Humanity against the Narcissists of Death

Our predicament is universal, and this is what we have stressed from the very beginning. The nature of religious zeal that would routinely maim, kill, or enslave the object of its proselytizing – that sometime euphemism for brainwashing – rather than let it thrive and contribute to humanity from within his or her limitations and uncertainties, from within its questions or scepticism; a mental cast that equates the mere absence of exhibitionist ardour or rigid conformism with impiety and apostasy, punishable by death or mutilation, is no different, in effect, from the tyrannical temper of the political dictator of any age.
Both can only grasp the substance of their being through an inverse reflection of themselves, that is, in the complete and evident submission of their citizens, their flock, their human charge, in every aspect of their lives, without questions, without the concession of a possible alternative order of social being to whatever ideology or religious absolutes that they choose to peddle. Total submission, laced with adulation, remains the driving goal of the authoritarian temper – never mind that it is covered in mufti, khaki or clerical regalia. The objective remains – Power over others! And if ever there was an unholy marriage entered into to plague human existence, it is the obscene wedlock of the theocratic and secular mandates of power. Its issue has always been guaranteed as enslavement, misery, death and destruction. It is this that represents the greatest threat to human freedom, and its creative will.

This is the proposition that acutely confronts the African continent today, following upon centuries of enslavement, colonialism, and the mutated versions of both in her dealings with the rest of the world. No wonder then, that we feel compelled to ask ourselves: what were our people’s struggles for liberation about? True Liberation? Or re-enslavement? Algeria has gone off the radar in recent times, but I must continue to stress this, especially on the continent: we would do well to keep our mind on that nation, not so long freed – and not even completely as yet – from a malady that is currently consuming other parts of our continent and the world. In our own interest, for the survival of our humanistic values, we could do worse than keep that nation in our minds as a crucial cautionary template, so that we can begin to grasp the enormity of Boko Haram, al Shabab, al Queda and other active carriers of the same spore of human deformity. It is only at our peril that we forget that we have been here before, and elsewhere, that there is nothing new about the extremes to which the power urge can exert itself.
For those who perhaps were not born during that prolonged internal struggle for a people’s total liberation – and I am not speaking of the brutal struggle against French settler colonialism – or who were miraculously shielded from its vicious and prolonged intensity, or whose education has stopped short of the chilling testimonies of its survivors, I recommend a sobering and thoroughly authenticated compilation by Professor Karima Bennoune with the title – Your Fatwa does not Apply Here. All that is necessary is that we immerse ourselves in the tragedy of that nation to enable us to grasp the ruthless enterprise of terminal censors, the shadowy killers, the obsessed enemies of creativity, crippled minds whose notion of a divine mission is the eradication of all knowledge, and truncation of the reaches of the imagination.
Then we would cease to be surprised by the fate that nearly overcame, and still threatens our neighbour, Mali, that ancient warehouse of Africa’s intellectual heritage whose capital, Timbuktu, became a household name even in the racially jaundiced histories of Euro-pean scholars. Perhaps it is time that we constructed Walls of Remembrance, on which we shall inscribe the ever lengthening roll-call of victims of this ongoing resurgence, and their place names, in order to give flesh and blood to statistical losses sustained to blind doctrine, victims young and old, extinguished before the full bloom of their creative powers. We are speaking of musicians, cineastes, writers, journalists, intellectuals, even the consumers of their products, condemned for daring to taste the forbidden fruit of knowledge. My mind immediately goes to – among others – fellow authors like Tahar Djaout to whose posthumously published work, The Last Summer of Unreason, I had the honour of contributing a preface. Excerpted from recent Overseas Lectures on our common concern, for the BRING BACK OUR GIRLS Visitation, Jan 13, 2015.