DRAMA OF TWO AFRICANS IN HYDE PARK PART 5

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 5

It was the Jamaican who was speaking again.

“There are some lines which are yet to be written by someone yet unborn, of a Nigerian father and English mother. He will sing them. Oh, if only my people would take them to heart,” said the man from the West.

“So you do have the gift of prophecy. I thought so. I am all ears. Can you recite them for me?”

“These lines reveal very clearly what I feel and have been so often trying to express to the enemies of African wholesale liberty:

♪♪ The higher you build your barriers, the taller I become.

The more that you take my rights away, the faster I will run.

You can deny me, you can decide to turn your face away

No matter ‘cause there’s something inside so strong.

I know that I can make it tho’ you’re doing me wrong, so wrong.

You thought that my pride was gone

O, no. Something inside so strong.

The more you refuse to hear my voice the louder I will sing

You hide behind walls of Jericho. Your lines will come tumbling.

Deny my place in time. You squander wealth that’s mine.

My light will shine so brightly, it will blind you

Because there’s something inside so strong…(to ‘pride was gone’)

Brothers and sisters, when they insist we’re just not good enough

But we know better. Just look ‘em in the eyes and say

Gonna do it anyway. Because there’s something inside so strong. ♪♪ - (Taken from Labi Siffre)

“What a memory! I am overwhelmed. I am overcome. That is it, isn’t it? You are definitely going to make it anyway because of that something inside so strong. My heart is in turmoil as is my head. You can look into the future and see those words. Why don’t you put it to music for the benefit of us all?”

"This is not the time for it to be aired. I was only giving you a preview to strengthen you. The time has not yet come for it to appear publicly. Moreover, I am no musician so I cannot put it to music. In time it will be put to music and sung for and by others of African ancestry, who have been battered and bruised, their pride assailed and assaulted by these same merchants of flesh and blood. He will be praised and blessed for it. Meanwhile, I will lean on the words of his song and as they are indelibly printed in my memory, I have access to them when the going gets really rough and tough.”

“I don’t know where you get this confidence to withstand your opponents.”

“One day you will learn when you find yourself taking on the Herculean task of freeing your country from the colonialists. I thrive on opposition so I’m gonna do it anyway. As long as I live I will strive to redeem our continent and our people from the foes of African liberty. I am not alone. There are many others alive, many who have passed on and others not yet born. There is an activist from Br. Guiana who will enlighten you in vivid, articulate and eloquent language ‘How Europe underdeveloped Africa’.

Walter Rodney

It will make you want to wipe those wicked people from Planet Earth. We Africans will not cease from struggling, for until we chase out these big-time capitalists, our continent will remain underdeveloped and impoverished for us and our people will continue to be beggars. Imagine begging from the very people who are openly and bare-facedly stealing our wealth and squandering it! I have dreams, man. I have dreams.”

“Go on, tell me your dreams. You wear the look of a man who could move mountains.”

“If I could, I would remove the mountains of ignorance, lethargy, beggy-beggy attitude and racial unconsciousness from the minds of our people. I dream that Africa will be great again. I dream that instead of Ethiopia and Liberia being the only two independent African states, that all African states, large and small, will be emancipated from their colonial enemies and be independent and sovereign, with their own sovereign governments, rulers, councils, ministers, diplomats and ambassadors, all black people." 

"When I use the term black, I do not mean necessary as black as you or me, but of African ancestry. I dream of having our own armed forces, of flying our own flags, in possession of our own state buildings and manning them with staff from among our own people. I have visions of owning our own air lines and airports, our own shipping lines and our own institutions of leaning geared for African development of our own men and women. I dream of having industrial complexes with well-equipped and well-maintained facilities for processing our own mineral and agricultural resources, in short, our raw materials which we now allow these colonial imperialists to take out of our continent for free or extraordinarily cheap. Yes, I dream of cities and villages properly equipped with the appropriate infrastructures, amenities and modern conveniences. Am I boring you?”

“Of course not. How could you? I am all ears. Pray continue.”

