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
