DYING FOR CHANGE

For the past several days I’ve been thinking of change not just change in my life as it is beginning to unravel but more so in the larger context of progress, justice and freedom. As I think of whether or not I will pack my bags and go home for the year I keep wondering about change. Wondering about whether or not I can change a problem so colossal that those more intelligent and more experienced then I have given up hope. The one thought that has stayed with me over the past weeks however is that as a people and as individuals that we must be ready to die for change. I believe that anything that we are not willing to die for, we therefore do not deserve. At 21 with no children or responsibilities I realize that I can say something like that without chills running down my spine. But that’s why its the young people who more or less have nothing to lose that are the main force behind change. As Sierra Leoneans and Africans we have to be willing to die for change. Willing to die for progress, development and justice. Nothing is going to be handed to us because no one can ever really care for us as we do. In Sierra Leone and Africa we all have to be willing to rise up like many people before us all over the world to make change. All these yeyeh politicians standing in our way must be taken down by all means necessary. They are killing our children and selling us to the highest bidders. We have to be willing to die for change. What have we got to lose? Sierra Leone has already been to hell and back…and we are riding on rock bottom, so the only place to go is up or forward. But we wont get there without effort. Fear of death is the only thing standing between us and a glorious future in which clean water, food and shelter are not luxuries but status quo. I am dying to meet people who are action oriented…revolutionaries tired of talking and ready for action. I enjoy intellectual discourse as much as the next man but something’s gotta give. Lets just act….do something….and resolve for action. No more managing or how for do? We’ve gotta do it. So many of us in the diaspora are blessed with access to resources so we need to mobilize and form partnerships with people back home who are literally dying for change.