The rest of the world has moved forward whilst Africa has largely remained stagnant and has in many instances gone backwards. Africa's growth is hampered by self-inflicted problems: a palpable lack of visionary leadership; lack of accountability in government and the civil service; the cancer of corruption; the wholesale lack of service delivery; erosion of morality and societal values; the love of false prophets and allure of cheap grace; lack of respect for self, for others, for opportunities offered and for the rule of law. Anarchy reigns in many countries; the law seems to have accepted defeat and societies have been desensitised to abominable crimes. There has been an erosion too of national pride and patriotism, and a preponderance for abrogation of duty and an unwillingness to take responsibility. Those who care about Africa have gone through a gamut of emotions - from anger, frustration, pain, embarrassment and shame at the glaring lack of development in Africa and the seeming indifference of the ruling elite and the so-called leaders of African society. Who is to blame for the sorry state of Africa? The jockey who drove the horse of colonial oppression? Unscrupulous and greedy political leaders? Western powers? No! The real danger to Africa and the root of all its misery is the citizen - uncaring, unconcerned, self-absorbed, self-centered, quick to rush to support the indefensible, small minded and with a laisse faire attitude to life and everything; quick to complain about unemployment, corruption, poor healthcare systems, poor education, lack of services among others, but failing to acknowledge responsibility as the primary enabler of these through unqualified unyielding support of those so-called leaders, who wreak havoc and cause desolation and pain on nation states. Yes, it is the citizen who gives public consent to those who keep Africa in bondage. It is the citizen who litters the streets, gives poor service, oversees the breakdown of morality and family by not setting the right values and setting bad examples for their children. It's the citizen who does not keep time, provides poor service, enables crime and corrupt activities by looking the other way, refuses to look for the greater good in everything, but rather obsesses over self to the detriment of the whole. The intent of this book is to get conversations going; provoke and enrage Africans to be charged up enough to do something about the state of their beloved continent. Gandhi once reminded us, 'Be the change that you wish to see in the world'. Wake up from your slumber African citizen for when you do, Africa's immense potential and the fullness of its promise will be realized; Africa will awake and take its place among continents, and its member states, their rightful place among the nations of the world. Arise, sleeping Lion. Arise!!
This book applies a multi-disciplinary lens to examine obstetric fistula, a childbirth injury that results from prolonged, obstructed labor. While obstetric fistula can be prevented with emergency obstetric care, it continues to occur primarily in resource-limited settings. In this volume, specialists in the anthropological, psychological, public health, and biomedical disciplines, as well as health policy experts and representatives of governmental and non-governmental organizations discuss a scoping overview on obstetric fistula, including prevention, treatment, and reducing stigma for survivors. This comprehensive resource is useful in understanding the risk factors, epidemiology, and social, psychological, and medical effects of obstetric fistula. Topics explored include: A Human Rights Approach Toward Eradicating Obstetric Fistula Obstetric Fistula: A Case of Miscommunication – Social Experiences of Women with Obstetric Fistula Classification of Female Genital Tract Fistulas Training and Capacity-Building in the Provision of Fistula Treatment Services Designing Preventive Strategies for Obstetric Fistula Sexual Function in Women with Obstetric Fistula Social and Reproductive Health of Women After Obstetric Fistula Repair Making the Case for Holistic Fistula Care Addressing Mental Health in Obstetric Fistula Patients Physical Therapy for Women with Obstetric Fistula A Multidisciplinary Approach to Obstetric Fistula in Africa is designed for professional use by NGOs, international aid organizations, governmental and multilateral agencies, healthcare providers, public health specialists, anthropologists, and others who aim to improve maternal health across the globe. Although the book’s geographic focus is Africa, it may serve as a useful resource for individuals who aim to address obstetric fistula in other settings. The book may also be used as an educational tool in courses/programs that focus on Global Health, Maternal and Child Health, Epidemiology, Medical Anthropology, Gender/Women's Studies, Obstetrics, Global Medicine, Nursing, and Midwifery.
An anthology of African writing only featured on the Internet until now, this book features the collected works of writers for the G21 AFRICA section of G21.net. The eight writers represented here are from around the continent and present an exciting look at cutting-edge fiction and reporting from the first continent today.
