|
The Audacity of
Wakefulness
A
man wins an election. Is there any news in that? Not
really. Then you hear it again. You learn something
more: the man is a black man. His mother was white.
But he definitely is not a white man. However, because he has
to be something, we say black.
OK, maybe not exactly black. No need to get all
those African-Americans, Africans in the Diaspora
and Africans in Africa excited. That level of
excitement must come with a health warning for the
world.
His name is Barack Obama and he has just been sworn
in as the 44th president of the
United States of America.
You are almost irritated by the implausibility of
it. The audacity of even imagining it. That's why I
grab you by the collar of your nicely-pressed shirt
and say it slowly, frothing at the corners of my
mouth, my eyes red - as hot embers of wood, “If you
don’t believe what I say is true, maybe you should
call the goddamn White House.”
I
am sorry papa, I am not making this up. I recall how
you used to tell me stories about the Civil Rights
Movements in America, about the marches in
Montgomery. You told the stories as if you had been
there yourself. There is a black man in the White
House and it is true. Once again, I am sorry papa,
if only you'd hung around for another twenty-seven
years, you would have heard the news yourself. So
now I wonder if you have managed to meet up with
people like Martin Luther King Jr and Rosa Parks on
the other side. Do you all gather for tea
at sunrise and imagine what it feels like to be
alive on this side at a time like this? Well I can
tell you. It feels rather surreal. Even though we've
had since November to get used to it. It still does
not feel real...yet.
Anyway, talking about what is real and what is not,
let me say one or two things about some other stuff
other than American politics.
That word audacity has become like a virus since
Obama published The Audacity of Hope.
Suddenly people are getting bolder. Look at a guy
like Tolu Ogunlesi, a Nigerian writer who was born
only in 1982. How he has fearlessly pursued his
dreams as a writer and has just published a novella
titled Conquest and Conviviality among other
publishing conquests. In the
Sentinel Literary Quarterly interview he makes this
statement; “I have profusely submitted my writing to
magazines, journals, contests and mailed off
applications for writing residencies and
fellowships. Every now and then I succeed.” What an
attitude! This attitude reminds me of another young
man, much younger than Tolu, a chap called Onyeka
Nwelue. That kid was born in 1988. Do the sum. An
irritatingly-ambitious young man. Onyeka Nwelue
hounded me by e-mail and Yahoo messenger a few years
ago that I had to block him to preserve my sanity. I
thought he had something going for him and I am
excited for him at the publication of his first
novel “The Abyssinian Boy” which will be launched on
Saturday 24th January 2009 at the National Library
opposite Casino Cinema, Alagomeji, Lagos, Nigeria.
Congratulations to Mr Nwelue. Back in England,
Alexandra Burke had the audacity of returning to the
X-Factor three years after being booted off the
show, and you know what she won and finally sang her
Halleluyah to the Number One spot on the British
charts. Still on living without fear, on the fast
lane, Lewis Hamilton won the Formula One world
championship.
All these things are happening against a backdrop of
the worst financial crisis of our time. Talk about
audacity and think about Bernard Madoff. Jeez, a man
has got to have some massive balls to become a fifty
billion dollar crook. Now that's what one means
about eating a fat toad!
So before our eyes Lehman Brothers collapsed,
Woolworths and MFI fell off the wagon and Land of
Leather has called in the Administrators. Mind you,
sharp bankers
have still got their Ferraris and the getaway homes
in the Bahamas and the South of France whilst
governments are falling over themselves to bail out
banks with taxpayers’ cheese. I nearly choke on
my Guinness Drought when I read that even Nigeria
has joined the bandwagon and may be helping banks
out with One Trillion Naira. No need to get excited
that is only about Five Billion Pounds.
If a writer had written about all that has happened
in the world since 2008, he would certainly be
dismissed as incompetent, as a person possessing a
warped imagination. None of it makes sense! But I
think the situation provides ample scenarios that
writers of all genres may capitalise on and write
great literature that will sustain the world for another
one hundred years or more. So we must all have the
boldness to stay awake and milk every lactating,
still unbelievable moment of our time, from the
joyful tears of Jesse Jackson, bless him, after
Barack Obama won the election, to the sad tale of Madoff victim
Rene-Thierry
Magon de la Villehuchet who slashed his wrists after
more than one billion dollars of his clients’ money
went walkabout. We must stay awake, lest we fall
asleep only to wake up to find that heck, a black
man has not won the American presidential elections,
and every other great thing that has happened
actually did not.
Enjoy the January
issue of the SLQ.
Nnorom Azuonye
21 January, 2009
|
