Somewhere on the road to Hope
Nobody should be blamed for their decision to survive. Is it a sin to hope for the best even when your womb is being emptied in front of the whole world? Is it an outrage to pray for the rain of peace in the middle of the arid desert of chaos and bullets? All these people have done was to exist, but what could the world be without them? In a few more years, we will find out. Can we say that their reality will forever be in the hands of others to manipulate? Does the word “hope” really mean anything to them? Will it ever translate into “resistance”?
Why there has not been a revolution in the DR Congo in the 21st Century?
What one can do is, first, to keep educating themselves. As you have read so far, it is difficult to realize what I have just mentioned without researching it because it is taught nowhere. We cannot expect to learn that from school, we have to put an effort into unlearning all the propaganda we have been fed with. Books are a good start because the truth is that we are not alone, a lot of our brothers and sisters and ancestors have realized too the flaws in the system and they have written about it. One needs just to look for them. There is a lot to learn out there from books, even suggestions for way-outs. And again, we should not expect to truly understand revolutionary texts from going school, we need to put an effort into analysing them. After that, we need to educate each other. Even if it may not be the most comfortable thing to do if a brother or sister is still brainwashed, it is our duty as a community to bring them home (Carmichael, 1971, p. 433)…
The Journey to Hope from Destruction
Two decades passed, wars succeeded one another, rebellions begot insurrections and injustice engulfed wretchedness. But the land got rebuilt, a new system, for the people, got installed and agreements got made. Although there is still impunity in the air and some parts are still blurry, victims, their children and their grandchildren are asked to move on, to forget a past that has benefitted some at their expense…
An Understanding of Settler Colonialism
However, in the case of South Africa, the native Africans were many (more than 70%), hence by uniting and gaining consciousness they became a greater threat to Boers. That is why in the early stages of the Apartheid, it was so important to create and maintain the Bantustan. They were small pieces of land, scattered in South Africa, where the native Africans were concentrated. Hence, it was not surprising that a leader supported by all native Africans would win any free election in which all the people were participating. Nevertheless, it is necessary to remember that the structures and systems from the Apartheid are still affecting the native Africans. This is because the apartheid was overthrown only politically and not economically…
The field is on fire: time to set the house on fire too
Siblings and comrades and those of us who were longing for an opening, the day has arrived.
For decades, we thought this machinery was invincible, we thought that the hegemony would be eternal. Instilled inside the minds of our ancestors and passed down to us like a cursed legacy, this fear and despair was nourished by what we were seeing, eating, and drinking. The very fabric of our societies was poisoned, so deeply that we forgot love, our true essence. In our relations with one another, in our celebrations, in our connection to the earth, nothing was spared, to the point that no way out was envisioned. Who could resist, why should they resist? All the alternatives seemed too scary because this evil reality was set as the standard and baseline for us all…