It is my belief that as an artist, it is my duty to speak and show to my readers how my society exists. I appreciate that you went further to read the history of the Benin empire. Not that certain parts of the story reflect not just the issues the empire faced but also what many African communities, especially in west Africa experienced during the pre-colonial, colonial and the present post colonial time. That we use a word describing imposition and oppression to determine the timeline of our history is the saddest thing.
Thank you for stopping by.
It is indeed nothing short of tragic. I was born in Africa. I grew up in Africa within a lower-middle-class family, but still of white privilege. My family always voted against the ruling Nationalist government at every single election. Seeing a new fledgling true democracy emerge in 1994, and being part of that change in South Africa, was quite an incredible and emotional thing for me. Sadly, as you mention, Africa's people often turn on their own, instead of taking every opportunity possible to work together to create the rainbow nations to which we all aspire to belong, and too often we tear each other apart through corruption and greed (not too unlike our colonialist predecessors). My hope and prayer are that the divisions within Africa's societies will one day be healed and that her untapped talent be realised to her people's gain. Beyond Africa's borders, I find it shameful that in the so-called free nations of the western world that neo-colonialist ideologies are still prevalent. Know that we are not all of that ilk.
This is the tragedy, that Africans have been so traumatized that we no longer see how we shackle ourselves, how we willingly clamber into the holds of seagoing vessels and chain our necks to their keels. We call it progress but it has broken us. Because we cannot respect who we were, we've become ashamed of who we are and thus, unwilling or too broken to dream.
I hope someday, we will find people who are willing and have the ability and support to do the work necessary to make us find pride again. One day, I hope we as Africans would find a way to deal with history, to rewrite our future and maybe, each person would look another and see family not competition, see community not opportunity, see love not hate.
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