“One plans the morrow, but knows not what will be.” ~ Ptahotep.

Born of humble origins, his parents most probably charted out a life steeped in the ways of the ordinary for him, staying true to their origins indeed but who knows what will be?

When talk is made concerning the respectable denotation named ‘genius’, the Italian Polymath Leonardo Da Vinci, and the German Theoretical Physicist Albert Einstein steal what light the ‘genius’ ambience may cast by virtue of the ingenuity characteristic of their lives and the products thereof. 

Their names bear on the lips of the young and budding, as well as on the aged and flourishing; the former for his artistic prowess of which the famed ‘Mona Lisa’ claims a preeminent place, and the latter for his brilliance surrounding the understanding of our physical space and the time that ticks along with it of which his infamous ‘Theory of Relativity’ stands respectably tall.

The glories ascribed to their names and the vestiges of their earthly presence is well earned. However, the praise songs sung in honor of great minds and talents whose contributions bore and still bear the health and vitality of civilization as we know it must be served to all whom they are due, and Imhotep; the ancient Khemetian polymath, architect, Priest, biologist, astronomer, poet, scribe, inventor, author, statesman, therapist, counsellor, philosopher, mathematician and stone mason, to mention but a few, happen to be one of those.

Imhotep was a mystery of a man, as is evident in the scarcity of information regarding his birth, birth place and final resting place. These notwithstanding, scholars and Egyptologists among them have managed to uncover the covering mystifying some of these mysteries; he is purported to have been born in Ankhtow, a suburb of Memphis, other scholars have relocated his birthplace to the village of Gebelein, south of Thebes. Though the specificity of his birth town seems illusive, one truth however stands; that he was and is a son of the ancient Khemetian kingdom.

Imhotep is said to have lived during the 3^rd Dynasty of the Old Kingdom which spanned from about 2686-2181 BC; that is the Third Millennium BC as the vizier (counsellor) to Pharaoh Djoser. Born of humble origins, he rose to the heights as one of the most accomplished and powerful individuals within the kingdom by sole virtue of his natural abilities as well as the dedication and passion with which he dispensed his duties.

Given his achievements, the Step Pyramid he engineered in construction at Saqqara (a town in the ancient Khemetian capital of Memphis that served as burial ground) has amassed global acclaim given the ingenuity characteristic of its construction. Unlike the skilled architects before him who employed the use of mud bricks in the construction of their monuments, Imhotep used limestone bricks; accurately chiseled to suit the perfection of his monumental Step Pyramid. This structure stood some 204 feet tall, with several chambers, hallways and ceremonial halls gracing its interior, and is reputed to be one of the age-long wonders of ancient and modern architecture alike.

In this time and age, Hippocrates; the Greek physician whose life span is confined within the years 460-370 BC is reputed to be the Father of Medicine. Imhotep however has been proven to have compiled a medical compendium in the course of his life time containing some 90 anatomical terms and an in-depth description of some 48 injuries. The compendium now known as the ‘Edwin Smith Papyrus’ also contained healing rituals and incantations for more impersonal ailments, and it is interesting to note that this was some 2200 years before the birth of Hippocrates. In view of this, some scholars have hailed him as the true Father of Medicine whose toil in the field of medicine has formed the basis upon which modern medical practice has thrived. About a century after his death, his was deified as a medical demigod, he was revered by the early Christians as ‘One with Christ’ and the ancient Greeks likened him unto their god of medicine; Asclepius.

Imhotep was highly revered by his contemporaries for his steep intellect and deep-seated wisdom. Scribes, orators and poets of his day are recorded to have offered a libation of an ink drop to him before embarking on their literary pursuits. He is one of two mortals to have attained the full status of a deity post-mortem and thus was worshipped as an intermediary between man and Ra (ancient Khemetian Sun God). He is also recorded to have developed the calendar with which the rise and fall of the Nile was predicted, he further invented a system by which water was drawn from the Nile even when water levels were low. He was an astute astronomer and a keen geographer as well.

It is for all these and more which the annals of history have kept jealously guarded that Imhotep is more than deserving a place on the lips of present generations; to highlight the unique greatness of the Afrikan heritage and the invaluable contributions made by his progenies towards world civilization.

Graham Hancock, a British writer and journalist, embarked on a search for lost civilizations and the secret knowledge that may have been buried with them. 

His adventures ferried him to the ancient Egyptian Kingdom that boasted of intelligent architecture, sacred knowledge and mystical insight. Over there, he learnt and shared with the world the towering heights of a civilization whose success story was written by a cohort of men and women drenched in skin black as the night. 

Of the numerous architectural monuments that proudly stood to attest to ancient Egypt’s great achievements, the Great Pyramids of Giza otherwise known as the Pyramid of Khufu or the Pyramid of Cheops; built roughly around 2560 BC towering to about 480 feet in height and retaining the pedigree of the ‘the tallest and monumental man-made structure’ for over 3000 years.

The wonder surrounding this turn of events is however not limited to its architectural feat. In his research given the Great Pyramid Complex at Giza, Graham Hancock uncovered an astonishing hidden truth underlying the construction of the Pyramids at Giza; a truth that will form one of the pivotal bases for the assertions and probable conclusions that will be submitted herein.

