#MY_STORY_TELLING I neither had a deep impulse for reading nor writing stories when i was younger, though i enjoyed them when told to me, especially those of tortoise and his cunning escapades. I however dimly enjoyed bible stories because i was taken to church, was forced to read them and was made to like them. When growth and maturity added a little sense to life, i came to personally and sincerely love those bible stories, mostly those of David; my favourite Bible Character. I loved those of the Israelite in their exodus from Egypt. And Solomons wisdom, Jehoshaphat and Hezekiah. The wars they won and those they lost, the idolatry and faithfulness of the Israel Nation. I at some point wished i experienced it happen. I will read and reread, manufacture understandings from in-between lines and even tell them my own way, adding more flavour and liveliness to my capacity. From that, the history of a people, cultures, customs, living manner, battles and even how they fell in love began to intrigue me. Stories of Roman, Greek and Persian empires. Hitlers horrific deeds, those of Napoleon Bonapard, Abraham Lincoln etc was a worthy knowing. While i grew a bit, i was opened to the terrible experiences of slavery and colonization African saw in the hands of the Whites and even after independences, their sticky and iron claws still held us down financially, politically, mentally and otherwise. I began to find love in the ethnic divergences of Africa. Her people, stories, liberation struggles and democracy. Tis found restfulness of mine were at some point embarrassed by the wars, lives of struggle, poverty, fail government and all the dented portrayal of Africa in foreign medias as a place of no hope where people do not know what they want, a soon to be torn apart hemisphere. I had believe authentically the words of there White medias because i too was bound by the mental slavery i protested. But scratching a little deeper, i realized that the woes of Africa are in many ways directly and indirectly fosters by the invisible hands of former colonial masters. During Nigerias civil was for example, the government of UK made Nigeria a dumping ground of highly destructive ammunition used to the evil capacity of the federal government against Biafran Civilians. So it is for many countries i cannot mention now, else, that would be another story. I thus became interested in the pains and mishaps, the huddles and battle many African state had to fight, had fought and is still fighting to retain, enhance, secure and progress what is theirs, their Nation, the only place they can call home. I know that a deep rooted corruption have embedded us and those cannot be far from precepts and orientations the successors of government from colonial hands learnt from their colonial masters. They perhaps have gone a deep far into the dark path. Those however, not only made me interested in reading stories but in writing them too. In expressing my mind to who ever cares to listen and proclaiming that i too, we too have a story to tell. Our stories have been incompletedly told by the foreign world, by those who seek only to rub us of dignity. Chinua Achebe called it the need for a balance of story. Chimamanda Adichie called it a single story and i call it a one eyed story. A people can be rubbed or nourished by the stories told about them, who tells the story and how it was told, hence my story telling. I therefore thought i had better been a story teller, at least to relieve my heart of its burden, itsincompletedness of stories by the foreign world and my own protest against our supposedly outgrown incapabilities.
Posted on: Mon, 12 May 2014 12:49:47 +0000
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