SOMETHING DIFFERENT FROM THE MOUTHPIECE OF A REBELLIOUS COMMUNITY

The greatest crimes in the world are not committed by people breaking the rules but by people following the rules. It’s people who follow orders that drop bombs and massacre villages. ~ Banksy

Marie Chidi Okorie

Few things are worse than being told, directly or indirectly; how you can’t be equals to a certain set of people, a certain group of self-centered trolls.

Been watching the news lately, stories of chemical weapons being used by government troops and series of incidents that lead to the Baltimore unrest caught my attention.

I am feeling all pulled into not just saying something about this but also picking sides

You feel sick to the bones when you read and watch realities coming out of sovereign states like Burundi, South-Sudan, Zimbabwe C.A.R etc and minority black communities like the Jewish-Ethopians in Israel, Baltimore, Black foreigners in South Africa e.t.c

The riots in Baltimore and other black communities are the result of long-time neglect of problems associated with poverty, lack of education funding and the criminalization of poverty. Exact situations in the African community.

If the brief you have read already sounds familiar, as I think it should, it’s because that’s the recipe for every bout of civil unrest that has taken place over the last 6 years in African and sub-saharan region.

With no apologies to anyone, I think I just joined the “thugs” to rebel against the ones that really define “thuggery.”

Look at the style they have chosen to lead us and attitude they have used in relating with us, making us feel ‘tolerated’ and then putting a serious hinge to our human rights.

Deep down, I can’t bring myself to understanding what the victims of domestic violence go through but what I see on the screen is inhuman and disheartening, it scares me to the bones. Reasons I am choosing to join this movement with the pen and sheet. 🙂

I feel it’s probably because I don’t wear scars to show what this human beings really go through, I haven’t spent several months in prisons or hospitals, I don’t carry untreated injuries about and I don’t face torrent of fears and panic everyday single day.

I might not feel the direct heat a few of this ‘rebels’ feel but I know what it feels like to be deprived …to be left all alone to survive at the same time facing politics of a country that literally strangles you …politics run by politicians who could choose to merge forces with the regular citizens but choose to be kings, friends to kings, and loyalist to kings who also own kings, making us even more confused on where they stand with us the youth, youths who should be regarded as important inhabitants of lands still treated as external forces as “no man’s land.”

So you see, I too have got reasons to pledge an allegiance to rebels worldwide, the ones with a good reason to fight, the ones that would look at life and say “It has being unfair.”

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t condone the rioting that often destroys any community and does nothing to solve the real problems. I also don’t condone the fact that people would rather not acknowledge that this unrest from we, the youth is a cry for help from a community of poor black, human beings who have been long neglected by the politicians and other adults who were meant to look out for us.

John Angelos, the chief operating officer of baltimore Orioles, summed it up for us all who live in any black community worldwide.

He tweeted the following:

“We need to keep in mind people are suffering and dying around USA and while we are thankful no one was injured at Camden yards, There is a far bigger picture for poor Americans in Baltimore and “EVERYWHERE” who do not have jobs and are losing economic civil and legal rights and this makes inconveniences at a ball game irrelevant in light of the needless suffering government is inflicting upon ordinary Americans.”

An important hermeneutical principle beckons on me as an African not to take the words of John Angelos completely out of context but to use his words to interpret our stand, our situation here in African, thus helping to ensure that our interpretation of his words is taken in, with complete exegesis and not looked at with our peculiar biases.
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I am tired of stifling my voice. I’m tired of remaining quiet when everything I love is evaporating. A stand. A continent . A People. A race .A very familiar community.

It seems to me that African leaders today imagine that they are smarter and wiser than previous leader who were colonised back in the 19th century. But watching events unfold, even in the 21th century, It’s even easier to understand how occupation is Africa by Africans never happened.

With Africans inability to resolve problems internally, the wanton and ruthless disregard for civilian populations and citizens, the authoritarianism, the weakening of the state, the destruction of infrastructure, the continual fear of impending civil wars, the invitation to outside powers to take sides.

We haven’t moved an inch, we are still on the line of the divide..

African leaders should know that if they love this position that have chosen, forgetting we are here and feeling stuck.. we would continue to hit back hard, (like in burundi) damming every consequence.

We shouldn’t be treated as infants but as legitimate land owners, who are tired of being referred to by external media houses as “freedom fighters.”

We—don’t ask for much. We ask to be listened to. We ask to be included in the conversations. We ask that you care for what we do and what we’ve added to the community. We ask that you do not placate us.

Most of all, we ask for fairness.

We ask for justice. It seems obvious, a no-brainer. We ask you to listen.

Please listen.
••••
…because we live in a world of separation, where power is decided by color and wealth and greed. My criticism is not aimed at humans. It’s aimed at ‘the system’ a system that could be made sane again. ..because we are part of it. I am part of it. You are part of it too. Just don’t take away the voice of a few.

Let it be clearly known, that I take a stand for the right and just fights, for the ones that now realize how bad we have being pinned down.

I take a complete stand to all fight against oppression either physical or psychological, as long as it makes me feel hindered and neglected I would hit back hard against it.

They have given us the defeatist mentality, and they don’t even recognize it.
They made us the minority because we are no match to them fiscally.

This post is to let them know “we live still.”
‘Our inabilities’ are the reason they would always feel threatened.
Our lack and impoverished state is the reason we would make them notice we still have breath in us.

We are in no competition with anyone, with any sovereign state, any developed country, we just want those privileges that every human being should be allowed to have.

…yeah we might be tagged “loosers” but we have now declared we are headed for the win.

Live and it’s continuity has being officially added to our favour theme song. We would not tap out.

#Celonarants!!

*copyright* 2016 @celonacharles

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*WRITTEN AND EDITED BY CHARLES OKPERE*

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#WeHereForAllOfUs

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