She...

A child was born. A female child, dark skinned and frail was born to Mother Earth a century ago. As she grew older, she became more conscious of her skin colour as other children born to Mother Earth were blessed with diverse skin colours. She began to have children, as soon as she was born. Children that looked exactly like her but spoke different languages. As she grew older, her step siblings who had a different skin colour began to tease her about hers. They were white and ‘pure’; that’s what they thought. Her self esteem sank. She became helpless and finally they over powered her and began to rule her. They flogged her children with no mercy and used them as slaves. Her heart sank daily. She thought them stupid for using a basic think such as difference in skin colour to punish her innocent children. Some of her children were lucky; they had money and education so the white skinned people didn’t treat them as slaves. As she grew older, her children waxed great in strength and kept looking for ways to break free from this tyranny.

The first day of October, 1960 was the happiest day of her life. She glowed as she walked gallantly with shoulders high, to the market square dancing and rejoicing. Finally her step siblings had freed her children. Her joy knew no bounds on that fateful day. It was like she was born again. It became her new birthday. The day was she born to Mother Earth made no meaning to her anymore. Her children danced their heart out, they put on their best clothes and shoes as they rejoiced and waved goodbye to the tyrants. It was a sweet goodbye, not the sad one that leaves tears on people’s faces.

 As years sluggishly rolled by, some of her selfish children whom she chose to rule her children began to walk in the footsteps of her step siblings. Rather than protect and care for her children, all they did was back orders and hoard resources from them. They ate fat chickens and only threw chewed bones at their subjects. The children lived in fear of its rulers; they had no liver to say what they felt. They had no one to complain to aloud, except in hushed whispers to their neighbours for fear of being heard by the ruler’s servants.Everyone lived in fear of the ruler and his servants.

The 29th day of May, 1999 brought an end to the selfish rule of the uniformed men. The children were happy once again. They could now breathe fresh air. New rulers were quickly elected. The thirst for power made them draw blood frequently. They fought each other with every weapon they could lay their greedy hands on. Tribalism was their favourite weapon; they used it mercilessly, forgetting they came from the bowels of the same woman. They were siblings despite their tribal differences. Its intensity made one of the children try unsuccessfully to run away from home and live like the prodigal son.

Different rulers have ruled since then, but they all have one thing in common- greed and selfishness. All they care about is their fat bellies and robust accounts. Taking a look at herself now in the mirror, she screamed in horror as her tired eyes met a replica of her hanging directly above the mirror. She faked a faint smile as she remembered the cause of her huge grin in the picture. It was Independence Day; her birthday. The once vibrant, happy, enthusiastic face has now been replaced with sunken eyes, wrinkled face, with a bent body frame. She has been battered by her children’s activities. She looks down on them with tears dripping from her huge eyes. Religion is the new weapon of destruction accompanied with poverty, hunger and unemployment.

“Pekele pekele “comes the war chant. “The old woman is in trouble, who will bail her out?”