Day of the African Child???

In 1991, the Organization of African Unity, now the African Union, instituted the Day of the African Child in honour of those who participated in the Soweto Uprising in Soweto, South Africa. Those who were between 1 and 5 at the moment of this institution are no longer “children”. Those who participated in the Soweto Uprising in 1976 were not kids by the time this day was instituted. 31 years since then, what has changed for the African Child?

I remember when we used to recite the rights and duties of children when we were in primary school. Shockingly, it seems most of these rights were(are) reserved for the kids of other races. In October of 2013, along with my uncle in the streets of a small city called Soa in the suburbs of the Cameroonian Capital City Yaoundé, we watched with much “pensiveness” and mixed feelings, children who weren’t in school but were hawking and peddling along the streets.

In Congo, Sudan and some parts of sub saharan Africa, some children don’t go to school because they are either in mines or are abused into crime. A German I was talking to this morning was outraged at the fact that Cameroonian children stay out of school either willingly or unwillingly. She felt that it wasn’t supposed to be a debate topic and I would’ve said “rightly so” only if I truly understood what the day of the African Child really meant. Like I said in the article about Africa Day, the day of the African Child can only be important if we answer the very important question of who the African child is and how he or she is different from the Asian, American and European Children. And in answering that, also asking ourselves if these African Children live in the same societies like the others. If not, why should their fundamental human rights be the same? Why is there need to have days to celebrate Africanness?

They wrote our history on a blackboard

And before the hour was finished, the duster had wiped it.

So we sat in doubt because we had somehow

Forgotten the story of who we we thought we were

Or who we had been taught to become.

They told our story in the bars when everyone was drunk

And when they became sober,

They only had but tiny fragments of what they thought

Was the truth they had heard the previous day.

Then they gathered these pieces and made a new truth.

They bought us dresses and gave us chores

Took our sisters and made them whores.

Stole our relics and put on walls

Killed our fathers in unjust wars.

So we were forced to grow and wear our fathers’ shoes

We were, but children some years back.

Now, we’d be adults

Robbed off the innocence of childhood

And given roles that weren’t ours yet.

We keep creating problems and having no solutions. Or rather, we create solutions to nonexistent problems. The problems of Africa are greater than an Africa Day or a day for the African Child. There is hunger, corruption, child abuse and a lot more. These sham ceremonies or occasions don’t cut it anymore. Let’s walk the talk!