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๐ฆ๐๐๐ข๐ฃ๐จ๐, ๐ฃ๐ฎ๐ฟ๐ ๐ฎ
๐๐ฅ๐๐๐ง๐จ๐ฅ๐ โ ๐ง๐ต๐ฒ ๐ง๐ต๐ถ๐ป๐ด. ๐ง๐ต๐ฒ ๐ง๐๐ฟ๐ฎ๐ป๐.
๐ง๐ต๐ฒ ๐ ๐ฎ๐ธ๐ถ๐ป๐ด๐ ๐ผ๐ณ ๐ฎ ๐๐๐บ๐ฎ๐ป ๐๐ผ๐ฟ๐ฐ๐ฒ ๐ผ๐ณ ๐๐ฒ๐๐๐ฟ๐๐ฐ๐๐ถ๐ผ๐ป
Donald Trump reminds me of sethotsela in South Africa, the land of my birth. Sethotsela is the outcome of a once-buried corpse returned to life by witchcraft methods. This is a creature of the night. It is meant to spread terror in certain human-populated areas, although it may be met in the wild of the night in the forests or mountains. In dark mountain caves, sethotsela can be encountered at any time of day.
With the years, and especially since I started writing and publishing books since 2015, I find myself resorting to my mother tongue, Sesotho, in my efforts to understand sociological phenomena in the world. Growing up and going to school in Lesotho during my formative years in the 1960s, the expression bohlale ba hloleho was used to describe children and adults of exceptional intelligence.
Intelligent children shone at school, and socially. Intelligent adults shone in all human productive endeavours, from agricultural work to national leadership roles. Translated to English, bohlale ba hloleho means natural intelligence, or intrinsic wisdom. People with bohlale ba hloleho are the kind of people who just know it. They just have it. They are effortless problem solvers, ever with viable explanations of how things in nature and society work at all levels.
It is in the concepts and metaphors of bohlale ba hloleho abound in deep Sesotho language speakers that I have found greater clarity in my strive to make sense of my world, its joys, and traumas. The calibre of our world leaders and the outcomes of their work for the good or bad of their respective societies and the global community fascinates me profoundly.
Donald Trump features in this presentation for what I perceive of him as his abundantly manifest disconcerting unhinged intrigues of being. No other prominent incompetent pseudo-politician in the world today does it worse than Trump.
The Donald Trump brand enshrines amongst others, blatant extreme White Supremacist racism, bravado, career suicide, condescendence, denialism, fascism, fraud, idiocy, incongruity, inconsistency, indecency, infantility, ingratitude, lies, manipulation, mockery; there is also misogyny, mayhem, obstinacy, petulance, rigmarole, shamelessness, vindictiveness, vulgarity, and white privilege. It beats me that there exist pro-Trump racial interest groups under the banners such as Blacks for Trump, Chinese Americans for Trump, Indian Americans for Trump, and Latinos for Trump, to name a few. And, then, there are Women for Trump. Jeeezzzus!
CLARIFICATION
This presentation is an extended and updated version of an original essay I wrote and published on my blog, Chilembo Warrior Moves. The publication was on January 13, 2022. Iโve been following with fascination as to how, with his cult of personality intrigues, Donald Trump has managed to polarize the American society.
I do not expect that the stuff that I write or say about Donald Trump will ever make any difference if ever they got to him, or his cohorts. It is not my goal either. I neither write nor speak about the man for his sake. I do this for myself, for the preservation of my sanity. Donald Trump is not my cup of tea.
People have the right to hold opinions on anything or anybody they like or donโt like. However, I am ever so baffled by people who say that they donโt know anything about politics, and that they neither are interested in the concept and practice of politics.
Politics is the science of governance. People that are indifferent to, or ignorant of the various aspects of politics, myopically distance themselves from basic human relations management mechanisms that engineer society at all levels. From society to society in different epochs with time, human collectives will either spontaneously, or through force, arrange themselves in particular ways. The intention being to influence human behaviour contra existential imperatives such as the search for, production, and distribution of food and shelter. Thatโll include the creation of systems and structures that enhance and sustain the peopleโs general well-being, ensuring the propagation of the species.
Historically, different ideologies have emerged in efforts to explain the roles and positions of people in the processes of living in a world of limited survival resources. Marxism looks at how classes emerge in society as to what and how much access the people have to the ownership and control of the means of production. The upper, ruling classes own more at the expense of the lower classes, who are the oppressed. Socialism propagates ideas that the workers shall share ownership of the means of production.
In Capitalism, the means of production are in varying magnitudes owned by individuals or corporate structures. Those that donโt own shall be in perpetual servitude to the Capitalists, the former selling their labour cheaply to the latter. Capitalism aims to earn profit upon selling their goods and services at prices higher than production costs, which include labour costs.
Ideally, Communism eliminates private property and socio-economic classes. Here, the state owns the commanding heights of the economy and manages the economy for the people, who are co-owners and shall be equal beneficiaries of the bounty of the land according to their respective needs. Communism takes Socialism to the next level.
Regardless of where we are in the world, politics permeates all aspects of our lives. It doesnโt matter whether one is oblivious to the intricacies of politics or not. It is the politically ignorant and/ or indifferent that make for the rise of pathetic politicians as to the likes of Donald Trump. To understand politics is to understand humanity and its place in the universe.
