The other day, the Cargolux Boeing 747 freight plane from South Africa to Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport via Nairobi would’ve made its usual scheduled landing and we would’ve known nothing about it. Its name would have meant nothing to us as would have, its destination. Only, it carried one cargo item more than its owners had signed for in their contract: a bundle of a breathing 22-year-old male. On doing their routine checking, airport technicians got the rude shock of seeing somebody clinging onto what they call the main gear strut. Surely, what drives a young man with a long future ahead of him into consciously entering the jaws of death? I hear the plane cruised at altitudes varying between 9,144 and 12, 801 metres for all of about 11 hours and some minutes. At those altitudes and for that long, I am told if lack of oxygen does not kill you, build-up of acid or simply weakness and light-headedness will. You are sure to have eyesight problems, much as it wouldn’t be any consolation even if you didn’t, anyway. That, remember, assumes that you’ll have survived the force of the squeeze as the landing gear retracts on take-off or will not be let loose to drop metres down as the flaps open up for landing. Well, the Kenyan young man weathered all these death-traps and is shaken but nearly good as new. Many plane stowaways never have such luck. Only 29 worldwide are estimated to have survived in all of the plane stowaways this far and it was mostly due to short flight distances and low altitudes. This means they did not include many Africans. Hundreds of Africans have perished embarking on such daredevil sky attempts. These, of course, are a drop in the ocean when you consider thousands upon thousands of African migrants who have dried up in deserts or been swallowed up by Mediterranean waters, set on a similar mission. All hoping to get a better life, which is most of the time a pipe dream. Surely, it’s a shaming indictment of these countries whose abject, hostile and sometimes dangerous conditions drive their people to these suicidal missions. Why, Africa, why? Yesterday the strongest of this continent’s young women and men were being carted off, bound and under constant whip, for only a few of them to reach plantations and mines that shrivelled their bodies. Today, this same continent’s good people are taking the risk of packaging themselves in dangerous contraptions as offerings to other countries for nothing but that shrivelling fate. When all is said and done, does anyone in the countries they leave or those of their risky destinations pause to think about them as humans? Even as I write, it’s as if I am just jotting down statistical numbers. I do not mention them as the son, daughter, mother, father, etc., of somebody. That Kenyan young man who survived death by a whisker, if he is now out of danger and of hospital, do we, Kenyans, Africans, Europeans, Americans, nay, the global community, remember to celebrate his survival? Do we take him to be a human who could contribute in building a family, community, nation? In the end then, the plight of all these stowaways and reckless migrants is an indictment of the countries of their origin and those of their destination; of all those they come in contact with who do nothing to help. In fact, it’s sacrilege to be a billionaire in the face of the littlest of these miseries. In all fairness, though, those who made their money and put it at the service of philanthropy are a dime a dozen. We know Rockefeller, Soros, Buffet, Gates, Hunter, Sainsbury, Cruddas, Benjamin, Arbaud, Anault, myriad others. And we know the Mother Teresas who put their lives into it. But there are billions others who selfishly kept or keep their wealth to only themselves and family. All in all, however, the buck stops with governments. Government leaders of all countries, rich or poor, must never lose the focus that they are in their positions to serve the people. First their nationals, alright, but without forgetting that their people live in an interconnected world. Leaders of the world must always be awake to the fact that the countries they govern cannot live in isolation. Thus the need for regional, continental and intercontinental exchange and rapport. Especially, superpowers that know that they got their power because they piggybacked poor countries in the past, however distant that past, must know that helping these nations to rise is not doing them a favour; it’s a duty. However cold-hearted the present rich countries’ crop of leadership, they must know that ghosts of their ancestors will haunt their posterity to no end. The wellbeing of every individual on this earth matters to every human being, past, present or future. Rich of the world, reconcile your hearts today; make hay while the sun shines!
