There are no reasons for airlines to charge African passengers 4 to 5 times higher fares than passengers of Europe, Asia and the Middle-East for the same-duration flights. It is apparent that the prohibitive airfares are to limit African passengers from crossing frontiers where they can explore, personally, environments so far denied them by white racists and their institutions under so-called immigration laws. 

Also, beneath the veneer of the language of public relations used by these airlines, which has fitted in very well with the sordid hypocrisy practiced by whites or their corporations since their incursions into Africa, no one should wonder now that free circulation of people, free trade and globalization are but meaningless statements shown to be false, not in some, but in all respects. 

It is not only the racism of whites we should condemn, but the unbridled greed of directors behind their corporations, left to operate on our soil and defraud our people.

Delta Airlines, North American Airways, Air France, Iberia, Luftansa, Belgian Airlines, TAP of Portugal and British Airways are charging African passengers for cross-Atlantic flights between $1,200 to $2,200 for economy passengers, while these fares would have been First Class between North America and Europe. Fares between North America and Europe can be as low as $200. 

It would be spurious for anyone to talk about market forces, since as many as 30 cities in Africa, and to name a few: Dakar, Banjul, Freetown, Monrovia, Accra, Lagos, Abuja, Douala, Bamako, Libreville, Addis Ababa, Kampala, Nairobi, Mombassa, Harare, Luanda, Maputo, and Johannesburg, serve as gateways to as many as 200 million potential customers. That is, only if they are not Africans or rather, except they are Blacks. 

It seems that more than 10 years later, the legacies of Apartheid have yet to vanish, since the notorious South African Airlines, the carrier of these renegade racists who are still important shareholders, cannot adjust its fares, in spite of having a CEO who is Black and Black managers posted in all but symbolic positions. Illogically, the fare from New York to Dakar is the same as the fare New York to Johannesburg. You will be amused at the reasons Ghost SAA experts give, in the computation these fares.  

Alas, some combatants of the liberation struggle, in the hierarchy, have forgotten the sacrifices in lives, of entire generations, so as to be cozy with their oppressors for crumbs of a pay check, a bonus…and sometimes bribes. That is not to say the hand that gives is not as corrupt as the hand that takes. Betrayal is painful, and costly. 

Beside that, we have, in every metropolis in Africa, the embassies of these whites, expropriating entire roads or avenues, under their schizophrenia that some dialysis-ridden Bin Laden will terrorize them, while our people queue before their consulates, to suffer indignities of rejection and the extortion of their money, for some cracked-up application fee. Meanwhile hordes of these Europeans and white North Americans do not pay for visas when entering African countries. 

Instead of whining or complaining, it is time for Africans on the continent as well as in the Diaspora to begin targeted boycotts, airline by airline, until their fares are reasonably lowered or until these corporations leave our continent. For once, let there be a generation of men and women who will not allow that more than 500 years of brutal exploitation and inhumane slavery continues in Africa. 

Firstly, a global campaign has begun with advice to the management of these airlines they are being monitored and advised to lower their air fares.  

Secondly, public protesting will begin before their local and regional offices as well as the homes of their senior staff until their total operation ceases or fares are lowered. 

Conscious African Brothers and Sisters are called to adhere strictly to the boycotts which are to be announced and to use every media possible to spread the word.  

Send a copy of this campaign to the following:

• Travel agencies
• Churches/Mosques/Temples
• Local organization
• Friends and relatives
• Black Radio Hosts
• Local Newspapers
• Broadcast on webcam/internet sites
• University bulletin boards
• Internet forums
• Conference/Seminar/Workshop Venues where Blacks meet. 

Jacques Sotero Agboton is the author of Philosophy of Engagement (An ideological basis for the liberation of African people). His Website is www.jsapublishing.com.