THE AFRICAN: BETWEEN YOU AND ME

Exactly a year ago this month I opened a hornets nest. Pandora’s’ Box in fact. I sat across a white blinding light and asked a rather sobering question to myself and the ever present but invisible audience of one. It was a pitch perfect coincidence, spurred on by a desire to pursue a story which had been keeping me awake at night up until that very moment. It was an irrational obsession with being kept in the dark. I had no idea why but somehow all the missing pieces came together one Thursday night in August as if pulled together by an invisible hand, as if someone else was in charge and

I was a spectator of my own life.

I realized that I was the one being moved, placed, and positioned where I was. I observed that apart from being willing and open to the events as they unfolded, I had nothing to do with what was actually happening. My life was not my own plan. It was not in my hands, so to speak. I was mute, silent for a while and sat quietly listening to my own breath and the echoes of my beating heart. I don’t think I have ever heard it thump quite so loud. But, as you well know by now I am rather prone to extreme hyperboles. The point is I was just as surprised by the outcome. Because while I thought the story was about power and electricity generation in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the message in the video sounded very different, as if it was about much more.

It was scary.

I was afraid of the woman in the video. She was bold, confident, strong, assertive, sweet, open and challenging. The Words. The Codes. The Flags. The Numbers. Went up. The story was simple enough. But not an easy one to tell cogently in a single sentence: hence the poetry. The silence that followed this episode was deafening and it plunged me into the deepest and darkest recesses of my soul. I tried, over and over to tell someone her story, the story of Inga. And for many reasons it was not the time. For many reasons it was not my call to make. Perhaps it was not my story to tell. I don'know what will happen next. Still I am, here, present, open and willing to let life come in, to me. It is at this very moment that the words of Patrice Lumumba, the first Prime Minister of the independent DRC come to heart. The prophetic words he wrote to his wife before he was assassinated in 1961.

I’ve heard them a thousand times.

“History will have its say one day. Not the history they teach in Brussels, Paris, Washington or the United Nations, but history taught in the countries set free from colonialism and its puppet rulers. Africa will write her own history both north and south of the Sahara. It will be a history of glory and dignity. Do not weep my love, I know that my country which has suffered so much, will be able to defend its independence and liberty. Long live the Congo. Long Live Africa!”

A friend once asked me, when this day would come because the Congo has remained in turmoil in all the 55 years since Lumumba penned these words. She asked, where is the story of triumph and dignity. I know it does not sound or look grand but this is it. The African.

#economy #politics #women