If USAโs January 6, 2021, insurrection is anything to go by, politicians of personalities like Donald Trump are some of the most dangerous national leaders we can have anywhere in the world. Being the most powerful country in the world, whatever good or bad happens in the USA has enormous positive effects or repercussions in the world. This affects us all, irrespective of whether we are interested in politics or not.
If you are a practicing or an aspiring International Trade business person, follow events in America in your wealth creation and management endeavours.
Those who follow local and international politics with critical thinking minds are never taken by surprise when world peace conditions or world economic trends point north or south. The well-informed can predict potential outcomes of events at home and/ or abroad. Therefore, because I can see the potential danger that Donald Trump poses to his country, and subsequently the rest of the world, I write and talk about him to quell my frustration with the American Nightmare.
Furthermore, I write and talk about Trump to repeal my anxiety, and to fortify my soul in the threat of the World War III outbreak peril heโd pose to humanity should he return to power in the forthcoming USA Presidential Elections 2024, on November 5. First, thereโll be the 2nd American Civil War. People, get ready! Iโve done my part: Iโve told you so.
SETHOTSELA (continued)
Sethotsela scares the living daylights out of those who encounter it. The unfortunate can even die. Those who have been in the presence of sethotsela and survived can become so traumatized that they begin to worship its mystic; doing everything possible to avoid crossing paths with the dreadful spectre.
This creature can also be deliberately made out of various materials, making a mannequin to represent a likeness of a marked dead person. Witchcraft rituals are then applied to give life to the mannequin. At worst, a sethotsela can be a silent, elusive killer; an instrument of coercion. Amongst others, the idea may be, on behalf of the witchcraft practitioner, to eliminate people from, or to force them by fear to vacate certain areas. That way, enabling the witchcraft people to acquire more land and property, enhancing their power over their fellow citizens.
SEBOPUA
In my mother tongue, Sesotho, the verb โto moldโ (with clay) is ho bopa (ka letsopa). By extension, ho bopa describes โto formโ, or โto createโ a tangible, inanimate object out of clay or any other similar malleable material. The objects made may be of functional, ornamental, or both values. They may also be aesthetically attractive or repulsive according to the eye of the beholder. And, they may either be destructive or life-supporting, either by design or accident, through intentional application.
For purposes of this presentation, we shall work with the concept of ho bopa in terms of creation as a force. In this case, creation manifesting a dysfunctional output; a thing, with a potential for destruction of the self and/ or its environment. I define creation here to be the supra-human force that is responsible for the existence of the universe and all that exists or doesnโt exist in it. What is, how, and when creation made the universe is a question answered relative to earthlingsโ capacity to fathom the extent of the universe as to the universeโs magnitude and its functional attributes.
Human beingsโ capacity to understand creation as a conceptual or objective reality is a function of the individualโs cognitive wiring. This influences the individualโs reasoning power contra existential questions, big or small. Therefore, whilst one person might attribute creation to the power of God, another will attribute it to the Big Bang. In-between, there are alternative explanatory models as numerous as there are humans on earth. I wonโt go there.
Etymologically expanding ho bopa leads us to, amongst others, the adjective sebopua. The latter approximately translates as โa product of creationโ. i.e., a thing, an object the existence of which is acknowledged simply because it exists as a result of creationโs infinite creative potential. Creation gets it right most times; it screws up badly sometimes.
Sebopua is thus used to describe people of various degrees of physical handicaps and intellectual disabilities; often from birth. It may be due to birthing complications, illness, inherent neurological or genetic aberrations, accidents, and many more. The expression sebopua is often applied derogatively. It may also be used in exasperation as a manifestation of grief against a condition of hopelessness, extreme suffering for the afflicted, and the next of kin as well; including national social welfare authorities, where applicable.
On the one extreme, thereโll be a wholly physically disabled person of any age; drawing sympathy from others: harmless, poor, unfortunate product of Godโs creation.
On the other extreme, thereโll be a borderline, apparently normal person. But they will have all kinds of eccentricities. These render the sebopua incapable of functioning within socially conventional boundaries of human interactions. Much so in adulthood, people in this category tend to live in parallel universes contra mainstream social wisdom concerning how society is organized; from the smallest family units to the larger national entities. Here, the term sebopua is applied derisively, and it may attract animosities towards the concerned.
Sebopua people break all the rules, either purposely or because โit is what it isโ. They donโt know anything else but their unique ways of looking at the world. They cannot understand that others can think or act differently from them in given situations. They simply donโt know how to empathize: itโs their way or no way at all. Civility is a concept unknown here. Sebopua people are ever such spoilt brats, from childhood to the grave. They are bullies; outright dumbheads. They are deceitful charmers capable of gross manipulation of the emotionally and/ or mentally weak; instilling lasting loyalty to the self from the subjugated through fear: The Ruthless Rule.
Nevertheless, some of human historyโs greatest thinkers and inventors the works of whom society benefits from even today can easily be drawn from the eccentrics above. These often tend not to be too much of a burden to society. For example, love or hate Elon Musk for screwing up by X-ing Twitter; he has given us the Tesla brand, SpaceX and Starlink. It is those that are inclined to destruction that are a curse to humanity. Some of the most perilous leaders in human history have emerged from the latter category of sebopua, a freak of creation. Donald Trump fits into this category. Perfectly.
