"Give us us free"

I found myself smiling as I read Michael Dequina’s review of Amistad (http://aalbc.com/reviews/amistad.htm). I did agree with him that the film was American-centered, especially with its focus on the courtroom drama; but that was to be expected. Amistad is an American film, directed and produced by Americans for an American audience. However, something about that film touched me.

Language is of essence in Amistad. That the viewer had no clue what Sengbe Pieh and the other Africans were saying as they revolted was not accidental. The decision to exclude subtitles for the beginning portion of the film was a deliberate one. It made the men, women and children inscrutable figures to the viewer. Their silhouettes were only visible in the moonlight as they struck at their Spanish ‘masters’. Just as the distinguishing features and marks on their faces were invisible to the terror-stricken crew, they had to remain so to the viewer. Their humanity was thus masked, hidden from the viewer. The viewer was being forced to see things from the perspective of the Spanish men. It was only when the violent act had been performed and the tables were turned that the faceless Africans became distinct human beings.

The emergence of the West Africans seems to be reversed when they are recaptured. Their inability to speak for themselves in the courthouse underlines this new powerlessness. At several points in the narrative, a clash between two ‘universes’ (‘African’ and ‘Western’) is obvious. The two universes refuse to overlap and for a while it seems that the West Africans’ true story is fated to remain unheard. However, the illuminating sub-titles reveal a parallelism between the 2 universes: Sengbe Pieh speaks of the place from which he came in response to Roger S Baldwin’s inquiry. Their communication is possible, not through their words, but through their gestures and movements. Later, ‘James Covey’, a bilingual Mende and English speaker emerges and is charged with facilitating communication between the Africans and the non-Africans. These instances seem to level the playing field for the West Africans.

Traduttore…Traditore. Translator… traitor.

By self-consciously pointing at the layers of mediation involved in ‘telling the story’, the film seems to proclaim that interpretation is inevitable and sometimes deceptive. Notwithstanding these obstacles, the story must be told. The questions remain: How does one tell the story of the West Africans to an American audience? Is it possible to take away the American lenses and look at the West Africans through West African eyes? Would such an attempt prove unintelligible to an American audience?

Instead of answering these questions, I point to additional instances of ‘mediation’ in the film: Consider the transformation of the West Africans’ clothing as the film progresses. Their near nakedness in the holds of the ship is followed by the revolt. They then find cloth to drape themselves in. Afterwards, during their later appearances in the courthouse they are uniformly clothed in simple ‘Western’ clothing. It is almost as if they have been ‘tamed’, made more aesthetically pleasing to those sitting in the courtroom and to the viewer. Their humanity rises a notch higher in the eyes of those observing. As the film progresses, it seems that the West Africans are starting to look more like ‘us’. The process that transforms ‘us’, allowing ‘us’ to understand them better, transforms them as well. Their appearance transforms, and they are slowly pulled into the Western worldview through their encounter with the Bible. The linguist, Gibbs, teaches Baldwin and his colleagues to count in Mende and Sengbe Pieh demands his freedom in English.

This essay is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 Unported License. Please feel free to use my writing for non-commercial purposes and do credit my name, Rose Kahendi, as the writer.

The AIDS Memorial Quilt

Late last month the AIDS Memorial Quilt came to town, and I was one of several who went to look at it. Standing before the quilt and looking at the elaborate embroidery and patchwork, I felt peaceful. It was strange standing there, marveling at the beauty, and yet simultaneously aware that each piece marked a life lost, a human being painfully wrenched away from loved ones. How was it that several years of pain had been translated into soothing colors and boldly outlined words? I was awed at the power of the quilt to arrest my steps and to pull me in close enough to follow the stories of the young heroes and heroines.

To one section of the quilt, friends and family had carefully sewn pictures of the woman they had loved and lost- pictures taken at different points in her life. My eyes moved from picture to picture, wondering whom she was smiling at in that picture, and why there was a twinkle in her eye in the next. Who had selected each picture? Was it her mother, whom I could see cradling her baby daughter in the black and white picture in the right hand corner of the panel? How deep her grief must be to have lost her daughter, and how intense her desire to remember her and to share these memories with us. Did she feel an ache inside when she looked at that picture and remembered?

