Let them not remember
That we were not always here;
Let what we tell them
Be all they know –
They can get Independence from the West
If they want,
But not from the Middle East.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
English
IS HELL THE WAY TO HEAVEN?
Never gonna teach nobody
Never gonna preach the Word
To no damn soul
I’m damned myself
Tired of pretending
To know the way to heaven
Maybe everybody should just
Go to hell – then we’ll all grasp
The way to heaven.
– CHE CHIDI CHUKWUMERIJE.
RULES OF ENGAGEMENT
Power is, or derives from, an idea into which all concerned subscribe. This idea is the exponent of a recognition to which a people as a collective have come; in other words, a consciousness into which a homogeneous group, a common type, has awakened. This recognition, this consciousness, now becomes a component characteristic of this homogeneous group which as a group has graduated from type to type. The members of the group thus acquire a distinct, distinctive nature that differentiates, distinguishes and distances them from every other group. They thus become a “People”, the rough draft of a nation. And this people, these people, are the children of an idea to which they have subscribed, out of which their world view has been born. And the concept of Power inherent in this idea becomes the foundational notion and nature of Power that determines their politics and their interpersonal relationships.
Because this power is subject to a context into which they all subscribe, rooted in an idea which has become their mother, they are all bound to it and all bow down before it. It thus becomes the socio-political and culturo-spiritual Soul of their national personality.
When this people comes into contact with a different people of different ideology, a culture clash takes place. Communication gaps and mutual misunderstandings become their meeting points. The divergent concepts of power, born over centuries or even millenia out of different recognitions and perceptions, creates a situation where each group has the feeling that the other group is not “playing by the rules”. Whereas perhaps they simply have a different understanding of the concept of “power” and of “power-play”. You only see what you understand; every other thing remains at best a riddle, if not entirely invisible and impossible to perceive or empathize with in any way. At worst, it is adjudged to be a threat.
This is where the need arises to “learn another person’s language”. The other person’s inner language of concepts. Therein lies the understanding of their concept of Power, and thus of their understanding of what should be the right and balanced form of interpersonal relationships. When two such come to a mutual understanding and meet in the middle, then the product of their new and shared understanding becomes a living guideline and another valuable page in the universal charter of human rights. And responsibilities.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
LESSONS FROM MY FATHER
1. Don’t be afraid to be on the losing side
2. Believe in yourself
3. Identify a cause you would be proud to die for – and then live for it
4. Exercise
5. Avoid the things that harm your body
6. Be on good terms with your family members
7. Know where you come from, and maintain a close relationship with it
8. Think strategically
9. Create opportunities for those less priviledged than yourself
10. Reflect on your path and change it, if need be
11. Think about Africa, for the danger is not yet over
12. Get an education
13. Work extra hard
14. Cultivate a relationship with GOD. He is.
15. Don’t be blindly tribalistic or racial. Look for the truth, and give your loyalty to It alone
16. Serve causes, not people
17. Be fearless
18. Be disciplined, and persevere
19. Be honest and straightforward, and follow the path of integrity
20. Have faith, and believe in miracles – there’ll be help along the way
21. Earn your own money, pay your own bills
22. If you have children, give them your all
23. If you get married, do your best to keep it happy
24. Strive for Excellence
25. Be at home within your own self.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
In loving Memory of my father, Comrade Uche Chukwumerije 1939-2015.
NATURE OR PROPENSITY
For people who, by nature, are partner-faithful and relationship-loyal (I’m talking Sex here), there exists in their inside a great big Why when they observe how a person who they know really loves his/her partner with all his/her heart can have a sexual interchange with a third party – one time, or for a shorter or longer period, or intermittently – and yet remain totally committed to and in love with their chosen “permanent” partner. Is it a predisposition or a weakness?
It’s like a puzzle, a mystery that defies solution.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
GERMANY: LAND IN THE MIDDLE
There is something about Germany. It seems to be, at the same time, 100% Capitalist and 100% Socialist, poised, balanced at the meeting point between capitalism and communism.
This word “Communism” is not much used anymore, as people prefer the less menacing sounding Socialism, – in fact now they only say “Social”, in order to free themselves from adherence to its stricter definitions – but its principles, its Goals continue to live on, refining itself towards realisation, in the heart of many people and many nation-building ideals.