Graham Hancock uncovered that the Pyramid Complex at Giza was constructed in alignment with Orion’s Belt (the three bright stars that always appear in a nearly straight line at night), one of the best known asterisms in the night sky, and given the fact that the Pyramid Complex at Giza was erected around 2560 BC, it is interesting to further note that their astonishingly precise alignment with Orion’s Belt couldn’t have been achieved in the year 2560 BC, because in the said year, the architects and engineers who realized the Pyramids would not have achieved the precision with which they now stand proudly aligned. 

Graham further probed and finally discovered that; the precise alignment of the Pyramid Complex at Giza on the grounds where they stand with the triad stars constituting Orion’s Belt in the sky could have only been achieved in the year 10,500 BC. So, the question arises as to whether the melanated architects and engineers whose ingenuity materialized these architectural and cosmic wonders were time travellers or as to whether they were privy to some occult science that heightened their intelligence levels and thus were capable of feats that we of the present descent are baffled by.

It is noteworthy to add that the Sphinx (a monumental stone structure resembling a resting lion) was also discovered by Graham Hancock to be aligned in precision with the Constellation of Leo (one of the oldest star constellation in the sky).

Moving away from the fruitful labours of Graham’s adventures, let’s take a trip to Benin City; the capital of a pre-colonial African empire located in present-day Southern Nigeria. Historical records have it that the walls that guarded this city were four times longer than the Great Wall of China, and the homes, edifices and courts within the city were constructed using precise mathematical calculations, symmetry, proportions and architectural balance that amazed European visitors. 

The culture within Benin City was an impeccable one; homes had no gates, doors or locks, neighbors were at liberty to reach into the homes of their fellow neighbors for food and other items of need in their absence, for the one who took from his neighbor always replaced that which was taken, sometimes in greater measures. Benin City was a community devoid of thievery, filth, prostitution and all other social ills that were afflicting their European counterparts where they resided. Benin City, flourishing between the 13^th and 19^th century was an enlightened, intelligent and evolved hub.

Inching away from Benin City, we encounter the Bantu-Kongo community and their Democratic Art of Governance named; Mbongi. It is also noteworthy to mention their therapeutic philosophy named; Kinenga Kiazingila. The former aided in the serene organization of their instruments of governance as well as institutions in the orderly structuring of their society and the members therein, whilst the latter whose connotative meaning translates into ‘Balance of Life’ was employed in the service of providing a relief and respite to members of the community who may be entangled emotionally, and whose self-healing power may be suffering considerable loss.

The aforecited societies were predominantly Black cultures, whose monumental achievements as equally cited were attained in the absence of Western contact whatsoever. These cultures however begun on the path of degeneration after the intrusion of foreign missionaries and adventurers. 

There is a miracle within the Black folk that has aided in his orderly presentation of himself to nature and his society to himself and it stands to reason that the essence of his Blackness may be that miracle. Melanin is what the thinking minds have named it, but to the Black folk, this essence is that of an organic energy intelligence whose visual representation wields the singular ability to absorb and synthesize light from the Sun into another useful organic compound useful for bodily health. 

This melanin; the essence of the Black person’s blackness, whilst harvesting energy from the sun simultaneously configures its molecular algorithm to block the absorption of the more detrimental ultraviolet rays from the sun. It is this singular act of simultaneous selective assimilation that makes Black intelligent. This intelligence is not one afforded by the rationalizing tendencies of the brain, it is by itself its own rationalising tendency; its own master and its own brain.

The melanin that accords the black pigmentation of the Black person’s skin has been discovered by brain scientists to also have a resting place deep in the brain, the pioneers of this discovery have captioned the melanin located in the brain; Neuromelanin.

Researchers and Neuroscientists have postulated that the ‘Substantia Nigra’ which qualifies as the technical name for Neuromelanin is associated with other subcortical brain structures in an interaction that fosters; procedural learning, cognition, memory and overall optimal brain function.

In the final analysis, given the organically pigmented self-animated quality of melanin, it stands to reason that it affords us more than the complexion our skin tone is drenched in as melanated persons, it can be that extra helping hand that aided our ancestors in laying the foundations and scaling the heights of civilisation, as well as in the attainment of heightened levels of knowing by which they crafted those spiritual tools with which they employed in identifying with their Self, and with which the present generation can be beneficiaries if we would but stay true to our roots.

Evil is rarely a conscious choice. No one wakes up and declares, “Today, I will be evil.” Instead, it creeps in through conviction, through the unshakable belief that one is right. The most dangerous forms of evil are often born not from malice, but from an unyielding sense of purpose—when the desire for order, perfection, or justice becomes so absolute that it justifies destruction. This is what I call the blind side of evil.

History is littered with examples of this phenomenon. Take Hitler, for instance. His rise was not initially about extermination; it was about restoring German pride. In the aftermath of World War I, Germany was humiliated, economically crippled, and politically unstable. Hitler’s message was not one of evil at its inception—it was one of resurgence, of reclaiming a lost identity. The problem was that in the pursuit of an idealized German state, he identified enemies, he categorized, he purged. What started as a vision of strength became an instrument of suffering.

