' the loudest voice is just a whisper in the wind'© Taiwo Ogunnaike - 2012
As I prepare to leave Europe, emotionally, mentally, physically and spiritually, I look back on what I have gained living here.
Well, the birth of my two wonderful boys who have grown to be such amazing young men, who make me proud and continue to shine their lights. I praise the Most High for them, because they literally made me find my feet.And I am delighted that they chose me as their 'mumma'. I feel courageous that they have the positive self esteem to let their 'mumma', me, go and be happy in warmer climates and to be with her darling and loving husband. Completely complete and blissfully blessed.
I am grateful for my advanced education. Although I challenged a lot in my 'higher learning' from the people who taught me - and I came into it at an advanced age - my perceptions were much more keener - I still gained knowledge from all the sources which embraced me. I am still learning everyday. Do I have any regrets? No. Regrets are just obstacles, and I get over them each and everyday.
My politicisation(sic) filtered way into my consciousness in the early 80s. For me it was the reverberation and shouts of '13 dead, nothing said'. I will always remember that day - March 2nd 1981 - when I was still doing/preparing for my A Levels I never told my mama I was going on the march, but I remember sneaking out when I was meant to go to the library. It was my watershed moment of realising that I was of 'other', and the impact of being aware of this knowledge hit me HARD in the solar plexus, literally winding me.
I know, I was a naive, 17 year old, closeted by religion, juxtaposition with the white Jesus hanging on red velvet wallpaper.
I remember being in a sea of melanin, held afloat by loud, but angry and triumphant victorious voices. I felt that I was 'home' and there was a 'red sea' epiphany moment for me - although I had no comprehension of it at the time. There were over 20,000 people marching, people who looked just like ME. I had never seen such a collective organism of us in one place before that were not celebrating dancing and good times, but living. I was astounded by the dashikis and all other sartorial manners of African type clothing that I had only seen in my church as a young girl. I was buoyed by this. My spirit and fire arose in me as I joined the chants. I knew it was going to be a historical and pivotal moment for the African/British movement.
As I moved deeper within the Pan African struggle in the 80s and 90s I felt a seismic shift begin within. I saw that a lot of these organisations had issues with gender and equality. I am not talking 'feminism', but there were flawed debates, that sometimes got buried or never challenged, such as domestic violence that was very active (and still is) within our communities. I remember having (or attempting to have) a lot of these debates with some of my 'brothas' about women's roles within the movement. I was having a reincarnation moment about how women were perceived, and how I remembered reading about these roles within the Black Panther movement twenty odd years before. Things had not changed. Anyway, I digress. I will be writing more on this in my novel.
What I want to say, is that I stand here now. Fully congruent and still fiercely proud and protective in being Pro Black for my community, but my embrace has widened. I want and will be taking that embrace/ideas/(in)/evolvement/love et al to another country, another land.
I refuse to be like the so many stagnant figures I have observed in the Pan African movement over here; who keep on blaming 'whitey' and yet refuse to saw away at these chains that they feel is psychologically binding them so tightly in BABYLON. They still verbally projectile the same slogans from yesteryear, and they have still stood in the same spot, marking the same spot, by spouting dated rhetoric in shifting times; passing it on to the next (X) generation. After a while, these loud, angry, but victorious and triumphant voices are just whispers on the wind. They don't mean anything if you they are not prepared to do the walking instead of merely talking. And prepared to:
BE ABOUT IT
and
TO JUST...
DO IT!
Soon, very soon...
As I prepare to leave Europe, emotionally, mentally, physically and spiritually, I look back on what I have gained living here.
Well, the birth of my two wonderful boys who have grown to be such amazing young men, who make me proud and continue to shine their lights. I praise the Most High for them, because they literally made me find my feet.And I am delighted that they chose me as their 'mumma'. I feel courageous that they have the positive self esteem to let their 'mumma', me, go and be happy in warmer climates and to be with her darling and loving husband. Completely complete and blissfully blessed.
I am grateful for my advanced education. Although I challenged a lot in my 'higher learning' from the people who taught me - and I came into it at an advanced age - my perceptions were much more keener - I still gained knowledge from all the sources which embraced me. I am still learning everyday. Do I have any regrets? No. Regrets are just obstacles, and I get over them each and everyday.
My politicisation(sic) filtered way into my consciousness in the early 80s. For me it was the reverberation and shouts of '13 dead, nothing said'. I will always remember that day - March 2nd 1981 - when I was still doing/preparing for my A Levels I never told my mama I was going on the march, but I remember sneaking out when I was meant to go to the library. It was my watershed moment of realising that I was of 'other', and the impact of being aware of this knowledge hit me HARD in the solar plexus, literally winding me.
I know, I was a naive, 17 year old, closeted by religion, juxtaposition with the white Jesus hanging on red velvet wallpaper.
I remember being in a sea of melanin, held afloat by loud, but angry and triumphant victorious voices. I felt that I was 'home' and there was a 'red sea' epiphany moment for me - although I had no comprehension of it at the time. There were over 20,000 people marching, people who looked just like ME. I had never seen such a collective organism of us in one place before that were not celebrating dancing and good times, but living. I was astounded by the dashikis and all other sartorial manners of African type clothing that I had only seen in my church as a young girl. I was buoyed by this. My spirit and fire arose in me as I joined the chants. I knew it was going to be a historical and pivotal moment for the African/British movement.
As I moved deeper within the Pan African struggle in the 80s and 90s I felt a seismic shift begin within. I saw that a lot of these organisations had issues with gender and equality. I am not talking 'feminism', but there were flawed debates, that sometimes got buried or never challenged, such as domestic violence that was very active (and still is) within our communities. I remember having (or attempting to have) a lot of these debates with some of my 'brothas' about women's roles within the movement. I was having a reincarnation moment about how women were perceived, and how I remembered reading about these roles within the Black Panther movement twenty odd years before. Things had not changed. Anyway, I digress. I will be writing more on this in my novel.
What I want to say, is that I stand here now. Fully congruent and still fiercely proud and protective in being Pro Black for my community, but my embrace has widened. I want and will be taking that embrace/ideas/(in)/evolvement/love et al to another country, another land.
I refuse to be like the so many stagnant figures I have observed in the Pan African movement over here; who keep on blaming 'whitey' and yet refuse to saw away at these chains that they feel is psychologically binding them so tightly in BABYLON. They still verbally projectile the same slogans from yesteryear, and they have still stood in the same spot, marking the same spot, by spouting dated rhetoric in shifting times; passing it on to the next (X) generation. After a while, these loud, angry, but victorious and triumphant voices are just whispers on the wind. They don't mean anything if you they are not prepared to do the walking instead of merely talking. And prepared to:
BE ABOUT IT
and
TO JUST...
DO IT!
Soon, very soon...
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