A man searches for
The man in the mirror
A woman searches
For the
Woman in the water
A man will stand his ground
A woman will wet her ground
I don’t understand gender roles
But I understand tender truths.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
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MANDELA, LEARNING FROM OTHERS’ MISTAKES: 11 – (Africa, Unite)
At independence, South Sudan’s problems were and are daunting – but no more daunting and unique than the situation in the majority of African nations at their independence also, five decades earlier. Thus, everything happening in South Sudan today – South Sudan and the African Union (AU) should have seen this coming. That an organisation which has spent decades operating as a rebel group is going to have difficulty transforming itself overnight into a legitimate, democratic, parliamentary government is self-explanatory and has antecedents in Africa and the world. That a poverty-and-famine-stricken, largely peasant, oil-rich, infrastructurally poor, multi-ethnic nation, newly sovereign, without the familiar ancient common foe to unite against, is going to need the selfless Service of a revolutionary Leadership that makes the people understand that division, egocentricity and disintegration are the new common foes which they have to unitedly defeat now, is a lesson history has taught us. Not the familiar endless paper-rounds of ceasefire agreements will bring salvation to this new State now, and salvage and build upon whatever is left of the momentum of independence, but the self-sacrificial and deeply clear will of a Leadership that sounds the bell of reconciliation and genuine participatory upbuilding across the length and breadth of the land, in every South-Sudanese soul. Now more than ever, South Sudan needs leaders who think and act like Nelson Mandela.
No-one can tell if in the near or distant future, new African states will or will not break out of the existing, arbitrarily created, states of tension left behind by colonialism and in turn become “independent”, or whether a deeper calm will gradually set in within these countries of myriad states as they meld into functional united nation-states – but in the unpredictable nature of human history, who can tell? Yet one thing is for sure: no matter what happens, each state of tension will either bend to the gentle force of “Mandela-like” minds within its polity that push towards painful and tedious reconciliation, unity and harmony, or it will disintegrate sooner or later into internal chaos, like the majority of “independent” African nation-states all did, and like South Sudan is also now going through. There are those that will tell you that chaos is the necessary precursor to order; but six decades of African independence would also suggest that chaos, unchecked and unpacified, simply continues to beget even greater chaos.
The African continent is a kaleidoscope, a jigsaw puzzle, of hundreds of tribes and ethnic groups. If the continent does not intend to end up ridiculously splintered into innumerable mostly micro-mini single-tribe pseudo-nations, at odds with one another, weak, open to rape, exploitation and so-called “intervention”, then our countries and nations are bound perforce to remain multi-ethnic, multi-lingual, multi-religious and multi-ideological. There is nothing we can do about it – this is the state in which we crossed path with the modern world. Of all continents, Africa above all is damned to unite or perish. Africans have no choice but to learn how to live in unity if they do not want to self-destruct and be eventually gradually re-colonised, steps towards which are already being actively, if surreptitiously, undertaken – economically, militarily, politically. Re-colonised by all those loving donor nations, East and West, who like to break bread into crumbs and miraculously shower us with fish, but never really teach us how to fish. Because, I guess, why should someone else teach you how to fish? –
But, watch fisherfolk when they go out to sea: to be successful, they do it in unison, in unity.
Christian or Moslem or Animist or whatever other faiths we differently follow, whatever our different tribes, our different tongues or our different races, our orientations, our ideologies, or our classes… the song is simple:
Africa, unite.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Preceding Chapters:
MANDELA, LEARNING FROM OTHERS’ MISTAKES: 1 (Preamble)
MANDELA, LEARNING FROM OTHERS’ MISTAKES: 2 (Egypt’s Modern Pharaohs)
MANDELA, LEARNING FROM OTHERS’ MISTAKES: 3 (Tunisian Troubles, Libyan Losses, Ethiopian Woes)
MANDELA, LEARNING FROM OTHERS’ MISTAKES: 4 (Sudan and South Sudan)
MANDELA, LEARNING FROM OTHERS’ MISTAKES: 5 – (Ghanaian Black Holes & Ivorian Time Bombs)
MANDELA, LEARNING FROM OTHERS’ MISTAKES: 6 – (Nigerian Nightmare & Congolese Chaos)
MANDELA, LEARNING FROM OTHERS’ MISTAKES: 7 (Ugandan Up-n-down)
MANDELA, LEARNING FROM OTHERS’ MISTAKES: 8 – (Angolan Angers, Zimbabwean Tragedy and a host of others)
MANDELA, LEARNING FROM OTHERS’ MISTAKES: 9 – (Sharing Power and Passing it on)
MANDELA, LEARNING FROM OTHERS’ MISTAKES: 10 – (Jasmin Revolution and repeated mistakes)
