AremoOluwa Paul
We are no longer under our colonial masters. Shocked? Perhaps this is an assumption and a debate for diplomatic tables. However, though we claim freedom as a country, individually we bow to western "lordship" and acknowledge their supremacy of lifestyle. The mental stroke we suffered years back trails us today.
"Germs and deadly bacteria lurk in your fingers," they say, while they handpick pop corns in cinemas. We term our folks "Bush boy/girl" when they feast with their God provided cutlery in our claim of superiority or as west-breeds using forks and knives (mental bankruptcy is emphasized here). Though you wash your hands before you “Level” a plate of pounded yam, you can be sure to offend an unknown black spectator musing at you in a corner. Often a sad news, you are too afraid to chew bones rich in calcium at a restaurant. But you brag about calcium pills as supplements in place of the bones you threw away a while ago.
When they dip their fingers in a cake and lick the cream off their fingers. When they hungrily sink their teeth in a burger, we wow them, as robber-like desire wells up from within us. We want the same burger here and now. When they eat their pizza straight off, our knees melt. We are not permitted in our own minds the freedom of living and lifestyle, no, right? It is to be defined and spelt out for us. The colonial mental oppression might be harsh but the brute force of celebrating lost identity by Africans is harsher still.
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| A black man in chains. courtesy www.malialitman.com. |
Somehow, our colonial masters crept into our minds, they hacked into our souls, entangling, it seems with our DNA, they go with us to our private beds. They spy on our decisions and bend our will towards theirs. From a Yoruba adult who cannot articulate his opinion without the use of a single "Geesi” (English) to our marriage. The West screams out of our women like demons during exorcism, "Women are not slaves! These chores are unbearable! It is a modern world! I don’t want to be a mother now, I need time. My career, My career". Those strangers in the minds of our women, the sub conscious feminist movement code, its faint whispers in the heart of the African woman.
Our land and soil have missed us so much, "When shall you rule us again being in tune with nature".
As I sat, the "agedly lands" stood in my silence and probed me. In vocal unison they asked, "Where is our children?" In mournful awe or gory fright I replied, "Statues blown away by a boisterous west wind". Now, their roughly textured palms bare me close, bridging the distance as their mute lipped faces asked one more, the same question. With slicing dagger eyes I replied "they are here eating & drinking in the queen's land, they never left when they left".
When did we need lessons on how to eat our own food? When did homemade meals and ethnic recipes need application of foreign ethics? Yes, I know, I know, and I know, the voice groaned out of me, it is this day when our show of superior gallivanting pride got attached to lifestyles that was never ours. We can’t total what years of colonial rule had done to us. But we can tell what it is doing to us. I hear their whispers as i sink within sea of thoughts... hussshh!!
"You are never free if your liberty is based on others definition of freedom. At best, you become a loyal captive, a chained dog barking at master's trespassers, though you both live in one world; One outside the fence and you behind the gate, the master's reign has no barriers".
Black is not a disease, neither is it a sickness or a stain. It is not a color, hence you can’t wish or rub it off. But here is a old and revered quote "from the dust (black soil) we (black and white) came and to it we return". Even the soil, the fiber of every walking monument carries that "black signatory of our skin". Be unique, be bold and be real, you are Africa, nature's pampered calf.
Note: No racial thoughts or provocation is encouraged. This is simply an appreciation of Africa’s identity.
Email:aremooluwapaul@gmail.com
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