Straight from the heart of the bush

Africa has always been hailed as a dark continent, a force that never woke itself. For years, Africa was raped and brutalized by power-starved nations who sought gold and diamonds under the pretext of bringing civilization. In their quest to remove primitivism from our hearts and minds, they destroyed our very basis of existence. They took diamonds we didn’t use and thanked us by painting very vile pictures of the continent. It was a dark, war-torn place, a place with no laws and no god. Africa was painted an anarchical land with furiously idiotic people. They gave the notion of an Africa that as disorganized and had to look upon the more ‘intelligent races’ to plan their everyday lives, to tell them how to walk and talk. Settlers came to Africa and found a viable land that apparently was ‘unoccupied’ and made fresh starts to their failed lives. They were peasants back in their countries who dreamed of starting over anew and found inferiors they could manipulate. Their dreams were born while African children and men watched theirs die and there is nothing they could do.There came authors who penned their Africa experiences which further eroded the white view of the country. The price we paid for everything we had was so immense and irreplaceable; our cultures decayed as we watched, our beliefs crumbled and our humanity was lost. Yes, you are right to claim that we are from the bushes. We don’t have a culture to call ours, we don’t have anything to prove our African authenticity. We don’t have land, we don’t have humongous properties. We have to toil day and night to make our employers millionaires and to grow our economies to become like other nations. Yes, you are right to say we are from the bushes, for we are still fighting poverty, disease and ignorance. You can say we are from the bushes because we have problems of corruption and poor leadership. But the last time I checked, an African wouldn’t pass another without asking about another’s health. An African ceremony wasn’t a one person affair, everybody in the community would chip in to make it a success. I saw an Africa where people would create time to dance with another and have fun. I saw an Africa rising from its induced coma, an Africa ready to claim its rightful throne, to take back the time it lost in the darkness, to show the world that suppression happens to be only temporary. You can say Africa is a bush but looking at your life, then yours is a forest. We are a dark continent but then yours happens to be blind permanently. I know an Africa that cares and caters for everyone. Do other continents do? I know an Africa that rejoices in the little it has rather than the much it doesn’t. Yes, Africa is a bush, but then I’d rather live and die in that bush with little fruits and plenty of love than walk into a forest with big fruits and reap from the seeds of hatred, manipulation and suppression. I ain’t hating on anyone but as hard as it is, that is what they think of Africa.