on searching for possible solutions for all the chaos taking place in our land, we tend to focus our attentions more on criticising our incompetent leaders. Now! don’t give me wrong, criticising is good as long as the person being criticised is eager to change or at least to tray to change. Since our leaders are not likely to ever change via criticism, I want to implore all my country men to start thinking on the possible solutions for the chronic problems Guinea-Bissau has. By doing so and sharing those great constructive ideas, the next generation of inspired politicians who often debate in site www.didinho.org will somewhat comprehend the fact that leading is responding to and resolving issues by predicting those problems and elaborating a workable plan a head of time. Having this knowledge and being used to this type of problem solving analysis, the next generation of politicians perhaps will be ready to lead. To illustrate the inefficiency of being a good critic who is not a problem solver, lets pick Kumba Ialà for instance: In the late 90s when he entered the political arena in Bissau, he attracted everyone with his exposing the current leaders because of their incompetence. Basing his politics solely on exposing his opponents’ weaknesses, he never created a working plan by which he might one day lead and address Guineans’ problems. Consequently, he performed poorly after being elected in 2000. I strongly believe that his poor performance was not because he does not love the country nor because of his being corrupted, truly all governments and men are corrupted to some extent, but simply because resolving national problems was never his second nature.
As I already say, I am not criticising any participants of the debates that take place on this site because even though I don’t participate on them (because of language barriers and not being an inspired politician), I enjoy being in the audience. Yes, I do enjoy the debates essentially because we, Guineans, have eloquent writers.
In conclusion, I simply want to make a wake up call that our mentality is what we need to work on first in order to change both our country and the world if we ever may. It might take a long time, but it is possible, so lets reason as a people and resolve the issues we are facing. Certainly, I cannot blow smoke with all this talking about solutions without at least leave some cheese and knife and the table.
I, Augusto Antonio Lopes, strongly believe that the solution of our beloved country is on our hands as people, but not ( and I repeat not) on the hands of politicians. We need to create ways to motivate and inspire the new generations; building a healthy mentality of wanting to do right things, being persistent, being independent and competing not just within our borders, but in worldly level.
That’s all for today. Thank you for reading.
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