Bob Marley

“A great Jamaican singer will sing, “In the midst of water the fool is still thirsty.”  Think of how rich the continent of Africa is with all its resources, yet in the midst of all this wealth its people are still in need. Yes, with all the abundance of water, African people are still thirsty. I dream of being in total control of our own mining resources. I dream of well-run farms, factories, large and small businesses, and our people gainfully employed. I envisage our lands and waters used to supply and satisfy the needs of our people without destroying the natural environment. I dream of factories manufacturing our own means of transportation and other goods that would cut down on imports and provide substantial exports. I dream of our old and our young not left to the mercy of charity."

"Oh that your dreams could materialise! These are my dreams too though not as wide-ranging and far-reaching. Please carry on." 

"I dream of a people respecting their colour and hair and those of their own kith and kin. I dream of Africans from outside the continent returning and receiving meaningful welcome to help rebuild Africa and the souls of black people. I dream of places of recreation where our people can go and be entertained free or at minimal cost. I dream of clean, wholesome places where our children can safely play. I pray for societies where people resolve their differences in a peaceful manner and not in a belligerent way. I pray for societies where the artistic and creative talents of our people can develop, can find many righteous ways and outlets of expression. I dream of management of our resources, human and natural and of all our affairs being totally in the hands of our own people, our people of African ancestry."

"I dream of African unity for all Africans at home and abroad enshrined in the charter of our own organisations and constitutions uniting all African states and all African people outside of the continent. I dream of a different U.S.A from the one that is so hard on the dreams of the black man. The U.S.A that I dream of is the United States of Africa. I dream of a United States of Africa flying the red, green and black flag or whichever flag that symbolises the past, the present experiences and the future hopes of our people. I dream of all black men universally coming together in one concerted effort to redress, redeem, rebuild and rehabilitate our beloved continent of Africa. At this rate you will call me a Joseph, a dreamer.”

“Your dreams are what we Africans need to put into action. They say that dreams without action are useless and action without dreams is a nightmare. I’m sure you have more dreams to share with me.”

“I dream, yes, my brother, I dream of a time in the near future when my African race, my African people will understand the absolute necessity of putting race first and I don’t mean any other race, besides our race, our African race. Only when we put our race first, will we achieve blackman redemption, which in the final analysis, is what this entire struggle is about. Once blackman redemption is achieved by his own efforts and not by the noblesse oblige or charity of other races, the black race will stand tall and be free to carry out the destiny of which we can be proud."

"You are so articulate!" Exclaimed the Gold Coast man.

Thank you, my friend. Articulacy or eloquence is a valuable asset. Liberty and independence are empty and ineffective unless the people, who have gained the independence, have also emancipated themselves from mental slavery and thus act to put their own people first with respect and valuation. Then will we be free to carry out the programmes that will rehabilitate our continent and ourselves.”

Non-colonial map of Africa

He stopped, both wiping their eyes and staring out into the distance as if they could see something. Maybe they were staring at a non-colonial map of Africa.

His captive audience’s voice was gruff and teary as he managed to say: “Wonderful! Do you know that I used to dream of so many changes but to be perfectly honest, I must confess that I have never entertained such high hopes. However, now that you have revealed so many of your dreams and visions for our people and our continent, I promise that I too will serve my continent and my people with my last breath and even after, come what may.”

They shake hands on it. The man from the Gold Coast spoke again, “There are men and women in my country ready and willing to die than continue to be humiliated this way, if in dying they can achieve freedom for our people. I am so happy to have met you, my Jamaican brother-with-no-name. May all your dreams, which are now mine, come true.”

The Jamaican responded. “Yes, may all our dreams and those we haven’t articulated or yet thought of, come true. It’s up to us. We can do it anyway. We can make them come true. Whatever man has done, man can do. Men who are in earnest are not afraid of consequences.”

To be continued.

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

DRAMA OF TWO AFRICANS IN HYDE PARK Part 4

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 4

“My Jamaican brother, I don’t think you are arrogant though you do seem to have such sweeping visions. You seem to paint on larger canvases than other men do. You seem to fear nothing as if there is no hurdle you cannot successfully scale. If anyone can help to create our own leaders, our own presidents, our own laws, our own men of big affairs, you seem to me to be that man. Never have I seen so much confidence in any one black man. Any man who can look at the mighty combined power of Europe and America, any man who can openly challenge the stranglehold that the white race has on us through their evil racist policies of colonialism and imperialism, has to be super confident. You are truly a confident man.”

