Response to Black lives matter (1)

Black lives matter. Like seismic waves, it keeps reverberating from its US epicenter, travelling outward and watched at every corner of the globe as transported by the radio waves.

You would wish that this seismic wave of Blacks lives matter should cause tsunami of awakening on the motherland, Africa, among the leaderships in particular. As the content of this outward travelling seismic wave is the same old message, make the lives of your own matter.

Well, you can be sure they will give or leave it to God because this is moral evil. No one believes he can do nothing about moral evil of oppression, suppression and torture than Blacks. Yet it calls for more than mere realization that evil is part of life and burrowing oneself in religious hope to overcoming it when others subject Black Africans to constant moral evil through all means necessary.

We must look into the world to find what is really going on and how others navigated round the same problem realistically and not mythically. No doubt, the unabated suffering of the Blacks both at home and abroad is increasingly becoming causally self-inflicted in our modern times.

Africa must engage reality if we are to make any serious headway in tackling these political and economical oppression and suppression framework that so necessitates our maltreatment both home and abroad.

The human world is a collection of events. This intrinsically makes history very complex. Yet to Norman Cousins, "history is a vast warning system". To George Santayana "those who learn nothing from history are doomed to repeat it". Also to James Baldwin, "people are trapped in history, and history is trapped in people".

It is against these backgrounds that the question of whether the Blacks had learnt anything at all in their history of suffering on this planet is asked. Do Blacks ever see historical events as warning systems or they are trapped in it to be repeating its consequences through their actions and inactions?

This extremely incomplete analysis is done parallel to that of the Jews as the background. From a similar situation, they eventually made their lives matter not just by saying Jewish lives matter, but engaging reality to make it matter. They did it with realistic approaches and not the rather common myths that saturate the masses' mind about them as chosen people of god. So read on.

The Jews/Israelites Suffering is part of lives. Every race or tribe suffers in one way or the other. Yet you have to read between the lines if the suffering is more of moral evil as in suppression and oppression politically and economically. Jews suffered, read the between lines and the rest is history.

We now live in a world where after the infamous holocaust involving the Jews, you dare not touch let alone torture any Jew even in words or in action wherever they are on this planet again.

You risk more than you could imagine even pointing out their wrongs openly. Their ancestors practically burrowed themselves in the religious hopes of messiah (first/second) coming to end all their sufferings and it only continued without relief. History, says Norman Cousins, is a warning systems. They learnt their lessons. So, they switched to reality.

The Jewish topnotch leaders switched to reality knowing that their challenge of which their ancestors hope for messiah was historically political, remains political and not spiritual. So they weaved their way into the corridors of power politically.

It is estimated that "there are about 300 national Jewish organizations in the US with a combined budget in the range of $6 billion. A sum greater than the gross national product of half the members of the UN", McDonald Kevin the Psychology professor of the University of California noted.

The powerful two among them that unite all are the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, AIPAC. As the Conference focuses on the Executive branch, AIPAC focuses on the Congress of the US Government for the purposes of lobbying to achieve their goals.

The stated goals are "strengthening the special US-Israel relationships; ensuring that Israel's interest are understood by policy makers, opinion molders and the American public; addressing critical foreign policy issues that impact the America Jewish community; representing the interests of organized America Jewry; and protecting the security and dignity of the Jews around the world". That is just US alone.

Others are Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI) and Labour Friends of Israel (LFI) in UK and probably other nations have theirs as well. Through all this powerful groups, they have more than achieved the stated goals.

To be continued.....

Writer's e-mail: seshiehanku@gmail.com