Prologue
This is not an article, this is a story. Articles are for certainty, stories are for exploration. To determine the sort of reality that we want, exploration is necessary. We must first imagine what is there; what the possibilities are. To imagine that, we must begin with what was there. That’s an indication of possibility; if something was once there, then perhaps it can be there again. With these conversations, we map out our situation. We must know where we are so as to determine a heading — where we must go.
The Africa We Want
On rainless evenings, after the household has been properly fed, grandmother gathers all the children about her. All the children that are not fast asleep on the backs of their mothers — or the other adults old enough to hold children on their backs — assemble. Grandmother, with grandfather often seated beside her, will start her stories, and lanterns will illuminate the eager visages of the children. This is a significant activity.
Did you know that in some countries there are so many languages spoken that that gives the government of these countries the liberty to assign official status to more than one, or two of them? That’s the sort of comment that comes to mind when a person says, queryingly, “tell me something interesting”. What is a language, and of what importance is it to the development of a people and of the peoples of the world?
The stories range from those concerning issues of comedy to those concerning issues of morality. Riddled with call and response songs, these stories fascinate the children limitlessly. Grandmother is almost always assured of their rapt attention. Grandmother is a wonderful storyteller, she’s clinical in her dissection of important matters. Grandfather coughs, laughs, or gasps, like the children; to indicate his engagement.
I have heard that it was said that the attempt to reap where one has not sown is an exercise in futility. This brings education to mind, quickly. Education is, strictly speaking, sowing. According to this principle, making demands of innovation, entrepreneurship, revolution, of any population in which one has not sown is tantamount to asking for the impossible. To some, this is mild insanity — the type that’s blind to itself. Others think it is expressly immoral.
Grandmother’s primary concern is not the introduction of the sometimes difficult topics that are explored by the stories that she tells. Her primary concern is that the children will encounter these issues on their own without the equipment to make sense of it. Grandmother trusts us, as much as we trust her. She trusts our understanding, our curiosity, our humanity. Grandmother trusts us, with these stories.
Often, borders are an inorganic imposition. The markets of Gao and Timbuktu were very familiar with the traders from the tropical forests of Òyọ́. To varying degrees, these peoples exchanged cultures, technologies, wares, and languages along all the routes. These truths don’t die, they live on in our need for the true freedom to live and trade on our own terms. Often, borders are a detrimental foreign imposition. Are these borders us? Do they bother us?
Grandmother is no longer with us bodily; she is now in the place she told us in her stories that she would one day go. She said grandfather would go too. Sometimes, we could sense the urgency with which she told us these stories; it was as if she wanted to tell us all that she knew– all that she could — before she had to go. Her stories are still with us, and she said that we must pass them on as well. It’s our duty. I’m passing this on to you.
Epilogue
What place will offer us the utmost liberty for the expression of our essence? This is beyond economics, this is beyond art. What we want is the liberty to bring forth our humanity. Only when our humanity is fully developed and expressed can we contribute maximally to the shared humanity.
Written by:
Akin Akinsola, member of Think Africa