The thing about sebopua is that they are just a thing. They are devoid of coherent feelings and thoughts expression, be it verbal or written. Sebopua are one-way-traffic dysfunctional communication machines. Their language skills often leave much to be desired. Sebopua given to verbal diarrhoea crap-talk inclinations, talking to one could as well be as good as talking to a clay-molded human figure.
Sebopua can be indifferent to the elements; they might know no pain. The only form of pleasure that matters for sebopua is their staying alive at the expense of their perceived and real enemies, not understanding how anybody can be so stupid compared to their, sebopuaโs superior intelligence. Sebopua brutality can be horrendous. Woe to the spineless that fall for sebopuaโs deceptive charisma. Woe to non-stayer enemies of sebopua. Find Yevgeny Prigozhin, heโll tell you about Vladimir Putin. Mike Pence barely survived Trumpโs Maga lynching mob
Another thing about sebopua is that an eccentric sebopua is a sebopua. The condition knows no colour; it knows no race. The only difference is the relative extent of power exercised, and access to weapons of destruction according to sebopuaโs location on the planet. This here debunks racism as an ideology that claims and pushes ideas that some races are inferior to others. In a perfect world of the free, people group in cliques not always out of racial identity solidarities.
Both for the good and the bad, people are drawn to and bond with one another out of shared mental constructs; i.e., shared world views as to common fears, or other human passions. Opposite poles attract is a magnetic studies principle in Physics. In human relations, bonds reflecting and upholding certain innate behavioural attributes are captured in the idiom birds of a feather flock together.
Thereโs sebopua in a cul-de-sac in America today: Donald Trump. The walls are closing in. I wonder what heโs going to do when he canโt breathe anymore. They say he farts all the time. In England, another one bit the dust: Boris Johnson with Brexshit. The world must now learn to stop political experiments with dibopua (sebopua plural form) if we have learned anything from the Coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic.
In the old days, dibopua used to be hidden away. Or worse. Democracy is a wonderful thing in our times: everyone has the right to live. In principle. Whatever the cost. However, thereโs a tipping point to everything in life. May the fair and just prevail in all holes and surfaces of the planet. May light reign supreme. Ultimately. The future must be bright for all.
SIMON CHILEMBO
OSLO
NORWAY
January 13, 2022
Updated: 20.05.2024
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๐๐ข๐ฉ๐ ๐๐๐ง๐ง๐๐ฅ๐ฆ ๐ฃ๐ข๐๐ง๐ฅ๐ฌ
๐ช๐๐๐ก ๐ช๐ข๐ฅ๐ ๐ฆ๐ฃ๐๐ฅ๐๐ฆ ๐๐ฅ๐๐๐ง๐๐ฉ๐๐ง๐ฌ, ๐ช๐๐๐ง ๐๐ข ๐ฌ๐ข๐จ ๐๐ข?
DISCLAIMER
I am not an employee of NAM (Nasjonalmuseet/ the National Museum of Art, Architecture, and Design). I work at NAM on behalf of an outsourced service provider, in which I have full-time employment. This presentation today is one of several literary creative inspirations that I have so far gotten whilst performing my formal duties at NAM. The presentation is unsolicited, and it is done with no inherent ulterior motives. It is done and delivered with but the best of intentions, without fear or favour.
Neither NAM nor my employer can or must be directly nor indirectly associated with the thoughts, opinions, and sentiments I am going to express in this presentation. I alone am responsible for the contents herein. I hope, though, that the output shall be of a quality and standard that shall cause neither embarrassment nor disrepute for both NAM and my employer.
The inspirational moment, and its subsequent outcomes, i.e. poem, publication in a book, and the social media video recital here would have happened regardless of whether or not I worked at NAM. All that needed to happen was for my eyes to fall on the particular inspirational object. It could have been anywhere, at any time. It just happened to be at NAM, Oslo, on October 28th, 2022 this time around.
As I walk through, back and forth, round and around in my professional errands in the various public exhibition spaces in the museum, the vast variety of objects on display works my emotions and thoughts in phenomenal ways. Many a time I feel like I see myself floating in this boundaryless enclosure that is an intermingled environment of what Iโve gathered of ideas of heaven and hell. In this environment, the material and the conceptual are all merged into one new reality that defies human speech for description. The opposites as we know them on the earthly plane cancel out one another in this strange new reality. And it doesnโt matter.
For example, in this temporary but recurring new reality, I donโt see the environment as I do with my eyes distinguishing between normal light and darkness. The sensory organs donโt work in the conventional way here. When I expect to hear a sound in my head, as from observing a painting depicting fire, somehow silence claims its space. Itโs in conflicting but harmonic moments like these that I get lost in time and space.
And, in silent thunderous flashes of light, clouds of inspiration engulf my thoughts with darkness. Through this haze, I get to sense words in either written or spoken forms. In this state of mind, I lack a background upon which to base my experience of these words that I hear in what I perceive as silent sound in stationary motion. This is how my writings come to be. Preserving my sanity, thereby. I appreciate art for what its charming beauty and its irresistible goriness do to ever kindle my creativity. A work of art has not moved me if my response to it does not inspire an expressive textual idea in my head.
