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 NĂ©
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
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