TheCable

I really do not like Chimamanda’s politics. I think she is a very beautiful lady, highly talented and well-grounded but with a very unAfrican approach to some of the issues she stands for.

Today is not for her or my thoughts about whatever are her positions on feminism which if you must ask me remains confusing and misleading especially when she does not have to struggle with the confusion this emits to her female African followers. Some who have had to struggle between the suffocating influence of traditional culture and her postmodern views.

Today, I want to look at the bullying and verbal violence she seems to be facing as arrow-headed by a ‘former’ friend who definitely is on vacation from hell.

I have always wondered at the reverse bullying that usually is the lot of these groupings. A grouping that daily confuses me. Today, while still trying very hard to understand the ‘difference’ and expected normalcy in same sex relationships, I am now being faced with all sort of coloration of difference.

My friend just mentioned to me, that today, I would have to contend with such concepts as binary, non-binary and all sorts. She even told me that we should now begin to study new forms of engagement like using ‘they/them/theirs.

I have my position in all these. A position steeped deeply in very strong African ethos but this essay will not address that position as I wait for the time when my children will come at me with any of these deviations then we will answer the question within the proper context.

For now, I would like to address a bully. A non-person who falls on a badly entrenched background to throw vile and venomous insults at someone who at some point in her life played a critical role in her upbringing.

I have taken time to read Chimamanda’s three-part essay on the issue and also have gone ahead to read the rants on Twitter by this – don’t even know what term to use — and have come out of the experience with deep pain.

What fuels this kind of outrage, why should Chimamanda’s parents be dragged into this madness in such a terrible and disrespectful manner. What you see here is a complete loss of sense. A breaking down of the levers of social control as put in place by society.

When you become a non-person, you are ruled with nonsense and the boundaries that control sanity eludes you. For this non-person what you see in her tirades is fear. The urgent need for acceptance by her new community and the obscene desire to prove to her new cousins that she is ready to fight and possibly die in support of her new found ethos. A justification for inclusion so badly needed like a traveller lost in a long unwieldy desert road needing a drop to quench thirst.

Perfect, nothing wrong with that kind of need, After all who wants to go back to the desolation of her youth? But pulling your arsenal from a very innocent and non-threatening statement uttered by someone you even claimed you once loved, is sad. What we have here is a catfight. The very worst kind having no bearing to her lifestyle or her choices in life but falling very heavily on her choices in search of pyric support to launch deadly blows at a symbol of healthy tranquility.

I see envy, the worse kind. I see a lack of decency and much more importantly, I see reverse discrimination. If I am to give Chimamanda any form of advice, I will say ignore. Ignore the petulance of fart. Its foul odour does not last long. Its rage peters out ever so quickly as it lacks the pure essence of sweet fragrance.

Attempting to explain your position, to a smoke of hate will only further keep the issues on the bon-fire which you really do not want. I would ignore and with dignity, I will continue to stride.

This, with my traditional eye is a non-issue. The beautiful thing about freedom is that it cannot be curated or limited for any purpose. Just as you are free to be whatever you want to be, I am also free to be whatever I want to be. We all cannot be afraid of the boldness and brashness of the vocal minority? What hope would we now have for humanity? This is senseless.

Thank you.