By Tiro Makhudu
In a book, House boy By Ferdinand Oyono, a question that haunted me when I first read continues to haunt today. “Brother, what are we,” Toundi Onduo asks as he enjoys his last arki, only minutes before his death, “what are we black men who are called French?” In an age of the educated or emancipated or woke African and it is “or” because none is a direct function of the other, have we truly answered this question or is it only cotton candy to the pallets of us pseudo-intellectuals in the pursuit of adulation and not the mental, spiritual and intellectual awakening of our people?
Although I possess a healthy level of arrogance, it is not so egregious that I would think myself so gifted as to possess a solution of general application or an exhaustive answer to the question I pose. However, it perturbs me deeply when I see intellectually well-rounded young Africans waste their mental capital to sound as though activist blood surges through their veins or that the best interest of our people is remotely the goal, when in fact, I posit, the only real outcome is laughable grandstanding to which one end is certain: our people, the targets of said posturing grow fatigued and irritable. So I ask again: “what are we black-men who are called French?” or rather more aptly, “what are we young Africans who are called woke?” What is our function? What is our goal? And by all things sacred, what do we have to show for it?!
Yes, we have poked holes in the bible but what purpose does it serve if we have done nothing to reignite African belief systems that we make a concerted effort to label origin? Sure, we know our history was deliberately misconstrued twisted and where possible totally buried but what are we doing to get the correct narrative to the relevant ears in order to restore our dignity and pride and reclaim the thrones that have us calling each other kings and queens? Does your own child know and identify with these ideas? Does your family, your associates, anybody?
The truth and as bitter as it is, is that the average “WOKE” brother cannot (not without conscious attempt) complete an entire paragraph purely in their own mother tongue. Is language not the first step in conquest? Is this not why Donald Tsietsi Mashinini died in exile and Hector was gunned down in the streets. Where is the militancy with which a young, black, born-again Christian would defend his God when it comes to defending, rebuilding and promoting our language and culture if we are indeed Woke? What is the point of it all?
It seems to me that we are far too long too invested in appearances and lack in the area of implementation. The average African knows that we are the poorest because we are the only people who lack the drive and organizational cohesiveness to spend amongst our kind. Information and education seem to be a pointless sport for us and I find myself constantly at pains to understand what informs this. Have we been subjugated for so long that drinking is still a subject of discourse even when standing at the spring?
I haven’t the answers…but no question under the sun is without one. I heritage, Intel, sense of self and other things have been taken, stolen, brought near destruction and labeled for us…but nothing that is plagiarized can successfully be hidden from its originator. All the tools we need are before us and all we need is to tap into the clues they do not know they have left us in everything they took and westernized. The imposters of Egypt, the so-called mathematicians, the innovators of Europe, those that claim to have pulled you into civilization when in truth they had plunged you into darkness and emerged the heroes of a crisis they had created. Those that taught you to hate yourself and aspire to a standard of beauty that pales in comparison to yours!! That is the genius in the madness that we live in…
By Tiro Makhudu
Tiro Makhudu is an aspiring writer who has written for several local television productions and a voice screaming the narrative that needs to be heard with no one willing it to tell it. With an unapologetic, no nonsense approach, Tiro holds no punches and purports to wake the spirit of his fellow man with the belief that that woke spirit will translate into a sharp and pro-African weapon of a mind that will deliver the African from his mind, body and soul penitentiary. An Africanist through and through and all round social commentator, Tiroseeks to plant his tiny seedlings in the landscape of the discourse that will one day give rise to the brightest Africa that the winds of change and hands of time will allow