Now East has become West. But what is in the heart cannot be wiped away with signatures and bulldozers. They say in Africa: you can remove the monkey from the bush, but you cannot remove the bush from the monkey. (As an African, obviously I am allowed to use that proverb without being accused of being politically incorrect 🙂 ).
Everything, i.e. every mindset and striving, seems to come together, find a balanced confluence, truly, not in America but strangely enough in Germany. The two sides at the same time.
Mayhaps stems herefrom the Anglo-American fear of Germany. This sensing that it was not only West Germany that went into the East, but also East went into the West. East and West have both … well, not vanished, but become ever more indistinguishable from one another, become something new, something called Germany. A new modern experiment.
If a look is cast at political, social, even spiritual tendencies in the world today, and an eye kept open for the one place where the different, often competing, differing ideologies all seem to have struck cohabitual roots, then ever and again Germany takes the Spotlight.
Socialist at heart, capitalistic in endeavour; and their system of thought reflects this marriage, or attempted marriage, of ideals.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
LIKE A CLOUD WATCHES A RAIN DROP FALL
Like a cloud watches a rain drop fall
An archer a misguided arrow reject recall
A mountain an avalanche gather and roll
A doctor a young departing soul
An old woman the memory of early innocent flirt
A tailor a beloved yarn vanish into a shirt
So I remember tonight all those I ever hurt –
Growing up is life’s only comfort.
– CHE CHIDI CHUKWUMERIJE.
MOTHER
Happy 70th Birthday to my dear
MOTHER
If heaven were but a grain
Of those arms on which I was once lain
And only a mere faint echo
Of that inspiration which has become my life-long shadow
Then claim me kiss of death
That upon your hearth
Mother Again will be my first breath
And I’ll never crave rebirth.
It is between Scylla and Charibdis
For me to start to describe what it is
To eternity in the warmth of a bossom
And the gentle resourcefulness of a flower in blossom
So comforting and caring
So loving and true
This comes straight from my heart:
Mother, I love you.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije
1990.
I wrote this poem for my mother when I was 16. Today, almost three decades later, the words still hold true.
HAPPY 70th BIRTHDAY, MUM.
FOREVEREVERMORE
ONCE UPON a time in south-southern Nigeria, high up on the misty Obudu plateaux of those dreamy Sankwala mountain-ranges of which we only hear and read, but hardly ever see, there lived a voiceless girl called Iwi.
Iwi loved the air of the mountain-peak, she loved the clouds which sometimes came visiting, she loved the heavened birds that loved these same heights which she also loved; she loved the stars that shone brightly in the evenings, mornings and through the nights.
Iwi, being a little maiden, did not live alone. She lived with her mother, whom she called “Sister”, and who called her “Iwi, my friend”, for theirs was a deep and true friendship. Iwi’s father had also once lived with them and they had been a happy triangle. In those days her voice had still been with her, and her childlike songs and happy chatter had delighted her parent’s heart. Until one day her father died mysteriously, leaving Iwi and her mother to be each all the other had. The day her father died was the day Iwi lost her voice. As though he had taken it with her, try as she might, no sound ever again escaped her lips.
Iwi and her mother could have gone to live in any of the cities in the valleys where life would have been easier for them, but they loved these mountain-highs and preferred to live in hardship but preserve peace of soul. So up in the mountains they stayed, where they sensed their heart to be, and happiness kept them company every day. Together they reared the goats, tended the fowl, cultivated the farms and the gardens of those rare fruits that grew on those high climates, and rarely, but rarely, did they go down all the way to the valley, mainly to the Sankwala market, indeed just when they had to go.
As mysteriously as Iwi’s father had left the earth, her mother died one day, leaving Iwi now all alone upon their mountain home. If her father’s departure had taken her voice away, her mother’s did not bring it back, voiceless she remained.
After burying her mother, Iwi made the decision to continue to live up there where mountain-air, mountain-clouds and mountain-sighs gave back to her the love she gave. But lonely was she now, alone in the world, if we forget the the goats, the fowl and the flowers, and of course the fairies she saw not, although they saw her, and the friendy stars in the skies – all of which we may however not forget. Yet none of them proved able to restore to her her once beautiful voice.