This pattern repeats itself throughout history. The Old Testament God, in his most wrathful moments, is often viewed as cruel, but from another perspective, he was enforcing Divine Order, ensuring that his chosen people did not stray. To the Israelites, this was righteousness. To those on the receiving end—whether Egyptians, Canaanites, or others—it was annihilation. Even the devil, if we strip away the religious symbolism, can be seen as a being who simply refused to bow, who saw himself as a victim of imposed order rather than an agent of chaos.

Perfection, control, and righteousness—these are the roads through which many have walked into the darkness, often without realizing it. The bureaucrat who enforces a law without questioning its morality, the leader who silences dissent in the name of unity, the revolutionary who justifies bloodshed for a cause—all operate under the assumption that their actions serve a higher purpose. And in that belief, they become blind to the suffering they cause.

So, the real question is: how do we recognize when our pursuit of good is leading us into evil? The answer is not easy, because evil does not always look like evil. Sometimes, it looks like justice. Sometimes, it looks like progress. And sometimes, it looks like God himself.

Jimmy

“The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between political parties either—but right through every human heart.”
— Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

I. The Mirror is a Trap

When you stand before a mirror long enough, something breaks. Not the glass. The illusion. You stop seeing “you” — the curated identity, the mask worn in daylight. Instead, you begin to sense what stares back is older than your name. It doesn’t blink. It doesn’t flinch. It just waits.

That’s not a reflection.
That’s a reminder.

A reminder that all you’ve failed to do wasn’t stolen from you — it was abandoned. By you. That the voice in your head that whispers sabotage? That’s you too. That the dreams you strangled with hesitation and the people you hurt with your indifference — none of it was forced.

The devil is not a figure that creeps in in the night. The devil is the part of you that knows better… and still chooses worse.

II. The Devil is Not Evil — He is Honest

The great mythologies got something wrong — or maybe they told the truth in symbols we never dared interpret literally.

The devil doesn’t lie.
He tells the truth we don’t want to hear.
• That you’re lazy, and you justify it with self-care.
• That you’re jealous, and you disguise it as critique.
• That you’re bitter, and you call it wisdom.
• That you’re scared, and you name it humility.

The devil isn’t in hell. He’s in every excuse.

What if hell isn’t a place you go to — but a place you are, every time you betray the god within?

III. Jung Wasn’t Just Talking About the Shadow. He Was Talking About God.

In Answer to Job, Jung did the unthinkable: he criticized God.

Not out of arrogance — but out of necessity. Because if God creates everything, then He created evil too. And Jung knew what religious men were too scared to admit — that God cannot be pure light. Because what is light without the dark?

Jung’s God is not omnibenevolent.
He is complete. Terrifyingly whole.
God contains wrath. Jealousy. Rage. Vengeance.

Sound familiar?

Because so do you.

So who are you when you are consumed by those emotions? Are you less godlike — or more?

If God has a shadow… then what are you becoming when you embrace your own?
A devil?
Or a god who has not yet reconciled with himself?

IV. Hinduism Got Closer: The Self is the Battlefield

The Bhagavad Gita doesn’t pull punches. Arjuna is commanded to kill his family in the name of dharma. It is the most brutal metaphor in any spiritual text.

And Krishna? He doesn’t coddle him. He says:

“Your duty is action, not the fruits of action.”

Translation: kill your attachments. Burn your cowardice. Annihilate the part of you clinging to comfort. Even if it looks like your brother. Even if it looks like yourself.

Krishna isn’t a god of peace. He’s a god of awakening. And awakening, in its truest form, is war.

The real Gita doesn’t take place on a battlefield. It takes place inside the ribcage.
It is fought between the “you” who knows and the “you” who obeys.
And only one will survive.

V. Christianity Whispered the Same Secret — But Cloaked in Symbol

In the Garden of Eden, the serpent doesn’t kill Adam and Eve. He enlightens them.

He gives them the forbidden knowledge of good and evil. And God punishes them for it. Why?

Because knowledge comes with responsibility. When you know, you can no longer pretend.

So maybe Satan was never a liar.
Maybe he was the truth-teller.
Maybe he was the initiator of human consciousness.

And maybe that’s why he was cast down — because the truth is unbearable.

If God feared humans eating the fruit…
Was He afraid we’d become like Him? Or afraid we’d realize we already were?

VI. Becoming the Devil — or Becoming God

Let’s discard religious dogma for a second. Let’s speak in blunt force existential truth:

You are capable of everything.
Brilliance. Betrayal. Creation. Destruction.
You are the hero. The villain. The martyr. The tyrant.

The question is not, “What will life allow me to do?”
The question is, “What will I allow myself to become?”

Every day you choose. And most days, you don’t choose the best version of you.
You choose the easy one.
The one that scrolls instead of works.
The one that blames instead of owns.
The one that stays asleep when life demands awakening.

And that is the devil. Not a demon with horns.
A decision repeated so often it becomes you.

