Always Optimistic

The picture of a little baby sleeping quietly got me thinking this morning. It is amazing how beautiful the human mind is. At this stage it is still malleable and innocent. The baby has no problems to bother about. She is isolated from life's turbulence by the love of her parents and their endless support. She is a bundle of joy and pure beauty, cuddled up in warm fleecy clothes.

But something else struck me. What will we introduce to this beautiful mind as she grows up? What perceptions and ideas about life will she discover as she explores the world before her eyes? What will society tell her about herself? Will she be given a different understanding of beauty, success, love, ability and life in general? I could not help thinking about how school would try to chisel her to fit into specific moulds that society has created. Then religion will place a stamp on what is right and wrong, which is usually at odds with what is openly practiced in society. Friends, family and passive influences from the media will try to form the cornerstone of her beliefs amidst an avalanche of ideas from other sources.

In our society, it is easy to get carried away by the unabashed rush for money and material things. The struggle to present yourself as rich, in a country with so many poor people, is real. The endless competition and the struggle to live way beyond their means is a trend today. This society worships the rich and ignores the source of wealth. The younger generation will do anything for Facebook and Instagram likes. Some of them put up false images of themselves to deceive the world (Not everyone though, some.) A society that is foolishly drinking from the cup of lies served by the West, gobbling down everything they serve! The young men have taken to weed and the young women have lost self esteem. Men are no more saying they want to marry their fellow men, but have now decided they want to become women. And we cannot pretend like its far away because in the near future, our kids will see these things as normal.  Are these the influences she will be exposed to? 

These are the thoughts that kept running through my mind before I snapped back into reality. Right before my eyes was the picture of a baby with a future so uncertain. Are we going to be the proponents of these misleading norms? What role are YOU playing to ensure that we all don't become a part of the rot? Do you even sincerely believe that things can be better, or you think its just a few overtly optimistic people, dreaming because they don't have anything else to do? That is the mindset that has crippled us and has left us in this mess. We are always ready with reasons why things will not work instead of asking how they will work. I believe things will work one day if we don't give up before the race begins. Lets do what we can to ensure we leave a better society for these innocent ones to thrive. There are limitless possibilities for them. If you refuse to believe in a better tomorrow, do not infect them with pessimism. Start something positive today. Don't sit back and wait for the world to change. YOU are the world, you NEED to change!

Leaders Enjoying the Sound of Our Silence

African leaders have helped to build this continent. Whatever we have now is the result of good, bad and sometimes non-existent leadership in most African states. The level of under development is alarming in some regions. We complain about how the West put up images of sick and hungry looking kids when they talk about Africa, but we would do nothing to change the story. Rather, we want better pictures in the media (Shameful!!!). We want them to show the affluent part of our society. Instead of trying to change it so they have nothing embarrassing to show. Why do we concern ourselves so much about that image if we are not ready to change the real situation? And even at that, we wait for them to tell our story for us. They come here, study us, tell whatever story they like and then we start complaining about the story. Until the lion learns to write, the hunter will always be glorified! It all boils down to our mentality. The way we see ourselves. Talking about mentality, I will talk about the African leaders and a little about you and I. How we sit back and allow the rot from the top spread around until we are totally engulfed in the mess.

What exactly are the leaders doing? Why do they go out there begging for money when they know nobody can break away from the shackles of these monster financial institutions? It is difficult to believe that some of our leaders are educated! It is bad enough to be indebted, but it is even worse when the money received is not used judiciously. We are tired of such incompetent leadership. We have witnessed the backlash of such impudent corruption in one way or the other. The rich may think they are free from it, but who said it is ok to be able to afford uninterrupted power and yet not have it? These same leaders come out and tell stories of how they want to champion the cause of justice and equity with bravado! How long will people watch this and be quiet? African leaders are mismanaging resources in alarming ways!! There is so much poverty, insecurity and poor governance in this part of the world. While Africans are complaining about this, the leaders are devising clever ways of stealing public funds and staging strongly polarized partisan debates across media channels…Radio, Television and Social Media. (Should I take a break?...no!!)

The same channel they use to propagate these lies can be used to push them to do right…Social Media. One interesting thing about social media is that it gives the masses a voice. It provides an opportunity to stir people for positive change. #Bring Back Our Girls, #Black Lives Matter, #Charlie Hebdo and many other hashtag-revolutions have moved people around the world to focus on sensitive issues. This powerful tool is available and as usual, when purpose is not known, abuse is inevitable. People deserve to question government to ensure that our rights are provided and respected but we have people asking questions that unearth a shuddering level of ignorance and bias on social media. Your vote is your power, but it shouldn’t be the only thing you have because you can use it only once in four years and even at that, you can’t say anything! You can only thumbprint and leave. If we have a tool as powerful as social media, we need to use it objectively. Questions and issues should be properly directed to our leaders and not used to start shameful cross party debates…(Save the energy for football arguments). These are troubling economic times for most countries and we need to wake up from our slumber and save ourselves. I mean over the past 5 years, the Ghanaian Cedi has depreciated against the dollar by over 200%. Oil price falls have affected the Oil Producing countries and there are wars and conflicts ravaging other nations. If we remain silent, we will not change anything. I mean, it will only get worse faster than we think. One voice is not enough, so it is time to play your part to create the Africa you want. Nobody brings development on a platter of gold. People fight and work hard for it. If we must see change, we must be willing to keep our leaders on their toes. What is the use of an educated electorate if they remain quiet when things are going wrong? Don’t abuse the tool you have today. Your silence is good music to the looters and criminals. Change will only come when we speak up. Remember, only Africans can save Africa!!