She grew into a woman and grew used to being a single woman on the heights, managing and flowing, but once in a while longing for another human.
One day, like a miracle, who did she see walking there upon her mountains? A hermit, but younger than most hermits are, more handsome than hermits ought to be. If she was full surprised, then surely she was not half as surprised as he was… to find this beautiful woman living, alone, high up there where he’d come seeking solitude, hoping to discover himself in silence. So, shyly he avoided her for the next couple of months, and shyly she pretended too that he was not up there.
But then one morning, like a man must do, he waited for her outside her mountain hut. And when she emerged, he, in the Obanliku dialect of these parts, introduced himself to her and offered her a small basket of wild ụdara which he had gathered early that morning as the sun’s rays were still struggling to break through the mountain mist.
It is hard to say how long she stood there, silent, surprised, staring at him; but however long it was must have been of no consequence, for just as long did he too remain standing there, refusing to budge, waiting for her to reply. The moment was broken when, to her utmost shock, she heard her voice thanking him and then telling him her name. They both smiled as she accepted the basket of wild berries from him and then he turned around and walked away. And she had a voice again, awakened by love.
And so did they gradually they began to stop, to talk, one word here, two words there. And finally, over a year after he first arrived these heights, they began to live together. That he was a stranger to these parts was clear to her, for she heard it in his accent, although he bravely struggled to speak her thongue. It did not matter to her, it only made her love him all the more.
Love and understanding and joy are three things which when they arrive at the same time, in the same place, around the same people, create that thing which words cannot describe. And so it was between Iwi and the young hermit whose name, as he had told her that fateful morning, was Sike. Their love was eternal, immortal, intense – and it never ceased to startle them.
Through Iwi, Sike came to see and understand the Obudu mountains and their lush green forests with new eyes; its moods became a dictionary of new language upon his heart; mist or rain, animals or fauna, plauteaux or gorges, forests and waterfalls, his senses became born again to a world that was part of his native country but which he had never known, for it was so different from the world he came from that he knew he would never be able to describe it to the people of his world, villagers and city-people alike. And the more he discovered nature, the more he loved this beautiful female spirit who was the source of his rebirth. Everything that was special about this place was reflected in her nature – everything that was special about her personality was reflected in this cradle of nature. How could the one be separated from the other? The source of his joy became the emblem of his sorrow.
For just when Iwi came to believe that Sike would stay up here with her, forevermore, he told the truth about himself: he was a servant of his people who had come here to seek quietude and clarity, but had vowed to return to his people when he was done, to continue with his service. He spoke about communal clashes and border disputes, about social projects and missions of hope and other things he was not sure she understood. Without emotion Iwi listened to him and then, with trembling heart, waited for him to ask her if she would come with him, not knowing what her answer would be.
But the request never came. She did not ask him if there was someone else waiting for him in his old life, nor did he mention it.
Now Sike stood outside Iwi’s hut, looked at the sky, and tear on tear fell from his eyes. He’d come up here to find understandings rare, only to end up with much more than he had expected. After strengthening his heart with a silent prayer which Iwi did not see, but strongly felt, he turned to her and said:
“Iwi… I love you… eternally… but I love also the people I have pledged to serve, and I love the service I have vowed to fulfill all the days of life… they need me… and so I must return there where I came from.”
They held each other tightly one last time under the blue skies, tropical avians winging their way over, and he promised to love her… and she promised to love him… foreverevermore…
They parted on that same evening – Iwi remained with his heart upon her Obudu mounain-tops, Sike took her heart with him to his calling.
She never did find out to which constituency he belonged, he never came to know what became of her in the future; but every morning and every evening, both their heartborn, love-borne thoughts meet in the firmaments of Heaven, and their thoughts promise love foreverevermore.
– CHE CHIDI CHUKWUMERIJE.
Read other inspirational stories in:
THERE IS ALWAYS SOMETHING MORE.
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MUSICIANS
When the sadness
Coloured the smile
Of the musician’s sunshine
I saw that his joy
Had just got deeper
And the unshed tears
Longing in his eyes
Were less bitter
Than they were bittersweet
To my ears
Music to my heart
Water to my soul – his sorrow
Became the joy of my spirit flame.
That was when I saw him smile
That broke my heart.
– CHE CHIDI CHUKWUMERIJE.