MANDELA, LEARNING FROM OTHERS’ MISTAKES: 7 – (Ugandan Up-n-down)
(Lessons from the first (mis)steps following modern Africa’s independence)
Often, all independence did was reveal that the only force that united the self-acclaimed nationalists was their drive to get rid of the oppressors or colonial usurpers. Once that was done, ancient grouses along ethnic, tribal, class, racial and religious lines – and sometimes even more modern ideological ones, like the capitalism-socialism conflict, or the democracy-unilateralism question – bobbed up to the surface and threatened to tear each country apart from within. But largely the cracks were caused by ethnicity, ideology and class, powered by fear and greed, lubricated by corruption, blinded by feelings of messianic grandeur, fortified by an absurd sense of entitlement, in the spirit of vengeance. The foolish belief – of each person, each clan and each group – of being better than the others, and the primitive insistence that one side must rule over the others or there shall be no peace and no progress. One-party states and governments emerged or strove to emerge, ruthlessly crushing opposition endeavours – and since most parties were built around ethnic, class or religious blocs in the first place, this only served to further exacerbate tribal tensions, ethnic hatreds, religious rivalries, group suspicions and ancient racial animosities. Class and wealth exhibited ethnic features. Before long, coups began to occur and dictatorships became the order of the day. And, before Africa knew it, the sixties and seventies had given way to the eighties and the nineties and, all over the continent, Africans were still trying to figure out to whom they owe their political allegiance: to tribe, religion or country? And they still remained and remain unable to move forward unitedly.
Uganda undertook initial tentative steps to reconcile and accommodate the different northern and southern tribes of the nation, amidst flourishing exports and per capita growth, in the spirit of confidence and optimism in the wake of independence. A few years into post-independence, everything broke down when President Obote suspended the National Assembly and introduced a new constitution in which he accorded himself wide and sweeping powers. Here again the cynical African quandary showed its face. Ostensibly in a bid to prevent the tribalisation and factionalisation of national politics, the president centralised power under his command and insisted on a one-party state, thereby unleashing the very destructive and centrifugal forces of inter-sectional chaos and confrontation he had claimed he wanted to prevent. Uganda’s fate was sealed when, in order to secure himself against all internal opposition, Obote relied more and more on the army, under the command of Idi-Amin, the megalomanic self-proclaimed “Conqueror of the British Empire and true heir to the throne of Scotland”, who eventually overthrew his boss. Idi-Amin’s regime ravaged, raped and wrecked Uganda. After Idi-Amin fled in 1979, Obote regained power and Uganda descended into civil war. Here too the mismanagement of the explosive momentum of independence, and the refusal to foster and nourish democracy, brought decades of death, impoverishment and socio-political disjoint to Uganda.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
… continued in Part 8 of 11:
MANDELA, LEARNING FROM OTHERS’ MISTAKES: 8 – (Angolan Angers, Zimbabwean Tragedy and a host of others)
Preceding Chapters:
MANDELA, LEARNING FROM OTHERS’ MISTAKES: 1 (Preamble)
MANDELA, LEARNING FROM OTHERS’ MISTAKES: 2 (Egypt’s Modern Pharaohs)
MANDELA, LEARNING FROM OTHERS’ MISTAKES: 3 (Tunisian Troubles, Libyan Losses, Ethiopian Woes)
MANDELA, LEARNING FROM OTHERS’ MISTAKES: 4 (Sudan and South Sudan)
MANDELA, LEARNING FROM OTHERS’ MISTAKES: 5 – (Ghanaian Black Holes & Ivorian Time Bombs)
MANDELA, LEARNING FROM OTHERS’ MISTAKES: 6 – (Nigerian Nightmare & Congolese Chaos)
MANDELA, LEARNING FROM OTHERS’ MISTAKES: 1 – (Preamble)
(Lessons from the first (mis)steps following modern Africa’s independence)
It sounds like a myth now. They say South Africa was on the brink of civil war after the release of Mandela and the collapse of apartheid. Civil war? Really? The Zulus and the Xhosas were heading for tribal war? And, simultaneously, the blacks against the whites in racial massacre? Well, it is true that it all sounds a bit far-fetched to some people now… because it did not happen. Because Mandela opted for reconciliation and spearheaded an intense drive to find a common basis for all to live, share power and face the future together. But, as far-fetched as all this may seem today, it was actually the most likely turn that events would have taken, based on the history of African so-called independence. This is a history that Mandela, and those who thought like him, knew all too well and, like wise people do, gravely feared. It is a history replete with the educative one-two punch of the strong heady wine of independence, liberation and freedom, eventually followed by the bad-tempered and moody hangover of disorientation, destabilisation and crisis.
