Page 19 - Msingi Afrika Magazine Issue 2

ISSUE TWO | SEPT/OCT

AfriKaNS!

How did we get here?

CRIMINALIZING OUR COMMON UNITY

BY: SAMUEL PHILLIPS

rowing up in Afrika,
Nigeria to be mobile phone technology, the sense of humanity to mindless
precise, was one Afrikan common unity was the things, creating weird robotic
beautiful experience strength and uniqueness of the minds that lack respect for love
Gwhich, hitherto, also Afrikan people. We simply love to and empathy.
had its not too good side. As a love.
young boy who loved passionately I grew up knowing that the training In the 80’s, 90’s and even in the
to create stories in my head of and the raising of an Afrikan child early 2000’s, it wasn’t an issue
things that exist and of things is done by the collective strength of for an undisciplined child to be
I never dreamt could exist and the community in which he or she disciplined by a total stranger
with such patience to observe lives, and that accurate discipline on the street without raising any
things, I kind of grew up with lots is meted out for erring children. eyebrows. Older people around
of wild pictures of what Afrika and Life was simple, uncomplicated, could discipline a child, take him
Afrikans really look like. I believe not divided by the very same or her to their parents, report the
so much in what Jesus said about social media that was meant to child’s misbehavior. Such parents,
as a man thinks so he is, and to make the world a global village. right in the presence of the stranger,
take it further, as a man imagines Well, we lost the true village and would further discipline such a
on the inside, so he creates embraced the concept of virtual child, just so the stranger knows
his own reality on the outside. I community that only exists in our they are not in support of what the
didn’t have much access to lots heads. Social media has its good child did and thereafter thank the
of places in Afrika while growing place, for whatever it is good for. stranger for helping look out for the
up. However, the few places I was But, we have somehow forgotten well-being of their child. School
opportuned to reach within Nigeria who we are as Afrikans whose then was largely about a good
and things read from books, hearts and minds were free to love heart, character, godliness, love,
showed me something beautiful and at liberty to give empathy. We discipline, healthy competition and
about Afrikans-the ability to live, now use social media to show the not some overblown brains filled
to thrive in communities. And this world how wicked, unthinking and with twisted information and no
communal lifestyle of living is not unkind we have become. A man wisdom for human connectivity.
necessarily based on a winner- hacks another man to death with
takes-all mindset, but true love for a machete, for stealing chicken I grew up knowing that I could
brotherhood driven by simplicity while others stand by watching, walk into any compound along
and compassion. The power of not stopping him and then filming the street with fruit trees in it and
Ubuntu. Before the advent of the the cruel act for the world to watch harvest whatever I wanted from
more sophisticated internet and on the internet. We have lost our the many fruit trees one would

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