Henry Mukasa
12 March 2008
Kampala — AFRICANS are equal to Arabs and no race should feel superior, President Yoweri Museveni has said.
Opening the second Afro-Arab youth festival at the Speke Resort Munyonyo, Museveni added that chauvinism should be aggressively combated because it is diversionary.
"When the Arab says, 'I am superior', then the African says, 'go to hell. Who are you?' That is a waste of time. It divides us. The youth should not spend time on that nonsense," Museveni noted.
The President called for unity in diversity and said Arabs and Africans are duty-bound to live peacefully because "God's people are equal".
"When you are lucky to live with other people, you have to like them, not as a favour but as a duty because I am not here because of your permission. I am here by the permission of God. If you don't like me, too bad! Go and hang."
"To be together, we don't need to be the same. It is sacrilegious when one group tries to suppress the language and culture of the other," the President said and warned that disrespect would create conflict.
Museveni made the comments as he outlined what he called eight strategies that would give the youth 'ideological clarity'.
He saluted Sudanese President Omar el Bashir for initiating the youth festival in 2004. The youth, Museveni said, should promote Africa-Arab integration in order to address the imbalance with the developed world.
Short of this, he said, "we will exist at the permission of others in prescribed circumstances."
He proposed export-oriented growth and asked Arabs and Africans to jointly exploit markets in the US, Europe and China. He said selling to European markets would be "modern revenge" to the colonisers.
Museveni said Africa and the Arab world should merge their economies worth $500b each. He said citizens needed democracy. "We should define democracy ourselves and not other people," he said. "People should have a voice in the running of their country."
Museveni said during the struggle for independence in Africa, African revolutionaries, like himself, used violence selectively. Never were children and unarmed people targeted, he added.
"I always wonder why in the Middle East there is use of violence indiscriminately by people who call themselves revolutionaries and patriots. Can't we exchange experience on this?"
He called for the creation of a Palestinian state living side-by-side with Israel. However, some delegates protested, and called for the destruction of Israel.
A smiling Museveni asked: "Is that what you want? We shall discuss that. When brother Gadaffi (the president of Libya) comes I will ask for his opinion."
Museveni said Africans and Arabs had many things in common and had suffered slave trade and colonialism.
Colonisation, he argued, was possible because Arabs and Africans were disunited. China and Ethiopia survived colonialism because they were united.
He said African and Arabs should not give "weakness" or "technology superiority" as an excuse. "Why were you weak? The world doesn't have a sanctuary for weak people unless we create a national park for the weak people."
The President said people insure cars and houses but no effort had been made to insure Africa and the Arab world from re-colonisation.
"The only insurance is political and economic integration," he stated.
The head of the Afro-Arab youth conference, Abdul Hadi Lalweji (Libya), demanded a permanent seat for Africa at the UN Security Council.
He also called for unity and dialogue as a means of solving conflict. "Death and destruction should be something of the past. Time has come for guns to be stored. The voice of reason should rise," Lalweji said.
The conference saluted Museveni and Africa's heroes Kwame Nkrumah, Nelson Mandela, Abdul Nasser, Ben Bella, Sekou Toure and Muammar Gadaffi.
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