In school where we studied under the
Macaulayite system of education, we learnt of Africa as the "dark continent" comprising of primitive tribes. And indeed even to this day, Africa is seen by the rest of the Westernised world, as a place of primitive tribes and cultures. Which is why, a 100 people dying in a shootout in Mali a few days ago, finds no mention in mainstream media, while 50 people dying in a shootout earlier in New Zealand is still debated on all channels.
And movies like "
The Gods must be crazy" just reinforce the primitive and naive stereotype of African tribes. The movie is based on an assumption by the story teller, that the African bushmen thinks of Europeans as Gods, and goes on to self-deprecate the Western culture in order for the narrative to appear humble.
Similarly, there are ample do-gooders who appeal to the Western tourist to observe other ("primitive") cultures with "humility" and not try to offer solutions. Notwithstanding the fact that, by reminding ourselves to "observe with humility", we are already putting ourselves on a higher pedestal!
The best strategy of course, is to interface with other cultures with genuine curiosity, where we just wish to learn, and are not even thinking about our humility or lack of it. Once we start doing this, we encounter deep profundity no matter where we look -- be it in Africa or in the Nicobar tribes or in animal societies or even in the most unlikeliest of places for profundity, like Wall Street!
This post is about how African wisdom entered my life at the right moments when I needed them most. Here is a collection of them:
It all started when I first realised that much of what we had learnt in school about our own culture and history were just utterly wrong. We were taught stories that we were told to be true, but we could sense that they could not be true. Things didn't add up between the values we were taught at home and the interpretation of our culture in school. It was then that, out of the blue, this proverb just landed on my browser one day:
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| "Until the lion learns how to write, every story will glorify the hunter" |
Wow! Sudden flash of clarity in my mind. Then I started to regress backwards in time in my mind, to try and understand what was troubling me, and have
written about it quite a bit, on this very blog. And as if on cue, the following landed up in front of me:
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| "He who digs too deep for a fish, may come out with a snake" |
Eeks! And how! There were snakes all over the place inside my mind as I regressed into the past. And just as I was about to fight them, the following reached out to me:
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| "Never beat a snake when you haven't seen its head" |
Got it boss! I'm not going to fight those snakes. I don't even know how many are there and where are its heads. And while they were scary, they were not the only danger. As I became more and more obsessed with the snakes around me, the following word of caution dropped into my browser:
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| "Because we focused on the snake, we missed the scorpion" |
Wow! That was ehh.. scary! But thanks for that, African proverbs!
And soon, once I understood this, my outlook towards others changed. What I thought were acts of stupidity or violence on the part of others, turned out to be their desperate measures for survival from the snakes in their minds or in their vicinity:
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| "A man does not run among thorns for no reason; either he is chasing a snake or a snake is chasing him" |
Understood. But why were these snakes invisible all along? Well:
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| "When the axe entered the forest, the trees said, 'Look, the handle is one of us!'" |
Now I see it! Yup, we were taught to celebrate and welcome everything into our lives, and look for something familiar, when dealing with something unfamiliar. In short, we were taught to be trusting, which became our naivety, because we didn't know the above proverb.
We had no idea to what extent we had been repressed and subjugated for centuries, and traumatic practices became associated with our "culture" and "values". African proverbs were there to help explain this yet again:
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| "If evil lasts for a long time, it will become a tradition" |
While I'm still shaking my head at the profundity of the above, my thoughts go into psychological ramifications of traumatic upbringing. As kids, it is still common to see elders thrashing, admonishing and invalidating them on just about everything, because "it is all for their own good". And I wondered how this would pan out in the long term. An African proverb was ready to help me out here too:
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| "A child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth" |
After getting enormously depressed and disillusioned with life, after having learnt the above, I was more than ready to give up on life. I mean, what is the point of anything? Why live at all? Thankfully, (you got it)
African proverbs were there to bring me hope and soothe my pains and show me the way forward:
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| "If you think you are too small to make a difference, you haven't spent a night with a mosquito" |
Which brought a smile to my face.. but I was still lost.. Then came this:
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| "Pearls don't lie on the seashore -- if you want one, you must dive for it!" |
Yes.. despite the snakes! And also:
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| "No matter how long the night, the day is sure to come" |
True that! Suddenly, I felt much better!
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| "When there is no enemy within, the enemies outside cannot hurt you" |
What a profound insight! True, there are a lot of adversaries outside. But it is really the adversaries inside me with whom I have to live with, in my most vulnerable moments. I need to deal with the enemies within! And how do I do that? Well:
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| "The best way to fight an alien and oppressive culture, is to embrace your own" |
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| "A speaker of truth has no friends" |
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| "The truth is like a lion, You don't have to defend it. Let it loose, it will defend itself" |
Satyameva jayate! Talk about actionable insights! No predictive model or advanced AI/ML ever gave me this level of clarity on what to do and what can I expect when I do it..!
And finally, as an icing on the cake, came this pearl of wisdom:
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| "If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together" |
Yup. I want to go far. Not fast. I want everyone to be together. Because:
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| "The youth can walk faster, but the elder knows the road" |
Thank you African proverbs!! You have no idea how much you have changed my life!!
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