Why did I feel compelled to sit down facing the quilt, and to gaze at it for minutes? What did I actually see and feel in those pictures, in the purple and red hearts, in the shiny material and in the soft velvet? Was I sharing with mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, husbands, wives and lovers in the act of remembering? How was it that I felt as if I was looking through the scrapbook of my closest friend? I could not possibly have been born when that picture was taken, and yet I could remember the sepia-toned moment as if it was yesterday.

This essay is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 Unported License. Please feel free to use my writing for non-commercial purposes and do credit my name (Rose Kahendi) as the writer.

Mustakbali Mpya?

Miaka nenda, miaka rudi

Tumekuwa tukitaradadi.

Tumeelekea mbele, tumerudi nyuma.
Kuzungukazunguka desturi yetu.

Ramani waliyotupa tunayo mikononi
Lakini yatuelekeza jangwani.

Waliahidi kutufikisha mbuga za peponi.
Leo twajikuta Jehanamu.

Zi wapi hekaheka za madaraka na uhuru?
Ndoto zetu zimekufa.
Bendera zimechakaa, zimeraruka.
Tumeanguka, miguu imevunjika.
Na bado twaimba nyimbo za kale.
Eti twajivunia amani, uhuru na madaraka.

Enzi za ukoloni zimepita,
Lakini kujilisha, kujivisha tumeshindwa.
Eti amani, uhuru na madaraka?
Ndiyo. Amani, uhuru na madaraka;
Madaraka ya vibaraka;
Wanavijiji mafukara wa “Global Village”.

Watoto wa bara wameamka.
Urithi wetu hawautaki, mienendo yetu wanaikana.
Lakini mwana wa nyoka ni nyoka.
Wataujenga upya uafrika?

This poem is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 Unported License. Please feel free to use my writing for non-commercial purposes and do credit my name, Rose Kahendi, as the writer.

Moving beyond pity

I am uncomfortable with the fact that society teaches us to pity those who we believe to be less fortunate than we are rather than to empathize with them. Pity implies an imagined sense of superiority over the other, so that we end up looking at an individual who was born without sight, for instance, and who has lived that way all their lives as having a less complete existence than a sighted person. I instinctively feel that this is wrong. But it’s far easier to recognize this wrong than it is to change it.

Every aspect of my life is touched by my ability to see. Even the way I dream, think and imagine is directly related to my ability to register and to respond to colors and shapes. I cannot even begin to imagine how I would map the streets of my town, and the insides of buildings and gardens, relying on my senses of smell, hearing and touch to do so. All the same, I can’t help feeling that my blind friend sees my perception of the world as a completely alien experience.

Many people like to imagine that given the chance to reverse a disability such as blindness, anyone would grasp at the chance. I wonder about that. After all, it is very difficult, even traumatizing to have to adjust to unfamiliar stimuli, loud and unfamiliar shapes and colors, at an advanced age. One’s eyes have never learnt to judge distances, or even to perceive depth. The brain has long developed without input from the visual organs. Wouldn’t learning how to see at this point be a very difficult experience? This thought makes me realize that there’s much more to our senses than we understand.

If we care enough to listen, look and appreciate, we will realize that there is much more to an individual’s experience of life than that which draws our pity. Pity is unfortunate. It does not bring us closer to understanding each other. Rather, it highlights our differences, and pushes us apart. Instead of pity, I propose empathy. How about talking to people, and learning what challenges and joys they experience daily? How about finding out from them how exactly their quality of life and their ability to support themselves can be improved rather than imagining that we know the solutions to their predicaments? And instead of seeing our own experiences as the norm, the standard by which other people’s lives should be judged, how about seeing other people’s lives as legitimate and dignified experiences from which we can learn?