Rebirth!

It took me 28 posts, a few discussions with friends and a moment of reflection to get my bearing right. I started writing because I feel the need to say what people may know but refuse to say. I decided to write because I want to paint a clear picture of the mess in our society. I am tired of hiding behind the jolly good part of life and making stories about that when we have platforms and resources that can be used to impact lives on a larger scale. There are a number of things to talk about so I will take them one after the other.

(A huge thank you to the friends I have that help keep me on track.) 

An African Solution

I'm not going to start this post by saying all the inspiring things that we all expect to hear when we talk about an African renaissance. We can start with all the quotes and sayings that people have left us with in their moments of inspiration and we won't end up with a solution. All the proposed answers to the problems of under-development, hunger, wars etc have been laid down by great African philosophers and economists. Some of the greatest minds have macerated this subject with wisdom and experience beyond my present level. What exactly is the reason behind the slow, and in some cases non-existent, response to the proposed solutions? Africans, we are the biggest problem that we face!

The idea of positive change starts with the people. If the people are not ready for it, then the leaders cannot do anything. In a situation where nobody is ready to play his or her role, the work will never get done.

Let me start from the youth in society. The images of what is cool revolves around things that relegate African culture and society to extinction. These are things that empower foreign economies ahead of whatever we have to offer. It is not necessarily an issue of quality, but an issue of a lack of patriotism, distrust in the system and a very 'western' materialistic and competitive attitude. The world dictates what is cool and what is beautiful to you and you strive so hard to achieve this conception of 'coolness' and beauty. 

The young adults, the politicians and most of the leaders in industry are more self-centred than we have seen in many decades. People struggle to get rich, to intimidate and compete with others in terms of wealth and power. The average African wants to get power and wealth for these same selfish reasons that have slowed us down for so long. 

Don't get me wrong. I also want to be rich and powerful, but I feel that what we do with our wealth and power should be different. It should serve as a tool for development and service rather than a yardstick to measure how poor others are in relation to you. Somewhere deep down, there is still the ability to do good and help others. Black is the endpoint of all colours. All light has been absorbed into us. We should decide what type of light we give out. 

If we all decide to pay a little more attention to our local content, give them reasons to add quality and value to our local products and slow down with the entire physical and material pursuit, then we can start the revolution. I believe that proper change can only start in the mind. Read, explore, listen and train the mind to believe in quality and possibilities open to you as an African! If education should serve any purpose, it should make us realize how much we belittle ourselves. I'm not a prophet, neither am I the most optimistic person here, but I believe that only Africans can save Africa.

Think You! Be Different!

"I would rather be the first rate version of myself than the second rate version of someone else". A very good friend of mine wrote that down in her notebook many years ago. I read it and like every other message, it stretched my mind. Once you find truth like that, you can never 'not-see' it. That truth has defined my life today. 

We are all unique and so we are all meant to be different. In fact, today we celebrate people who refuse to fit in (and I support that drive). Most people have lost themselves in the process of fitting in and being quasi-clones of what they see in the media. I wouldn't want to be just like you for the sake of fitting in or acceptance. The world will lose my spice if I try to taste like you. Discover yourself, chase your passion and live everyday being true to these! I believe you will find peace, joy and contentment (I didn't add love to that list!). 

Are They Always Haters?

Today, I finally decided to listen to D'banj and Idris Elba (There's someone else on it too). In my opinion that song is not half as good as I expected. Now don't get me wrong, its not the quality of the video or audio production I mean. The content, the flow and arrangement of the song was just there (nothing special). But as usual most Nigerians confuse being objective with being a hater so the comments poured in praising the song and talking about how wonderful it is while others spent time vilifying those who aired their opposing views. We have heard and seen better from D'banj. He set a really high standard for himself in the industry and going by that standard, this work is just average. In fact its a little below average if you consider the amount of time and money pumped into it. Confidential is just another song. Great work from the producer as usual. That beat deserves a lot more work to make it a real hit. 

I believe that one of the reasons people put their work out there is to get sincere feedback so they know how to improve. If we hide behind the veil of fear and stigma we may never get better songs from them. People are not always haters. Sometimes it is just true that some songs are not as good as we expect. Anyways, Nigerians have the funniest comments on posts like that and its interesting to read the war of words that follow the posts. In all this, maybe we lose the objective point of posting comments but at least we gain something hilarious!  

Ndani Sessions Presents - Vector "Popular"

This here is what we mean by music! It's got content, style, near perfect delivery and a beautiful rhythm. Vector is it!!