We Stand Poised, at the Precipice.

The Choice is Ours. Always Has Been.

Photo by Ivana Cajina on Unsplash

I have never known what it means to be discriminated against, to face racial bias or slurs, to feel excluded.

To be disadvantaged, because of the colour of my skin, my nationality or how I generally look.

I cannot claim to know what the discriminated castes of India have gone through, and are going through; what the African-Americans have gone through, and are going through; what the Jews have gone through, and are going through; what women have gone through, and are going through; what those of a divergent religious, ethnic, ideological leaning, have gone through, and are going through.

I cannot claim to know much about that if anything at all.

I have of course suffered the every day—petty, low-level, mundane, run-of-the-mill bigotry—intolerance, and racially inclined comments, but these have been in passing, and not perennial or full-blown.

Still, I bowed down to self-pity, to allow these people to make me feel “bad” about myself, about who I am, and to allow them to rob me of my dignity.

But with time, I have come to the realisation that this anti-social behaviour is aberrant and is a sign of the weakness inherent in human nature. The need to dominate to “feel” safe—to feel “big” about ourselves, to feel justified and validated in our misguided self-importance. But in many instances, around the world and in many societies, I believe it has been carried too far, for far too long.

You see, I was born in a country—Zambia—where none such extreme examples of bias and discrimination exist today—though they were prevalent during our colonial past—as Northern Rhodesia—under British rule.?

I made my “debut” appearance on this planet, after Northern Rhodesia clawed its political independence from the reluctant colonial clutches of imperialist Britain, to become Zambia.

As such, I never suffered the indignities of my grandparents and my parents of being deemed sub-human, reduced to purchasing—when they were allowed to—food and groceries through a small shop window, to act like and be treated like chattel, in their own country, on their own land.

Growing up, I went to primary school, where 99% of the teachers were Caucasian, 70% of the pupils were white, 20% African, while the rest were a mixed-bag of other races and nationalities, while 100% of the manual and menial labour, were black.

I never noticed all this, it is only now, as I look back, that I take note of those startling statistics. But It didn’t matter, it was of no consequence. It never came up. And it shouldn’t matter now.

I grew up in a middle-class family; a middle-class home; a middle-class neighbourhood, safe and secure from want, and hardly knew scarcity. In a peaceful locale; in a tranquil country.

So tranquil was it, that the first time—in my life—I heard a gunshot was when I was already in my late teens (I kid you not).

Had a father who I looked up to, who took his familial responsibilities, seriously; a mother on whom I could count and depend, every time, regardless; three sisters and a brother, who thought that—being the last born child—I was spoilt rotten, yet they still loved.

In short, a model childhood, with the possibility not only to grow up but to be able to grow up and be whatever I wanted to be.

I was loved and secure.

Now the question, you must surely be asking:

“So what is this all about, Jethro, this walk down memory’s lanes? Why the nostalgia, the wistfulness? What is the point, here?”

Well, it’s just that when I look around the world, I see and hear about:

Disasters; both natural and; man-made;

Wars and evil strife, hunger, destitution, displacements, murder, and suicides; all man-made;

Changes in weather patterns, droughts, famines, heat waves, storms, and floods, all as a consequence of man’s negligence;

The victimisation of minorities, women, children, those of dissenting views, ideologies, faiths, beliefs, and religions, political intolerance and petty differences, negating of other humans; all man-induced and promoted;

My heart bleeds, to know that even as I was growing up, cocooned in my perceived serenity and the safety of my little corner of the world—oblivious—all this is and was going on in the world, around me.

That there were people—kids like me—who knew nothing of the world of peace, a world they probably thought only existed in fairy tales. That there were kids out there who heard the sound of gunshots; bombs, the very first day they were born. Who knew not what it felt like to have a full belly, a secure home, a protective father and an ever-present mother, and loving sisters and brothers. The assurance and security of a home and family.

Husbands who saw their wives raped in front of their eyes, mothers who had their children ripped from their desperate arms and massacred, and children who witnessed the barbaric execution of their parents.?

In parts of Africa, the Middle East, parts of the Americas, and parts of Europe, the world over, people are suffering through no fault of theirs, simply because they happen to be and to have been born in the wrong place at the wrong time in history. For some—unfathomably—history has always stood against them and has never smiled upon their upturned faces.

