The change I want to see

I cannot be the change I want to see in this world. I cannot walk that far alone. The change I want to see is dialectical, where I am a function of that change, a derivative of its effect. The change I want to see is a prayer I send from my heart’s deep core, […]

I cannot be the change I want to see in this world. I cannot walk that far alone. The change I want to see is dialectical, where I am a function of that change, a derivative of its effect.

The change I want to see is a prayer I send from my heart’s deep core, a plea which upward to heaven I fling. This is a stretch I cannot go by my lonely self and of my sole initiative, I am under no illusions that I have what it takes. Just by the way, I am not the stone that the builder refused. I am not even a cog in this mighty conundrum… I am an outlier that does not even matter.

So I think I am all about pretense and fakery. I am that human born in two mutually antagonistic worlds… and was also born with an irresistible and immovable desire to go to the stars. That means I have no peace if I did not soar higher and higher under the sun every day, risking a bleak end like Icarus, risking the wrath of nature like the Ubermensch. A Sisyphean curse.

It is Year of our Lord, 2023 and I am on the bridgehead to life, a life at the edge of two worlds. If it sounds like I am so “Christianised”, it is because I am. That also means I understand why Nnamdi Kanu, and Marine Le Pen are so violently afraid of Islamisation. Maybe you now have an abstract picture of who I am. Born a Black African in Africa, a millennial Muslim coming of age trying to make hay in the Year of our Lord, 2023. A black Muslim in a world whose years are ruled by the ‘other lord’, who’s zero-sum centre of gravity is the ‘other people’. What does that mean? It means I have two more things in the way… every time.

That is what I would have believed if my conscious perspective did not straddle those two worlds. Or I did not make lemonade out of the two screwballs. One of my intellectual reference points is Tajuddeen Abdulraheem… who once wrote that “it is time to stop agonising, and start organising”.

You see, being simultaneously born in two reigning worlds means I can see from both ends, and if I can see the bigger picture then I have to be the bigger person. I can see and understand why and where the hate comes from. And that means I can understand that it is really not hate. That happens to come back full-circle to me as an agent of the cultural consciousness of the Sudan.

I am a born-citizen of the second world not any less than how much the second person is a citizen of only the first world too. And that means I know why the caged bird sings. That also means I know how deep the rabbit hole goes too. You see, if I have to be the bigger person because I knew all of this and the other person did not, I can be held to account in a way that they can’t. Because I speak the languages of the two worlds… it means I have to be the translator. I can only translate – not judge.

I have lived with my handlers in each of these worlds as they parroted the institutionalised pop culture narratives against the other side, and I have had to humour them, indulge them, sometimes even joining the bandwagon and pandering to its hysterics. The change I want to see is a clutch utility. A grand unifying theorem. A theory of everything. And I heard even the Einsteins of this world have fallen short…and I am no Einstein. I am not even in the picture, I am not even the stone that the builder refused. The one that shall not be the head cornerstone, either.

Make no mistake, I am well aware of just how self-important all this sounds, but that is the change I want to see. I want to translate so that we can all understand each other – understand that no one means any harm, no one is really just a horrible thing at heart. I want everyone to be able “see to see” the second person.  That is the change I want to see. So I must translate.

My idea of humanity is recognising, empathising, and then sympathising in solidarity with a human comrade over the misfortune of being just human. A fool. You follow that up with an immovable and immutable resolve to accommodate, forgive, excuse and suffer that fool, not because it is easy to do, but because it is so damn hard to do. That is what animates the idea of humanity – the length you are willing to go to overlook, to whitewash, and forgive and forgive and forgive that fool not only so that they reciprocate but because they are your fool. Even if you are not theirs. All for one, and one for all. That is the change I want to see.

Let the person be what they believe they are, and cheer them, and also reinforce them. If they ever argue about being good, believe them because they really are even if you disagree with the deontological basis they stand on. Once they know being good is a good thing, then that is all you need.  Do not limit the sphere to the transactional stricture of the golden rule. Be good to them not because that is what you owe them, but because that is what you offer for free, with no thought or expectation of a karmic compensation.

Make your kindness and mercy infinite, make your charity boundless. The caged bird sings of freedom when it sings – be an accessory of that freedom. Persecution is the sin that gave birth to death, and no one, but no one, chooses death. When they persecute you, it is because somewhere in their long march across the valley of the shadow of death, they had fallen prey to the darkness. This is idealistic, and I realise the difficult sociological questions that must be asked and answered.

But this is the change I want to see.