FIRST THOUGHT:
Human beings are an interesting species. You see, because if you ever found a person who sat you down and sent you through their past experiences—past experiences of being treated badly by fellow human beings… Today, it’s, “Person A did this to me!” Tomorrow it’s, “Person Z did this to me!” If you ever stumble upon such a person… If you ever find yourself unfortunate enough to be on the listening end of these endless complaints, don’t be too shocked if you catch yourself thinking: ‘You must be the problem.’ The thought may be a silent one; it may be buried deep, deep inside your subconscious. It is a thought that you, being the nice, sane person that you are, might never give voice to. But you cannot deny the fact that it is indeed there—buried somewhere deep inside your subconscious mind… or perhaps right under your tongue. Because what type of person is this that wherever you go, whomever you meet, you come out as the victim? ‘Surely, you must be the problem.’ You will find yourself thinking.
SECOND THOUGHT:
What is this thing that we do, where we assemble a group of pre-teenagers, and with no warning at all, inform them, in plain terms, the fact that their fore, forefathers and mothers were nothing but slaves and colonised individuals, and then…leave the matter just like that—leaving interpretation to their young, childish minds? No call to action attached, just informing the child. I have always failed to see the sense in that bit in our elementary school curriculum. What is that all about? How else do you expect a young mind to translate this information other than: ‘If my fore, forefathers and mothers were slaves and were colonised, if they were made secondary citizens of the world, then I must be too’? The interpretation may be a silent one, buried deep inside their subconscious mind, or it may be loud and un-proud. Either way, its effects are always equally dire.
While a country like the USA is busily, as they say, ‘white-washing’ history so that their fore, fore father, Christopher Columbus would come out looking like God Himself—as a man who was able to declare, “Let there be light!”, and there was indeed immediately light… A light that shone so brightly, and brought from obscurity and into being, this land located in the southern part of the North American continent… A land which was to consequently, through the ‘grace’ of Columbus, become a new home to hundreds of thousands of European emigrants tired of their home nations of Britain, France, Germany, and co. Indeed, all these people were to, by the ‘abundant grace’ of Columbus, assemble on this new land—this new world, and form for themselves consequently, a United States of America. Oh, such heroism! To build something out of nothing—to build what was to become the world’s greatest superpower out of nothing… Such heroism. And it all started with a courageous act, by a courageous man—oh, the ‘Christ’ in Christopher is no coincidence!
But this is all bullcrap, isn’t it? Excuse my language, but it really is just that—a whole load of bullcrap. But one can argue that it was an imperative bullcrap. Because, you see, the United States of America had a vision of making a glorious nation of themselves. And they knew that to commit this very herculean act of building a powerful nation, a nation must have within it a citizenry having the psyche of… well, gods. To build a great nation, citizens must be conditioned into thinking of themselves as the ultimate form human beings can ever come in. They must be made to have such sheer belief in themselves and must have no scruples in this belief. They must be made to think of themselves as ‘good’, and able to churn out, on an unprecedented scale, all that is ‘good’—all that feels good to have and to hold, all that feels good to be a part of… A nation, a glorious nation that sits at the helm of worldly affairs, in all things. A nation as pompously grand as a wealthy person is, in the midst of the poor.
Such a glorious and powerful nation, it could not be built by a people crippled with a tainted perception of themselves—a people fully aware, informed right from childhood that their very foundation was built on bloodshed, devilish bloodshed—a genocide of a race of people: the Native Americans. This was a reality too harsh for the American child to be made to swallow. It definitely was yet still a reality too harsh for the adult American to be made to live with. You try building a nation with such a populace—a populace so doomed in mind, so reduced in mind, what you end up having for yourself is a nation mediocre at best, failed at worst—nowhere near a powerful nation. Hence the lies. The feigned heroism. You put it in a song, in a catchy rhyme so that the American child may never forget. Ah! sing along with me:
“In 1492,
In 1492,
Columbus sailed across the sea,
In 1492.
