© Numero Unoma
Today’s title takes inspiration from what was originally the Mozambican freedom fighters’ rallying call and rebel yell. Unfortunately, it has become one of the many platitudes we spout and shout, without giving conscious thought to the gravitas of either the origin or the meaning.
To quote Wikipedia: “A luta continua” is also widely used in Nigeria by students and activists. Protests, riots, and other actions to demand for the rights of Nigerian students are termed as “Aluta”. It is the motto of the all-Nigerian Students Union across all academic institutions of higher education. It is generally given in full: “A luta continua; vitória é certa”, meaning “The struggle continues; victory is certain”
Yes of course, we must believe that victory is certain. Else, what would motivate us to continue with the struggle? There is however the small matter of tribalism. Victory is certain, only if we a get a grip on the all-pervading phenomenon of tribalism, and more crucially even, on the inevitability of that phenomenon. Our struggle cannot ever be victorious unless and until we are united.
But first a little personal trivia: Nearly 3 years after returning home to Nigeria, in 2011 I decided that the Lagos life was not for me. Warped egos threw looming and dark tribalist shadows over what IMHO was (and still is) being bandied about as progressive thinking, the end result of which, with no prejudice, was my move to Abuja. The dialogue on what I found in Abuja, and whether it was even an appealing alternative to Lagos, is something for another discussion.
For now, let’s focus on the serendipity that relocated me to a district of Abuja that was named after a bunch of revolutionaries. Abuja has that about its flavours. The roads in districts of the city are named in clusters of some theme or other – while it is rivers and lakes in Maitama, in Wuse Zone 3 it is African cities, and as I mentioned, it is revolutionaries in Asokoro, where I had found an amazing apartment on José Marti Crescent, named after the Cuban poet, revolutionary philosopher and political theorist. Heading home every day from town, my first right turn on the final home run was into the one-way Samora Machel Street. Whenever I gave people directions to my home, I wondered if they ever stopped to think about this man…or even knew who he was.
Machel was a Mozambican revolutionary and the country’s first post-colonial president. Having been involved in the Rhodesian bush wars that led to the emancipation of Zimbabwe, in pressuring Mobutu Sese Seko of the DRC, and in support of the South African anti-apartheid movement, as well as other regional freedom fights, he was such a fly in the ointment of so many, that his 1986 death in a mysterious plane crash came as no surprise.
Samora Machel was the man who once said “For the nation to live, the tribe must die.”
Tribe is a problem that seems to afflict the black people of this world to a greater degree and with more destructive effects than any other people on Earth. Another African visionary who also understood this was Patrice Lumumba of the DRC. The Belgians hated him for being a Congolese nationalist, the opposing tribal parties hated him for being essentially anti-tribe, the Americans hated him for being pro-Moscow, and his enemies in the West understood that his notions of detribalisation and national unification were dangerous to their exploitative agendas. Besieged by perceptions of difference from every side, inadvertently, Lumumba seemed to embody the very concept of tribal war.
Kwame Nkrumah also understood the importance of unity to our progress as Africans, when at the inception of the Organisation of African Unity (now the African Union) his 1963 speech urged Africans to unite, even as he tried and failed to get consensus for the idea of a Union Government of African States. I wonder how many Africans alive today have ever read that speech. “We all want a united Africa,” he said, “united not only in our concept of what unity connotes but united in our common desire to move forward together in dealing with all the problems that can best be solved only on a continental basis”.
What will it take for us to comprehend that our diversity is a fait accompli, and therefore pooling talent is the way forward? 60 years later, we still have not learned or resolved to work with it, rather we continue to let it work against us. For even if we argue that Africa is too gargantuan a project to unite under one ideology, how do you explain the Biafra War, the secession of South Sudan, the Rwandan genocide and the fragmented state of Nigeria today, to mention but a few regional examples.
All other peoples of the world seem to have a certain understanding of unity, one that evades and eludes only us Black People. Asians, Arabs, Jews, Caucasians all have tribal differences among themselves, but they understand when to put aside their differences for the purpose of facing a common opponent or adversary. The Berlin Conference was the perfect example, as it sought to end competition and conflict between European powers during the ‘Scramble for Africa’ by establishing international protocols for colonisation. A mere two decades later those same countries were at war with each other in WW1, and then again another 20 years later, in WW2.
Remember our first national anthem, which hailed Nigeria as our own dear native land? Every time we uttered the words “though tribe and tongue may differ, in brotherhood we stand”, the words impacted our individual and collective psyches, and served as a neuro-linguistic programming, quite similar to when Americans pledge their allegiance to the flag of the United States of America or the British identify as the United Kingdom. I wonder till today why we felt the need to change it just because a foreigner had written it, after all, it served us much better than the present one, at least from an NLP point of view. It made us speak into existence our unity, each time we sang it. Did Nkrumah not articulate it adequately? Or perhaps blinded by ego and paralysed by lack of trust, we have always lacked the ability to be cohesive, and therefore leave ourselves wide open to manipulation and exploitation.
Further afield, I can personally attest to the lack of concurrence, cooperation and collaboration among Black People, from my experiences, living and working with Africans and Black nonAfricans, both in foreign countries, as well as in their own. The default mode we Black People seem to have is what some call the ‘crabs-in-a-bucket’ mentality, and which others facetiously call PhD mentality. No, we are not talking of academic excellence here. PhD means ‘pull him/her down’. Somehow, others have always managed to divide and conquer Black people, and now by proxy, we do it to ourselves and to each other. Living and working in foreign countries showed me the unfortunate experience of black-on-black prejudice, which is in fact far more painful than racism. And tbh it is no different really, to the tribalism I suffer at home in Nigeria.
Let’s consider how some of the non-Black tribes of the world handle their tribalism. The United States of America comprises many groups including but not limited to WASPs (White Anglo Saxon Protestants), Jews, Irish, Italian, Polish, East Asian, South Asian and Hispanics, never forgetting the original owners of the land, Native Americans (I deliberately omit African Americans). All these diverse peoples and their religions, ideologies and political diversities may have squabbles and differences with each other, but ultimately they comprehend that they must UNITE under one flag in order to survive and progress.
Another good example is the United Kingdom. Yes, I know the naysayers out there are already asking “Isn’t Scotland trying to secede?” Fact is that this constellation has successfully functioned for centuries, following the ratification of the union in 1707. In other words, it was formally created, and even the recent possible secession is being formally handled. The Union Jack unites these tribes for the most part. When it is necessary to cluster with one’s tribe, though, such as during Rugby League, everyone takes a nationalist stance. Once the games are over, it is united business as usual, and tribal differences take a backseat once again.
I am not making a suggestion here, based on academic theory, rather a casual prompt for thought on the subject of why, with all the education and information we now have, we Black People cannot just get over ourselves and make an informed and conscious decision to unite. Why do we persist in sustaining our own underdog status?
Will you join me in revisiting the subject of Black Unity? Will you join the good fight for the best outcome for us Black People?