VII. Unanswerable Questions That Should Keep You Awake at Night

Some truths can’t be swallowed. They have to be wrestled with in the dark. So I won’t end this with answers. Only questions. Questions that bite.
• If the enemy is you, can you ever truly be free?
• If God and the devil are both inside you, who’s really in charge — the one you pray to, or the one you obey?
• If your brother sabotages you, but you sabotage yourself too — who is more dangerous?
• If transcendence means killing your lower self, how much of you will be left?
• And if you finally become your highest self, will you recognize yourself… or mourn the death of who you used to be?

Jimmy

“Consequently, the classroom is transformed into a detention facility which subjects a child to mental torture thereby limiting or inhibiting the full development of the child.” – An excerpt from a petition by Kenyan parents Mr. Silus Shikwenke Were and Mr. Onesmus Mboya Orinda to the authorities.

The debate as to whether the system of education practised in Afrikan communities carries in itself the prerequisite tools and ambience for the proper enculturation of the Afrikan child and the dreams he/she innocently nurtures rages on, and on it must rage till the makers of policies and the proponents in charge of the formulation of regulating laws that affect education within Afrikan communities realize the severity of a colonized system of education, given the growth and development of the young and budding; harbingers of Afrika’s progress ambition.

Two parents namely; Mr Silus Shikwenke Were and Mr Onesmus Mboya Orinda from Kenya are reported to have challenged the Kenyan authorities via a petition on the restriction imposed on a parent and/or guardian’s decision to not enrol one’s respective ward in either a public or private school so as to allow for homeschooling. These two further argued that the governmental ‘regulative instrument’ in question is detrimental and contradictory to the fundamental rationale for which such regulation was instituted in the first place.

The Afrikan child is entitled to education so as to foster his enculturation and socialization process, and this education in order to achieve its purposed objective must be free from all conditioning cues instituted to mould the child in question into products of an industrialized system. The purpose of education must above every other rationale feed the curious hunger burning in the heart of every child, and empower them to explore their own selves so that they can bring to bear on the progress of the communities within which they find themselves the fruits of their uniqueness, and individualized abilities as well as gifts.

A Colonized Education is one that foremost strips the student bear of his/her cultural endowment to enable itself sole access to the student’s psyche. It is true that the human race is locked in an inescapable garment of mutuality, and that we live in a global village. It is therefore of an unavoidable nature the quality interactions Afrika needs to maintain with those around her so as to avail for her inhabitants a well-rounded stage to help hone their experiences in a more meaningfully holistic way. This must however not be to the detriment of the already existing beliefs, customs and indigenous ways of learning they hold sacred.

What is the prognosis that the schools teach what they purport to teach, and by what measure can the effectiveness and practical efficiency of that which is served the Afrikan child in the classroom be ascertained? Some meaningful indicators of a Colonized Education’s adverse impact on the health of Afrikan communities are; the upsurge in unemployment rates in Afrika, inadequate enterprising initiatives and activities amongst the Afrikan youth, unquestioning obedience, gross financial gap between the rulers and the ruled, and the near-inability of the Afrikan youth to formulate well-thought-of independent opinions in addressing the status quo.

Of the system of education still upheld in most Afrikan countries, its Afrocentric roots go only as deep as its location on the Afrikan soil and its managerial status as run by the Afrikan teacher. Every other facet constituting what Afrika and Afrikans call ‘education’ in modern times is in effect a Colonized Education; one whose core interest is vested in transforming the Afrikan child into another ‘machine’ of and for exploitation. 

The values around which Afrikan empires were built, the core defining values and subject areas they made their focus of study within our indigenous learning centres in ancient times are still of dire relevance to a people whose trajectory has been tampered with. Afrika and Afrikans must persist in building themselves from an Afrocentric epicentre. As a people and a continent, we are still at a building phase and therefore the custodians of our centres of learning must entrust into themselves the resolve to read into the times, so they can equip themselves with the NECESSARY prerequisite tools and salient cognitive armament with which they will further imbue in the children of Afrika a decolonized education; an invaluable self-sustaining reformative tool.

Those Afrikan parents and/or guardians whose diligence in enculturating their wards to rise above the norm, teaching them in the process to love themselves first and foremost so they can be secure enough to open up to retaining in learning the deep-seated, fully fledged insight offered by their heritage must persist in their noble and constructive mission, for they are the ones who will be hailed by an enlightened posterity as pioneers of our imminent absolute liberation.

“We write in every aspiration for truth, in thought and deed by day, and in soul struggles by night, the story of our desire for spiritual development. Upon the pages of the book of Karma are written the minutest particulars of individual efforts; when the feeble will is strong enough to prevent further births in this world, which is the spirit’s dream life, we shall find in real existence all the chapters that we have written in all our transitions. Only then will we be able to read the whole book through and know the nature of the long journey out of spirit through matter and back again to the All.” – An excerpt from a Theosophical doctrine.

As the days drift by and the evanescence of the seasons fade into the mysteries of nothingness, we are reminded of the transient nature given the life we live and all that is contained therein. Of tomorrow’s happenstance, who can know? Of the impersonal forces by whose beckon we are accorded the insight and guidance with which we gain traction on our muddied paths, how much of gratitude can we pay in recompense given the unconditional nature of the wisdom with which they employ in helping heal our over-grown ego?

