We commemorate Africa Day each year on 25 May. It was on this day in 1963 that the Organisation of African Unity was formed to promote the unity and development of Africa.

This is befitting as we recall that the year 2020 marks 60 years since 17 African countries achieved independence from colonial rule.  Historians referred to 1960 as “The Year of Africa”, a year which inspired great hope to Africans on our continent and those in the diaspora.

On Africa Day we remember the caution from a pan-Africanist visionary par excellence, Dr Kwame Nkrumah who said on Africa Day in 1963 in Addis Ababa:

“So many blessings must flow from our unity; so many disasters must follow from our continued disunity, that our failure to unite today will not be attributed by posterity only to faulty reason and lack of courage, but our capitulation before the forces of imperialism.”

History shows us that Africa will remain poor, underdeveloped, and a sad case of Western charity if it remains divided and pays lip service to the vision of African unity and continental integration.

This is because of the violent colonial conquest, dispossession, and the plunder of African resources for the benefit of the West.

We remember President Nelson Mandela’s iconic speech to the OAU meeting in Tunis, Libya, on 13 June 1994. Addressing the heads of government and state, Madiba said:

“Africa shed her blood and surrendered the lives of her children so that all her children could be free. She gave of her limited wealth and resources so that all of Africa should be liberated. She opened her heart of hospitality and her head so full of wise counsel, so that we should emerge victorious.”

As Africa’s iconic revolutionary Patrice Lumumba said in August 1960, “The colonialists care nothing for Africa for her own sake. They are attracted by African riches and their actions are guided by the desire to preserve their interests in Africa against the wishes of the African people. For the colonialists, all means are good if they help them to possess these riches”.

On Africa Day we remember patriots like Bram Fischer, Beyers Naude, Trevor Huddleston, Ruth First, and Helen Joseph. We remember also Stanley Lolan, James la Guma, Cissie Gool, Phyllis Naidoo, Fatima Meer, Yusuf Dadoo, Monty Naicker, Anton Lembede, Francis Baard, Harry Gwala, Steve Biko, Dorothy Nyembe and many more. These men and women fought for the vision of a united Africa which is at peace with itself and the world.

Our country is currently hosting doctors from Cuba who follow in the spirit of selflessness personified by the great revolutionary Fidel Castro.  We pay tribute to the Cuban medical professionals for forsaking the comfort of home in order to help us, their fellow human beings, to ward off Covid-19.

It would be a dishonour to the legacies of these leaders if we did not do better for Africa. This is our duty as the current generation. Through the African Union, Africa has crafted Agenda 2063. Part of Agenda 2063 is to silence the guns. While we are confronted by a new invisible enemy, Covid-19, the people of the continent must fulfil the vision of 2063 including the call to silence the guns by 2020.

Furthermore, among others Agenda 2063 seeks:

• A prosperous Africa based on inclusive growth and sustainable development;
• An integrated continent, politically united and based on the ideals of pan-Africanism and the vision of Africa’s renaissance;
• An Africa of good governance, democracy, respect for human rights, justice and the rule of law; and
• An Africa whose development is people-driven, relying on the potential of African people, especially its women and youth, and caring for children.

Addressing the Joint Sitting of Parliament in September 2019, President Cyril Ramaphosa, the current chairperson of the African Union, reminded us that

“Our fortunes are linked to those of our fellow African nations. This country was built on the labour of not just South Africans, but migrants from India, from China, and from the entire Southern African region.”

And the president cautioned us, saying, “Rather than retreating into a laager, we must embrace African integration and the benefits it will bring to our economy and those of our neighbours.”

One of the significant moves by the African Union was the adoption of the decision by the African Union in January 2012 to establish a free Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) to boost intra-Africa trade. This will be the world’s largest free trade area with a potential to boost intra-African trade by 52.3%.

Covid-19 may have delayed trading under the AfCTA agreement which was meant to begin on 1 July this year. We must, however, soldier on under these new circumstances to bring Africa together on the trading floor.

As we face this Covid-19 pandemic we pay tribute to African scientists and doctors at the AU’s African Centre for Disease Control and their global partners for their hard work on this new pandemic. We also address ourselves to the millions of health workers, the security personnel, essential services and public servants who dare to confront this danger on our behalf. These are the Madibas, the Lumumbas, the Chris Hanis, the Ruth Firsts and Fatima Meers of today who set aside threats to their own lives to become foot soldiers in this war without a clear beginning, and no visible end in sight.

Our country is currently hosting doctors from Cuba who follow in the spirit of selflessness personified by the great revolutionary Fidel Castro.  We pay tribute to the Cuban medical professionals for forsaking the comfort of home in order to help us, their fellow human beings, to ward off Covid-19.

We must make Africa attractive for skilled workers from all over the world to ply their trade in the continent. So we wish to use this Africa Day 2020 to call on young African professionals in the continent and the Diaspora – doctors, engineers and scientists – to return to their ancestral land for the reconstruction and development of our continent. In a post-Covid-19 world, Africa must ensure that by 2030, we attain the United Nations’ SDG goal of universal health coverage and Africa must rise again. Africa’s children must hunger no more. Africa’s children must never die from neglect, malnutrition and wars.

Together we must sing the AU anthem and make Africa the Tree of Life which honours human dignity, justice, peace, and development in Africa. DM