SHOW YOUR FACE

Most bloggers are reluctant to show their face. The reasons are varied.

But I decided to show mine – not just my inner face, but also the outer one. By doing so, it was as if I had rid myself of a protective cover – only to realise that I don’t need one.

I like to meet the world directly, openly, face to face.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

KNOWING

Ignorance is bliss
Yet I choose torture
Nature left a space
For growth via Nurture
Pain is the price I gladly pay
To be at home in my own Skin
The sadness is without
The Lion is within.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

FREE MARKET

So why is it that
Only one person is buying
And only one person is selling…

Only one person is making
And only one person is slaving

Only one person is thinking
And only one person is sleepwalking

If the market is free
Why does Africa chain itself
Down? If you don’t make anything
You’ll never own a thing

A free market is not enough to
Free a continent –
Only a free mind can
And free thinkers
Who have freed themselves from
Unimagination and rigidity and
Small parochial selfishness.

Only such can free their People
From the chains of a free market
Where might is still right
And freedom is not given for free.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije

THE RELIGION OF MUSIC

For a long time, decades,
I forgot about the power of music
I stopped believing that music can
Change the world.

It is easy to stop believing it
Because many people also do not really believe it
And so everywhere around you, people agree with you
In a gentle cynical sad way

But there is something greater than belief
It is Knowledge. Memory. New experiencing –
Conviction. Re-cognition. It comes upon you when music
Changes your world and brings you back to life
Inside you again –
This is what Music does to everything.

Then you become a believer again
And a disciple and a missionary of
The Religion of Music.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

SHADES OF CHE

Musik & Poesie / Music & Poetry

You are all welcome.
Afrobeat. Pop-Rock.
Slow and fast. Hard and soft.
And lots of poetry.

English/Deutsch

14th Feb 2018
Frankfurt am Main
Summa Summarum
21:30h

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ALREADY

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The person who outwardly leaves you today
Already inwardly left you yesterday.
And the person who outwardly comes to you today
Already inwardly came to you yesterday.

Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

PRUDENCE

Discretion and guardianship of the tongue are the measure of a man‘s inner strength and level of maturity and, ultimately, worth.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

SOVEREIGNTY

Sovereignty is a state of the spirit
It is an inner attitude
A highness of mind
A quality of the soul
It is the expression of a sense of responsibility

If you don‘t mature into it inwardly
You will seek it outwardly in vain.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

VULNERABILITY

Waking up
Feeling like a wound
And for a second you don’t cover up your vulnerability
Because the world is still asleep
And no-one is watching…

You lie there, your eyes closed
Your wound open
And let your life’s troubles tear at the wound
In your Heart…
And then,
Just when the pain becomes unbearable
You feel the calming weight of responsibility
Descend like balm and bandage upon you
You know your role again
You become strong.

And by the time you open your eyes and arise
The wound has been stitched up again
And you set forth to meet the world
Unperturbed
Resolved.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

SILENCE AND INSULTS ON THE AFRICAN STAGE

Are the Igbo and the Yoruba united?
Are the Zulu and the Xhosa united?
Are the Hutu and the Tutsi united?
If hands and feet are not coordinated
How can you drive and steer the vehicle?

There is a level of identity and reality on which Africans have stopped building bridges to one another, and forging alliances with one another, and initiating peace amongst each other, and finding common grounds and respectful dialogue. – And yet that is the level on which they are really who they really are.
If you ignore reality, you will fall victim to it.

Are the Fulani in Nigeria beholden to the Fulani in Niger?
Are the Oromo in Kenya beholden to the Oromo in Ethiopia?
Are the Shona in Mozambique beholden to the Shona in Zimbabwe and Zambia?
Are the Yoruba in Benin beholden to the Yoruba in Nigeria?
If a foreigner is your brother
And your countryman is a foreigner
Who will you follow
When you come to the crossroad?…
Because you will.

There is a level on which Aricans ignore reality. They scold each other into being modern by lying that their roots are not still feeding their fruits. Yet that is nature.
It was naive inter-tribal non-cooperation and chaos in the ethnic map of Africa that made Colonisation so easily possible.
It is silence on this stage, in this theatre, that imppedes cohesion in Africa today.

And when the stage is not silent, then it is full of distrust and animousity as they are hurl insults at one another. You can see it on the internet everyday. It seems to be the only form of communication that we still have left between us.

No, it is time to reawaken the dialogue. The African multilogue.

– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.