A Message to My Brothers and Sisters in the Diaspora

From Onyango Oloo, (Toronto, June 27, 1999)


Close your eyes
and
think about Africa
With your eyes closed
What do you see?
With your eyes closed
Can you see?
With your eyes
closed
Could you see?

Close your minds and
think about Africa
Tell me
what do you see?
With your
minds closed
What can you see?

Do you see
wars and droughts
Do you see
hunger and starvation
Tell me,
what do you see
with your minds closed?

Do you see
grinding poverty and
stifling backwardness
Do you see
millions of
malnourished
black hands
begging for
yellow cattle fodder maize

Close your minds
and
think about Africa
Tell me my brothers,
what do you see?
My sisters,
what could you see
with a closed mind

What do you see
when
you close your minds
my friends?

Do you see
tribe
killing
tribe
Do you see
naked
African
Savages
armed
with spears
feasting on
snakes
and
baboons
Do you see
sweating and
worried
White
Christian
missionaries
being boiled
for supper
in big
black
pots?

When you
close your minds
and
look at Africa
What do you see?
Do you see
the aristocratic
and
inarticulate
Caucasian Tarzans
ruling over a
pygmy infested
jungle
Do you see
Mufasa,
Simba
and
Rafiki
running wild
in the
Disney
fantasy
of
an Africa filled
with animals
and
denuded of people

My friends,
my brothers,
my sisters
If this is
the Africa
that you see

If this is the
only Africa that
you know

Then,
they have
succeeded
And I know
you know
who they are
If that is
the Africa
that
you see
Then
that is
the
only Africa
they want
you
to see

No wonder
my brothers
and
sisters

So many of us
Are
embarrassed
So many of us
Are ashamed
of our
African
good looks
No wonder so
many of us
cover up our
African
roots
No wonder so
many of us
deny
our African ancestry
Even as
our own
thick lips,
flat noses
and kinky hair
Mock us even
as we disfigure them
with the help of
plastic surgeons,
skin lightening creams
and
dangerous fluids to
imitate
the texture of
blond hair.
Now
I want you
to doze off
and
dream about Africa
When you
close your eyes
and
dream
about Africa
My brothers,
my sisters,
my friends
When you dream
about Africa
what is
the content of
your hallucinations
In that continent
that has
inspired
so many
hallucinations
What
wobbly images
and
fleeting mirages
do you encounter?

In your fantasy,
is every
single African
you know
Of high nobility born?
Is every Ebony
Cocoa Brown
and Black Coffee sister
Actually a
Nubian Princess
in disguise?
Is every
Zulu,
Yoruba,
Gikuyu,
Dinka
and Tutsi brother
a forgotten Monarch
waiting patiently
to reclaim
his rightful Throne?

Tell me
my friends
what strange images
have your
vivid imaginations
conjured up?

My sisters and brothers
As long as
you have your blinkers
and blindfolds on
You will never
see,
touch,
feel,
smell,
hear,
experience
and enjoy
The real Africa,
the true Africa,
the living Africa

Africa
is there for you to know
If you want
to see Africa
please open your eyes
Please open your eyes
Please open your eyes
If you want
to know
the True Africa
please free your minds
Please free your minds
Free your minds
like the reggae prophet
and poet suggested
Emancipate yourself
from mental slavery
as the visionary
told us in song
those so many years ago

Forget about
Tarzan’s Africa
Forget about
Disney's
Lion King
traversty
Forget about
the mass media’s
perfidy
Forget about
the racist
comedy
Which is
better known
as European
history

Come
my sisters,
Let us
travel
together
to Africa
Come
my brothers,
Accompany me
on a new journey to Africa

I am talking
about the true Africa
The living Africa
Yes
I am talking about the

Struggling
and fighting Africa

I am talking about
The Africa
of the Mau Mau
The Africa
of the Umkhonto we Sizwe
The Africa
of Kwame Nkrumah
The Africa
of Patrice Lumumba
and Queen Nzinga
The Africa
of Graca Machel
and General Muthoni
I am talking
about the Africa
of comrade Thomas Sankara

The Africa
I am talking about is
A valiant continent
where millions of workers
have said NO
to Coca Cola, Pepsi Cola,
Toyota,
General Motors
Unilever and De Beers
The Africa
I am talking
about is an arena
of heroic battles
between peasants
and IMF supported
neocolonial dictatorships
The Africa
I am speaking about
is a place where
hundreds of thousands
of patriotic youth and
democratic students
go to jail,
and even die
standing up for their rights

The Africa
I am talking about
is a land where
multitudes of
African women
are striking blows
against sexism
and patriarchy

Yes
my brothers and sisters
My comrades and friends,
I invite you
to open your eyes
and expand your minds
To embrace contemporary Africa,
Africa live and direct,
Africa in the flesh
Open your eyes
and experience
the living,
dynamic
and ever changing Africa
The Africa
that is at the doorstep
of its own century
An Africa
that needs your solidarity
Not tomorrow
or next week

But right about now!!