For 70 days he sailed,
For 70 days he sailed,
Columbus sailed across the sea,
For 70 days he sailed.
He came to a new land,
He came to a new land,
Columbus sailed across the sea,
And came to a new land.
Exploring he did go,
Exploring he did go,
Columbus sailed across the sea,
Exploring he did go.
He sailed back home to Spain,
He sailed back home to Spain,
Columbus sailed across the sea,
Then sailed back home to Spain.
Christopher Columbus
In August 1492,
Columbus sailed the ocean blue.
October 12th, they sighted land,
And set their feet upon new sand.”
THIRD THOUGHT:
Osama bin Laden was, without any reservation or argument, a Middle Eastern man. Skin, beautifully brown; eyes, gorgeously dark brown; hair, deep brown. There you had him as you would, any other Middle Eastern gentleman, Osama. But just close your eyes briefly and picture for yourself, future generations closing their eyes and seeing a White man—blue eyed, hair, blond—whenever the name Osama is mentioned. Ridiculous erh? You can never picture that happening. Because, of course, the White folk will never lay so strong a claim to Osama Bin Laden and seek to very strategically remove all factual details of his being and replace it with a Caucasian alternative. What use have they of him? Osama was brown, and bad in the Caucasian’s book, so brown shall he remain—for all eternity. But not Jesus, you see…
Because, Jesus, He … He is the son of God. Jesus, He is God. Some will argue that He is but a major, major prophet. Whatever the case may be, we cannot argue with the fact that He has connections with the Creator of the universe Him/Herself. Jesus is good news—He is a man to have in one’s camp.
You and I were not born, but this is how the story goes: some two thousand years ago, God got tired of witnessing humankind struggle at finding Him/Her—the Creator—and giving Him/Her, their due praise. So, the son of God, Jesus, He was sent down unto this earth with the mission of effecting a clarification. He chose Bethlehem as His birthplace. I honestly don’t know why He went with the Middle East—perhaps the reasons were more socio-economic than they were spiritual. Perhaps the Creator strategically chose that location because He knew that was where He would get the most traction and impact—maximum visibility and reach. We will never know for sure. But all we do know is that when Jesus walked this earth, He did so as a Middle Eastern man—hence, gorgeously brown of skin, brown of eyes, and hair, deep brown. It was all good…
Except not.
Because here was the White folk, bent on building for himself an empire—a great nation. Do these White men and women, in their search for a god with whom to do this building—in search of the Creator—accept a visual presentation that is at odds with his/her own physical form? How does a White man bow to a White God and call Him/Her, creator? [I am jumping the gun by asking this question, but I cannot help it: in this same light, how does a Brown man/woman, or a Black man/woman, etc. bow to a White God and call Him/Her creator?] Ridiculous when you think about it, isn’t it? And the White folk, they knew this. They, knowing full well that a nation is only as good as the mental state, the psyche of its citizenry, could not let this happen. Hence this historical fiction, coming in the form that is White Jesus—blue of eyes, blond of hair. Little by little Jesus evolved from Brown to White. Oh! there was no bleaching involved—this is just a re-writing of history we have going on here.
While Mary Magdalene, Peter, John, and co. were out there in the empty tomb that fateful Sunday, shouting and wailing about the loss of the Saviour’s body, the White folk was out here, grabbing any White male they could find, slapping a beard on him, and calling him Christ.
