“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far go together.”
I occasionally hear that adage used on certain radio and TV programs during discussions… And every time I hear it, it makes more and more sense. For various reasons I never get tired of hearing it; it’s resonant.
Apparently, it’s an old African proverb the likes of that other popular one, “It takes a village…” which is widely used in discussions… Problem is I’m not quite sure if it truly originated on the African continent (and was appropriated, co-opted by others), but every time I hear it, it makes so much sense. It’s truly deeper (in significance) than it sounds.
If it truly is an African proverb, then given the state of Africa on the international stage (by virtue of its conspicuous absence) it matters… more than ever. In fact, it should be a daily mantra in all areas of continental African society, and by extension outside Africa.
Significant as it might be, the proverb is seemingly not resonating with the collective [African peoples across the Diaspora]. Like a windshield in an automobile accident history has shattered us. And, as I’ve heard in many discussions and conversations, “[We’re] going to hell…” in the proverbial hand basket.
Don’t know when we’ll get there, but we’re well on our way, and we will continue, if…
All we’re hearing and seeing about Africa are stories about drought, famine, hunger, starvation and dying… The Africa… African story is recurring and perpetual. And because the traditional and historical benefactors keep giving there’s no desire on the part of the leaders of those nations – whose deprived peoples have seemingly become permanent wards and recipients of international benevolent acts, to do anything to address and ameliorate all those recurring and glaring images of what appear to be Africa’s dispensable, throwaway peoples.
Africans have problems, yes. But deny as some of us might, we have ours here too. They persist much the same way theirs do over there as ours over here. We’re much better off than our African kin over there, notwithstanding the pressures of various social and other pernicious institutionalized forces we have to endure…
Everyday!
It’s worth repeating that from a continental African standpoint, things are not looking good; the news coming out of Africa, at least in the mainstream media is consistently bad, a sense of hopelessness. And as I watch the mainstream images coming out of Africa I begin to lose hope of ever seeing a new Africa emerge from its history of all that I have become accustomed to: war, refugees, hunger, starvation… Nothing seems to change.
But where we are, here in the Diaspora, we can’t break the ties… or better stated, the chains that bound us. At the community level it’s a continuous lament about stagnation. As many say no economic development to speak of, no more functioning institutions (many contend that there once were), a seeming lack of desire by many to take a look at where we are as a community, common interests and so on, and come together in a spirit of cooperation and regenerate our community.
In the meantime, with the dawn of Trumpism and its far-reaching rippling effects, nefarious historical forces are emerging, and are unrelenting in their subtle, and at times blatant (even physical), viciousness. And they show no signs of letting up. They’ve been empowered, emboldened.
If there ever was a blatant case to be made for racist, ethnocentric rhetoric and seeds of the [new] ideological ethos being nurtured by the various enablers of the new America, led by President Trump, one Congressman Steve King of Iowa laid it out in a recent cryptic diatribe.
He explained in an unfettered, unbridled, no-holds barred manner how he feels about, and what he wants, the new America [under “the different kind of president”] to look like going forward.
Espousing the ”Make America great again!” mantra, King laid out in no uncertain terms what he wants America to be: white again. Actually, he wasn’t that direct, his words were coded; but there’s no question that he wants America to look like it was before all those other people began to flow in: “homogenous.“
Something about dormant white nationalism… always waiting an opportune moment to bubble to the surface.
“[…] We can’t restore our civilization with somebody else’s babies,” the Congressman stated. “We can’t restore our civilization with somebody else’s babies…culture and demographics are our destiny.”
“This whole ‘old white people’ business does get a little tired. I’d ask you to go back through history and figure out where are these contributions that have been made by these other categories of people… Where did any other subgroup of people contribute more to civilization?”
In another interview King went on about “Western civilization itself that’s rooted in Western Europe, Eastern Europe, and the United States of America, and every place where the footprint of Christianity settled the world. That’s all of Western civilization.”
In one of his tweets the Congressman went on about “Cultural suicide by demographic transformation must end.”
Wonder if he was referring to what his forefathers did to the people they came in contact with when they arrived, and their subsequent extermination.
Such is the arrogance of history’s primary colonizers…
According to another article, King predicts a [race] war between Hispanics and Afro Americans.
“Race and ethnicity… When you start accentuating the differences, then you start ending up with people that are at each other’s throats. And he’s adding up Hispanics and Blacks into what he predicts will be in greater number than whites in America. I will predict that Hispanics and the Blacks will be fighting each other before that happens.”
Let’s hope that does not materialize.
If we want to go fast, we still can’t go alone. But if we want to go far we must go together, globally. It’s imperative.
There are multiple forces aligned against us.