“Confidence is one of the golden keys to success. If you have no confidence in self, you are twice defeated in the race of life. With confidence you have won even before you have started. Let them bring their racist hurdles, let them boast of their racist barriers and let them parade their racists ‘do-nots’, ‘cannots’ and ‘dare-nots’. They do not apply to me. They do not faze me in the least. I am ready to challenge them because I am prepared. There are millions of others who are also prepared for our redemption even if they don’t know it yet. There are millions yet unborn who will turn the tide of this universal oppression of the black man." 

With a broad smile, the eloquent non-continental African continued. "We must never underrate the absolute necessity of preparedness. Preparedness is awareness. We Africans will fight by any means necessary and there is no doubt that we shall win, because there is something inside of us so strong that does not recognise failure and which gives us the will to survive. We are the survivors, the black survivors. Above all, good will triumph over evil. We are not boasting that we are good but we know that our cause is a good one and that of the enemy, an evil one. So we shall triumph.”

The man from the Gold Coast exclaimed, “I have to repeat myself and tell you what a great inspiration you are to me and I am sure to many others who have been fortunate and privileged to hear such goodly words as you have been giving me. This is the best thing that has happened to me since I left home; in fact in my whole life. I am totally committed to the liberty, unity and rehabilitation of Africa so your words are at this time most appropriate and relevant. They are a balm to my soul and a fiery flame that ignites my spirit and my nationalist fire. I am one of those Africans who do not feel comfortable in the white man’s backyard and am very happy when I find myself home again even though we are still controlled over there by them.”

“It’s the food, man. You miss your fufu, kenkey, tilapia and banku, not to mention your palm-wine,” the non-continental teased the continental African.

 Ghanaian cuisine 

“Okra stew, light soup and all those other sweet things that I am accustomed to smell and eat in my country. I can well believe that you are a Jamaican. I heard you call me ‘man’. That is so Jamaican. I can tell. Don't deny it.”

Ghanaian Palm wine tapping

Ghanaian Okra stew

Ghanaian Fufu & Light soup

Ghanaian Grilled Tilapia\

“I won't deny it. I was born and raised in Jamaica. I thought I said so. Oh, I see. I meant to but I was so busy laying my African nationality on the line so strongly, I didn't get to the Jamaican one.”

Jamaican Ackee & Johnny cakes

Uncooked ackees

Jamaican Ackee & saltfish, breadfruit & pear 

“You did reveal your Jamaican nationality. I was merely pointing out that your use of 'man' Jamaican-style confirmed your nationality. Do you miss your ackee and saltfish, your curried goat, your bammy and escovitch fish and white rum?"

Jamaican Curried goat

                                                         

Jamaican Escovitch Fish

Jamaican Bammy

       

Jamaican Patty

Jamaican Red Stripe beer

"Of  course I do but there are places here where they are available. I like our Jamaican food. When I go home to Jamaica, the first thing I eat is a patty and drink a cold Red Stripe Beer. Nothing beats a really hot beef patty, man." 

"Jamaican-man, you are funny. However, I have never been so inspired in my whole life. It is possible that the real reason for my coming here to Britain was to meet you and that the conference was only a side-show.” The son of the Old Great House, Africa, was pleasantly surprised by the outpourings of his articulate Jamaican brother, who was so aggressively fearless and who so greatly resembled his senior sister’s husband.

“You look a lot like my senior sister’s husband,” he said with a smile.

“And you, with your distinctively receding forehead, look a lot like an uncle of mine. It's not surprising. We are all brothers. We come from many tribes but we are descendants of the same ancestors, those at home and those abroad. Some of our common ancestors were shipped out into slavery but the rootstock has survived as a people known for their ability to survive the seemingly insurmountable. Even when all the odds seem to be against us, we pull through." He stood up and paced back and forth before continuing.

"Some of the survivors on this western side of the Atlantic hold repatriation dear to our hearts. It is the light leading us on, helping us to tolerate the ignominies to which we are daily subjected in living and dealing with a race of people who in their self-centred imperialism, use, abuse, misuse and disrespect us.  The condition of Africa and Africans abroad stands as a reality of the extent to which racist people can denigrate and humiliate a people who gave them no just cause to treat them so. Africa also stands as a reality, not an illusion, to those of us who yearn for our continent.”

