Uninvited Guests...
They
came
They
took our land…our lives
They
took our inheritance…our heritage
They
took our culture…our tradition
They
took our history…our identity
They came
They taught us their ways...tearing us away from ours
They gave us their language...as heritage
They gave us their education...as goals
They gave us a new name...as identity
Uninvited
they came
Taking
as they please…killing as they wish
Prancing
around like owners…their skin so white
Passing
judgement on the owners…their hearts so dark
Our
empires fell
Our
worlds crumbled…
They
gave us their world…
And
we have never been the same…
Nor
would we ever be
Amazing. True words We just have to get it back
ReplyDeleteAmazing. True words We just have to get it back
ReplyDeleteWell, suppose we can go back to the "African past" (whatever that is), how many of us can be really/absolutely true to it: religion, customs, etc?
DeleteWithout necessarily adulating the European invaders of precolonial Africa, let us bear in mind that cultural displacements had characterized all hitherto existing societies - I imagine, for instance, that some people lived in Yorubaland before Oduduwa et al came and superimposed their own 'identity' on the prior inhabitants. The preceding explains, also, why I think the idea of calling some people indigene and some 'others' settlers is really incorrect....
In furtherance of my thought, I don't think we should be over protective of our particular forms of life - be it African, European, Arab, Indian, etc. No worldview is perfect. Let us view ourselves first and foremost as humans; for all 'identities' are contingent and secondary. Being human is primal. We should accept ideas and values from anywhere in world (even those apparently foisted on us by our former colonial rulers) once such are critically interrogated. Of course, this doesn't mean that our traditional ideas have no worth. The point is, and like I said before, there are plausible and non plausible ideas in our traditional societies (same holds of those from elsewhere) which we can retain, re-adopt and even sell to humanity in general if only we'd be critical in studying them.
Additionally, even if "they" had not come to our world, I doubt if our world would have remained unchanged: History shows that the African world, like other worlds, was also subject to sundry changes in language, religion, customs, worldviews, values, etc - the kind wrought by "their" invasion of our world.which, as we all are aware, Globalization is already doing...
I, thus, do not completely believe that "they" did us a total disservice when our "homeland" was seized by them.
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