Keith A. Burton traces the story of biblical Africa and the place of the Bible in the land of Ham. He ends with an examination of the modern era and the achievements of African Christianity. This invigorating work places the story of the Bible and African Christianity in a wider global context and challenges readers to think differently about history and the biblical world.
Ambitious scholiasts, men of a small sub-race born but yesterday, and one of the latest issues of the Aryan stock, took upon themselves to overturn the religious thought of the world, and succeeded. For nearly two thousand years they impressed thinking Humanity with the belief in the existence of Satan. Plato merged the history of Atlantis, which covered several million years, into one event which he located on one small island about the size of Ireland, whereas the priests spoke of Atlantis as a continent vast as all Asia and Libya put together. The statements of Herodotus that the Atlantes who were vegetarians, whose sleep was never disturbed by dreams, and who cursed the sun because his excessive heat scorched and tormented them, are all based on moral and psychic facts and not on physiological disturbance. Atlas is the old continents of Lemuria and Atlantis, combined and personified in one symbol. He supports the sacred islands and continents on its shoulders. The poets attribute to Atlas a superior wisdom and a thorough acquaintance with the depths of the ocean because both Lemuria and Atlantis bore races instructed by divine masters; and both were transferred to the bottom of the seas, where they now slumber until their next reappearance above the waters. The feet of Atlas tread the earth while his shoulders support the celestial vault, an allusion to the gigantic peaks of the Lemurian and Atlantean continents. Proud Atlas, having sunk one third of its size into the waters, its two parts remained as a heirloom of Atlantis. Atlas and the Teneriffe Peak, now two of the dwarfed relics of the lost continents, were thrice as lofty during the day of Lemuria and twice as high in that of Atlantis. Alchemy had its birth-place in Atlantis during the Fourth Race, and had only its renaissance in Egypt. So secret was the knowledge of the last islands of Atlantis, on account of the superhuman powers possessed by its inhabitants (the last direct descendants of Divine Kings) that to divulge its whereabouts and existence was punished by death. To the uninitiated profane the dead letter was religion, and interpretation a sacrilege. Dead letter could neither edify nor uplift him. But to initiated philosopher Hesiod’s Theogony is as historical as any history can be. Poseidon-Neptune, the grandson of Ouranos, is the Hindu Idaspati, and identical with Narayana, the mover in (not on) the waters. Ouranos was the first astronomical teacher of men because he is one of the seven Dhyani-Chohans overseeing that second race. Ouranos gave birth to the Saturnian Titans of the Third Race, and it is they who mutilated him. For when creation by divine will was superseded by physical procreation, they needed Ouranos no more. Poseidon-Neptune and Nereus, who fathered the Nereids, are one: the former is the ruler or spirit of Atlantis before the beginning of its submersion; the latter, after. Poseidon is the titanic strength of the living race; Nereus, its spirit reincarnated in the subsequent Fifth or Aryan Race. Poseidon is of the earth earthy, strong and self-asserting, sensual, jealous, and vindictive, because he symbolises the spirit of the Atlantean Race that lives above the surface of the seas and which is composed of giants, the children of Eurymedon, the race that fathered Polyphemus and the one-eyed Cyclopes. The key to the mysteries of the Christian as well as of the Grecian Theogonies and Sciences, is the Secret Doctrine of the prehistoric nations. The standing army of Atlantis is given as upwards of a million men; its navy as 1,200 ships plus 240,000 men. Such statements are quite inapplicable to Poseidonis, a small island state of about the size of Ireland! Ethnologically, the seven daughters of Atlas or Atlantides are the seven sub-races, as they are credited with having married gods and having become mothers of famous heroes, the founders of many nations and cities. Astronomically, the Atlantides have become the seven Pleiades. Esoterically, the two are connected with the destinies of nations, as shaped by past events according to Karmic law. The Secret Doctrine shows that the founders of the Root-Races have all been connected with the Polar Star. The Aryan race was born and developed in the far north, however, after the sinking of Atlantis its tribes emigrated south into Asia. Hence