“Besides being Jamaican, who are you really? What is your name? Please disclose something about yourself. I am eaten up with curiosity. You look like us. You say you are in the same mess we are in. You offer us help though I have yet to learn what form it will take. Are you an organiser of some African liberation group in the West? Are you travelling incognito? Tell me, my friend and satisfy my curiosity."

“Think of me as one of your African brothers in the West, outside of Africa. Millions of others like myself are a consequence of the abominable African-European Slave Trade. We must be honest and not forget African's part in it. You are obviously aware of how our mutual ancestors made a grievous error in participating in a trade of human flesh, the flesh of their own people with at first the Arabs and then the Europeans from all over Europe." The Jamaican took a deep breath.

"Don't stop, my brother. Please continue." The man from the Gold Coast said.

"Slavery, any slavery is iniquitous but the European Slave Trade was for us African peoples the most iniquitous of all because it was done with the connivance of Africans and the captives were sold into slavery to an alien racist people totally different from them. The very merchants, who carried off our mutual ancestors, are the ancestors of those who are illegally trespassing on our continent and acting like gods, as if our continent is theirs to plunder while our people suffer deprivation. They are no longer called slave traders but now colonialists, capitalists and imperialists. No matter what titles they assume to carry out their wicked agenda, they are the same white racists. A change of name has not changed and cannot change their reprehensible character.”

“I must return to my question of your identity. You must reveal to me who you really are when you are home in the West.”

“My home is not in the West. The West is but a temporary place of residence for some of us dispossessed children of Africa. Even though I was born in St. Ann, a country parish in Jamaica in the Caribbean, my home is unquestionably Africa. I long for the opportunity to go home and find rest but as long as others occupy it unlawfully, there will be no peace or rest for such as you and me in Africa. I may never get there in the personality in which I now appear but I firmly believe that in the same way that I was once there, long ago, I will return. Indeed, I shall return. No force can stop that. I will return to my ancestral homeland in some form or the other. I am an African whose only mission in life is to strive for African liberation and unity by any means necessary. My wife and children will attest to that since I have sacrificed my nuclear family for my universal African one. Rest assured that I will return to our continent when the right time comes.”

“You are certainly a man of mystery. I still know nothing personal or professional about you except that you are Jamaican and have a wife and children, that you like Jamaican patties and are totally committed to the cause of African liberation, unity and independence. As I said, I am very curious about you.”

“I am not just a personality. I am a history. I am and will continue to be the history of the many sons and daughters of Africa who are scattered and peeled outside of our continent. Ever heard of the Wandering Jew? I bet you have. But have you heard of the Wandering African? That’s me. Suffice it to say that I am a defender of African liberty and meaningful independence at home and abroad. It is essential to remember that the two sets of Africans ought to be considered together as one unit. Yes, my Gold Coast brother, I am a defender of the African faith and so shall I continue until I draw my last breath and even after that. I have pledged my life to the African cause. I know no greater commitment. I know no other commitment to which I could be so devoted and dedicated." He paused to take a deep breath. 

"As I said, my family will tell you that I have subordinated all else to the African cause and that is unequivocal truth. My wife is not only a defender of the African cause but my defender also. Blessed be her name among women and among defenders of our African faith! I am what the foes of African liberty brand as a terrorist, an incendiary, a racist, a rabble-rouser and the one they exceedingly hate, persecute and prosecute. I am the ugly, big mouth blackman they love to hate. I am the one against whom they suborn our own people of African descent to entrap me and to publish all manner of vile propaganda and calumnies against me and the methods I use to defend our African cause. I am all of those things and more to them and shall so continue until I no longer can in the flesh and until Africa is free and able to rule her own destiny.”

“You are what Africa needs. You are an inspiration and I am sure that you will inspire many of our people to correct action on behalf of our homeland. You have certainly inspired me. I want you to know that whatever my contribution in the future towards the meaningful liberty, independence and unity of Africa, I owe in great part to you.”

“Thank you.”

“But are you really not worried that they will try to stop you?”

“They never stop trying to muzzle, suborn or destroy defenders of the African Cause. Let them hate and oppose me. Let them point their big guns at me. I have no fear for atomic energy for none of them can stop the time. Let them suborn my own people to manufacture all manner of slanderous lies about me. Let them publish their lying propaganda against me. I have nothing to hide. What I tell the world is God’s truth. Africa for Africans at home and abroad."

