Page 66 - Msingi Afrika Magazine Issue 16

Health & Healing

settings, to mitigate against endemic clean spirituality. Spirituality implies that’s a fact nobody can challenge.
contamination of the environment, linkage with nature. The forces that And we know that the condition is
the water and the soil. And also, to create us, the forces that create life one of the many that will be used
get closer to our nature, so that we on earth, they are part and parcel of against us.
have more people producing organic us and there’s no way we can sepa-
foods, more people producing in- rate one of these healthy elements With that realization we should start
digenous foods, which has enhanced from one another. That gives us a to do whatever it takes to accom-
our survival prior to colonization. scenario of collecting that indige- modate one another within our
The dependence on maize and nous knowledge that contributed to own communities, within our own
maize meal, as the basic food, is a normal healthy body, and we also counties, within our own country,
very new to many communities in collect that indigenous knowledge regardless of our ethnic discrepancy,
Afrika, and yet it is the order of the that enhance a healthy mind we because when countries melt down
day in Kenya, in Uganda, in Tanza- avoid the trend towards the depen- with violence - like it has happened
nia. However, maize is one of those dence on alcohol, tobacco and these in Somalia, in Sudan, in Ethiopia -
commodities that grows fast, yields other narcotic drugs that are known nobody gains. Those who started vi-
a lot, but is very demanding to the to poison the mind, to retard the olence in Sudan are all dead, literally.
soil, very demanding to the envi- thinking and eventually to kill the Those who started it in Somalia are
ronment. It requires deep plowing, capacity of a human being to link all gone, and Somalia has never been
deep harrowing, constant weeding, up spiritually with his ecosystem and able, and may never be able to stand
which disturbs the soil to an extent his environment. up on its own.
that we destroy the soil structure.
The maize we are growing now are Lastly, we didn’t create ourselves, we Meaning, once we allow external
hybrids, they require a lot of fertil- are created by a force that created forces to create conflict among our-
izers. Those fertilizers are chemical the universe. The very force that selves, we commit suicide, because
toxins. Besides the fertilizer, there is supports the heavenly bodies that eventually that is what they want;
demand for pesticides to fight stalk rotate around one another, without a scenario where Covid-19 kills as
borers and others that inflict the banging into one another. Those many as it can kill, a scenario where
crop. So, we are depending on crops forces constitute the ecosystem. it can cripple our economy to an
that demand application of toxic And the minute we recognize that extent people are discontented with
chemicals, while crops like bananas, we need our plants, just as we need our government, and to an extent
sweet potatoes, arrowroots never our animals, just as we need our where they all rise up in arms against
needed any of those chemicals, other fellow human beings within their government, to create the
in spite of the fact that they grow Kenya, Afrika and the rest of the conflict through which the weapons
literally everywhere, and in spite world… the minute we acknowledge of those who manufacture weapons
of the fact that they are even more that, we start nurturing peaceful can be sold, can be marketed, given
nutritious, more balanced than the coexistence with one another. to negative forces to create an ideal
maize crop. With Covid-19, this is the wrong ground for self-extermination.
time for anybody to rise up and go
Meaning we have lost our balance; to the street to demonstrate because My appeal to Afrikans, my appeal
we have lost our capacity to coexist of lack of money, lack of employ- to Afrika: a time has come when we
with reality and the need is such ment. It is not our government that should reason together, a time has
that we go back to our indigenous has created that. It has been created come when we should refuse to be
knowledge. As we celebrate Afri- by forces that are beyond us. The incited against one another, and a
kan Traditional Medicine Day, we crisis we are going through needs time has come when we realize that
recognize there is other indigenous each one of us to do whatever it we have a common enemy and the
knowledge that complements the takes to mitigate against the im- work of the common enemy is to
traditional medicine: diet, shelter, pact of the crisis, as we team up to exterminate us and in the extermina-
lifestyle, they all add up to giving us survive it. We know that the crisis tion strategy, the world over we, in
holistic health. By holistic health I we are going through was designed, Afrika, are target number one. Even
mean a scenario where you have a disseminated to enhance global pop- though we haven’t died the way they
whole normal healthy body, sup- ulation extermination, that is orient- have died in India, we haven’t died
ported by a whole healthy mind ed to leaving the world to those that the way they have died in Brazil, I
and supported by a whole healthy, are ‘better than the ordinary people’,

66 | we tell the true afrikan story