Prometheus is son of Asia, and Deukalion, his son, the Greek Noah. Cyclopes, the beloved priests of Apollo, were the last three sub-races of the northern race, the Lemurians. The single eye stands for the all-penetrating spiritual eye, which atrophied when their pastoral life evolved into the sensual culture of the Atlanteans, only to be replaced by the outward-looking eyes of lust and greed. Odysseus-Ulysses belongs to the cycle of the heroes of the Atlantean Fourth Race. His adventure with the pastoral giants is an allegory of the gradual passage from the Cyclopean civilization of stone and colossal buildings to the sophisticated culture and physical proclivities of the Atlanteans. That other allegory, which makes Apollo kill the Cyclops to avenge the death of his son Asklepios (by Zeus with a lightning bolt fashioned by Cyclopes) refers to the Hyperborean Arimaspian Cyclopes, the last race endowed with the Wisdom-eye. In his occult aspect, Apollo is patron of Number Seven. Cosmically and astronomically, he is the Sun personified. Psychically and spiritually, his significance is far more important. The Greeks naturalised the gods they “borrowed” and made Hellenes of them, and the moderns helped them. To make a difference between Lemuria and Atlantis, the ancient writers referred to the latter as the northern or Hyperborean Atlantis, and to the former as the Southern one. Geologically, Leto-Latona is the Hyperborean Continent and its Race. The quarrel of Latona with Niobe, the Atlantean race, allegorizes the history of the two continents. Latona-Lemuria is transformed into Niobe-Atlantis, over which her son Apollo, or the Sun, reigns with an iron rod, truly, since Herodotus makes the Atlantes curse his too great heat. The Lemuro-Atlantean, is the first physical race, though the third and the fourth in number. The Lemurians, as also the early Atlanteans, were divided into two opposing fraternities, the Sons of Darkness, and the Sons of Light. There were terrible battles between the two. The island of Delos, the Asteria of the Greek mythology, was never in Greece, a country which, in its day, was not yet in existence, not even in its molecular form. Diodorus Siculus and Pliny place Delos in the Northern seas. One calls it royal; the other, the royal island of gods. Because the divine dynasties of the kings of Atlantis proceeded from that place. Occult records and linguistic evidence indicate that gods, religious beliefs, and myths have all come from the north, which was also the cradle of physical man. The Hyperboreans, the Cimmerians, the Arimaspoi, and the Scythians were descendants of the last Atlantean sub-races. But they were neither known to, nor communicating with, the Greeks. The Pelasgians, a remnant of an Atlantean sub-race, were certainly one of the root-races of future Greece. Noah’s Deluge is astronomical and allegorical but not mythical. However, the allegory about the antediluvian giants and their achievements in sorcery is no myth. Poseidon is not only the personation of the spirit and race of Atlantis, but also of the vices of the Nephilim giants of Genesis. The bestiality of the Satyrs was real, not allegorical. Esoteric records show these hairy Satyrs to be the last descendants of those Lemuro-Atlantean races, which begot children on female animals, of species now long extinct. They paid a very heavy price for their unnatural union. The whole globe is convulsed periodically; and has been so convulsed, since the appearance of the First Race, four times. Yet, though the whole face of the earth was transformed thereby each time, the conformation of the Arctic and Antarctic poles has but little altered. Continents perish in turn by fire and water: either through earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, or by sinking and the great displacement of waters. The three “imprisoned” polar giants, Briareus, Kottos, and Gyges, are three polar lands which have changed form several times, at each new cataclysm or disappearance of one continent to make room for another. When lesser gods and titans rebelled against Zeus, he hurled Lemuria amid thunder and lightning to the bottom of the seas, so as to make room for Atlantis, which was to be submerged and perish in its turn. The geological upheaval and deluge of Thessaly was a repetition on a small scale of the great cataclysm; and remaining impressed on the memory of the Greeks, was merged by them into, and confused with, the general fate of Atlantis. All continents are formed from North to South. And the tallest men are those in Northern countries, while the smallest are Southern Asiatics. Thus also the giants of Atlantis, as well as the Titans of Hesiod, are all Northerners.