“Hear! Hear! How sweet are your words to me and will be to my beleaguered people in the Gold Coast.”

“The white man has no legal or legitimate rights in Africa. His presence there in the capacity of ruler or over-lordship position is a clear manifestation of his racism, bigotry, prejudice and discrimination that he uses to entrench himself as supreme ruler of the world. Let them come in the morning. I shall be ready. Let them come at noonday. I shall be ready. Let them come in the dark of night or at dawn. I shall be ready then too. Let them come with their law enforcement agents, their injustice and their dogs. I shall be ready and waiting, knowing that they must come for the reason that they do not defend truths and rights but wickedness and destruction. They must stamp out truth and righteousness because they are opponents of those who defend those virtues."

"That is so true, Please continue." 

"Let them come with their atomic weapons. I have no fear for atomic energy for none of them can stop the time. I have no fear for their weapons of destruction because though they destroy the body, they still cannot destroy the truth. Others may get faint heart and change sides or hide, but as for me, as for me, I will serve Africa and the God of Africa from here to eternity, come what may.”

Jamaican Sunday dinner

Ghanaian Palm wine

“My African brother from Jamaica, you are fantastic! Your words are therapeutic. I know that you will be faced with many obstacles but I believe that you are really and truly prepared for every contingency, even the worst. May God bless and protect you.”

"Thank you."

To be continued

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

DRAMA OF TWO AFRICANS IN HYDE PARK Part 3

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 3 

“You said that we have the same enemy," said the Gold Coast man. "I take it that you mean that all black people of the African race are beset by the same enemy regardless of where in the world they are. That theory is not held among the people with whom I associate but I am amazed that we never saw the truth of it before.”

“It’s not just that the black man encounters the enemy wherever he is that makes it so terrible, but that when these colonisers, who in divers ways proved themselves to be the enemies, control our continent, they automatically control all black people, all 400 million of us. If the family house is under siege by robbers, then all the children are affected because they too are under siege.”


“I get the point. So anyhow we take it, black people are under attack,” conceded the Gold Coast man.

“Precisely. We know the enemy better than you do because we live cheek by jowl with him and have learnt his ways. You people really have to chase those crazy bald heads not only out of your corn, out of your mines, out of your cocoa but also out of your continent before you become totally subjugated and an endangered species. Surely you don't want to suffer the fate of the American Indians, the Aborigines of Australia and the Maoris of New Zealand. Already Smuts speaks from his squatter position In S. Africa as if Africa belongs to Europeans.”

“We write up petitions for our people to sign etc.”

“Petitions? Do you realize what you are saying, man? Do you understand the meaning of petition, man?”

“I think I do. It’s a written request or supplication, er, er an appeal signed by many people appealing to the relevant authority to give heed unto a particular cause”.

“Don't go all euphemistic on me, man. Let's call a spade a spade. When you go to your self-appointed masters with a petition, with a paper signed by your people asking them for your independence, what you are doing in realty is begging, I repeat begging, humbling yourself and bending your knees to them in prayerful supplication. Man they are not gods. They are mere mortals and not even honourable ones at that. They are morally bankrupt. They are men with evil and vile agendas, intents and purposes. They have no mercy, no pity. Are these the men to whom you plan to plead your case?”

“We want peace.”

“You don't want the kind of peace you are now suffering. Yes, I say suffering because it is not a functional peace that you think you are now enjoying. Absence of war does not mean peace. You don't want that kind of peace.”

“Enlighten me, my brother.”

“That kind of peace is an illusion. That is false peace. It is dysfunctional because it gives you a false of sense of security and blinds you to the actual situation, engendering inaction. What you want is equal rights and justice. How can you obtain that when they think you are inferior to them? Yes, you can have what you consider peace without equal rights and justice as you do now. However with equal rights and justice, real peace must obtain.”

“You are right, of course, but what else can we do? We have no power.”