Immersed in the writing process, I do not create writing ideas from nothing. My writing ideas are stimulated through my responses and reactions to my actual interactions with events and attributes of my environments at any one time. It is not always that the writing idea shall be manifest at all. It is one thing to have an inspiration, and it is another to bring the inspiration to life โ the mood, time, and space have to be right. That means that my literary output so far is only the tip of the iceberg concerning how much more I shall potentially produce. Every day I canโt help but get several concrete inspirational moments stored in my creative database in my brain. Therefore, I work at the right place at the right time. I shall live to see my 1000th book published before Iโm a hundred years old.
Every piece of poetry, essay, or novel that I write helps me to hold my feet on the ground. The writing process cleanses my soul; it elevates my passion for living. This is so because, when I write, I get lost in a realm of being in which asking existential questions and finding functional answers are the imperatives for survival. This is the realm in which, with text, I get to materialize for life my dreams, my hopes, and fears. I am eternally grateful for the privilege of working at NAM for what immense value the workspaces add to my creativity.
Currently, and until January 14th, 2024, NAM has a major exhibition of some of the works of Harriet Backer. The exhibition is called Every Atom is Colour. Whenever Iโm in the magnificent exhibition hall, I get a sense of a warm, safe, homely feeling. This is reminiscent of the better part of my formative years whilst attending school in Lesotho, 1965-69. I feel and see so much of my late maternal grandmotherโs aura throughout the space.
Harriet Backer gives me a reassuring, here-and-now sensation in my entire being. I see myself walking into a bright future standing still with time in Harriet Backerโs presence. This is much like seeing the visions of the kingdom of God that my grandmother used to tell me about. She used to say that I was a chosen child of God; when Iโm grown up, Iโd be king of my people. And, when I die, Iโll be headed to heaven, where Iโll sit on the right side of God, and live happily ever after. Amen!
Iโm not quite ready to die yet. Heaven can wait.
I first met Harriet Backer in the northern spring of 2022, a few months before the official opening of NAM. Upon entering the room through its main entrance, I saw a portrait of a letter-reading girl hung up on the wall facing the entrance squarely from across the room. This was one of those love-at-first-sight moments that often make my heart sing throughout my body. The girlโs enthralling beauty reminded me of a girl that I once knew as a growing-up boy-to-man in South Africa in the early 1970s.
Each time I entered the room Iโd daydream about the many, many love letters Iโve written in my time. The girl in the portrait is there but not there at the same time. I could bring her to life in my fantasies, but I could never have her in the flesh, yet I love her all the same. Hopeless love.
In the same manner, the girls I used to write letters to in many parts of the world were there in my fantasies as I sat down and wrote. The fantasies would get wilder tortuous during the replies waiting phases, which could be weeks to months in those pre-internet days. Upon receiving even only one reply after the long wait, I used to curse my fantasies for failing to bring in the flesh these girls home to me. But I kept hoping that one day, it would happen. Iโm keeping the dream of love alive in memories of some of the girls now dead.
Iโve met numerous other new girls since. We donโt write letters these days. Social media and other modern communication platforms do the trick. But itโs not the same. I guess thatโs how it took about six months before the poem inspired by the letter-reading girl came forth.
One day, as I stepped into, the Harriet Backer room, I marvelled at the especially silently exuberant nonchalance of my beloved letter girl on that particular day. Thinking that I saw the painting moving like it was being pushed towards the door, I feared she was shutting me out for once. At the same time, I felt welcome as I confirmed that the painting was attached fast to its regular spot.
I realized, then, that I hadnโt before thought about what the message in the letter could have been and from whom it may have come. I also realized that I had never gotten to look into her eyes since they were so fixed on the letter in her hands. Perhaps I should write her a letter, I thought. At that moment, then, I suddenly heard poetic words singing in my head; the poem Love Letter became the real-world outcome.
Before I read the poem, I have to make another disclaimer as I, in my words, describe what art is:
DISCLAIMER 2
I do not have any academic or professional training in art. My articulation of what art is a function of my laymanโs instinctual appreciation of things beautiful against the ugly; both in the figurative and abstract manifestations as my senses perceive it in any given situation and space, at any given time. All I know is how to think and write, and write and think. Art is what I feel. If I feel it, I can think it. If I think it, I can write it. Writing is my art, my artistic expression. Writing is what I do; all attributable to my academic training.
WORKPLACE OF BEAUTIFUL THINGS
People do from time to time visit museums of all kinds for all kinds of recreational, educational, and research reasons. I work at Norwayโs Nasjonalmuseet. The institution has proved to be an awesome literary creativeโs wet dream for me as an author and poet. I get at least one goosebumps moment each day I am at work. Tens of thousands of works of art are on display throughout the eighty-nine exhibition spaces at the museum. In all their widely variable expressive forms, these artworks move me in a way that ever fills me with love and joy like I have never experienced before. Working here is a privilege I am much grateful for.
