“The youth are getting restless. I can't hear you, Let them hear you all the way to Washington, The youth are getting restless, Own creation, The Youth are Getting Restless, And once again a nation, I and I” - Bad Brains
Last week, my piece on the second Africa Climate Summit (ACS2) focused on the specter of a new phase of African neocolonialism, technocrats and cryptocolonizers who used the summit to promote a series of false climate solutions including, but not limited to, rendering the continent into a sink for carbon markets as a well as artificial intelligence technology. Africa, irrefutably, is the continent in possession of the most valuable natural resources in the world from its minerals, forests and biodiversity, to its people, which is why they all continue to be pillaged to fuel the engine of global racial capitalism. That said, Africa’s most precious and valuable resource is its abundance of young people. In fact, by 2035 the continent will possess the most young people in the world. That’s why it was encouraging that before ACS2 commenced, young people from the continent held a pre-summit, the Africa Youth Climate Assembly, to develop their approach to, and demands for climate justice ahead of the global climate summit, COP 30, that will take place in Brazil later this year.
At the conclusion of the ACS2 Youth Summit, the participants released a declaration that demonstrates both promise and concern for how African youth are approaching the intensifying climate crisis. For instance, the declaration stipulates, “Conscious of the intersections between climate change, peace, and security, we highlight that climate-induced migration and competition over scarce resources fuel instability across the Sahel, Horn of Africa, and other vulnerable regions. Youth and other vulnerable communities are often deprived of alternatives, are left vulnerable to forced displacement, radicalization, and poverty traps.”
It’s irrefutable that resource extraction will continue to engender conflict, suffering, and inequity across the continent without concerted and intentional interventions.,. That’s why it’s unfortunate that the ACS2 Youth Summit declaration also calls for, “the amplification of the adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and other emerging technologies to accelerate climate solutions across Africa from predictive climate modeling and disaster risk reduction, to renewable energy management, sustainable agriculture, and biodiversity monitoring,” given that AI and associated data centers are arguably the most resource intensive entities the world over, especially in the use of energy and water.
Upon reviewing the ACS2 Youth Summit declaration I found myself asking where this affinity for a technology that is being utilized to increase surveillance on Black bodies, incessantly murder Palestinians, and overall provide the capitalist dictatorship with yet another tool to suppress the masses comes from. I sat down with two incredible and precocious young people to ask this question and ascertain the demands of the more radical elements of youth attending ACS2 - “Rebecca” from Uganda and “Resilient Mboya” from Kenya (both asked to use aliases for the interview). Both stressed that Western colonial actors, especially multinational Nongovernmental Organizations (NGOs) have been taking advantage of African youth for decades and using them as props for their own benefit. Both also stressed the need for more connection and solidarity with Africans throughout the diaspora who can better advise Africans on the continent about Western machinations to keep the continent dependent rather than liberated.
“Resilent Mboya” with BAP member Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright at the Africa Youth Climate Assembly
Both also pointed out that far too many African youth seek to leave the continent to further their education and many return with petty bourgeois values that open the door for colonial influences and manipulation. This made me think of the sage words once offered by Amilcar Cabral, “Oppose among the young, especially those over 20, the mania for leaving the country so as to study elsewhere, the blind ambition to acquire a degree, the complex of inferiority and the mistaken idea which leads to the belief that those who study or take courses will thereby become privileged in our country tomorrow.” At the same time, Cabral also encouraged a pedagogy of patience and understanding as the correct approach to winning people over and strengthening the movement. To this end, it was rhapsodic that both “Rebecca” and “Resilient Mboya” were both familiar with the work of Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) and, particularly, BAP founder, Ajamu Baraka’s recent trip to Kenya
So what then is our role as African people in the diaspora to ensure African youth are neither corrupted, nor seduced by opiates of so-called western values that seek nothing more than to intercede against African unity and the development of a robust and radical African youth movement? The 1969 League of Revolutionary Black Workers’ Black Manifesto developed by James Forman and others, is instructive for answers to this inquiry, “Howard Moore and I traveled extensively in Tanzania and Zambia. We talked to high, very high, governmental officials. We told them there were many black people in the United States who were willing to come and work in Africa. All these government officials who were part of the leadership in their respective governments , said they wanted us to send as many skilled people that we could contact.” This, of course, cannot be done with even a semblance of paternalism lest we repeat some of the past errors including some colonial tendencies of the diaspora.
Instead, it is incumbent upon us as Africans in the diaspora to do our part to improve the material conditions on the continent by pointing out the myriad and massive contradictions of our own. This is precisely why I brought resources showcasing BAP’s U.S Out of Africa initiatives as well as the nascent and emerging work of BAP’s North-South Project for People(s) Centered Human RIghts. Climate change, afterall, is first and foremost an issue of human rights, which is something the vast majority of Africa Youth Climate Assembly attendees articulated in the various panels and discussions I attended.
As Africans, there can be no division between our work in the United States, Europe, the Caribbean, South America, and the work being carried out by the youth on the continent. We must resist the forces of the Black Misleadership class in the diaspora as a function of providing the youth on the continent with the skills and resources that require them to confront and dismantle the forces of the Black Misleadership class on the continent, who, as I noted in my previous piece on my time in Africa, are working in tandem with colonizers to ensure Africa is for sale rather than putting Africa to be in a position to be open for the business of self determination and liberation. We not only owe this to ourselves, as well as all Africans around the world, we also especially owe this to the African youth on the continent as they prepare to bring the full force of their brilliance and demands to COP 30. We must furnish them with all they need to arrive in Brazil with the sage aphorism:
No Compromise
No Retreat
You can listen to my interview with “Rebecca” and “Resilient Mboya” here.
Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright is an international climate and environmental liberation advocate, a racial justice practitioner, and a writer and policy expert residing in the United States with his family and their mischievous cat, “Evil” Ernie. He is a proud and active member of the Black Alliance for Peace and the Movement for Black Lives. His radio program, “Full Spectrum with Anthony Rogers-Wright,” airs on the Mighty WPFW network every Tuesday at 6:00 PM EST.
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