In saying all this, I am aware that the state of affairs in several countries globally is complicated: Educational facilities for people with various disabilities are limited. Employment is often hard to come by, and access to wheelchairs, hearing aids, and other devices that would make a drastic difference, is limited by financial considerations. As if these are not bad enough, ignorance often reigns, leading many to view disability as a curse, and to shun the disabled and stigmatize them. Fortunately, some countries have set precedents by creating legislation to level the playing field, so to speak. But these have often come only after long ‘battles’ bravely fought.

First published in TakingITGlobal's Panorama Zine on 31st January, 2006.

Rethinking AIDS, rethinking our cities

Once again, December approaches, and once more, “World Aids Day” arrives: the world’s attention is temporarily riveted to a health crisis.

But why should the “remembrance” of AIDS be consigned to one specific day? Isn’t AIDS a daily reality for millions? Are we going to turn our engagement with HIV-AIDS and related issues into a once-a-year event during which we wear red ribbons, attend a rally, visit a gallery, sign a visitors’ book, and then take a deep breath and move on to a new chapter in our lives?

Will December the 2nd be a new day with a new cause and with different concerns completely disconnected from those of the 1st of the month?

It’s highly likely that for several people the answer to these questions will be “Yes”. After all, it is typical in this day and age for us to devote our full attention to a given issue for a short period of time before fatigue sets in and we lose all zeal for the cause. The question is, “Why do we behave this way”? The answer is probably that we don’t know what else to do.

Any problem is our problem only for as long as it touches us, and then, if it has no direct bearing on our daily lives, we leave it behind. Interestingly enough, though, the very problems that we refuse to “own” are the same ones that claim us and pull us down years later. The fact staring us in the face is that all our problems are interconnected. While several in the “developed” world might think of HIV-AIDS as a problem limited to the “undeveloped” world, it is unrealistic to do so.

HIV-AIDS has had a huge impact on every aspect of human life. On a personal level, millions have lost their parents, siblings and friends: families and communities have been broken apart or even annihilated. Do we have any idea what impact child-led households are going to have on our societies? Not really, but this is a reality that is facing several regions. National economies are already facing the challenges associated with shrinking workforces. The lack of access to formal education is becoming an even more pressing problem and religious groups are facing existential crises. Malnutrition, which was already a major problem, is only going to become more acute. The future impact on the global economy is looming. Keep in mind that this is only a minuscule part of the picture. For each issue or problem mentioned, there are thousands more that go unnoticed or unarticulated.

The trauma that is HIV-AIDS first came to our attention in the early 1980s and yet, more than 20 years later, we still don’t know what to do. It is still a highly stigmatized condition, and we still insist on condemning the subject to whispered conversations. Why are we unable to talk frankly and openly about it even today? Is it because we think of it as a sexually transmitted disease, or is it because it is so often fatal? Is it because we think that it is a disease that only strikes individuals of a certain race or of a certain sexual orientation? Is it because we view it as a punishment from God? And why don’t we talk about AIDS when we talk about urban planning, “development,” urbanization, finance, governance, safety and security? Several barriers remain to be crossed, but few want to be the first to attempt the crossing.

AIDS is very much tied up with the events and conditions of the 20th century. For this reason, perhaps, it is still a murky subject about which people say much without actually reaching any conclusions. Everything about AIDS is still being contested on some arena or another. A cursory glance at the literature on the subject reveals that not everyone is in agreement about the origins of the disease, about what methods should be used to limit its spread and about its epidemiology.

One of the myths concerning AIDS is that it is associated with a specific race. However, its impact has already been felt on more than two continents. The fact of the matter is that AIDS is very much associated with poverty and with the trauma of colonization and rapid urbanization. The 19th, 20th and now 21st centuries have seen revolutions in several aspects of human society. All these transformations, associated with “development,” have caused such disturbances in social relations, in sexuality, in family structures, and in nutrition that it is not surprising that HIV-AIDS has taken on epidemic proportions in specific regions of the world.

HIV-AIDS is certainly not solely an urban disease. However, its spread cannot be separated from the mushrooming of urban centers, and the growth of the transportation systems linking them.

