Page 15 - Msingi Afrika Magazine Issue 14

Re-Education
Community

send their women and children
into Ukambani to be safe until the At the heart of it were people of
end of the war. When there was different ethnic identities going after
drought, the Kambas would send one another and treating each other
their women and children into the with levels of harshness that broke
Kikuyuland for safety and suste- my heart. Were people hungry and
nance. Since war and famine didn’t angry? Yes. Did many need help?
end in one day, some members of Absolutely. Were some better armed
either community were integrated and better able to protect them-
into their community of safety by selves? Totally. Did the nation get
marriage and never went back home. stronger? Not really. Was there an
agenda bigger than defending Zuma
What strikes me is the reality of at play? I strongly think so. Many
how communities lived side by side, took property that could not even
despite strong differences, and they fit into their homes… so how did
galvanised to stand together when that help them? It didn’t. I wonder
they had to. I also understood how if that situation could have been
there are names that originate in one sorted out differently.
community but are also found in the
same, or in a different version, in It reminded me of my history
another community. lessons on how the colonialists used communities have had greater access
the same tactics of hatred and di- to opportunities and networks than
Fast-forward to recent times, where vide and conquer to take charge of others. We have seen these things
we are being riled up against one our beloved continent. They enticed right before our eyes.
another. We are told that one com- the stronger nations with the prom-
munity is bad, and they will bring ise of wealth and the stronger peo- I strongly believe that we, the
us down. Or that they have eaten all ple groups went out and captured children of Afrika, must look back
our funds and taken all our oppor- their neighbours to sell as slaves in at our history, learn the lessons
tunities. Is that true? I am not naïve exchange for guns and alcohol. The available there and never repeat
enough to think that everyone is colonialists incited one people group the madness. We must deliberately
good, but there is no way that a mil- against another and got them to choose to work together to rise as
lion people are bad, unless they are fight each other over land matters. one. We must choose to protect one
cultured that way. What happened to When the weaker were banished to another, not deliberately destroy.
the system of asking questions and the less fertile lands, the colonialists We must fight for the marginalized
seeking consensus for the commu- set up camp and built farms on the and helpless. We must reconnect
nity? fertile land and in time also banished to our own leadership models that
those who helped them get the land work for us. We must drop all ideas
Let’s not deny that we have chal- or made them workers on their land. that slow us down and embrace
lenges as a people; we do. Yet, I In the end, neither of the Afrikan homegrown solutions for our home-
would like to encourage us to look people won…they handed the win grown challenges.
at each other as sources of security to the colonial masters on a silver
and places of support, rather than platter. No one will come with the solutions
difference. Why? We were never cre- we need. As the sons and daugh-
ated to be identical. We were created Could it be that our minds are still ters of Afrika, we must choose to
to fill different parts of life, just like bound by the notion that we are walk together and be strong in the
we have different parts of the body better than other people or we power of the might of God. When
that work together to keep us alive. are more marginalized than them? one takes a step, the line pulls and
It is therefore impossible for our Could it be that the rhetoric our the rest move, so choose to move
people to become the fullness of political class uses pits us against and catalogue your growth…one
who they are if we continue to live each other, yet the real tool for thought, dream, emotion, step and
divisively and suspiciously. change would be unity and commu- collaboration at a time.
nal growth? Don’t get me wrong…
The recent unrest in Kwa Zulu Na- some communities have been
tal and Gauteng provinces of South marginalized by design over time
Africa really spoke to this thought. to keep them dependent. Other

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