At different points in all the exhibition spaces in the museum, there are rest stations comprising benches upon extensions of which are placed, amongst other items, wooden playing cards. The cards have various quizzes and games for the guests to have a go at as they sit and rest. I, together with Ole, a fine but ever condescending colleague young enough to be my grandson, happened to have been engaged in a discussion about various aspects of the museum when we approached one such station. Ole then unexpectedly reached out and randomly pulled out a card from the bench extension. It turned out to be a quiz card with the question: โWhat is Art?โ; creating a gotcha moment that I saw Ole revelling in.
Talking about Oleโs gotcha moment, this was yet another one of those moments in which a person of European extraction comes to me with the pre-conditioned notion that Black people are not cultivated enough to appreciate the finer aspects of European culture. Anyhow, my immediate response in this case was, โArt is the capturing of an experiential moment in time and space in order to, perhaps, tell a story about that experience in the future. This capture can be in any form or medium according to the proclivities and talents of the artist.โ
Ole, โI hear you. But you will have to elaborate more on all that you have just said!โ
Seeing as we had to attend to each our respective duties at work then, I replied, โI shall write an essay for you, then. Deal?โ
โDeal!โ
My definition of art shall be both conceptual and functional. Conceptually, I know art when I perceive it. I do not have to be told. I do not have to be instructed. I know art when my senses register it. Regardless of the representational form, the sentimental response that I get from experiencing any manifestation of art that I consider as beautiful is a constant. Conversely, an unattractive, unpleasant artistic form as I experience it emotionally affects me in the same way relevant to it irrespective of the form or the representational style.
Whenever I read a storybook (or even write one) that I enjoy, my breathing rate slows down, the total bodily relaxation I get gives me a wonderful warm feeling all over; I get goosebumps, and my palms get warmer and moist. This kind of feeling brings me immense joy. The dreamy state it gets me into sends me into a fantasy world of all things possible. If I had been, for one reason or another, going through hard times, this state brings hope home; it fills me with a sweet sense of freedom. In this state, I am invincible. This is my subjective domain for defining what beautiful art is for me as my perceptive senses โ eyes, ears, skin, tongue, nose, intuition โ register it, feed my hormonal system (feel-good hormones), and the latter instruct my nervous system to induce my being to act accordingly. Pure joy.
Whilst recognizing it for what it is, art that is repugnant to me is exactly that. If it makes me cringe, if it casts a shadow of pessimism over me, if it fills me with negative thoughts and associations, if it gives me a cold sweat, then it is bad art for me. There are times when I can see beauty in bad, ugly art, though. I think about the hands, or some other body parts, that created the work. Every hand shall tell its story according to its ownerโs neuro-hormonal wiring and physical capabilities. One manโs apparent gory art may be anotherโs depiction of heaven. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Functionally, art is a conveyor of messages, a storyteller; a courier of generational narratives in humanityโs dances with nature and itself over time. Art can be an instrument of change. Art can repair the once broken. Art can inspire hope, faith, trust, and love. To the extent that art is a personal expression, art may speak for its creator. Art creators have the potential to make or break society. Ask God, manโs most divisive, master-of-carnage creation. God may have created man instead, her most complex work of art. The outcome is not any better.
Art is identity. Identity may be deception obscured in art. From the outset, art may be true by intent and purpose. But when human perception and interpretation of reality are as polychotomous as there are so many people on earth, art shall be true or fallacious as to the perceptive state
and cognitive capacity of the observer. Therein lies the mystique, the intrigue of art. Who am I? I am a man in love with art.
Art is some powerful stuff. Art is a human creative potential deserving to be handled with tender, loving care. At its best, art is an instrument of peace; art has the potential to stimulate reflection on the human condition. We rise, we fall; art captures all that. Art is beauty. Without beauty, life is not worth living.
Beauty moves humanity forward and higher on the scale of qualitative and quantitative improvements in life. It is not for nothing that nations of the world, interest organizations of all sorts and sizes, wealthy individuals, and many others invest heavily in the promotion, conservation, preservation, and storage of some of our most impactful of artworks over the epochs into the future. Art immortalizes human experience.
WHAT IS ART WORTH?
Your eyes see what they see. Your brains process your perceptions as to their inherent OS programming, i.e. the brain in concert with the hormonal system, which affects behaviour, ultimately influencing our decision or choice-making processes. Your expressive potential is manifest through your creative skills and particular materials and work tools preferences.
The expression of your observed reality or conjured fantasy isolated in your creative expression of choice shall, then, manifest the outcome we see as a work of art in its unique presentation that only you can tell it like it is. Itโs up to the eye of the beholder to see or not to see the beauty, the function, and/or the worth of the work.
Simon Chilembo, December 29, 2023
Iโll write you a letter
Etch my words on paper
If itโs a crime to love you
Here is the evidence
My love for you
Is not
A judicial affair
For courtroom theatricals
For juriesโ deliberations
For judgesโ adjudications
Iโll etch portraits
Of my love for you
On canvas
Lock them in frames
Weโll want to meet again
The other side of
A thousand years ahead
Hanging on walls
In art museums
Of the world
For a billion eyes to see
I couldnโt hide
My love for you
For your eyes
That could never see
My love for you
In plain sight
END
ยฉSimon Chilembo 28/10-2022
SIMON CHILEMBO
Oslo
Norway
January 07, 2024
๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐?
๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐?