Of the energy intelligence by whose creative endeavor flora and fauna have flourished and continue to evolve on our plane of existence, whose eyes can behold? Of the rise and fall of the Sun, of the changing phases of the Moon and of the vibrations underlying the mystic winds that have ferried our adventure-loving relatives to distant lands in search of love and inner joy, whose feet can keep up with their non-existent pace? Many are the questions surrounding the beautiful mystery called life.

Life, however, does not have to remain unto us a puzzling phantom, because if it does, it wouldn’t be worth the struggle embedded in living it. The problems and situations with which we are faced contain in them the respite of a freed salvation, our quota towards the liberation of our impersonal Self in the recognition of the vestiges bared by our trials lies in the willingness and humility required to elevate our senses to those unfettered heights. 

There are persons walking amongst us who by virtue of the mysteries surrounding their birth are naturally aligned with dimensions higher than what our five senses permit our innate perceptive abilities. These are the ones who wield the key to unlocking the mysteries contained in all of our unanswered questions, aiding our vessels in their sojourn along the shoreless ocean of immutability. The Babalawo happens to be one of those select few whose innate abilities transcend what is offered by the average.

‘Babalawo’ is a highly revered pedigree of an Ifa High Priest, a servant and mouthpiece of Orunmila in the Yoruba cultural tradition and pantheon. It means, among other equally reverent permutations; ‘The Father of Mysteries’. 

The Babalawo acts as an intermediary between the living in the ‘Upper world’ on one hand, and the living in the ‘Lower world’ on the other hand, for in most Afrikan communities, the ones who have shed their flesh in the transition process others call ‘death’ are believed to be living nonetheless but in a world qualitatively different from ours. He is ‘called’ from an early age in life amongst his peers to tread the path of a ‘Seer’ because of the spiritual aptitude characteristic of his Ethereal Self. His work is always garnished with a deep-seated reverence for all who cross the path of his divine duty.

The Babalawo is by personality very generous and intelligent, with a marked capacity for memorizing endless volumes of information; the one who will wield the high title of ‘Babalawo’ is required by the duty entailed therein to retain in the storehouse of his memory 256 Odu. His divining is usually done with a divining chain called Opele, or palm nuts on a sacred divining tray named Opon Ifa. The Opele and the palm nuts represent the male principle, and the divining tray represents the female principle in the dual nature of things but most importantly, they are indicative of the Law of Opposites; which teaches that every noble creative process requires by virtue of creating, an interaction between the negative and the positive; their interactive energies which bring to us the manifested creative answers to some of our deep-seated questions. 

The Babalawo’s ultimate will is to discover the will and purpose of Orunmila; one of the most powerful deities among the Yoruba pantheon.The Odu is an unwritten literary corpus; stories representative of all circumstances contained within the motions of life. They hold in them happenstances from the past, evidence of the now and impeccably accurate predictions of the future in sub verses named ese. The Odu is unwritten because the Babalawos hold the belief that; that which is written so as to unburden the mind becomes dead in essence, whereas that which is held in the mind is perpetually renewed in mode and make by the creative energies of the mind and thus is of a living nature irrespective of how old it is given the duration of its occurrence sometime past in relation to present moment.

So, the individual who is called to take up the high duty of a Babalawo usually understudies a more advanced and experienced Babalawo, one who passes this oral literary corpus of a heritage containing primordial wisdom and insight to him a day at a time. This can take up to 20 years to accomplish, but the training and studies entailed given the role and title of a Babalawo continues throughout the life of the initiate, as he also serves as a source of Odu to add to the already existing ancient store by incorporating some of the life stories shared with him by his visitors.  

The 256 Odu is what I refer to as; the Matrix of Life, for there is nothing bound by the cords of life from the past, in the now, within the future or in the hereafter that commands the needed power to elude the confines of the absolute. There are 16 principal Odu and 240 minor Odu culminating in a total of 256 Odu. Each Odu contains verses which tell a story, and the appropriate Odu for the situation a Babalawo and his visitor may be faced with is determined using some precise mathematical algorithm based on the sciences of probabilities and binaries.

In the parlance of its adherents; “when the Odu falls, there is a story that comes with it.” The nature of this story will provide the spiritual information sought after by one who may be experiencing a Babalawo in his line of work, and it is an honour as well as noteworthy to mention that the ‘chosen’ Odu, as well as the predictive wisdom it carries, are always accurate, always!

The Babalawo is thus in effect and practice, a Shaman of Afrikan descent, and a very powerful one for that matter. He is bound by a code of conduct intrinsic to his line of work to be at peace and in harmony with members of all other religious sects, as his duty is to humanity and not members of his believing cohort. He is also a herbalist, a counsellor, a philosopher, a storyteller, a cosmologist and a philanthropist where he finds himself.