The point of all this is that I don’t want to live in that world, where suffering is a by-word, a commonplace, where people are deemed to have to put up with misery, with suffering, and accepting that, “such is life”. Their life, AND their fate. ?

It is simply not right.

We all need to speak up and let the corridors of power know that we the people, demand that they do the jobs for which we elected them to do. The preservation and protection of human life, the planet, and the assurance of human dignity.

To guarantee and safeguard our lives and those of our families, property, and livelihoods.

My angst is against those elected politicians who—upon assuming power—deem us irrelevant to the equation. That the world is theirs to do with as they please. To satisfy the ego and play God.

We never asked them to decide for us, against whom and when to declare war, whom we should hate, and whom we treat as “beasts of burden” trampling on their rights like so much filth.

Who do they think they are, telling us which people and culture is “backwardly uncivilised”, needing our benevolence and saving from their savage ways; to call another race inferior to ours because of the colour of their skin, and therefore to be treated as chattel; to declare who deserves to die or live, because of our preconceived and misguided belief systems?

To negate a whole people's way of life, and to deem the sovereignty of their territories, a sham, and the natural resources under their feet and all around, up for grabs and the taking, and to leave them destitute?

Who told them to spread, and “export”, such strife and misery?

Who appointed them, “the wrath of God”? ?

Conscripted to and complicit in this, divide-and-rule, is the fourth estate.

Picking sides, instead of reporting the truth, and covering news stories for the public with the objectivity expected of them.

As the opposition political parties in countries stand by—arms-akimbo, looking on helplessly—the people of the pen—a mighty weapon, that if carelessly used can engulf the whole world in a global conflagration—are busy blowing on the embers of the roiling inferno.

What a dereliction of duty.

And so, I look around, and I see a world alight with flames, and that, that’s not the world I wish to live in because I know the human species is endowed with a transcendent spirit, and that transcendence, means we are more than we appear.

We are destined for greater things than the continuous and senseless mayhem we insist on inflicting on each other. To what end? What is the endgame, and what is the game plan? ?

Why do we short-change and demean ourselves? Acting like wild animals?

We have the mental and intellectual capacity to resolve all our differences, with dialogue, collaboration, give-and-take, and win-wins.

If we can have the wherewithal to put a man on the surface of the moon, and to bring him back again, how then can we fail to resolve challenges of our own making?

If we can be as motivated to resolve our created problems, as we are to build arsenals of war and weapons of mass destruction; as we are to raise resources for the exploration of the far reaches of space, and the bewildering depths of the oceans; as we invest in technological advancements—

Surely we can find it within us, to pivot ourselves towards the saving grace of our race;

Surely, we can find it within ourselves to stretch out a hand of friendship—one to another—for the sake of our humanity;

Surely, we can bring ourselves to see the suffering of others, and their families, as our own suffering;

Surely, every human being MUST hate intolerance; authoritarianism; the trampling upon the rights of other humans; the over-stepping of governments outside of their limited authority; and this rule-by-chaos to justify extrajudicial abominations, all in the name of keeping our borders safe.

Surely, it is not, and cannot be too much to ask of ourselves,

“What would we lose, if we lived as one people, with a common cause?

To imagine this, about ourselves:

“What would we gain, if we invested in the well-being of others, bound by the desire to see our race survivor for the next 1000 years?”

History teaches us that the apex species was wiped off the face of this planet, by a cosmic phenomenon, and that was because it was outside their control.

We, on the other hand, as the current apex species, are we on the verge of being wiped off the face of the earth—not by an out-of-control cosmic phenomenon—but by our own ‘hand’? By a “natural, global” phenomenon, of our own making?

How many nuclear weapons, for example, does one country need to defend itself, and against whom? What is the game plan? After nuclear war, what then?

We stand at the precipice, with an option to step back or take the leap, HEADLONG, to our annihilation.

The choice is ours to make.

Let’s make the right one.?

I—for one—I believe in US! That we SHALL do the right thing.?

For though we stand poised, at the precipice, the choice is ours, it ALWAYS has been.