World African Children’s Day
Their right to a future and social justice concerns us closely
Deprivation, hunger, degrading work: this is how the day of the vast majority of African girls and boys is marked. It is very different from that of the overwhelming majority of children born in Western countries who enjoy unimaginable opportunities for those born in Africa: to go to school, to study, to dream, to build a future interwoven with dignity and freedom.
Today it is not just about claiming the right to education, which was at the origin of the 1976 Soweto uprising, which we commemorate every year on 16 June: “They marched to demand better education and more adequate schools. Then came the violent clashes with the segregationist National Party police, then in government. Hundreds were killed: among them, four children. It was the new black generation of a South Africa inflamed by racial discrimination. From that 16 June, the uprising spread across the country and played a key role in the end of apartheid, sanctioned in 1991.”
Photo: www.pochestorie.corriere.it
Forty-seven years later – since that day of insurrection against the discrimination and injustice suffered by ‘coloured’ children and young people – much, much progress remains to be made. Why? Let us listen to Pope Francis’ cry of pain on his return from his apostolic trip to Congo and South Sudan on 31 January-5 February 2023.
Pope Francis debunks the West:
in the collective unconscious there is “Africa is to be exploited”
Source: www.farodiroma.it
Photo: www.romasette.it
“The first three days,” Francis recounted, “I was in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo…it is like a diamond, because of its nature, its resources, above all for its people; but this diamond has become a reason for contention, for violence, and paradoxically for the impoverishment of the people. It is a dynamic that can also be found in other African regions, and that applies to that continent in general: a colonised, exploited, plundered continent. In the face of all this I have said: ‘enough! enough exploitation of Africa! I have said before that in the collective unconscious there is ‘Africa must be exploited’: enough, enough!”
Photo: www.vaticannews.va
Continuing the exploitation of Africa means perpetuating “the conditions that lead to emigration”, a phenomenon “which is read as an invasion from the West”. (Source: vaticannews)”
Photo: www.fides.org
IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF OUR FOUNDERS
AND IN TUNE WITH THE POSITIONS OF THE CONGREGATION
WE REMEMBER THAT ZEAL CALLS US TO WALK TOGETHER WITH AFRICA
AND TOGETHER WITH POPE FRANCIS:
“[…] Together, with dignity,
together, with mutual respect,
together in the name of Christ, our hope, moving forward.
Do not exploit and move forward together.”
Source: farodiroma.it
