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Sunday, March 16, 2014

Consolations of a Village Life



CONSOLATIONS OF A VILLAGE LIFE
What do you do when you have tons of ideas about how you can influence the course of events in your world and find yourself in a restricted village environment where people still believe in myths, witches, ghosts, and stone gods? Where do you begin living in the first place and later find the space to express your ideas to minds that have been arrested in pre-industrial age? Yes they use cell phones, know about internet banking and even follow the fortunes of European football clubs with fervor that may even be rare in Europe. Yet ideationally, they return to their real world when darkness falls or even during day time like zombies driven by superstition. They cannot explain in a rational manner how they conceive babies, how rain comes, or trees get their green leaves? They go to modern day churches as faithfully as they believe in their spirit gods. The church going is itself a routinized mysticism where all things are explainable by reference to some supernaturalism whose genesis they cannot rationally explain. How are they related to the chosen tribes of Israel and why Jews have no faith in Jesus as a divine being worthy of their spiritual devotion? My people, where are they going when in such a small place, life decimating infections like HIV abound from extravagant sexuality to which they respond with a feigned stoicism: “ if you eat fish you cannot be scared of its bones”! How will these people arrive into the 22nd century, a history or slaves whipping the backsides of enlightened societies? Where lies the hope for them in the futures possible for all humanity? These are my troubling anxieties for which I seek the consolations of thought in a village life.
Katele Kalumba Ph.D
12/5/2013 9:52:09 PM