There have been, there is and there always will be forces higher than man in his current state, these forces are always benevolent, ready and willing to lead and guide man on his sojourn within the realm of Earth. The duty required of us is to quiet our apprehensions in the recognition of that fact and open up in humility to embrace the wisdom they have made available to us all around us, and the simple veracity that; we are not alone on our journey. 

Those who seek after life’s deep waters will find within the rivers of their souls a dynamically potent shoreless ocean of immutability, always.

Fela Kuti’s ‘Zombie’ was produced by Coconut Records in 1976, Nigeria. Amongst other artistic and philosophical reasons, the song was employed as a ‘tool’ by Fela Kuti to address his perceived degeneration in the morals and professional conduct of the Nigerian military and subsequently the Nigerian government as a whole.

“I hold death in my pouch, I cannot die.” – Fela Kuti.

Zombie O, zombie

Zombie no go go unless you tell am to go

Zombie no go stop unless you tell am to stop

Zombie no go turn unless you tell am to turn

Zombie no go think unless you tell am to think

Tell am to go straight

A joro jara joro

No break no job no sense

A joro jara joro

Tell am to go kill

A joro jara joro

No break no job no sense

A joro jara joro

Tell am to go quench

A joro jara joro

No break no job no sense

A joro jara joro … – An excerpt from Fela Kuti’s 1976 hit song ‘Zombie’.

The creations of artistic endeavours; poems, songs, stories, novels and dance movements to mention but a few are in actual essence the materialized deep-seated intentions and reflections of the artist in question. To him, it is the most viable time-proof means by which he can foremost express his innermost feelings and observations of the world around him, and employ it as a formative and/or reformative tool for the just advancement of a common humanity. 

The noble art of Self-expression is very important in any society, for it does not only confer on its proponent the respite of an unburdened psyche, but adds to the collective creative energy as some of these expressions emanating from individuals with whom we share commonality have served as catalysts for social progress irrespective of whether they challenged the misdirected ‘progress’ of society’s status quo or filled in a missing gap; as did Michael Jackson’s moonwalk.

The political, social and cultural terrain of Nigeria from 1966 when the first coup d’état of Alhaji Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa was carried out to the formation of Nigeria’s Second Republic when Olusegun Obasanjo handed over power to Shehu Shagari was one characterized by assassinations, murders, loot, and the preponderance of an utter state of lawlessness. It was a caricature representation of the Hobbesian warre; a state of being within a society where ‘everyone is against everyone’.

As allowed by Nina Simone; “an artist’s duty is to reflect the times”. Fela Kuti made it his destiny’s mission to put his artistry in focus; a revolutionary focus by which he did his own bit of ‘reflecting the times’ so to speak. The song ‘Zombie’ did more than criticize the unruly socio-culturally destructive operations of the Nigerian military back then, it also provided a window through which we saw and can still see in this present-now the nature of our individual and collective conscious psyche.

Fela Kuti’s observations of the behaviour of his kinsmen at the time, painted in the melodious imagery of ‘Zombie’ reveals an unspoken dire truth given the average Afrikan; whose folded arms and folded minds have made him a victim of manipulation and exploitation against himself as an individual, and against those whom he calls tribesmen. “…zombie no go think unless you tell am to think…”

Of course, the Nigerian Military of Fela Kuti’s days were ‘organized’ along the lines of authority-ranks; sometimes earned through meritorious deeds, other times through sheer brute force and was animated by orders and decrees from the ‘higher-ups’ to the ‘lower-downs’ whose purpose for living given their presence in a military career was to obey these orders and decrees usually without question. This scenario is not far removed from the modus operandi by which society as a whole is led, especially societies within the modernized Afrikan enclave. 

It seems that the average majority are not the watchmen of their own conscious minds given our Afrikan communities. The average Afrikan has abandoned the gates of his central processor, simultaneously granting that position to whosoever is unsatisfactory with his own measure of freedom. The average Afrikan has freely handed over the keys of his innate freedom to control-obsessed cohorts who have gladly made it their bona fide property, so his thoughts are not truly his, neither are the fruits of the deeds born of it and to this, he is born of. “…zombie no go turn unless you tell am to turn…”.

The question now arises as to ‘why has the average Afrikan rendered himself powerless in a world ruled by power of varying quality and quantity?’ or rather; ‘who has rendered the average Afrikan powerless in a world teeming with the force of power?’. I am of the assertion that these two questions are so salient they are not mutually exclusive; they are a continuum of dire necessity. “…zombie no go go unless you tell am to go…”.

The philosopher John Locke in his ‘An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, 1689‘ postulated the age-old concept of ‘Tabula rasa’; a Latin phrase whose connotative translation roughly reads; ‘clean slate’. The basic assumption of this concept is that; we are all born with virgin minds and a consequent state of consciousness; a stage in our baby years where and when we are most innocent yet most vulnerable. What then forms; the bases of our knowing, foundations for our beliefs, belief system and motivations for our actions or the absence thereof as a people? It must have something to do with those experiences with which we came into contact with in our formative years. As we mature in; the awareness of the developmental processes our cognition and emotion go through, and in our interactions with our natural world and the Self within, we create on the clean slate those mental algorithms that will subsequently map out the quality and functional efficiency of our thoughts and those actions ensuing from them.

