Corruption kills;
absolute corruption kills absolutely;
so does silence,
aiding, being accessory to the realities
of corruption invested in all kinds of affiliations…
Trapped, double-trapped, triple-trapped…
Everybody is talking about cleansing,
but everyone is afraid of the cleansing lotion.
– Professor Remi Raji, Facebook, October 9, 2016
Silence is not always golden. Sometimes you just run out of things to say. Sometimes the ways of the world simply garrot your voice box. It is what it is. So, the soul visited the seaside all of last week to get away and to be mute witness to two ugly, mean hurricanes, raging demons foaming in the mouth. Hurricane Matthew. Hurricane Trump. Olokun, goddess of the sea cooks up these hurricanes, and the white man names them. And sitting at the feet of rage-waves, I thought of home. Yea, home was on my mind. I would like to go home. But where is home? Dunno. Sigh.
Hurricane Matthews has disgraced those who took Haiti’s billions and gave her nothing but pie charts and PowerPoint slides. Hurricane Trump is racing through America’s catacombs and wreaking major havoc on her anxieties and hypocrisy. This one is for the history books. The Lord is good, the (white) women of America may have finally stopped Hurricane Trump, yes, Trump the bully, Trump the bigot, and Trump the racist. Make no mistake, America reveres her (white) goddesses. Trump found out the following last week: You can make monkey noises at black men and women, you can body shame Mexicans and call their men rapists and America will look you in the eyes and make polite noises, you can call all Muslims terrorists and berate their women. Just don’t defile (white) women, for if you do, you will hear from (white) America. Yup. Trump found out last week.
It is a crying shame; those elected leaders and citizens of stature who were prepared to make a racist and misogynistic buffoon president of the greatest country on earth finally rose in rage and shut down his dream – and our nightmare. Trump should have asked Bill Cosby, his pal in crime (yes, sexual assault is a crime), about sexual assault. Trump has assured us that he is guilty of sexual assault, he should be in the big house, not in the White House. (White) America will make sure of that. Good for them. He scared them. In his new (white) victims, they saw their mothers, wives, sisters, and daughters. And justice may finally knock on Trump’s gilded doors. This is America, their America, says John Pepper Clark-Bekederemo.
Where were the calls for Trump to step down on account of his well documented bigotry? Where was the outrage? Certainly not at today’s decibel level. I am happy for Hillary Clinton, though. I am #TeamHillary to the very end. She has earned my vote and that of America. In any case, I will never vote for the Republican Party in a partisan race; the Republican party has no place in her heart and soul for people that look like me. But then, the Democratic party has grown to take my loyalty for granted. What has the party done for people of color lately? We must ask these questions. Was it not Bill Clinton that enacted anti-crime laws that prescribed triply harsher drug penalties for poor black youth compared to their richer white counterparts? Was it not Bill Clinton that refused to do anything about the Rwandan genocide because he did not see how it was America’s business? And what has Obama done for Black folks and Africa lately? We may not have anywhere to go, but that does not mean we are fools.
Oh Haiti. Who cares about Haiti? Many do. It is just not obvious. Billions of aid dollars have been sunk in Haiti and it is still so poor, it does not qualify to be a third world nation. Billions of dollars sunk into Haiti that have ended up in the deep greedy pockets of NGOs, an equal opportunity pantheon of the greedy feeding fat on the poor and the vulnerable. If all the billions stolen by NGOs and multinationals were simply dropped on Haitians from airplanes, each Haitian would be a millionaire today. Ditto the IDP camps of Nigeria.
There is a war on the poor and dispossessed everywhere. Come and see America; the poor are locked up in neighborhoods guarded by liquor stores, fast food joints, pawn shops and pay day loan sharks. And with the police, it is a turkey shoot of beautiful people whose only crime is to be black men. Where are intellectuals of color? They are writing pretty books and long essays on injustice from deep within lush summer homes in Martha’s Vineyard. This dispensation has exposed the intellectual rot and hypocrisy within the temples of intellectuals of color. There is a wide sea-gulf between the elite and the poor, fueled by arrogance and ignorance.
Nigeria. Home. There is no need to talk about home anymore. Home is Nigeria. Or is it? And the poet said, prepare for dark days ahead. Dark days are here. There is a picture of a door to a judge’s home torn down by a uniformed mob in the name of fighting corruption. This is a democracy they say. Why is the DSS arresting judges, why? Where is the outrage? Thosepretending to lead Nigeria who have properties worth hundreds of millions of dollars in Dubai and elsewhere, those who murdered and buried almost 400 Shiites, 400 human beings, 400 Nigerians, with absolutely no consequences, those who feted a Nobel Prize laureate to a $500,000 dinner, are the ones leading this assault on the judiciary and on the opposition in the name of fighting corruption. And we are all silent. Yes, Professor Wole Soyinka, the man dies in all who keep silent in the face of tyranny. The man has died in all of us. ALL of us.
Sometimes, you just have to be silent because talk is cheap. Sometimes this Diasporan thinks if you can’t do anything to help those trapped in the land you fled from, just shut up and walk away. I should walk away. In any case those who have voices have walked away. They are writing books about poverty disease and deprivation, they are fighting over “literary prizes”, crying louder than the bereaved and worrying about the oppressed of other nations, fighting over definitions of feminism even as they beat up their house help for chilling the red wine (“It should be at room temperature, STUPID WOMAN!”). And yes some learned ones, some writers are defending this outrage. Yes, some are defending this outrage. As in America, this has exposed the greed, intellectual rot and hypocrisy within the temples of Nigerian intellectuals. There is a wide sea-gulf between the elite and the poor, fueled by arrogance and ignorance. Trust me, this will not end well. Why are things the way they are? We don’t know. Or we know. But we are afraid of the answers. Let it not be said that we are children of a lesser god.
Do not ask me what I think. I have said enough. I have said that in Nigeria, thieves are fighting thieves, cheered on by their intellectual hirelings. There is no rule of law, none, nothing but hypocrisy and thuggery. Impunity is the word that fills me with rage and sadness. This is sad. I have said that there clearly is no difference in substance between the APC and the PDP, they are all boll weevils and termites with strong jaws eating up what’s left of our country. Where are those voices that gave Nigerians this hell? Where are they? They should speak up and stop this nightmare. No one is building structures and institutions, no one, Buhari’s regime is too inept, too clueless to care. My heart goes out to the young; to have to stand by helplessly and watch your present and future eaten up by the thug-elders, is worse than anything I can remember.
Someday perhaps, there will be a group of dreamers and doers who want to really help. Until then, talking and talking and talking about these things does not really make anyone feel better. Besides, I am no longer there. Those who really feel this hurt at home must lead the way and tell us how we can help. Where is home? I honestly don’t know. Hurricanes roam the earth and you might as well sit where you are until it all blows over. I have said my own.
And oh, here, click on this link below, here is important work about South Africa. It is a photo essay about white privilege in South Africa. Political correctness makes the artist look sideways at the truth. There is white privilege in South Africa, yes, but this is now being subsumed by class privilege. The poor blacks of South Africa are going through hell in the hands of the black and white middle and upper middle class elite. Yep, it is beyond a black-white binary though. Mix it up with class and you get really fed up with South Africa. Where are Black Africa’s voices? They are cowering in the cafes of Europe and North America, navel gazing and self-medicating at book readings with free cheese and red wine. Nice pictures, though.
from Ikhide http://ift.tt/2dEaXbA
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