HOMO SAPIENS AFRICANUS By Abimbola Lagunju

Homo Sapiens Africanus

I am old enough to ask questions,

though some say,

too young to understand the answers, of

the unbalanced equation of our past and our present

where one and one make zero.

Everything has changed

but the equation of life,

scribbled on the walls

of Rift valley caves

with a sum total of zero.

Zero,

held captive

in the primordial darkness

of vacuum of the “why” of creation.

Darwin saw a tree,

trunk, branches and leaves, no roots,

Idaltu sitting on a branch

Lucy, an arm’s length above.

Some say all was an accident,

atomic and molecular wars in dark depths,

amino acids navy in slimy submarines,

conquering frontiers, intermarrying,

mating in the ecstasy of occasional lightning

finally marching triumphant

out of water to dry land.

II.  Homo sapiens africanus

 Dark depths was the venue of the beginning

of the continuum of darkness,

one constant in our crooked equation.

Locked in the safety of zero,

nothing mattered, nothing matters,

an accident cannot be sacred,

vacuum abhors sanctity.

III. Homo sapiens africanus

“But I must own, to the shame of my own countrymen, that I was first kidnapped and betrayed by some of my own complexion, who were the first cause of my exile, and slavery……” Ottobah Cugoano, Narrative of the Enslavement of a Native of Africa (1787)

Close to where it all started,

Clouds of darkness,

stamped envelopes of the beginning

have still not lifted.

Fifteen slaves exchanged for one horse,

twenty Lucys for one donkey

just a stone throw from the Rift valley,

all accidents of dark depths.

Ten Olaudahs for a mirror,

twenty Ottobahs for gunpowder,

offsprings of accidents could not be sacred,

at least not in these dark depths.

Abomey’s Ghezo made bricks

with blood of captives and slaves

Idi Amin drenched the valley with rain of blood,

parallel constants of same equation

time is the only variable in the algebra of our mind.

From Arabs we took a horse for twenty slaves

from the Berbers, a donkey for ten children,

with Europeans we traded fifty of us

for glass beads and mirrors.

Locked in elemental reactions,

Lucy pulled Idaltu,

Idaltu dragged Lucy off the Darwinian tree

to the bottom, nearer the amino acids.

Hegel sighed,

“..as we see them at this day,

so they have always been”

locked in the darkness of moral vacuum,

where a herbivore had more value than fifteen of them.

We were taught to point fingers

that the buyers were at fault,

the sellers were doing business

in legitimate moral darkness.

We were told that

our brothers were dehumanized

by the buyers on the ships,

in the plantations, on the streets.

But hear Alexander Falcolnbridge in 1788,

“When the Negroes whom the black traders have to dispose of are shown to the European purchasers, they first examine them………if they have been afflicted in any manner… they are rejected. The traders frequently beat those Negroes which are objected to by the captains. Instances have happened that the traders, when any of their Negroes have been objected to have instantly beheaded them in the sight of the captain”. 

In the safety of our envelope of darkness

We point fingers at the grey shade of our actions.

Darkness now sits at the judgement of the shade.

IV. Homo sapiens africanus

Is water thicker than African Blood?

Parallels of the same equation

With sum total of zero morals and ethics,

Geometric circles of déjavu, where

Time is the only variable

African slave traders,

Idi Amin Dada,

Jean-Bedel Bokassa,

Marcias Nguema,

Mobutu Sese Seko,

Foday Sankoh,

Charles Taylor,

True guardians of the Abomey’s throne.

V. Homo sapiens africanus

Everyone but us is responsible ……

Everyone but us is responsible

for the fall from the branch

homo sapiens sapiens at the top

to the bottom of the tree, as

homo sapiens africanus auto destructus

Pyramids of heads,

lakes of blood, we offered as transport

for others to climb even higher on the tree, as

we squirm as nature’s ordained victims and

clutch at primordial amino acids

to see us through self inflicted curses

of Arab slave traders,

European slave merchants,

colonialism,

socialism,

capitalism,

democracy,

wars,

atrocities,

corruption,

kleptocracy,

child soldiers,

modern day slavery,

World bank,

International Monetary fund,

their adjustments of structures

and readjustments of non structures.

VI. Homo sapiens africanus

they all got it wrong from Negritude to NEPAD

Racism is a legacy of a moral judgement,

a condemnation of our equation,

lack of  value of our own kin,

our choice to remain in primordial darkness

of absence of good and evil

We sold, we sell,

We killed, we kill,

We maimed, we maim,

We functioned in moral darkness,

We thrive in moral vacuum.

Within the safety of our envelope,

We grope for direction in everything,

offshoots or negations of others’ way of life

Negritude,

Ethnophilosophy,

Hermeneutics,

Traditional religion

Western and Oriental religions.

African Union,

NEPAD,

ECOWAS,

SADC.

We ignore the light of moral principles

of “do not do unto others,

what you would not want done to you.”

For pittances, we have become Judas of our own race!

VII. Homo sapiens africanus

Africa – a case of entropy.

From order to disorder

branch to the bottom,

amino acids in constant motion,

creation recreated in dark vacuum,

deregulated Adamus Africanus abandons his shores,

scuttles out of water in distant lands,

dripping deregulation on well nurtured lawns,

sowing heroine, hashish,

reaping scorn, abuse, jail, rejection.

VIII. Homo sapiens africanus

We are natural dancers

we dance in abandon

to any rhythm,

others’ music.

When the drums beat
”catch slaves and sell to us”,

We catch and sell,

We dance.

The flute pipes

“sell us your land”

we gyrate and sell,

We dance.

The trumpet blasts

“socialism”

we stamp our feet and go red,

We dance.

The violin strings

“capitalism”

we shake our bodies waving flags,

We dance.

The guitar strums

“kill your neighbours”

we stump in frenzy, hack heads and arms

We dance.

The piano mourns

“develop yourselves”

we twist, swing and ta-NGO

We dance.

The orchestra plays,

Market economy, deregulation, globalisation, democracy,

We howl, jump in delirium,

We dance.

We have no music,

we are natural dancers

to the music of others.

From Children of Signatures By Abimbola Lagunju