Hubby and I recently went to
an event, and one of the high points of the event occurred when music legends
Majek Fashek and Ras Kimono took the stage. It was a time of mixed feelings for
me. I started listening to the music of both men right from when I was a little
girl as my dad played their music quite a lot. Now, seeing the men live on
stage singing timeless songs [in an age where songs that do little or nothing
to stimulate one’s mental faculties are being churned out on a per second
basis] thrilled me in ways that are indescribable.
It was the musician, Faze, who
sang: ‘originality, na we own the society’. I saw that being played out before
my eyes that evening. Long after musicians like Majek Fashek and Ras Kimono are
gone, their songs will still continue to thrill generations to come, whereas in
comparison, I predict that songs like ‘all I want is your waist’ and ‘ baby
pullover’ will be forgotten by Christmas of this year [if they’ve not been
forgotten already].
I was however saddened by Majek
Fashek’s general demeanour. Though he gave the audience his best, it was not
difficult to notice the effect of hard drugs on his system. The career of this
gifted musician was cut short as a result of drug addiction, a habit which is
said to have started when he travelled to America. This is part of the reason
why I believe Africa in particular needs to fight for the souls of her
children. Even while enjoying the positive contributions of the West to us, we
will be wise not to take everything they give us hook, line and sinker; but to
pass all their offerings through the filter of critical thinking and analysis,
so as to determine what will be beneficial to us as a people and what will be
harmful to us.
A line in Redemption Song says
‘Emancipate yourself from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our own
minds’. This is a simple but profound statement. In our contemporary culture, I
see the statement as a clarion call to Africans in general, and Nigerians in
particular, to take heed, and not allow ourselves to be enslaved by the
mentality of ‘the West is doing it, so it must be right’. One thing that keeps
people in mental slavery is not just the refusal to open their minds to newer
and broader ways of thinking, but more importantly, the refusal or inability to
critically think through and analyse everything we hear, read and watch.
Someone rightly said that before
a fence is removed, it is a wise man who will find out why it was there in the
first place. It is unfortunate that while Asians try to retain their culture
when they travel overseas, some Africans in diaspora even want to forget that
they ever came from Africa. They change their names, attires, accents, mode of
behaviour, everything in short, all in an effort to become ‘Americanized’ or
‘Briticos’. Ha.I had cause to speak with two of my students
at different times. Each one in my encounter with them referred to themselves
as an American or a British citizen. Well, I used the opportunity to give them
a little lesson in history, as someone once said that the only thing worse than
nostalgia is amnesia. I let them know that while it was okay to claim their
foreign citizenship, [as of course there are many doors such claims would open
that might not ordinarily have otherwise opened], it would be in their best
interests to remember that they are not just American/British citizens, but
Nigerians as well. When push comes to shove in a foreign country, the land of
your ancestors will always be there to welcome you home.
In conclusion, let us critically
examine every message we receive especially from the media, regarding cultural issues such as the training of children and morality, as
they are not always right.
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