Africans mull citizenship for slave kin
By DULUE MBACHU
Thu Jul 20, 6:20 PM ET
African and black American leaders meeting this week debated an unusual proposal to spur investment and interest in the continent — securing African citizenship for American descendants of Africans taken away as slaves.
The idea came out of a summit bringing African governments and the U.S. private sector together in search of partnerships to end Africa's poverty. Presidents from 12 African countries attended the four-day conference, along with former U.S. President Bill Clinton and World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz.
"Just as the people of different races in America have a place they call home, I believe we should have a place we call our ancestral home," said Hope Masters, daughter of the U.S. civil rights campaigner for whom the Leon Sullivan Summit is named.
Anthony Archer, a Santa Monica, Calif.-based lawyer, is heading a committee to consider how citizenship could be awarded.
"Dual citizenship will start the process of mutual and spiritual reconciliation of differences between the two continents that came as a result of slavery," he said. "If we can feel like we really belong, we'll feel more joyful about participating."
Key challenges include determining the ancestral homelands of black Americans, Masters said. The upheaval of the slave trade left many without knowledge of their place of origin.
One possibility is granting continent-wide citizenship to slave descendants through the African Union, Archer said. Another is to work for citizenship of blocs of countries through regional organizations. It was unclear what rights would be granted under those scenarios.
A third proposal would have countries grant citizenship independently to those who seek it.
Masters said the proposal will be further developed before the next summit in 2008. She said African leaders support the concept, noting that Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo has urged black Americans "to see Africa as your home."
Among the Americans attending the Sullivan meeting in Abuja were executives from companies including Chevron Corp., Coca-Cola Co., General Motors Corp., and DaimlerChrysler AG.
Africans mull citizenship for slave kin
It's not just African Americans that have an interest in this, but many descendants of the African Diaspora, all across this globe!
African Australians, African Iraqis, Afro-Brazilian, Afro-Cuban, Afro-Ecuadorian, Afro-German, Afro-Irish, Afro-Latin American ,Afro-Mexican ,Afro-Peruvian, Afro-Trinidadian, African Caribbean, Black Canadians, even Black Britains!
Weekend Black Britain
Baffour Ankomah, Editor of New African Magazine
Dated: 24/07/2006
Baffour Ankomah, editor of New African, welcomed the proposals because Africans in the Diaspora are “part and parcel” of the continent. Ankomah told Black Britain: “Giving them citizenship is a very good idea because they live abroad and are not [always] able to acquire skills or finance. So when Africa talks about investment we're not only talking about Europeans, we are talking about Africans and anybody who has money to invest.”
But Ankomah, was somewhat perturbed by the constant and persistent focus on African Americans which tended to suggest they made up the whole gamut of the African Diaspora simply because they are the “loudest.”
Ankomah told Black Britain: “They have the biggest megaphone so when we talk about Diaspora, people’s minds readily go to America. But there are Diaspora Africans in the Far East, in India, Pakistan and all those [countries]. We should broaden the term and include not only those in America or the Caribbean but also Africans in Fiji and all those islands.”
Yinka Faoymi, CEO of FIN magazine, also thinks that granting African citizenship to the Diaspora is a good idea that will bring in some much needed finances. Fayomi told Black Britain: “If something belongs to you want to make it better. If you are not a part of it you don’t feel obliged to improve it. But if I say ‘OK I’ll give you citizenship, you belong to us’ the position becomes clearer.”
Fayomi presented the example of musician Stevie Wonder as an African from the Diaspora who re-connected and re-located to the continent. Fayomi told black Britain: "Stevie Wonder is in Ghana and has gone to invest. He went to invest there because he found a connection with his roots. If he had no connection why would he come to invest there?”
But ultimately, she suggests the African citizenship proposal is an economic and financial strategy and strongly believes it will result in some much needed finances for the continent.
Faymoi told Black Britain: “Some people are unable to take out bank loans because they don’t have collateral and without that you cannot get your loan. In the rural areas of many African countries people can say they have land which belongs to their father but if you don’t have the documents [to prove it] the bank doesn’t recognise it. So citizenship is like that certificate of occupancy.”
In 1999 former Ghanaian president Jerry Rawlins made a well publicised state visit to former US president Bill Clinton. At the subsequent press conference a reporter asked him ‘I’ve heard Ghana is offering some sort of dual citizenship to African Americans. What’s the reasoning behind it?’
Rawlings replied: “You are our kith and kin... [but US citizenship] demands loyalty to the American Constitution, and yet I cannot demand the same kind of loyalty to my country. But there’s no reason why I will deny my fellow black African the right to enjoy the citizenship I enjoy as an African.”
http://www.blackbritain.co.uk/news/deta ... 4&c=africa
African Australians, African Iraqis, Afro-Brazilian, Afro-Cuban, Afro-Ecuadorian, Afro-German, Afro-Irish, Afro-Latin American ,Afro-Mexican ,Afro-Peruvian, Afro-Trinidadian, African Caribbean, Black Canadians, even Black Britains!