Sometime last year, 2022, whilst I was in the middle of working with my latest and nineth book, MACHONA GRIT โ Onslaught On Hate, I came across an Instagram reel that caught my interest fleetingly. In this reel, the speaker made fiery, disparaging, and violence instigating remarks against single men. The speaker is a prominent American religious leader whose thoughts influence hundreds of millions of people across the world. However, not all will be direct adherents of his unique religious flock within the broader global faith movement of the umbrella religion, which could be Christianity, Judaism, Islam, or any other. They all serve the same purpose: harnessing of our primitive instincts, limiting the extent to which we can think we are free-thinking, independent individuals. Religion, a tool of oppression as destructive as can be.
I choose not to name the religious leader because Iโve failed to find the said Instagram reel for a concrete reference source. Nevertheless, I have throughout all my adult life so far, come across innumerable sentiments like those uttered by the man of God vis-ร -vis men living alone without women as their marital partners.
Basically, the unmarried men hatersโ contention is that solitary living unmarried men are not real men; because they are not real men, they are anti-God, and thus they deserve to die. The unmarried men haters say that God must kill single men, and it is the duty of all married men serving God to ensure that Godโs will is fulfilled: death to the unmarried. Amen!
Itโs strange that Catholic priests donโt get married, though. Celibacy doesnโt mean abstinence. Catholic priests do get caught doing the hanky panky too. When the priests sexually abuse small boys, I wonder about where God is when all this happens. Does he turn blind eyes? In that case, God is an accessory to a heinous crime. ย
Personally, such emotional abuse and death threats Iโve outlined above are beneath me; they donโt scathe me even a single bit. Iโm sixty-three years old. Iโm single, and Iโve never been married by choice. Over the years, Iโve on various fora already mentioned that Iโm under no obligation to explain, to justify, or to defend my unmarried, solitary living to anybody. All men-of-God wanting to kill me for my choice to stay young, free, and single must just bring it on anytime. God himself is such an illusion so full of contradictions I have not time for.
For God so thrives in tyranny he made man in his, undefinable, multifaceted, illusory image. He accordingly polarized man; made man into a treacherous, murderous creature of fellow man for transgressions of frivolous, ill-defined, prejudicial so-called sins. A God of love who rules by threats and application of murder does not make sense to me.
To solve a dominance problem, brothers believing in the same God go to war against one another; as in, say, the current case of Russia against Ukraine. They simultaneously pray the same God for protection of themselves on the one hand, and power to annihilate the other on the other hand. For the time it shall take as to location of the war and the relative strengths of the warring parties, absolute mayhem, pillage, and murder could go on until the last man. Somebody might set off atomic bombs, and then weโll all be gone tomorrow. Adios, God!
Killers praising God for strength. The dying praying God for mercy. Priests praying God to receive the spirits of the dead in heaven; whilst the shredded body parts, if not ground flesh of the dead rest in eternal peace on earth fertilizing Ukrainian killing fields, if not the Congolese killing jungles. God nowhere to be seen. Not a sound from God.
No, the whole idea of the existence of an omnipresent God does not make any sense to me at all. God as an idea and a possible entity amongst us defies all logic. But, of course, his believers can have him. We are all already burning here on the hell that is planet earth, anyway. Heaven is in the minds of the free-spirited seekers and propagators of humane truths in pursuance of fairness and justice for mankind on earth.
In my countering the idea of death to men-without-women, I take the liberty to speak for the voiceless, the weak and vulnerable, the oppressed; the afraid. I do so simply because I can. I am no Messiah. I am a free spirit that scientifically knows that apart from the fundamental genetic coding that separates humans from other animals, each human being has an own unique subordinate genetic makeup that characteristically distinguishes them from other human beings. That distinction manifests itself in all aspects of being human, from state of health and its vulnerabilities to behavioural proclivities that may or may not reflect or condition our values in adulthood.
To the extent that human beings share a common physiological essence of being, it means that, although individually unique, our personal human attributes expressive traits are not finitely closed to the individual. Therefore, each our respective individual behavioural patterns, as reflected and influenced by our cognitive powers and processes, will cross, and interact with others. This is how relationships are formed, both voluntarily or through coercion. Human social organizations of all sizes and all sorts of interests, agendas, philosophies, and aspirations stem from here.
However, some peopleโs human proclivities constructs will be so incongruent from others that they cannot easily fit into any structured social organization cage reflecting certain strictly defined control and manipulative values, such as religion, political movements or orientations, marriage, and many more. These are the eccentrics, the think-outside-the-box types, the innovators, the critics who, for the good or bad, question everything.
Through the epochs, there arise, amongst others, unconventional analysts, critical thinkers, philosophers, artists of all talents, social change makers, rebels, radicals, and freedom fighters whose thoughts and actions have lasting impacts on society. So, much as not everyone can be a rocket scientist; and not everyone can be an Usain Bolt, or be a religious fanatic, not every man can want to marry, or will be married by force or hook or crook. Marriage is not for every Jack and Jill.
Marriage does not define a man. Marriage is a concept a man gets into. With or without marriage, a man is a man. A brilliant man will be brilliant irrespective of whether they are married or not. In my private and professional lives, I have come across many idiotic married men. I can write volumes about idiotic married men. But for now, Iโll reduce all that to the total lack of respect these men subject their wives to.