In our formative years, we tend not to have significant control over the circumstances within which we draw the experiences that shape us, albeit they are our most crucial years. Those whose decisions were almost always made ‘on their behalf’ or had the singular formative privilege of deciding for themselves completely overridden by the parent’s and/or guardian’s authority as youngsters tend to walk into the responsibility-filled world of adulthood without the crowned development of a well-rounded sense of Self. Is this the cause of our timidity, or rather the wheels underlying our hospitable drive; two phenomena that have made us susceptible to control and manipulation. A predicament not so different from the butterfly that could not fly because one farmer decided to ‘help’ it out of its cocoon. “…zombie no go stop unless you tell am to stop…”

The ability to; think through issues, critique the fundamental premises upon which their edifices have been built, provide equally viable alternate ideas to warrant their substitution when needed and reject or accept the phenomena contained in circumstances from a standpoint of understanding and resolve is a must-have arsenal given all persons, especially those of Afrikan descent who for a very long time have been victims of situations. 

The Afrikan must also guard his mind against manipulative conditioning cues present all around his community. In order for the average Afrikan to empower himself and the society wherein he lives so as to purposefully direct himself and the course of his life, he must be wary of what he feeds his senses and be aware of all the arsenals arrayed against the rise of Blackness for we cannot continue down the path of increasing decline. Fela Kuti was a Social Psychologist after all, and a phenomenal one to infuse a well-informed psychoanalytic message into a song. The Afrikan ‘Zombie’ must now more than ever regain his composure and steady his walk.

 “…tell am to go straight…”

“When there are elders in the house, the young quickly grow in experience.” – An Afrikan Proverb.

I met Ananse yesterday on the streets of Adanse, just behind the old school factory where the word-smiths are skilled at forging compliance out of rebellion. He laid there, silently buried on the lips of his successors. Our conversation was animated and crisp, it wielded a quiet considerable depth.

For those who by virtue of the circumstances surrounding their birth have been moved to inquire into the ‘who’ and ‘what’ of what ‘Ananse’ can possibly be, I more than glad to share with you this…

Ananse is portrayed as a mythical figure whose essence is confined within the wisdom gap of the Akans; a proudly powerful ethnic community flourishing on the soils of Ghana, West Afrika. His visual representation is that of a spider-man, but without the costume and Mary Jane. 

Kwaku Ananse, as he is affectionately hailed by the sons and daughters of Ghana is a creative trickster, probably the mythical equivalence to Loki; a god of mischief in Norse mythology. Ananse carries in him the gift of the garb; a word-smith whose quick wit and verbal fluidity accords him the ease of access into the minds and skins of his adversary, gaining the upper hand time and time again.

Ananse and me drew from his exploits, tale of exploits; he told me a story of how he boldly approached God one fateful day and requested of Him to make him the master of storytelling. He was then tasked by God to bring forth a live; python, cheetah and hornet to prove himself worthy of the title.

He said; “I walked across the length and breadth of the Earth until I found a humongous python sleeping in the heart of the forbidden forest in Dahomey. I woke him up and told him a story of how his wife had gone about the entire forest telling the animal kingdom of how her husband was shorter than the Neem tree sitting in their courtyard, and that I had been delegated by the elders to ascertain the truth of her claims. The python quickly ushered me into his courtyard, apprehensive about his reputation as the longest animal in the kingdom he quickly sized himself up with the Neem tree in his courtyard to prove the falsehood of his wife’s gossip. I nimbly tied him up with a rope I had been concealing in my anus all along, uprooted the tree with my might and sent him to God…”

“…I knew the cheetah was the fastest animal in the kingdom having to chase after him for twelve good years before facing off with him. I dug a hole along a race track he tasked me to create if I am to dare him to a race and covered it with dried herbs. On the day of the race, he bolted ahead of me like lightning and dropped into the hole I had prepared for his capture earlier on. I approached him where he lay within the ground, covered him with my web and took him to God…”

“…the hornet was the tricky part, but I bested it. Word from the animal kingdom had it that she was nesting in a hut situated close to the edge of the Earth, so I walked for three years without rest, water or food till I got to her abode. I had come with a gourd hollowed out for her capture. At night when she was asleep, I snuck close to the hut, climbed it and silently removed all the thatch roofing it. After that, I hung the gourd from her window sill, walked away a few distances and shouted; ‘Rain!’ ‘Rain!’ ‘Rain!’. She woke up startled of the sound of rain, looked up and saw no covering on her roof, so she mindlessly darted into the opening in the gourd for cover. I quickly covered up the opening of the gourd and sent her to God, then I was entitled.” These were his final words with a smile on his face.

Myriad of interpretations can be ascribed to this ancient tale and mine is no different; that however tough, fast or tricky life may get, originality, initiative and persistence shall be the tickets to where all the righteous are led.

So go on, tell everybody that Ananse just dropped the clay pot containing the world’s wisdom from atop the palm tree, and that there is enough for everybody.

Go on, do it with an inborn fire, on a night when the sky is ether-black and the Moon is star bright. Let that be your manna and your light. You and all of your brothers and sisters, sit in a circle of life and allow your finest orator tell you of your stories.

