Aye Africa

For five years in a row, my wife and I have hosted Africa Day at home. It is an occasion that a lot of our friends and relatives look forward to. The concept is simple: We invite our friends from all over the world to cook a traditional dish, dress up in traditional clothes and join us in a bring-and-share with dancing to African music from afternoon and long in to the night.  We skipped last year and were set to do it again this year, but with COVID 19 humbling us all, we may very well have to cancel. Maybe we will do an online one?

The reason I bring this up is, I learned late morning yesterday, about the death of icon Manu Dibango. Those of you who are my age and love African music will know him well. He was a giant of African music and one of my favourite tracks from him is the title of this post: Aye Africa https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31XSLHQa6Ro  It was part of the playlist on more than one Africa Day party at our house. Now he is gone, a giant African tree felled by a lethal disease with a little name; COVID 19. Dibango asks an important question, in French, the song, “Independence where are you?”

 How do we honour him? How do we take the manner of his demise and use it to amplify his question?

In my first post since COVID 19 began to wreak havoc, I chided those African people who were spreading the myth that the coronavirus did not attack black Africans. Ignorance is bad, a weakness. A little knowledge stated confidently is dangerous. How do we affirm independence of thought?

Since I am in French mode, when I was a student there in 1990, I heard the French musician Maxime Le Forrestier’ backing vocalists cry “Give me the hope that will believe so” in response to his rhetorical question, “Are people born equal in rights, are they born the same or not?” in the song Né quelque part https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DagKAzSk9Z8  literally, “being born somewhere”. In other words, you don’t choose where you are born.  COVID 19 has shown us that is certainly the case in death.

Does it have to take a celebrity to die to give us independence of thought from peer driven misinformation? In my home country, Zimbabwe, a popular young man who ran a popular social media news bulletin died the day before Manu Dibango. He was the son of a, well known and  equally charismatic, father who at one time in his life was in to radio and television. Suddenly, every one sat up and paid attention to the reality of coronavirus. It was the first coronavirus related death recorded in Zimbabwe but sometimes statistics are not enough to jolt people in to action, especially behaviour change. I saw a lamentable clip of passengers on a bus in Zimbabwe asking for a Chinese man to get off the bus. This is scary xenophobic  behaviour that brings to mind the mind boggling days when gays were accused of spreading AIDS. It appears we do not learn from history because we forget easily or should I, like Emile Zola, accuse the Zimbabwean people of too readily looking for a scapegoat as a way to deal with all our troubles?

D JJean-Jacques Muyembe is a name not known to many and yet his independence of thought and refusal to accept the status quo led him to discover Ebola, https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2019/11/04/774863495/this-congolese-doctor-discovered-ebola-but-never-got-credit-for-it-until-now  and not only that, but in a further demonstration of independence of thought, to find a cure as well! https://face2faceafrica.com/article/ebola-now-curable-thanks-to-congolese-doctor-behind-treatment-that-cures-symptoms-in-just-an-hour

Independence, where are you?

The point is, in this fast paced world of social media and the pervasive fear of missing out, too many people are quick to believe rumour and fake news.  We have too many Bolsonaros and not enough Dr Muyembes.

Manu Dibango was so good at his music that the King of Pop sampled his music without permission https://www.theguardian.com/music/2009/feb/04/rihanna-michael-jackson-manu-dibango But he was no slouch either, and he had the freedom and presence of mind to sue and get a settlement out of court.  

We are before the court of life and death and expert testimony against the coronavirus will help us stay alive, while ignorance fuelled by bad advice from poor excitable lawyers will lead us to a death sentence. In a time such as this, you need to stand your ground, show your independence of thought and refuse to countenance the spread of fear, ignorance or toxic beliefs. As I keep saying, lead where you are and correctly inform your family. Read for yourself because if you are reading this, on your phone or laptop, you probably have access to information.

Your independence will save others. Use it to inform, inspire to action and light that candle instead of cursing the darkness.

Albert Gumbo

25 March 2020