DRAMA of TWO AFRICANS in HYDE PARK Pt 2

Drama of Two Africans in Hyde Park 

By Nzinga Nzinga

When African from the East meets African from the West, ole fiah tick easy fi ketch! (It is easy to ignite old fire sticks.)

♪♪ I want you beside me all of the time…

Holding hands together… 

All in the same boat. 

Rocking on the same road…

We got to get together. ♪♪

-- Bob Marley…Satisfy My Soul

 Part 2.

“You have hit the nail on the head. We Africans have to get closer together. We have to start moving towards one another cutting across boundaries, tribal differences and linguistic peculiarities. All black people are Africans.” The Gold Coast man’s voice rang out with excitement.

“You are talking unity. That is the core of my message to our brothers in Africa. We have to unite, not only African nations together but also all Africans in the world at home and abroad. There is a radical Jamaican who will one day sing:

           ♪♪ No matter where you come from

           As long as you’re a blackman you’re an African. ♪♪

Even those who do not yet know that they are Africans will soon learn. You see, my brother, there is a natural mystic blowing through the air and it is African. It is the hegemony of the African spirit that will generate in Africans at home and abroad, a new consciousness never before witnessed. It is the African spirit indigenous to our continent and which can be retained, maintained, sustained and exercised nowhere else but in Africa." He stood up, sat down again and stood up again. 

Pacing back and forth, he continued to speak. "Let me repeat. It is absolutely essential and necessary that the hegemony of the African spirit be retained in situ on the continent of Africa, the only place on earth where this can happen. It is the spirit which inspires us, not only to feel good about ourselves, but also to want Africa for Africans at home and abroad. That's not racism, but rather the policy of putting race first, a course we have yet to learn to pursue.”

“That is good news, my nameless brother. We need such a force of nationalism to wake up our people to what we can achieve,” said the man from the Cold Coast.

“My brother, believe me, when it gets really forceful it will even awaken our dead!”

The continental laughed. “You, yourself are certainly forceful. A few more like you in Africa and those undesirable, colonialist bald heads would be running away from the continent without even a backward glance. You are such a strong character.”

The non-continental smiled. “I suppose I am. You see, it comes to the individual, the nation and the race once in a lifetime to decide upon the course to be pursued as a career. The hour has now struck for the individual African as well as the entire race to decide the course which needs to be pursued in the interest of our liberty and rehabilitation. Let them beat the black man, scoff at the black man, deride the black man. It may come back on them one of these fine days because what goes around comes around." 

He paused for breath and then continued. "Today one race is up, tomorrow it has fallen; today the black man seems to be the footstool of the other races and nations of the world. Tomorrow the black man may well occupy the highest rung of the great human ladder, since civilisation moves in cycles.  Black people were once great and we shall be great again. Lose not courage. Lose not faith. Go forward! The time is ripe for the black man to step onto the stage of world affairs, to take his rightful place among men. It’s Black man’s redemption time!” The speaker’s enthusiasm was contagious.

The continental African was pacing in front of his interlocutor. “Oh that I could memorise your words and transmit them word for word to our people when I return home. All that you are saying is true and I am feeling better in spirit already. I was feeling very discouraged when I left the conference room not long ago. Now your words are inspiring me with great confidence courage and hope. I will never forget them. The conference was an immense disappointment. At the end of all those deliberations there were neither any gains for Africa in general nor for Gold Coast in particular."

Shaking his head and sighing, he continued. "All the gains were for Europe. Frankly, it was their conference. They invited us only to hear how we are thinking, what new pressures to put on us and to discover where they are safe enough to slacken up a bit in those areas. I have grown sick and tired of these conferences. Some of my countrymen can’t have enough of them, but as for me, I think they are intended to trap us into selling out our own people. I had no good news to take back to my people in the Gold Coast. I was overcome with hopelessness and ashamed of our powerlessness until you started speaking to me. But now your words have inspired me. Would that my colleagues attending the conference could hear you too!”

“Conferences! Conferences! The white man will have you so confused with conferences you will start to think that there are no alternatives to solving your problems besides conferences organised by the white man. He, the white man, is our problem so it is a waste of time and a contradiction to sit down with him in his conferences to get him off your back. When the Almighty found out that Lucifer was colonising heaven and suborning his angels, did he call a conference? Did he send angels to negotiate with Satan? Did he sign treaties, pacts and deals with Satan? Of course not. He kicked out Satan and his unholy posse all the way down to hell where they belong.  Heaven belongs to God and Satan had tried to usurp power right there in God’s territory. " He gently slapped the African from the Great House, from the Continent of Africa. 

"Let me continue," he said. "Africa is yours. There is a certain proverb: 'No two roosters like to crow from the same roof top.'  In other words, the black man and the white man cannot both be masters in Africa at the same time. If the black man wishes to be master in his own land as the white man is indisputably master in his, he has to push the white man from off his roof top thus laying claim to the right to crow from it alone. He has to be the solo and numero uno cock from on high!” 

“I'm picking up. Your words will not fall on barren ground.  What we have to do will undoubtedly take time but we can and we will do it. Now that the fears are dissipating I can see more clearly. Thank you. You have just quoted an African proverb. What nationality are you? Are you American or are you from the West Indies?”

“Same difference. The white man’s slave ships docked in the West Indies and in America and those who rode to wealth and prosperity on the backs of our ancestors were just as cruel and evil in America as they were in Jamaica, Haiti, Brazil or wherever they enslaved our people. They are the same people who have the nerve to hold our continent in colonial bondage. I am African. I know no national boundary where the black man is concerned. The whole world is my province until Africa is free! However to satisfy your curiosity, I was born in Jamaica, West Indies.”

“Aha! A Jamaican! We need more men who think like you, more men of your calibre to further our cause.”

“What our race needs, is men of vision, endurance and ability, men of character and above all, men of honesty and that is hard to find.” The stranger told the Gold Coast man.

“They will come forward if we can rouse them to sufficient consciousness of their responsibility to our continent.”

“Unfortunately, the great stumbling block in the way of progress in our race has invariably come from within the race itself.” The man from the occident bemoaned.

The continental African looked pained and nodded. “That I will not dispute. That menace looms large on the continent. You would expect that our people would unanimously want to be free of the chains of colonialism and serfdom. But no. There are those who betray us to the coloniser for the most trivial thing such as a nod of approval or an old shirt.”

“In the fight to reach the top, the oppressed have always been encumbered by the traitors of their own race, made up of those who are generally susceptible to bribery for the selling out of the rights of their own people.”

“Education is, I think, the only solution,” the continental said.

The non-continental shouted. 

“Education! Education, indeed! The traitor of other races is generally confined to the mediocre or irresponsible individual, but unfortunately, the traitors among the race of the black man are generally to be found among the men highest placed in education and society, the fellows who call themselves educated and leaders.” 

“You are right again but don't you believe in education?” The man from Africa asked in surprise.

“Of course I believe in education when education is the medium by which a people are prepared for the creation of their own particular civilisation, and the advancement and glory of their own race. You cannot expect to use the very type of education bestowed on you by your enemy to overthrow him. That education is given to you to maintain the status quo which keeps him in his privileged place and you in your underprivileged one. It is orchestrated to keep you from emancipating yourself from mental slavery. As I remarked before, to see your enemy and know him is a part of the complete education of man.” So saying, he sat down with his head in his hands. His eyes were wet. So were those of his companion. 

So are mine. (The author, Nzinga Nzinga.)


To be continued
All the images were taken from the Internet and I claim no copyright.