Married men who beat up their wives disgust me. Married men who spend minimum time with their wives but unashamedly โfโ around with other lovers and mistresses do not score high in my books. Many of these abused and neglected wives are some of the most melancholic women Iโve ever seen. In my travels around Europe many years ago, I met a grown-up lady who once said to me something like, โSimon, itโs taken me thirty years to realize that I got married to an a-hole of a man!โ
Thirty-three years later, the couple now older and even more weary of each other, their marriage is still going strong. Thatโs because, โWe are Catholics. We donโt divorce!โ
Oh, help me God!
Which reminded me of what a dear brother of mine once said to me about women who hang on all their lives to marriages with a-hole men, โAccording to our African cultures, divorce is unthinkable for many a woman. Divorce is โharamโ, you see!โ
Jeeezzuzzz!!!
Iโm not anti-marriage. Reality is that Iโm a great fan of marriage. Serious. If ever the poetโs one fine day finds me at the right time and place, I could get married at the snap of a finger. Marriage is good. That to the extent that it mutually fulfils both the conceptual and functional expectations of the marriage partners.
By the conceptual I refer mainly to the subjective sentiment of love, the feelings it induces, and the expectations and obligations it imposes on those in love. Simply because we can never read peopleโs minds, we can never know the feelings of other people, just as we can never know their expectations and self-defined obligations when in love. But fidelity and devotion are principles Iโve learned that they play an even more critical role in marriage. If these hold, marriage has chances of a long life.
Functional expectations in marriage are about the objective practicalities of day-to-day life that the married will and do encounter in their living together as a couple and, subsequently, as parents if children do come into the picture in time. Here are included aspects of family economic strength; an important consideration in the determination of how and where the family shall live. Other crucial questions to address will include division of duties in the home, management of extended families and other social relations, faith, culture and traditions, political affiliations, career development and ambitions, family wealth creation and sustenance, as well as many other practical considerations.
In my world, a marriage that fails to deliver on the mutual conceptual and functional expectations for the married couple cannot hold. It need not hold at all cost, โharamโ or no โharamโ. Marriage is not supposed to be an institution reminiscent of slavery. Neither is marriage supposed to be an institution of permanent dependency of women to physical-emotional abusive men.
Marriage is not an institution carved in stone. In any case, marriage is not an inherent feature of being human. Marriage is but one of many institutions man-created for purposes of social order maintenance, or social engineering. I fail to see how a non-functional, degrading marriage can contribute to social order. This brings forth the element of divorce, of which Iโm as great a fan too. Whereas, indeed, marriage is good, divorce liberates. If ever I do get married at some point in the future, Iโll be the first to file for divorce as soon as I detect irreconcilable dysfunctionalities in my marriage.
People that are deeply in love, and wish to be together for life often look forward with glee to getting married. The same enthusiasm could be shown for impending, or desired divorce from a bad marriage. Women must not be afraid of divorce. Thereโll always be a better, stronger, and more caring man for a lover or new husband according to what civil status the divorced woman wishes to have. Itโs ok to be single also. Again, in both my private and professional lives, Iโm familiar with divorcee women that live happily ever after; divorce having given them a chance to pursue new paths towards fulfilling and sustainable self-reinvention efforts.
Some of the happiest men I know are married. Equally, thereโs a hell lot of infectiously happy single, unmarried, never-been-married men I know. Of course, contents of the happiness baskets vary from the one man to the other man, regardless of civil status. Nevertheless, happiness is happiness. Happiness makes for a balanced, productive citizenry.
Conversely, the unhappiest, loser types of men I know, and have known are, or have been married. I have in my time come across extremely lonely married men. Weakened of spirit, and hoping to find happiness and comfort away from their wives, many of these sad married men are prone to extremes of costly promiscuous tendencies. Some end up falling prey to alcohol and substance abuse, with potentially dire consequences. Suicidal tendencies are not uncommon here. So much for marriage as an instrument of social cohesion. There absolutely are other ways to prove that a man is a man and worthy of societal recognition as such than apparently โfโ-ing around and holding women in the bondage of dehumanizing marriages.
I pity men that get into and remain in unhappy marriages for โreasons beyond my controlโ: family and/ peer pressure, โthat is what people doโ, children, potential impoverishment through loss of accumulated wealth to the ex-wife in the event of a divorce, and other reasons.
It ought to be a given that nation states will strive as much as it is humanely possible to create all necessary conditions for a happy state of existence for the people. The various social interests organizations prevailing in society are there to ensure that the state lives up to its obligations for the people. This is what social justice work is about.
Itโs not up to social interests organizations leaders to arbitrarily judge and condemn to death certain categories of their fellow citizens for being non-confirmatory to fluid social conventions such as marriage. Single, unmarried, and/ or never-been-married men deserve to live life to its fullest potential just like everyone else. Jesus was killed for other reasons than for that he was unmarried.