Even as I find myself suffering little heart attacks every time I see White Jesus on TV insisting on his ‘God-ness’, on the back of trotros warning of His second coming; perched by pictures of Black male and female pastors advertising a healing crusade, I cannot help but admire the ingenuity of the White folk. This is the very definition of a power move. To be able to lay such earnest claim to the body of the Messiah Himself, that is a brilliant, brilliant move. Because if God is you, and you are God, and God is the creator of the earth and all that is within it, wouldn’t you be right in going about, taking charge of the world and all that is contained within it? Wouldn’t you do as Adam purportedly did, go about on a stroll through the garden of Eden, dishing out names to all these other ‘periphery’ creatures as you may please, and in so doing, lay legitimate claims to all that is therein contained? Eh? So much so that you can gallantly walk into another continent, very arbitrarily draw up borders separating this geographically unified continent, and share its pieces among yourselves as persons would do a pizza…
Indeed, in their pursuit of a sense of self (being as it is, a necessary ingredient for the building of a great nation and people), the White man/woman went so far as to lay claim to the very body of Christ. Take your average white man, slap a beard on him, and there you have him, Jesus—God himself. Oh, bow down and pray. Everywhere you turn, there you have him, fraudulent White Jesus warning of his second coming. A White second coming? Like coming back with more colonialism? Slavery? Eii.
FOURTH THOUGHT
I like how we, humans, tend to have our way with words. All of us, walking around—lawyers. The way we go about framing and communicating our version of events so that we always come out the ‘good guy’—genius! Here before you are two people describing the same disagreement. Each person to the squabble will narrate their version of the event so well, so eloquently, that they come out the innocent party in this argument. But at the end of the day the one who wins—the one who comes out as the true innocent party—is the one who was able to convince on their version of events. It’s interesting, is it not? How reality itself tends to be in our own hands. How well you win or lose at cementing your version of reality depends on… well, how persuasive and/or how powerful you are. This is a fact in our day-to-day individual lives. The same dynamic is always at play in our national and/or racial lives. World history, world reality, at the end of the day tends to be written by the most powerful nations and/or races. Jesus found out the hard way. He could land in the land of the Brown all He wanted, He could go on and on about how His physical form was only a shell, and that His true form lay in a spirit—the Holy Spirit… The White man says He wants Jesus to be White like him, so there you have it—on the back of that trotro right here in the land of the Black, White Jesus—White God warning of His Second Coming.
USA will go about on an interfering spree, using whatever means available in their arsenal to interfere with elections and governance systems of nations worldwide, but Russia allegedly gives USA a tiny dose of their own medicine, and this country calls it “an act of war”, an “asymmetric assault on democracy”—and all such other dooms-day-like descriptions. Germany, lacking fossil-fuel potential, will boldly go about on a global campaign, an ‘Energiewende’ campaign—an advocacy for an ‘energy turnaround’ to a low-carbon-free world, all the while importing fossil fuel from fossil-rich nations, and quickly recoil in their advocacy, going so far as to, not only fully fall back on fossil fuels, but the infamous coal too, as the Russia/Ukraine-War energy crisis hit. The country can go on and on criticising France for its nuclear dependency, yet go back to this same France to import its electricity (derived from France’s nuclear power plants—to boot). The White folk will set foot on our ‘obscure’ continent centuries past, see our women and men dressed to suit our tropical climate, and call it indecent, barbaric. But here they are now, marching for the freedom for the woman to expose herself as she pleases—‘Free the Nipple’ says their protest placards and bare chests. You see, reality isn’t one thing—powerful people can twist and turn it as they please.
FINAL THOUGHT
Human beings are indeed an interesting species… The supposedly most sophisticated of all creations, yet so easily and readily malleable to changes in form and in thought. So much so that one is able to very effectively—overtly or covertly—convince the other of their position as gods, and the other readily—consciously or subconsciously—accepts this as true, and resign themselves to positions of victim, puppets, periphery characters, game to doing their biddings. So much so that these puppets go about educating and socialising their every generation into accepting this fate… ‘Open to page such-and-such of your textbooks. Spoiler alert: your forefathers and mothers were slaves. Deal with it as you may.’
When liberation never comes for the underdog, when the underdog perpetually goes about, remaining victims of events, trade-offs in other’s biddings, it is called a tragedy. I, for one, dislike the perpetual underdog… Living a life without a narrative curve—never a pay-off, never a heroic end in sight. Today, it’s, “Country A did this to us!” Tomorrow it’s, “Country Z did this to us!” …Never rising out of circumstances.
I tell you what, periphery characters are always such boring, uninspired, bland characters. Choo!
