When Civilization kicked us in
the face
When holy water slapped our
cringing brows
The vultures built in the
shadow of their talons
The bloodstained monument of
tutelage….
David
Diop. The Vultures.
Many African youths do not have any idea of African
history; and honestly, I feel they really do not care. The numerous volumes
available on African history and politics are tedious, and but for the most
tenacious and knowledge-thirsty youth, they are largely ignored by majority of
youths. We cannot blame the youths. They have many challenges to contend with,
from the serious school materials to the pervasive audiovisual entertainment,
which actively competes for their time and attention.
However, these youths find it difficult to understand
why there are many shortcomings in their environment. They do not understand
why their society should be different from those of other cultures. They are
concerned that they do not have the same access to services and goods as their
contemporaries in other parts of the world. They know that something is wrong;
and they cannot put their fingers on it.
In order to understand the present, one must sometimes
make a journey into the past. However, the journey to the past may be volumes
of books that may prove to be a challenge to the youths. And knowing where to
start from may be a major constraint too.
Here in these extracts from my book, I have tried to
make a satirical sprint through African political history. I have focused on
the most important moments of African history, namely slavery period,
colonialism and post independence period. The focus is on the calamities that
befell black Africans during these periods.
By presenting this in a short satirical form, it is my
hope that the different historical facts deftly hidden in the text will engage
the curiosity of the reading youths, and will encourage them to find out more
about their past, get them more interested in their present, and inspire them
to selflessly contribute to the building of a better Africa.
Hear this activist riding On The African Bus:
I nurse the pains of loss of courage, pains of
transformation of the hunter to the hunted; of metamorphosis of an aristocrat
to an unwanted classless being. I am a pained witness to the deconstruction of
a creator of ideas to a crass consumer; to the change of roles of benefactors
to beneficiaries. We, the drivers of history have become passengers of life,
living on the fringes of our appropriated past. Disrobed, divested of our princely
garments in the predatory arena of conquerors, we, the descendants of Kmt[i] say “…yes to the whip
under the midday sun.”[ii] How have the mighty
fallen!! And while the tired builders of ancient Egypt take their rest under
the neem tree in the Sahel and on the coast, others claim their feats as theirs
and then confine the exhausted warriors to books of historical failures. Like
all conquerors, they rewrite history. They forget at will things that happened
when they were historical infants; and frequently remember things that never
happened. They choose to forget their own foundation, the origin of their
knowledge, the beginning of their existence, the KMT. History begins at their
point of convenience, from the moment of their prowess.
They rewrite everything; they whitewash it. They
whitewashed Kepre Kare Senworsert the First[iii], Latinised Narmer[iv], and even assigned the
writing system of the Land of Blacks to Raceless
creatures! The conquerors took everything; they take everything: small and big,
old and new. If it is good, it cannot
belong to this part; “….anything of value found here does not belong here.”[v]
It belongs elsewhere, far from these shores, somewhere
in the north, occasionally, grudgingly in distant Asia.
Now, at the mercy of the elements, sans direction, sans plan, we dance to all winds. We are drenched when it rains. Our
brain sizzles in the cooking sun. Fried. Barbecued. Roasted. Boiled. Cerveau Sauté à la carte. And even now in our prostrate state everyone
picks the brain. Each according to his appetite. They eat as much as they want
and even do take-away. No credit to the
brain restaurant. No mention of the incorrigible Good Samaritan except in bad
books. He is not even mentioned as the Foolish Samaritan. Just plain bad.
Useless. Bad genes. Black sheep. God’s
mistake! No history – we had no history
until the arrival of foreigners. No culture – “their condition is capable of no
development of culture…”[vi] No past except a savage
one. No present, except aid - left,
right and centre.
No future.
Their Seine swallowed our Sine[vii] as recently as six
hundred years ago. Dyed its mind blonde and blue. Hapless Sine digested, it
gives up its calories and proteins. Now, stripped of everything except misery,
disease and hunger, and mangled in assimilation, acculturation and
globalisation, Sine is spewed in putrid vomitus. And in big banners, Sine is
declared detested, unwanted. Mission accomplished: pushed, used, dispossessed,
now thrown to the bottom of the ladder. Faux Fraternité forgotten. Dubious
Solidarité sequestered. The human Race is now categorised: Super humans,
humans, and the maybes. Who dares challenge the conqueror?
The sapostles (development guys) then came among us,
waved Canaan of development in our faces, and we packed our bags out of Egypt. Out
of Kemet. Yes, they promised us snow and we believed that snow was good for us.
They said the Red Sea was nothing but a dying stream. That our pyramids were
nothing but chunks of stones; that we needed to forget our past in order to be
free. Forget the past to be free was what they told us. The past is a chain, it
is bondage. Leave it. Let it die a quick death. One of their wise men called it
“Aid-Induced Accelerated Collective
Amnesia” in a conference.
They said the road out of Egypt was not difficult.
They claimed it was laid with cheese, burgers, salad, caviar, foie gras, French
fries, curry and every other thing alien to our palate. And our mouths
watered! We believed that alien foods
were good for us. We did not think about indigestion, diarrhea, flatulence and
indeed cancers.
We left everything behind, sold every possession, and
moved out into the wilderness, straight for the Red Sea. How on earth could we
have believed that the sea was not wider than a stream? Did they hypnotise us?
Or are we just plain naïve?
And at the banks of the sea, when we began to understand
their intentions, they did not give us any chance to go back or to escape. They
blinded us with flipcharts and beamer lights, conferences, workshops and
seminars. Some of us even got some perdiem and some, time at the podium. Tons
of industrial words, phrases, plans, objectives and indicators. And we forgot
everything. Yes we forgot everything as soon as each meeting was over.
Our mistake. They thought we were ignorant, that we
couldn’t hold anything except combs in the tiny curls and they organised more
meetings and workshops. And we chose to forget again. We told them what we
wanted, what we needed. We needed glucose, not grammar. We needed proteins, not
programs. We needed vegetables, not variables; we demanded our stolen dignity,
not pity. We demanded respect, not project. They wouldn’t listen. They said
donors would not want to hear us. We were beneficiaries, and donors were
donors. Beneficiaries do not know what is good for their benefit. Donors know
better what the beneficiaries need. Beneficiary compliance is very important or
the donor could go into fatigue mode.
We began to complain. And when the sapostles heard
rumbles of rebellion, they threatened us with selective and collective
sanctions, visa restrictions, aid withdrawal, credit denial. We acquiesced, then
they herded us into the sea. They pushed our bus in. Some of us broke their
legs and others, their heads in the fall.
Many pensioners lost their lives. The hardy ones lost
all their teeth. Our bus lost all its
shock-absorbers. The silencer broke. The radiator sucked in mud. Even, our
normally obedient driver silently complained.
And now, look at the sapostles in their tight jeans at
the banks of the sea, guzzling beer, eating prawns, munching lobsters, watching
sunset on our beaches, laughing at us, making studies and writing endless
reports. They now call themselves the local international community.........
[i] Kemet – Ancient Egypt
[ii] David Diop – Africa.
A Poem
[iii] Twelth Dynasty King of Kemet (1897BC). Known
to the Greeks as Sesotris and Kekrops. According to Greek mythology, he was the
founder of Athens.
[iv] Known by the Greeks as Menes, he was the
founder of Dynastic Kemet.
[v] Ayi Kwei Armah – The Identity of the Creators
of Ancient Egypt
– New African April 2006.
[vi] Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel - Philosophy of
History
[vii] A river in Senegal.
