Unbetitelt

https://soundcloud.com/chechidichukwumerije I’ve spent the last couple of days and weeks digging out my old recordings, singles and albums and putting them all online. At the moment I’m working on my soundcloud page. (seen also above) When I’m done with that, I’ll work on my reverbnation page. Next year I’ll start giving concerts again (after 8 years of being away from the stage). I’m really…

I really really know what she’s talking about.

MANDELA, SOUTH-SUDAN, AND AFRICA (11)

At independence, South Sudan’s problems were and are daunting – but no more daunting and unique than the situation in the majority of African nations at their independence also, five decades earlier. Thus, everything happening in South Sudan today – South Sudan and the African Union (AU) should have seen this coming. That an organisation which has spent decades operating as a rebel group is going…

Frieden in Brust Frei von Frust Wenn das, was Du mußt Das ist, was Du tust. – Che Chidi Chukwumerije

MANDELA, SOUTH-SUDAN, AND AFRICA (10)

(Lessons from the first (mis)steps following modern Africa’s independence) Some say that Mandela, by doing the right and revolutionary thing in South Africa, has placed upon that country’s shoulders the heaviest burden ever borne by an African nation, certainly the most historically unusual. The burden of responsibility. To preserve, protect and build upon… peace. Today’s South Africa has no…

MANDELA, SOUTH-SUDAN, AND AFRICA (9)

(Lessons from the first (mis)steps following modern Africa’s independence) History is the teacher of the wise. The irony of the squandered momentum of African independence is that many of our first generation independence leaders, like Nyerere, like Nasser, like Nkrumah, like Selasie, Senghor, Houphouët-Boigny, Kenyatta and the list gets longer, were unquestionably deep-thinking, patriotic,…

MANDELA, SOUTH-SUDAN, AND AFRICA (8)

Next to South Africa and Rhodesia, the Portuguese colonies remained for many years a rallying magnet of panafrican liberation passions and efforts. In the seventies, as a result of sustained armed resistance, coupled with a sharp socio-political mood swing in Portugal, they eventually got their independence. But even they did not fare much better in the management of the riddles of independence.…

MANDELA, SOUTH-SUDAN, AND AFRICA (7)

Often, all independence did was reveal that the only force that united the self-acclaimed nationalists was their drive to get rid of the oppressors or colonial usurpers. Once that was done, ancient grouses along ethnic, tribal, class, racial and religious lines – and sometimes even more modern ideological ones, like the capitalism-socialism conflict, or the democracy-unilateralism question –…

THE FEAR OF YOURSELF

I know a girl She loves to pray And everytime we kiss She runs away in shame Because I don’t fit into her world And she can’t look her leader In the eye When I’m on her mind. Is your river flowing? Should I… check again? So she runs far away And in the distance we can Pretend That she’s stronger than Shame – She’s ashamed of herself For not being herself. – Che Chidi Chukwumerije.

MANDELA, SOUTH-SUDAN, AND AFRICA (6)

Nigeria’s case, considering her human and natural resource potential, is especially pathetic. One of the most mineral rich countries in the whole world and probably the most educated nation-space in Africa, high hopes were pinned on her future. Before he died in 1946, Herbert Macaulay had already for more than two decades championed, stoked the fires and laid the political foundations of Nigerian…

MANDELA, SOUTH-SUDAN, AND AFRICA (5)

There is a brief moment of opportunity, in the hour of freedom and liberation, when the momentum that is presented by the formation or regeneration of a nation-state gives to its chief policy-makers, its opinion-shapers and its mass-leaders the rare chance to hammer a brave new impulse deep into the orientation-seeking psyche of the nation and shift it unto a path of mutually supportive and…

MANDELA, SOUTH-SUDAN, AND AFRICA (4)

Those who have a knowledge of post-independent Africa will, sadly, not be surprised by the turn of events in South Sudan today. Macabre, but true. Indeed, they would have expected it and, like Mandela and his team, have prepared for it, to try and avert it. South Sudan’s road to independence has been long and winding. She began her life in the modern African world as a region of an arab-dominated…

MANDELA, SOUTH-SUDAN, AND AFRICA (3)

In Tunisia, in the so-called French Maghreb region of North Africa, Habib Bourguiba endured imprisonment and persecution, bravely kept up the struggle for liberation, and eventually led the country to independence in 1956, pushing the French out of the political helm of affairs in Tunisia. He applied himself to the economic betterment of his country, experimented with socialist models and, when…

MANDELA, SOUTH-SUDAN, AND AFRICA (2)

History is the teacher of the wise, and Mandela himself proved to be a good student – for he had many dramatic examples to learn from. Long before South Africa’s struggles for liberation from apartheid yielded fruit, other African nations had shot out of the starting block, propelled forward by the momentum of independence and freedom, to grapple each with the daunting task of forging a modern…

Dylan’s Nobel Prize for Literature

Astounding. Some people are upset, but me I like this VERY MUCH. This puts a big lie to all the establishment thinking and imitation literature. Some people spend their entire life trying to write in certain “intellectually respected” styles and to publish in many “proven” ways, in the hope of being counted one day among the literature greats. But they not only never find their own true style,…

MANDELA, SOUTH-SUDAN, AND AFRICA (1)

It sounds like a myth now. They say South Africa was on the brink of civil war after the release of Mandela and the collapse of apartheid. Civil war? Really? The Zulus and the Xhosas were heading for tribal war? And, simultaneously, the blacks against the whites in racial massacre? Well, it is true that it all sounds a bit far-fetched to some people now… because it did not happen. Because Mandela…

And after pain comes joy If you let the pain have its way And yet you conquered it And after pain comes love If the pain washes you truly clean And yet you conquered it And after pain comes life If you walked hand in hand with pain And conquered it Your pain is not stronger than you You are stronger than it That is why it tries so hard to hurt you A little Because it will not last long Wait a…