This fall, a number of students from The Earth Center made the pilgrimage to Merita (Africa) to study with Master Naba and visit with the Kem people living in the colonial state of Burkina Faso. As of the date of this writing there are three students remaining in Merita, and they will be returning in a day or so.
The students have come back with many wonderful stories. Some are stories of personal hardship in the bush. Some are stories of experiences with the teachings of Master Naba.
Today, I would like to discuss an aspect of what they saw there that concerns them and me as well, the destruction of indigenous culture.
Everywhere except in the bush, the people were very interested in American culture. Everywhere you look, you see the inroads of European or Arab concepts. In the cities, you can count the churches and the mosques, and the call to prayer blares through speakers in every urban center. Many of the prominent political leaders in these urban centers have converted to Islam from the traditional way. They say that “The world is changing” and so they must change with it.
This is so sad.
It is also very strange. How can the people who were fortunate enough to have been spared the depredations of the Diaspora be so easily taken in by the very forces that enslaved our ancestors? Don’t they know that the riches they see on TV and dream about for themselves were paid for with the blood of my family, and the families of millions like me? Don’t they know that only a few hundred miles to the east in the traditional seat of the Upper Kingdom; the Arabs are raping and pillaging the Kem people? Don’t they realize that Islam is just the Religion made up by the Arabs to counter the religion of the Romans, Christianity?
The battle between the Caliphate and the Roman Empire still rages as it has for 2000 years. The jewel that they once battled over, the “pearl of great price” belongs to the Kemetic culture. In many ways, it is the Kemetic culture.
The treasure is all but lost.
How can we accept that the followers of Set have stolen the riches and the land from us, enslaved us, and turned around and sold our own riches back to us, on credit, for the cost of the crumbs that we are thrown as the wages of our labor? When all of our strength is gone, they take back what we have left and say it is legal according to the laws that they have written.
This is very sad.
I am told that there are so many beautiful women in Merita. These women are adopting the concepts of beauty that are spread across the world from European culture. They straighten their hair and wear the cloths of western designers. They espouse the attitudes of women that they see on TV. They think that this makes them more beautiful and more desirable. It does not. They are just becoming what the rappers call “Bitches”. They will no longer be women. They will be treated like dogs.
This is so very sad.
It breaks my heart to think that I have fought my whole life to find my way to freedom, only to see that there will no longer be any place where I can live free. We are not all suited to life in the bush. I cannot honestly claim that I look forward to that life. I am not a farmer of millet.
What does a technocrat of the European culture have to offer a traditional person? What riches does a slave have to barter for the knowledge of the universe? Perhaps the Elders will be able to tell me when I visit.
Every morning I lie on the floor and imagine what I could say to the Elders that would convince them to share with me what they know. I am at a loss. I have nothing to give but my life.
I am hanging by a thread to the hope that I can resolve the central conflict within me. I do not know what is real and what is illusion. I do not know if the thoughts and ideas that come to me are just pure fantasy or something more, perhaps something of value that I should pursue. I have set aside the work that I have done on my own in the hope that the knowledge contained in the traditions of Kemet will hold the keys to unlock the door to the prisons within my mind.
I feel like a caged animal beating its body against the bars, chewing off its limbs to free itself from the snares that entrap it. I am bloodied, bruised and exhausted. As the European songwriter Sting once said, “Only hope can keep me together.”
If I am to approach the divine world, I must take my queue from the actions of the Gods. Aishat never gave up hope when Wsr was killed by Set, neither did she give up hope when Set had dismembered Wsr’s corpse and scattered the pieces across the face of the earth.
Though I am only a human being and not yet pure enough to even glance upon the realm of the Divine,
I will not give up.
I must continue or die.
I have no choice.
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