I have never really understood poetry. And every time I hear it recited, I have the suspicion that it is the tone we would have were we regularly speaking to Angels, Demons and Deities. I find it unearthly. So whenever I am listening, I do so as a wide eyed child learning new words from conversing adults and most of it passes over my head until I hear some phrase that is so potent I shudder inwardly with a sense of wonder and I am like “Yes, I get that. Deep. How did she think of that?” So I was at an open mic poetry session, no determined theme, no structure, just you, your pad, your thoughts, your voice. A young lady with dreadlocks took the stage. Her eyes were fiery and she began to speak. Her words were loaded with feeling, her delivery was piercing and she was a daughter of Africa reminding her brothers and sisters that the fight was not over as “They are trying to colonize us again”. That was her recurring line in her stanzas. “They are trying to colonize us again.” Her piece was the longest and it was met with enthusiasm and as she spoke, in my mind flashed images of Robert Mugabe, Kamuzu Banda, Kwame Khrumah, Patrice Lumumba and Belgium’s King Leopold II. Why these particular images out of all potential ones, I don’t know. I just remember these men in my mind’s eye. When she finished she was given a hearty cheer. We had been reminded that “They are trying to colonize us again.” There were a few white people in the audience and as always when there is rhetoric of this nature where racial lines are demarcated, elephants appear in the room. I looked across the hall and wondered how they felt. I wondered how I felt.
To be colonized. What does that mean?
Two weeks later I was at a country club. And speaking of
country clubs what are they? Not one in Texas, or Melbourne but one in
Lilongwe, Lusaka, Dar-Es-Salaam or Lagos. What’s the idea behind them? This
particular one had a wall pasted with its previous chairmen. From the 1980s,
the initials and surnames of expatriates (and in those days expatriates were
almost exclusively white) were emboldened proudly. Further on, down a flight of
stairs, were pictures of a bygone era, members merrily sipping their lagers at
some fundraising event back in the 80s. I walked passed this notice board without
paying too much attention, played my one hour of social football and when we
were leaving the club in a drove of weary knees, I almost felt something
lightly scratch my back. I turned around and in the corner was a look of disdain
from the faces of some members sitting at a table. They were whispering. And
their whispers had the same disdain as their eyes. Someone in my accompanying
group commented “they are unhappy because of the noise we are making.” I have
never watched a sport played in silence so I replied “We are coming from a
football match. There are sporting facilities here which we regularly use, as
we paid to be here. As they did.” And so
I held their gazes for a moment and then left.
A week later I was back.
This time I was seated at a table, suit on straight from
work. This time I wasn’t there for social football. I was there for two
reasons. The first was to have a meal. The second and more important reason was
to appraise people. Yes to appraise people. If we are in the bad habit of
looking at one another with disdain in an arena where we stand on equal footing
then maybe we need to fully gauge one another. I watched as people walked in,
some to the gym, some to the restaurant, some to the fields, some to the bar. Some
people I knew, others were strangers and as they socialized in this club in an
instant something that I had vaguely known now became articulated in my mind. A
generation ago this place was built to make white people comfortable. That was
its prime purpose. It was seen as a barrier of defense against “The barbarian
hoardes”. And this is an attitude that many white people had then and some
still do today. To illustrate the general feel I will take an example from
history. There is the historical record of a discussion between one of the
Emperors of Rome and his advisors. The Emperor seeking glory and world conquest
kept pushing for expansion, to spread Rome’s shadow across all lands upon all
the Earths soil. One of his advisors then cautioned him and said “If we spread
ourselves too thin, the barbarians will
infiltrate our culture and ultimately will dilute
us. We will decline. And everything we have built will fall to ruins. Let’s
stop here.” That was the policy. Stop here. Interact at arm’s length, even be
cordial, but for goodness sake do not become infected. And in Malawi’s context with our history with the Brits, this
suited perfectly with the British temperament with its obsession with manners. People
possibly hostile towards you but groomed in such a manner as to not appear
vulgar. They often reminded themselves “We are Brits in a colony. Never forget.”
But that is certainly the past. At least to the extent it was once taken to.
This is 2014. Having never lived in the colonial era I only
understand it within a historical lens with no direct personal experience. However, every black person who learns of it
feels a cold horror descend upon him or her. This is the reality of being
black. We need not hide from it. It is all part of our unique journey to self
respect and affirmation. Where you finish counts more than where you began. And
many of us begin with self-doubt. What
was the difference between the colonizers and the colonized? It was principally
education. Education was and still remains the tool that elevates people. Now it so happens that the nature of education
has changed fundamentally since the days of Rhodesia and Nyasaland due
to arguably the most important invention of all time : The Internet. The
internet has forever changed the way a human being and knowledge interact.
Ignorance is fast becoming a bad habit. A white person in 1980 sitting at a
country club in Africa might puff himself with airs of superiority as a “bastion
of knowledge and culture” but there simply is no sound basis for this now. Knowledge
is more readily available now than it has ever been. And it will only spread. You
can learn to tie a Windsor knot right now if you don’t know how. Google it. The generation born post 1980 is possibly the most
privileged generation that ever lived for it collectively knows more than all
previous generations combined. Are we wiser? Can’t say. But we certainly know
more things and this knowledge is more accessible.
To clarify, everyone has the freedom of association. You have
the liberty to choose who you will spend your leisure time with. However if you
look down on other people based on some arbitrary feeling of superiority then I
pity you. No anger. Not anymore. Just pity. For you are a living ghost, chained
to the past walking among the living who are facing the light. And for those who have been on the receiving end of overt or covert racism, beware the seduction of pain. Suffering sometimes mysteriously causes you to forever dwell on it rather than simply move away. You need not focus on the slight, real or imagined. Your dignity is unassailable. And herein lay the strength of an incarcerated Nelson Mandela, head bloody but unbowed.Master of his fate. Captain of his soul. For within himself he was aware that it was his captors who were chained, not he. That it was the wider world
around him that was a gloomy prison no different to the tiny cell on Robben
island. This is no
assault on any race or skin color. This is about individuals and the people we
chose to be. There is much to be done to assist the understanding between
peoples, cultures, countries and races. The world is still a complex place and there
is a long way to go to build a better world. But this has always been the case, and we have somehow
arrived here. We choose to look forward. Yes, there are other forms of colonisation. More subtle ones, economic instruments, but we weren't looking at these. The colonized walk among us. Some of
them are white. The rest of us are free.
