Celebrating Africa Day

Africa Day is observed annually to commemorate the founding of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) which was created on 25 May 1963.

Right now, here in South Africa, it may not feel like we particularly have anything to celebrate. We have masses of productivity lost due to load-shedding and our country is still trying to get some semblance of secure-footing after the stringent lockdowns that we have experienced since 2020.

I feel like today is a day to remind everyone of all the beautiful positive aspects of living in South Africa. We truly are a Rainbow Nation and it’s because of this very diversity that we have so many differences in opinion and ideas. However, it is also our diversity that we challenge each other all the time, and challenge is what continues to help us to move forward, to grow, to develop and to question ourselves all the time.

One thing we should never allow ourselves to become, no matter where we live in the world, and that is complacent. The dictionary gives this description of the word complacency : a feeling of smug or uncritical satisfaction with oneself or one’s achievements. Please, let us never become so smug or uncritically satisfied with ourselves or our achievements. Let us never place ourselves in a position where we believe that we have nothing further to contribute to our lives, and to the lives of others around us.

Let us never forget that we are here for the same purpose. Let us never forget that it is only together that we can learn our lessons and that we are all each other’s teachers too. Let us never forget to practice unconditional love in all our interactions with each other.

Africa is the oldest continent on the planet. This is where human life first started. Think about that – you walk every day on soil that is older than you can even begin to imagine. Please don’t ever take it for granted. The first human ancestors appeared between five million and seven million years ago, probably when some apelike creatures in Africa began to walk habitually on two legs. They were flaking crude stone tools by 2.5 million years ago. Then some of them spread from Africa into Asia and Europe after two million years ago. Fossils and DNA suggest people looking like us, anatomically modern Homo sapiens, evolved around 300,000 years ago.

There are no words to describe the feeling of belonging to this wonderful continent – for those who truly feel the connection can sit still and in their quiet moments, feel the very heartbeat that is Africa herself. There is a reason we are all here and right now, that reason is being unfolded before our very eyes.

Perhaps some of us were here at the very beginning of the evolution of human beings, and that’s the reason we feel this amazingly, profoundly powerful connection to Africa – who knows? What is probably more important is that we are here now and we are, whether we feel like we’ve chosen to or not, all a part of this wonderful awakening taking place across the globe, once more starting in Africa and working it’s way across the planet.

Express your gratitude every day for the privilege of being here right now. Look every day, for the beauty in your life, you will find it. Accept that the most difficult challenges that face you, are your greatest lessons and view them as your greatest blessings rather than something that is being done to you, because you are the victim of circumstance. Walk into each new day with the excitement of a two year old child, discovering the world for the first time. Know that as you begin to feel the excitement deep down within you, you are experiencing your own awakening and what a wonderful thing is that for you?