I felt frustrated and tired today. It has led me to an epiphany.
I've spent my entire adult life trying to change my corner of the world.
I've only seen it change for the worse. I cannot change the world
without money. I cannot change the world with other people's money either.
Unless I want to change it in their image and likeness and right now I don't
like their image and likeness. Still that's exactly what I've been trying
to do. Change the world with other people's money.
I am a libertine and a laissez faire capitalist. I believe in
life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I am also an empathetic and
compassionate person. More than anything else in the world I love people, I
love being with people, hearing their stories and sharing their lives. I
believe all men and women were born equal and have the right to be free of
coercion, slavery and repression.
I believe that our freedom and happiness are also personal
responsibilities. I do not believe in welfare government or a parternalistic
government that takes care of people from cradle to grave. I believe all
people, male and female can be what they want to be and who they want to be and
must be self sufficient. I also believe that this right ends where that of the
other person begins. I believe communities have the right to self
determination.
I believe that justice is the highest good and injustice the
highest evil. I believe hypocrisy to be the only sin and honesty the
only virtue. When injustice and hypocrisy are condoned by society we have an
evil kingdom. Where the community condones and abets injustice and hypocrisy we
have an evil community. The few with power have appropriated our rights
and told us it was a social contract.
My ancestors lived on their land for centuries, then one day the
Federal Government of Nigeria wrote a piece of literature and said all land and
everything on it and underneath it belongs to them. They also had the
fire power to make it so. My ancestors, the people whose blood flows through my
veins knew no one owns the land. The land owns the people. The people are tied
to the land, the land is not tied to the people. Does the federal government
now own us too? Are we now
slaves that must buy back our freedom?
Do not tell me what to do, tell me what you will do. Do not tell
me who to be, tell me who you are and I will tell you my story too. Perhaps we
will recognize ourselves, perhaps not. I will not and do not want to tell you
what to do. All I ask is that you respect my declared boundaries. I will
respect yours. If you breach my boundaries I will let you know, let me know
yours. Quitely, respectfully, there really is no need to shout. I can
hear you. I will listen to you if you listen to me. Respect my right to self
determination.
In the kingdom of my fiery African ancestors where I come from
all people male and female were born equally vulnerable and dependent on those
that were here before them. You thanked your mother for not killing you when
you were born, for not dropping you on your head, for nurturing you instead of
wringing your neck because really you were at her mercy and she was here before
you. As you grew your drive, talents, skills, intelligence and your audacity
determined your rank in the pecking order. Even women and girls. It was a
meritocracy albeit a brutal meritocracy.
If you were strong you were hailed, if you were weak you were
jeered, whether male or female. Strength and weakness had peculiar attributes,
peculiar to a forest dwelling people. Strength was the power, will and
mind to compete as ruthlessly as necessary to come first. There was no empathy
for the weak and those that came last. It was said that was their chi, their
fate, their destiny, their personal God. I have learnt
love from my mothers.
What does love then mean to me? Its not that wave of emotion I
feel when I look at something or someone. that's endorphins
or dopamine. It will pass. Its not even what I feel for my
children, I adore my kids. Most of us do. Literally setting them up as little
idols and demi-gods we either worship or brutalize into submission. That's an
emotion. Love like my friend always says is a verb.
Love is what you do and it acts honestly and justly. Honestly, I
should made my adult children move out long ago, instead I subsidized them for
as long as I could. I hope they haven't become lazy and complacent as a
result. After all I was younger than them now when I moved out on
my own, the economy was just as bad then to hear my father say it. There
would be no injustice, they are adults and supposed to be self reliant whatever
the environmental conditions.
My adoration of them said "Oh no, the big bad world is too
dangerous, come let me protect you". Lolo Ahunwa would slap me upside the
head. The male ancestors would say "Leave her she's a woman" to
explain my sentimentality. I'm
glad I did it eventually without much of the conflict I sometimes witness. I
know they'll be al-right just like I was. I instilled them with all
my values.
The Universe and Nature act love, the oneness of the Universe is
love, the interdependence and interaction of each speck in the Universe is
love, a dance of love. When there is an imbalance in the Universe
love sets it right. I laugh at the arrogance of the climatologists, climate
change will not destroy the Earth, it will destroy man kind, the threat to
Earth. The Earth will heal in a couple million years, a day in the long
history of the Universe.
I don't believe in any of the Gods you worship because surely
'God' is greater than anyone of them and all of them combined. If there
is a God. But you know what? It doesn't matter to me really if there is or
isn't. If God is love I have learnt much from my mothers.
This is my feminism. It is individual and it serves the
communal, it is independent and recognizes our interdependence, it is a tough
love and it can be cozily sentimental too. Most of all it is objective,
honest, self reliant and just.
