“I write what I like” just like Steve Biko, but I do not want to be classified under black writers! Classifying and categorising me under the banner of black writers may perpetuate stereotypes and may frustrate my journey. I hate this demarcation zone that has got me cornered into a confined space that restricts me from seeing over its high walls of classified writers. The categorisation of people in the past was bad enough. The prison walls that formed from this experience became enduring. Thus I find this legacy taking my creativity away. I also find myself wondering why am I lead to believe, through some perceptions of others, that black writers cannot do better than those of other races.
“I am an African” just like Thabo Mbeki wisely declared. I stand to testify of the grace we have enjoyed, and the strength of succeeding with or without the aiding hand from wealthy countries. I along with other writers, am fighting for one purpose and vision, that of sustaining our mission so that our inks may dry only on our scrolls. For I stand for the course of uniting people against all odds, but mostly; I fight ignorance in all spheres. May the gods hear my voice as I speak from within. I do not need permission to speak my mind, for I believe I have a potential to deliver things that would help build this nation. And for this I have to thank those who came before me once again for their fight for freedom. Yes! I am a fallible being, thus I leave a huge gap for new teachings to dominate within me so that I may be guided to wisdom. I would appreciate to be lashed with a lesson that would help me become a better person. I swear I would see such intervention as blessings.
I could declare “free at last” like Martin Luther King dreamt, but that would suggest that I had been mentally chained, which is not true. The greatest imprisonment is that which occurs in the mind! Brothers and Sisters, please be kind and allow me to also help usher in further needed winds of change, so that I may also take pride in help sustaining the course for better days. For I cannot force a change on an ideological perception. Ideologies start in the mind where they get nurtured to become huge forces. The least I can do is to put my little shoulder to the wheel and help challenge the system that dictates that writers, by virtue of their background, should be classified and boxed unnecessarily. Perhaps such classifications may be used in order to serve a purposeful and enlightening course and not to degrade.
I am an African writer yes, but let this be so not to look down upon me and my fellow brothers and sisters whose concern is to grow.
“Whatever you think, be sure it is what you think; whatever you want, be sure that is what you want; whatever you feel, be sure that is what you feel,” so said T.S. Elliot (1888 – 1965). Right now this is how I feel. I’m a writer, period. Being branded otherwise makes me feel like a horse with blinkers on, and whose movement is forced in one direction. I mingle with all people. My skin colour may be different but my blood is no different to other races’.
I am proudly black, blue, gold, yellow, green, white and red. These are of course the colours of my country’s flag. “I am” that I am, the light made in the image of God.
0 comments:
Post a Comment