“You have no power? Then take it. These people are on your continent. It is not for you to go begging to the white man to pack his bags and go. It’s not for you to ask England, France, Italy, Belgium, Portugal or Spain why they are illegally occupying your lands. All you have to do is command them: ‘Get out of here!’ We over on this side will come over to the motherland and help you as much as we can, in spite of the fact that the enemy is always watching us. We are coming home after a long vacation and are giving notice to the tenant to clear out. If he doesn't, there is such a thing as forcible ejection, eviction, expulsion or whatever.” The dynamo told the man from Africa.

“I am touched by your offer of help. Are you implying that you are all going to repatriate to our continent?”

“How can you ask me that? Do you really think anyone with the modicum of intelligence could expect that all the Negroes outside of Africa should all repatriate to the motherland? There is no question of wholesale repatriation. So many people are prone to misunderstand and to misrepresent my opinion on repatriation. I am not preaching any doctrines to ask all the Negroes abroad to leave for Africa. The majority of us may remain here, but we must send our scientists, our mechanics, and our artisans, and let them build railroads, let them build the great educational and other institutions necessary. You need strong, functional institutions. Together we can defeat the enemy, even though, as I said, they are always watching us.”

“You are correct about the enemy always watching you outside of the continent as well as us on the inside. The enemy of African liberty and independence is not only eating up all our corn but also presumes to make all our decisions for us. Their treatment of us is so disrespectful; no tongue can adequately relate it.”

“No one can govern another’s house as well as himself. Africa is the legitimate, moral and righteous home of all black people and it is our duty to rouse every black person at home and abroad to a consciousness of himself as an African.”

“I agree, but we are both in a tricky position, a particularly disadvantageous one. Can you who are also powerless in the instruments of liberation and independence really help us?”

“Don't be discouraged by that. Go to 11Cor. 12:9 and read how God comforted St. Paul when he was being buffeted about by a thorn in his side:  

‘My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness.’

We are buffeted about, on and off our continent by the white race but we shall be made stronger and stronger by the hand of the Almighty in this our crisis, because ours is a righteous cause. As long as we find ways of working together, always conscious of one another over here and over there, we can achieve liberty, independence, self-reliance, unity and control of our destiny. The main thing is for us to get organised. Keep separated and we will be exploited, robbed and killed as has been happening. Get organised and you will compel the world to respect you. We are organising in the West, some to keep us in the same insidious and inequitable position under the white man’s governance and others to remove us from under that alien yoke and to improve and develop our race. Some of us will help you.”

“The distance between us is so forbidding.” The Gold Coast man sounded a dismal note.

“For hundreds of years Africans had been making the crossing across the Atlantic from Africa to the West under the most adverse conditions to serve their enemies. It is the same distance from the West to our African continent. It is time for us to shift and change directions in more ways than one and make the crossings of our people from the West outward serve our own continent and our own race. Moreover, the only distance between us is a physical one. Our one bloodline, our one God, our one aim and our one Destiny link us closely together. We are closely linked, connected and bound also by our common ideas." 

The eloquent non-continental continued. "Ideas do not need a passport or a visa. Ideas are not limited by territorial boundaries. Ideas can go where man cannot go. An idea can revolutionise a whole way of life. The colonialists cannot kill our ideas even if they kill some of us as they have done and will continue to do till kingdom come:

♪♪Many more of us will have to suffer. Many more of us will have to die.♪♪

And we know why. We suffer and die so that the exploiters’ status quo can be maintained by any means necessary. We must by any means necessary, change their status quo because it affects us adversely. We must aim for African liberty and unity. Let us aim for success and not be discouraged by the remarks and actions of those of our people who are harbingers of failure. Let us not recognise or admit to failure before we have exhausted all means.”

“Point well taken but we have no recognisable men of big affairs. Scholars we have some, but as for diplomats, heads of states, international figures, we have none of these besides Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia and the Liberian Head of State.”

“Have no fear. ‘Up from Slavery’, that incisive work by Booker T. Washington has made a great impact on my life. After I read it, I asked myself, ‘Where is the black man’s government? Where is (sic) his king and his kingdom? Where is his president, his country, and ambassador, his army, his navy, his men of big affairs? I could not find them and then I declared, ‘I will help you make them.’ Ah! You look shocked. You, like so many others think that I am too arrogant, don’t you? White racism breeds arrogant black men. Our race needs arrogant black men, if we are to overthrow this alien rule of tyranny of white racists”, he said laughing heartily. The Continental African joined in.

To be continued

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

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.