Stories woven in the past to hold the understanding of present and future generations. Stories forged on the hilltops of Mesopotamia by the Sumerian Kings, nurtured in the Nile Valley by the Pharaohs of Ancient Egypt and ferried around the world by the Mycenaean of the Aegean. All hail the ones before us, they have done well.

As I stood to take leave of him he said; “this is my story which I have narrated, if it be sweet or if it be not sweet, take some elsewhere, and let some come back to me.”

I know what the world has done to my brother, and how narrowly he has survived it. And I know which is much worse, and this is the crime of which I accuse my country and my countrymen, and for which neither I nor time nor history will ever forgive them, that they have destroyed and are destroying hundreds of thousands of lives and do not know it and do not want to know it. One can be, indeed one must strive to be tough and philosophical concerning destruction and death, for this is what most of mankind has been best at since we have heard of man. But it is not permissible that the authors of devastation should also innocent. It is the innocence which constitutes the crime.” – James Baldwin.

I think of ‘Advancement’ and the more I think of it, the more I learn that it is a by-product of the combined actions of those persons who dare to think it and to think of it.

In any given community, ‘Advancement’ shall mean; a state of being devoid of discomfort, and in whatever form the discomfort may present itself, it should not wield the strength to subdue the will of those persons faced with it in their pursuit to remove themselves from that state of discomfort.

For what is state of the art institutions when the states of our hearts sink in destitution?

Advancement is therefore a virtuous ideal, one to which every given person within the community must aspire. However, we often do not think it, neither do we think of it. We must have accommodated our discomforts instead of ridding ourselves of them, we must have settled for less; the cankerworm shredding the fibres of our reality.

I have wondered why, and asked how, but with time I have come to concur with pieces of evidence from concrete sources that; the foundations of our narratives as melanated persons have over the past century focused diligently on the ‘Plight of the Black race’; from picking cotton on the white-washed cotton fields in the New World, to getting shot for walking away from those fields in this older world. Even in my bid to lay this point bare, I find myself committing the same crime of which I seem to be accusing the custodians of the past century.

It is necessary that we are informed of what arsenal has been arrayed against us as a people, for it is the only way we can create channels and develop systems to rise above them. However, in the instance where the situations we have been faced with and are still facing become the body and soul of our narratives, we risk becoming susceptible to a ‘victim’ state of mind. In this state of mind, self-initiated reformative initiatives are difficult to engineer.

The anatomy of Human Behavior is such that ‘information’ rests at its core as a building block, and its foundational unit. What we do and think on a repeated basis is that which we have identified as our viable self-enhancing truth, and that which we identify as our viable self-enhancing truth is to a large extent influenced by the ‘information’ our immediate environment has presented to us, and this holds for the average majority.

The Jim Crow laws inspired a well-rounded highly successful Black community; ‘The Black Wall Street’ is what they called it, some saw it as miniature evidence of the glories characteristic of the homeland so they named it ‘Little Afrika’. This community in Tulsa, Oklahoma thrived from the early 1900s when the average Black doctor ran a medical school, and the average legal practitioner operated a firm. This was the hub of ‘Advancement’, a true representation of unity and strength in action until opposing forces rendered it extinct in 1921.

The community was a movement inspired foremost by a belief in our strengths and potential as a people and subsequently, a move to rise above the muddied pits of racial injustice. The warriors who spearheaded the movement dared to think it and in thinking of it, they moved to make it a reality.

‘Learned Helplessness’ is a concept in Psychology. Think of a dog placed in a metal cage connected to a source of electricity. Whenever the dog attempts to escape the cage, an experimenter electrifies the cage so the dog is discouraged from leaving it. This happens on every single attempt by the dog to escape the cage. With time and per the turn of events, the dog gives up in its endeavour to attain freedom. For the price entailed in staying confined within the cage is less costly as compared to the price of leaving it, thus the dog is simultaneously conditioned to stay in the cage even in the absence of the electrical shocks and the experimenter. If that same dog is placed in the world outside, it will run back into the cage because its freedom in the great big world outside of the cage was paired with pain and discomfort, thus the world in the cage becomes more appealing. This is what Learned Helplessness teaches.

In seeking to understand why we aren’t in full force front lining the pages of ‘Advancement’, I am moved to assert that we may be wallowing in a state of Learned Helplessness not only because of the grim content of our narratives, but also given our past where the average Black person is by default incessantly shoved into a depleted corner of this massive socio-economic mansion of a world by dint of systems and institutions created without a thought of the Black person’s well-being other than how to harness the Black person’s ingenuity in keeping such systems and institutions thriving. And given these turn of events, we must now more than ever make highly conscious efforts to rethink our narratives and concert our efforts and resources like the creators of Little Afrika did, for this is where the rise will begin.

Our schools must now more than ever burn all syllabi handed to us by the colonialists, and from an Afrocentric standpoint, create anew organic lessons and practical routines tailored towards that ‘Advancement’ state of mind. This challenge is ours, one that is born from the recesses of our very being and thus we are the only ones who can best it.