Who I Am

The more things change, the more the stay the same. This is the story of the world we live in today as we seem to be stagnated in a constant flux between the hopeful possibility of a better, more peaceful, healthier future and a cataclysmic devolution into irreversible anarchy. The handwritings are on the walls and pretty much everywhere else you look. Global Warming is ravaging the earth - no thanks to our collective irresponsibility. Global warfare on another note has spiralled out of control, with the institutions of state facing new kinds of enemies - the faceless kinds who are happy enough to just spread the gospel of fear. Global population is on an uncontrollable rise and we all keep saying the same things, attributing our actions and inactions to the will of the almighty. It all has to be part of THE PLAN. We pretend that the world is some kind of fictional place where all our actions have pre determined consequences of which we need not take responsibility and when they turn around to bite us in the ass, we cry to high heavens and say it is God’s wish, as though he is like one of us, spiteful and vengeful. Yet amidst the uncertainties and the constants, the individual is still on an onward journey towards self actualization, fulfilment, redemption, salvation or Nirvana…the conclusive, satisfying closure to our existence. I have not met anyone who said “do you know what? I think I want to die before I’ve accomplished myself”. That is just ridiculous and nobody thinks that way. Our minds are designed to seek the attainment of these existential satisfactions. This is why when a person can no longer access that desire to achieve, they become broken, depressed and in some cases, suicidal. The desires to be more, to achieve and even in trying times, to overcome, and to know that which is not yet known are the fuels that keeps the mind of the individual burning. I travelled to my hometown recently, the ancient own of Agbaghara Nsu where my ancestors carried on iron works in the days of old. I sat in the quietness of my grandmother’s front yard next to the local palm oil mill which has been serving our village for ages, contemplating something that seems be lost on most people in our generation, and that is the question of who we truly are. I mean who we were before we were robbed of our identity and white washed in the name of civilization and salvation. My trip could not have come at a better time as I had been asking myself and others around me, some really difficult questions whose answers are buried in the graves of those who came before us. I had been feeling an unusual inquisition for a better understanding of the events which led us to where we are today. They say that after a war is settled, the victor gets to write the history and that the dead tell no tales. The first one is true enough but if we can believe in the supernatural as we have been taught to then I think one can argue that the dead do whisper and if you listen and look closely enough you can see and hear their truth beneath all the lies that have been entrenched into our consciousness over the years. You will hear them tell you that we were never a barbaric people in need of civilization, nor were we faithless. In fact we were the epitome of faith. I do not mean the sort of that is peddled by religious or political fundamentalists by whatever name they choose to call themselves. What they have is not faith, it is heartless conviction. It is righteousness, by which I mean the overbearing obsession with being so very right. But faith has nothing to do with conviction or certainty. Faith has more to do with the willingness to accept that which you are unsure of to be true. Real faith is the inclination to accept that all what you think you know could be utterly wrong and that there is so much more to that which meets the eye. This brings me finally to the crux of my writing this today. I have struggled like many people and I still am struggling with the question of who exactly I am. Sitting out there in the pitch darkness of a cold summer night, something spoke to me and it gave me a burst of new energy. Although I had never felt that way before, it still felt very familiar and from that moment as far as I can tell, I am a son of the soil and the cream of a long cultivated crop, whose roots are deeply seated in the cradle of a forgotten heritage.