Case in point: the lorry drivers who plied the road networks linking the coastal towns of Eastern and Southern Africa to the landlocked nations in the heart of the continent were among the first sizeable known group of victims in the region. And in Southern Africa, where thousands upon thousands leave their rural homes, often crossing national borders to seek employment in mines, husbands and wives are separated for years at a time. Not surprisingly, patterns of sexual behavior are affected; both men and women seek extra-marital sexual partners. Driven by a need to feed and clothe their families, several move to and from urban centers, carrying the infection with them.

To further complicate the picture, health facilities are not widely accessible and available in urban and rural areas. Medical treatment is beyond economic and physical reach. As a result, the management of opportunistic infections associated with HIV-AIDS is a nightmare.

How does one begin to address these complications within the rubric of a discussion on urban sustainability? Frankly speaking, I have no idea. The city in Kenya, India or anywhere else in the world for that matter, is a behemoth that one can hardly begin to describe. It is almost impossible for a single individual to know every part of a city intimately or to be familiar with the lifestyles of all its residents. When planners sit down to construct a city or to modify it, the concerns of the lower income groups are often not factored in. Cities in colonized territories were often segregated, with careful planning dedicated to the colonizers’ quarters and “modern” facilities incorporated within these privileged sections, while less attention was paid to “natives' ” quarters.

Several independent nations inherited such cities. Rapid population growth and increased migration complicated already uneven situations. Next to the more prosperous, well-planned neighborhoods, shanty-towns grew larger and larger. Increasingly drastic economic disparities have compounded the situation even more. Thus, while in some cities, urban planners are able to talk about expanding transportation systems, or creating more environmentally-friendly means, in other cities, the discussion cannot be as straightforward.

In Nairobi, for instance, tens of thousands (this figure is likely an underestimation) walk across the city for two or more hours everyday to get to their places of work. About half of Nairobi’s population is estimated to live in slums with inadequate sanitary facilities and medical facilities, few schools and high insecurity. Projects to upgrade these slums have been discussed, and some are underway. I am not qualified to comment on the progress of these projects, but cannot help feeling that it will take a long time before their effectiveness is felt. Keeping this in mind, if one considers the effect of a disease such as AIDS on the national community then it becomes clear that the obstacles that lie ahead are even larger than what has been visualized.

There’s no room here to go into the impact that global slavery, imperialism, genocide, wars and the plunder of our environment have had on the development of our nations and cities. However, I want to emphasize the importance of keeping these factors in mind when we talk about development and urban planning. Our slums and cities have histories which are tied up with the factors that led to development and spread of diseases such as HIV-AIDS.

We need to examine the direct and indirect connections between impoverishment, our political set-ups, environmental degradation and disease. We have to examine the connections between the policies of global monetary bodies and the conditions of recipient nations or between the break-down of our ecological systems and the breakdown of our social systems and of our immune systems. Otherwise we will continue to propose solutions that only address one thread in a constantly evolving and growing tapestry.


First published in TakingITGlobal's Panorama Zine on 27th November, 2005.

"Africology"

Due to my self-consciousness, I have never been a good speaker. This limits me very much, but I try to see it in a positive light. As far as I am concerned, "Shut mouth equals wide open ears". In short, I have proven to be an exceptional listener. Now I do have a friend, Sarah, who likes to talk. Fortunately, she has the gift of gab, so we make quite a formidable conversational pair. A while back, Sarah stumbled upon a group of topics that appealed to her, and she classified them under one broad heading that she baptised "Africology".

I was fortunate enough to witness one of her ruminations on the subject. "My friend," she said, "I hate to generalise, but have come to the realisation that it's almost impossible to get anyone's attention without making sweeping statements. So here's my general view of "my people.

“It's a favourite pastime of African scholars, students, and dreamers to imagine the potential that their continent and their people can aspire to, and to feel disillusioned at the obvious failure of their would-be heroes to achieve these dreams. "Where did Africa go wrong? What prevents our continent's people, with these rich natural and mineral resources, their brain power, varied culture and religion, and rich history from attaining the heights of glory that their ancestors once did?" -These are the thoughts that run through our heads as we watch yet another headline about a coup, an impending famine, a civil war or some other misfortune striking the continent. Day after day, we see more and more demonstrations of what people have come to view as the Westerner's efficiency and the African's mediocrity.