Weekend Black Britain
Baffour Ankomah, Editor of New African Magazine
Dated: 24/07/2006
Baffour Ankomah, editor of New African, welcomed the proposals because Africans in the Diaspora are “part and parcel” of the continent. Ankomah told Black Britain: “Giving them citizenship is a very good idea because they live abroad and are not [always] able to acquire skills or finance. So when Africa talks about investment we're not only talking about Europeans, we are talking about Africans and anybody who has money to invest.”
But Ankomah, was somewhat perturbed by the constant and persistent focus on African Americans which tended to suggest they made up the whole gamut of the African Diaspora simply because they are the “loudest.”
Ankomah told Black Britain: “They have the biggest megaphone so when we talk about Diaspora, people’s minds readily go to America. But there are Diaspora Africans in the Far East, in India, Pakistan and all those [countries]. We should broaden the term and include not only those in America or the Caribbean but also Africans in Fiji and all those islands.”
Yinka Faoymi, CEO of FIN magazine, also thinks that granting African citizenship to the Diaspora is a good idea that will bring in some much needed finances. Fayomi told Black Britain: “If something belongs to you want to make it better. If you are not a part of it you don’t feel obliged to improve it. But if I say ‘OK I’ll give you citizenship, you belong to us’ the position becomes clearer.”
Fayomi presented the example of musician Stevie Wonder as an African from the Diaspora who re-connected and re-located to the continent. Fayomi told black Britain: "Stevie Wonder is in Ghana and has gone to invest. He went to invest there because he found a connection with his roots. If he had no connection why would he come to invest there?”
But ultimately, she suggests the African citizenship proposal is an economic and financial strategy and strongly believes it will result in some much needed finances for the continent.
Faymoi told Black Britain: “Some people are unable to take out bank loans because they don’t have collateral and without that you cannot get your loan. In the rural areas of many African countries people can say they have land which belongs to their father but if you don’t have the documents [to prove it] the bank doesn’t recognise it. So citizenship is like that certificate of occupancy.”
In 1999 former Ghanaian president Jerry Rawlins made a well publicised state visit to former US president Bill Clinton. At the subsequent press conference a reporter asked him ‘I’ve heard Ghana is offering some sort of dual citizenship to African Americans. What’s the reasoning behind it?’
Rawlings replied: “You are our kith and kin... [but US citizenship] demands loyalty to the American Constitution, and yet I cannot demand the same kind of loyalty to my country. But there’s no reason why I will deny my fellow black African the right to enjoy the citizenship I enjoy as an African.”
http://www.blackbritain.co.uk/news/deta ... 4&c=africa
'X' out of all the articles you have posted this has to be the most powerful!!!!! I like what's being said here man! If one added the earnings of black Americans and thought of us as a nation, we'd be the 14th richest nation! Instead of us bankrolling a system that hires cops to take us out, and offers us little for our investment, as proven by the recent black Katrina victims! We have an opportunity here... a chance in helping the cash-strapped African Union, and they in turn will offer us (descendents of the African Diaspora) economic and social benefits on the continent! Free visas, business opportunities, voting rights, land ownership! Just like Americans retire in Mexico, many blacks could also retire in some of these countries. Also dual citizenship will help those brothers that find themselves targets of a racist judicial system. Shit! The Mexicans, even the British do it!
I like what the head of the AU's think tank said during the Conference on Security, Stability, Development and Co-operation, "Imagine what the AU would look like if they (African-Americans) gave five dollars each!"
Although it’s primarily African-Americans leading this one! I agree with Baffour Ankomah, let's not forget about our African brothers in the Far East, in India, Pakistan. Black Brazilians who are still suffering under a new kind of racism in Brazil. They must be included as well as Blacks in the Caribbean islands and others who were stolen from their homelands many years ago!
I like what the head of the AU's think tank said during the Conference on Security, Stability, Development and Co-operation, "Imagine what the AU would look like if they (African-Americans) gave five dollars each!"
Although it’s primarily African-Americans leading this one! I agree with Baffour Ankomah, let's not forget about our African brothers in the Far East, in India, Pakistan. Black Brazilians who are still suffering under a new kind of racism in Brazil. They must be included as well as Blacks in the Caribbean islands and others who were stolen from their homelands many years ago!
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blakman
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Black people all over the world are slowly getting the point! We need each other. We have been seperated far to long and the rest of the world has been picking us off 1 by 1.If we can combine the African diaspora economic power and combine that with Africa's natural and human resources imagine the possibilities we as black people could have in this world?
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Angryblackman86
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