Independence, all too often, is followed by civil strife and civil war. On all continents, in different eras, there abound records of great and small nations who have been unable to avoid this cliff in the arch of their history. When a nation-space has been oppressed or suppressed for a long time, it exhibits the properties of a socio-political pressure cooker. Once the lid of suppression is lifted, tumultuous explosions sooner or later follow as the various agendas and sensibilities of its component parts push to the fore, each demanding fulfilment. It requires strong-willed, knowing, conscious leadership to harness the liberated energies and channel them into constructive upbuilding. The opposite would mean a repetition of the same wild implosion into self-destruction witnessed after independence in many African countries, and as is happening right now in South Sudan. It is a pity that more than two decades after the fall of apartheid, Mandela’s example has not been understood and internalised by many other African peoples, personalities and groups still trying to find the most conducive forms of post-independent co-existence.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
Continued in Part 2 of 11:
MANDELA, LEARNING FROM OTHERS’ MISTAKES: 2 – (Egypt’s modern pharaohs)
WATER BORN SPECIES
Nestle CEO: Water is not a human right, should be privatized.
Because I thirst
For Love and Trust
When we meet I know
That your heart will quench
My thirst to quench your thirst
First –
For it is human
And it is right
To quench with Light
The thirst for Light
And we feel it like Water
Rejuvenating, refreshing
Flowing through us and
Keeping us alive –
Life startd in water
Millions of millions of years ago –
How many remember that?
We are all mermaids and mermen,
For we came out of the seas…
Mother Earth is our second mother
The first was the Ocean – Mother Water.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije
DISAPPEARING
That which is over
Feels like a dream
Even if it ended
Just yesterday
No matter how far in the past
No matter how far away
An unended story lies
It is with you here today
The heart is a miracle of chapters
Where pages grow blank
And as the days turn to nights and back
So life turns the pages of your heart.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
AGAINST POLITICAL INCORRECTNESS
Political correctness
Has fallen out of favour
Racial correctness
Is the new In-thing
The new hypocrisy
The new incarnation of evil
All you clever cowards
Claiming it’s time to be politically Incorrect
You have simply replaced one evil
With another –
Racial correctness
Cultural correctness
Religious correctness
Narrow-hearted correctness
That’s what brings in the Votes now.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
NAMELESS
I don’t exist
I died when I was a child
My parents killed me
This is a ghost
A flag fluttering in the wind
A nameless mound
A seeking that has grown weary
Of seeking – a being
That has tired of being
But being me
I must be and wait
For my funeral song, composed by me.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
OMEN
Manchmal liege ich namenlos da und weiß nicht, wer ich bin. Und bin glücklich.
Ich rufe mir alle Namen ins Gedächtnis, die ich jemals hieß oder noch heiße, im Spaß und im Ernst, doch – merkwürdig – keiner von ihnen trifft zu.
Ich habe mich daran gewöhnt, mich an meinen eigenen Namen nicht mehr erinnern zu können.
Vielleicht habe ich dadurch die Möglichkeit, wirklich Ich zu werden, Ich zu sein, mich (wieder) zu finden und zu erkennen – nicht im Namen nur, sondern tatsächlich im Wirken.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
AUSATMEN
Es ist wirklich egal, was andere denken. Mich verletzen kann nur meine eigene Eitelkeit.
Die Angst in den Augen der noch Gefangenen ist Ursprung der Traurigkeit dessen, der sich befreien konnte. Er weiß: sie werden ihn nie verstehen.
Denn keiner fürchtet die Freiheit mehr als der Gefangene. Keiner benötigt die Freiheit mehr, noch versteht sie weniger wie der Gefangene.
Die Angst regiert die Welt. Die Vorsicht. Die Nahsicht. Denn die Weitsicht ist bekanntlich eine Lüge, eine Illusion. Wer kann wirklich in die Zukunft schauen? Jenseits der Wolken. Nur Hellsichtigen.
Aber heute sage ich Euch ein Geheimnis. In dieser Welt gibt es keine Hellseher – es gibt nur Mutige und Vorsichtige. Einer dieser zwei Menschentypen ist hellsehend – triff Du Deine Wahl.
Letztendlich ist es egal, wie es ausgeht, und was andere – währenddessen oder danach – davon halten. Hauptsache: Du warst glücklich. Hauptsache:
Du bist glücklich. Weil Du Du bist.
– Che Chidi Chukwumerije.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 