"Most of the times, the hopelessness of our situation leads us to believe that that we were powerless victims in the face of the evil machinations of another civilization, and that the effects of domination by that civilization have included the gradual destruction of our culture and our self worth. We enjoy reminiscing about the good old days: Remember, back when there were councils of elders? How about the congregations around beer pots, during which these most respected members of society would use their long straws to take turns sipping, ruminating all the while on the gems of wisdom that they had acquired in their rich fruitful lives? "In the past, I used to nominally say that all people were equal. That equality was abstract though, it wasn't a reality in my world. Now, with a new perspective, I could see that we all had equal potential. The ways in which we realized this potential were different. The resources that we had to make use of this potential were not the same. But, at the end of the day, it was all human potential. Not black potential or Caucasian potential.

"The little nuances of meanings that I had attached to certain words changed too. The word "primitive" stopped having negative connotations. It simply meant individuals who lived a life-style closer to nature, and in harmony with their environments. "Civilized" came to refer to what it had originally meant: city-dwelling individuals.

"Now, I have a confession to make. I may claim to be talking about "Africology", but these ideas can be applied to any community globally. I don't believe that there really exists a common African community. It has been convenient to conceive of one in order to support political and religious ideology, but the ties that supposedly bind Africans are not as concrete as we would like to believe. Yes, we are interconnected. In some ways the connection is subtle. In others, the historical bonds are too clear to deny. But I think that we will not feel justified in claiming equal potential with the rest of humanity until we are able to simultaneously see ourselves as individuals, and as members of a global community."
I think that this as good a point as any to conclude Sarah's little speech. Thanks to her, I had a lot to think about over the next few weeks. Admittedly, I found some resonance in her words because I could remember experiencing similar moments in my childhood. I could clearly remember those moments when it seemed that everything I believed had been based on a lie. Then there were also moments when life seemed to drop a key into my lap that proved to be the answer to all the unanswered questions that were troubling my mind.

Sarah, wherever you are, I wish you a Happy New Year. Continue to share your ideas with the people that you meet. The ones that you planted in our little community have already taken root continue to inspire us every day. "Considering the fact that I grew up in the city, and know next to nothing about my multi-cultural heritage, it may seem like I'm being sarcastic or displaying some so-called intellectual arrogance. In reality, though, I am only describing the thoughts that have gone through my own mind. It's all very well to talk about appreciating our past, and about the morals and values of our predecessors, but if we cannot connect these to our own individual selves, and our present reality, then it is as if we're merely describing a myth.
"Let me be more specific. In my childhood, my awareness of my heritage came partly from my primary school GHC (Geography, History and Civics) textbooks. I somehow had this picture of some form of village-based civilization. The different members of the community would be thatching their huts, or hunting, or fishing, or smithing in the village forgery. If you are given to flights of imagination, then you have probably managed to guess that all these pictures that I have described were contained right within the pages of my textbooks. I took what the books said literally, and believed that life was as they described it. I didn't have much to go on, and so couldn't embellish the pictures with my imagination.

"Furthermore, we all learnt about the different ethnic groups of the nation, their classification into different language groups, and their migration routes into their present-day locations. And then of course we had the folklore: "Why the Leopard has spots", "The Hare and the home-made horns", "Kapotei na Lulu." There’s nothing like the legends, myths and "fairy"-tales of one's own people to make one see things thru' their eyes.

“But is that really the case? Why is it that, after exposure to all this info about my ancestry, I still had a hard time imagining my ancestors as actual human beings with hopes, aspirations and dreams similar to mine? Why was it easier for me to identify with characters from American and British novels? Why couldn't I see the faith systems of my predecessors as being as real and valued to them as mine are to me? The answers to these questions would soon become apparent.

