Washington Bridge falling down!
I have seen a prince who ended up a slave, and I’ve beheld a vassal who scanned passing humanity from atop his multi-storey edifice. That Yoruba proverb rings true in the lives of nations too. Up till yesterday, before the Americans inflicted the ‘Trumpian’ affliction on themselves, the American empire had lasted for 241 years, […]
I have seen a prince who ended up a slave, and I’ve beheld a vassal who scanned passing humanity from atop his multi-storey edifice. That Yoruba proverb rings true in the lives of nations too.
Up till yesterday, before the Americans inflicted the ‘Trumpian’ affliction on themselves, the American empire had lasted for 241 years, from 1776 to 2017, before it was finally dismantled by Russia without as much as one gunshot being fired.
When the Calypso legend, Mighty Sparrow, sang “London Bridge is Falling Down” he probably didn’t know that a couple of decades down the line, the new refrain might well be, “Washington bridge is falling down”.
It is the way of the world. Every empire has its time and season. The grim reaper is no respecter of empires. When it’s time for a change of guard, somehow all the elements conspire to birth a jaw-dropping event that demystifies the reigning champion and shoves him into the line of has-beens.
Where is the first Persian Empire founded Cyrus the Great? For 220 years (550 BC-330 BC) it ruled the stage of the known world and then became history. What about the Babylonian Empire whose word was law for 300 years (1900 BC to 1600 BC)? How many people still remember the Byzantine Empire which, for 1123 years (330-1453) straddled parts of present-day Europe, the Middle East and Africa? Or the Carthaginian Empire from 650 BC to 146 BC?
I’m sorry for the generation of our children who were denied the thrills and deep insights that History offers when the military government banned the teaching of the subject in schools. Now, how do I explain to them that Egypt was a First World for 473 years (1550 BC to 1077 BC)? Or that the glory of the Benin Empire radiated round the world for 457 years (1440-1897)?
How would they appreciate the full import of the tragedy now playing out in Nigeria’s North-East where the Kanem Borno Empire reigned supreme for 687 years, from 700-1387? When they are told that the Alaafin of Oyo used to rule over an Empire that stretched from Southwest Nigeria to areas now in other West African countries, spanning 150,000 sq km and the empire’s reign ended in 1905 — would they comprehend?
The graveyard of time is full of expired empires. The British Empire died before its 400th birthday; the French Colonial Empire was interred at the age of 446 (1534-1980); Ottoman Empire lived long for 623 years (1299-1922). The Holy Roman Empire joined its ancestors at age 844 years (962-1806).
Before the Ethiopian military gunned down their heritage, the Ethiopian Empire had lasted 837 years (1137-1984). The Soviet Union carved out an area of influence for themselves, rivalling the Americans, for 69 years (1922-1991); that empire was successfully unbundled by the US and its allies hawking ‘freedom, liberty’ and other such ‘democratic’ wares.
I have taken this historical excursion to show that Father Time has consigned every empire to its own season. Whether we bother to take note or not, Lord Tennyson’s insightful words will haunt us: “The old order changeth, yielding place to new, And God fulfils himself in many ways, Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.”
We are witnessing a change of guard in world leadership without seeming to appreciate the momentousness of it all. With the Russian meddling in the presidential elections in the US at a time when China was doing everything right politically, economically and culturally, a change of guards is happening in plain sight. The Western Empire is yielding its prime position to the Eastern bloc of Russia and China.
Russia is so bold now that it routinely plans the assassination of ex-spies living in foreign lands as happened recently in the UK with the poisoning of Sergei V. Skripal, and his daughter which has harmed diplomatic relations between both countries. The Eastern imperialist is trying to outdo his Western counterpart.
Perhaps this is the Karmic price that the West — particularly the US, the UK and France have to pay for engineering the assassination/overthrow of so many African leaders. President Sylvanus Olympio of Togo was executed by an ex-French legionnaire and colonial lapdog, Sergeant Gnassingbe Eyadema; pan-Africanist Kwame Nkrumah was toppled to teach other revolutionary Africans that the West would brook no fancy ideas of emancipation… Africa was — and to a large extent, still is — their playground.
Now the shoe is on the other foot as Russia plays its roulette so adroitly that the American society is now divided right down the middle. Vladimir Putin, the former KGB chief now President of Russia, is the world’s brand new meddler-in-chief at a time when America is saddled with a vindictive and delusional sociopath who doesn’t appear to know right from wrong and is so determined to wreck all democratic structures in his way that veteran African dictators now look like benevolent Santa.
Donald Trump may badmouth Africa as a ‘shithole’ all he wants; he may continue being the arrowhead of the racist ideology that rends his country apart and arming loonies to depopulate ‘the world’s most powerful democracy’, but it may all turn out that he is but an anvil on which the hammer of Father Time will beat America to the shape of a ‘has-been’.
Washington’s bridge is falling down!