"At the age of 12 years, thanks to my family's ongoing hand-me-down project, I inherited my brothers' high school literature books. In theory, it was still early for me to use them, but the twins had just graduated from school, and my father had sworn that there was no way that he was going to go through the ordeal of buying those expensive books one more time. So two or three years in advance, I had a literary heritage that, thanks to our overwhelming educational system, would eventually come to occupy my every dream and waking thought. Among them, were some unfamiliar titles: "The Concubine", Things Fall Apart", "Arrow of God"... The names behind them were just as unfamiliar: Elechi Amadi and Chinua Achebe, among others.

"This tale is about to take a predictable turn, my dear friend. Simply put, I read the books; I read every single one of them, from the front cover to the back cover. At the end of my experience, I was excited. I can't find the words to describe the awakening it was to me. That brief education in literature made me realize that (as stupid as this may sound) my ancestors were human.

“Let me explain myself. I was a child. I tended to accept textbook material without much analysis or criticism of the content. As far as I was concerned, there was absolute truth, and grown-ups had access to this truth. So the ones who published our books knew exactly what they were talking about.

"You know that our textbooks condemned colonialism. But, at the same time, they were ambivalent about it. The message I got was that colonialism had been a necessary evil, that it had introduced my people to true religion, education and healthcare, without which we had all been primitive.

“Now the very fact that I subscribe to the faith that our colonizers introduced us to means that, until recently, I looked down upon practitioners of other faiths. More so the polytheistic faiths that we had been told our forefathers practiced. We classified them as pagans, period. But what pagan actually meant, I can't tell you.

“Now I realize that they were different communities with different beliefs and practices. They believed in a superior being, and worshipped this being in accordance with their different environmental conditions and histories. All the aspects of these faiths that we today classify as witchcraft and superstition, I see parallels of in my own “civilized” faith.

"Thanks to those books, I was able to picture pre-colonial Africa as a place where ideas were born, and where different societies put them into practice. It ceased being the text book images that I had stored in my memory. Now I know that, unlike those authors, I am not Nigerian. The writers of those books were describing their people. They were a people that I knew little about. For some reason, though, history and popular culture ties all members of the so-called African race together. I am a victim of that mentality. Once these authors were able to demonstrate that their forefathers had lived as fully as them, and had had the same struggles with morality and the human condition that they do, I was able to apply that view to my own people. And with that came a series of changes in the way that I thought.

First published in TakingITGlobal's Panorama Zine on 23rd December, 2002.

The sad truth about being part of the global village

Once upon a time, when arms were limited to sharp blades and to piercing points, death was just as inevitable and as hard to accept as it is today.

So we "progressed" from that era. And now, we have more efficient large scale-killing machines to show the "heights" that humanity has aspired to after centuries of self-enlightenment. How cold-blooded the minds that have perpetrated this!

How do I even begin to describe the anguish that tears my heart when I read in a daily, 1 day after the fact and thousands of miles away from my home, that my people came under attack yet again? What about the families that lost their children and their breadwinners? And you have the nerve to tell them that their loved ones were blessed, that their death was a sacrifice in the fight for the greater freedom of a nation that never even figured in their minds during their daily struggles?

Once upon a time, their voices rang clear across the streets, and their feet left prints in the wet sand. That is all over now. It changed on a Thursday in the last week of November.

What about those who are left behind? If August 1998 had already faded from our minds, then this is a stark reminder: Wapiganapo fahali wawili, ziumiazo ni nyasi. How appropriate the words of that Swahili saying are for the hopelessness of our situation: Two bulls clash against each other in a field. They walk away with a few scratches, but the real damage is done to the blades of grass, which are bruised, torn up, and even uprooted.

The people of Kenya may, for the most part, have nothing to do with the struggle in the Middle East, but they're paying the price. Spare a thought for them: people with hopes and dreams, individuals struggling to feed themselves and to clothe their babies, citizens of a nation that has been an island of relative stability in a troubled region.

This is the global village we worked so hard to build. It's a reality that our generation is going to have to face: The borders that we see on our atlases are just imaginary lines. Conflict and war, religion, politics and disease don't recognise them.
God help us all.


First published in TakingITGlobal's Panorama Zine on 3rd December, 2002.