And talking about God, biographyonline.net says, โSwami Vivekananda, [a] spiritual teacher and important figure in Indian renaissance of the late nineteenth century. A great believer in the virtues of celibacy [says] โIf one wastes the most potent forces of oneโs being, one cannot become spiritual. All history teaches us that the great seers of all ages were either monks and ascetics or those who had given up married life; only the pure in life can see God.โ
Furthermore, biographyonline.net says that โNikola Tesla was a unique inventor who threw himself into discovering new advances in electronics and science. He had no interest in marriage and saw sex as a distraction from his lifeโs purpose. A famous actress of the time, Sarah Bernhardt, tried to attract him, but, he merely saw her as a distraction. When asked about marriage, he replied: โI do not think you can name many great inventions that have been made by married men.โ
WHEN THE MIGHTY FALL ON MARRIAGE
From my debut novel, WHEN THE MIGHTY FALL โ rise again mindgames Iโll read a passage on marriage. That is from p. 63 to p. 66:
โPeople get married for a myriad of reasons. There are some who seem to have gotten married not knowing why and how it began at all, though. They just found themselves in it. Trying to make sense of it all with time, they simplistically and conveniently conclude that, well, everyone else does it, why not them?
โCulture and social norms dictate it, they shall reason. Inevitably they make a mess of it, making life extremely miserable for themselves, their marriage partners, as well as everyone else who has anything to do with them in about all aspects of life. Many a person in this category marries themselves into murder and suicide, the ultimate tragedy of marriage.
โMarriage is another unnatural institution the functionality of which is a non-ending attempt at structuring, engineering, and regulating instinctive, natural human behaviour in certain predictable directions. If it is instinctive, it happens freely according to its own predetermined, internal logic, irrespective of whether external factors are conducive, congruent or not.
โFrom society to society, culture to culture, marriage rules determine how many marriage partners one can have in either direction, how often, when. The rules will also specify rituals to be followed in order to sanctify the coming together of people in marriage.
โSanctification of marriage is enforced through the morals and ethics around it, particularly with respect to aspects of fidelity, respect, trust, duty, and obligation. Meaning that, in a perfect world, once bound in and by marriage, people ought to be together for life; thereby ensuring order, stability, and harmony in society.
โMarriage defines boundaries and territorial integrities of the married, and their subsequent family units. These have to be acknowledged and respected in order to provide for peaceful co-existence, as well as orderly and systematic growth, progress, and development in society.
โPerhaps an often-overlooked function of marriage contra instinctive, natural human behavioural tendencies is the population growth control aspect of it.
โWithout the perceived and learned value of marriage as a behavioural moderation institution in societal functioning, society would be thrown into total chaos as humans respond unrestrained to instinctive, natural urges of sex, and sexual reproduction.
โJealousy, power, domination, and control inspired violence in the competition for partners towards letting out, and responding to the said instinctive natural urges would be the order rather than the exception for collective human existence.
โWithout the rigidities of formalized marriage rules with respect to family expansion by way of conception, birth, and raising of children, human population pressure on planet earth and its limited resources would most probably be of magnitudes much higher relative to what the situation is today. A recipe for the eventual extinction of the human race on earth due to, among other things, territorial wars making what the world currently experiences of regional wars look like a childrenโs Sunday picnic in the park.
โMarriage is, therefore, some very serious business. It is not for the non-thinking, and faint-hearted.
โFor marriage to work for the married, or yet to be married, and therefore be beneficial to society, people have to fully understand its implications and ramifications. Irrespective of the reasons, or circumstances leading to marriage, it is of vital importance to understand and acknowledge that marriage is ultimately a personal journey.
โIts life-changing implications are huge, they can never be overestimated. Life is never, it will never be the same once married. Chances of marriage being a lasting success are higher in cases where the process and the institution are congruent not only with the feelings of the concerned, but also their beliefs, faiths, values, hopes, dreams, and aspirations, among others.
โPitfalls of marriage are many, deep, and wide in cases where people unwillingly, or uncritically, fall into the trap by marrying to fulfill expected conventional behaviour. The latter may be in relation to culture, religion, life circumstances, and peer pressure.
โMarriage stands chances of going the distance to the extent that it is both a mutually voluntary, as well as a well-thought-out space of the most intimate of human interactions to choose to venture into.
โThere are those who shall base their marriages on love. They deeply love one another above anything or anyone else on earth. Marriage will, therefore, be a natural consummation of that love. But love alone is never adequate to sustain a marriage.
โLove facilitates, and spices up marriage; it does not make a marriage. Love is the key to a potential marriage partnerโs heart. Love is a ringing bell into another personโs, a potential marriage partnerโs, life. To be sustained and sustainable, love itself needs tender loving care. But it cannot on its own guarantee a happily-ever-after life of marriage.
โTo the extent that in many a perfunctorily functional marriage, love may not be the driving force, love and marriage can be mutually exclusive in the same space. Trouble in paradise.
โThere is, there will always be much love to get outside marriage. As a natural instinct, people will always know when they are in love or not. Love instinctively gravitates towards love. If there is love in marriage, chances are that the marriage can be kept together.
โLove is a natural force of emotion that knows no colour, race, religion, or creed. Because it is a vital part of, but larger than marriage, any marriage the importance of which is attached more to man-made concepts of culture, religion, and other social conventions than love is doomed to failure.
โThe natural urge to want to feed love with, and on love, is ever so strong that people in miserable marriages will as a matter of course and natural predictability go out to look for love elsewhere. That done with either open defiance, or total discretion to the extent it will last. In many cases, this will turn out to be a direct order for the ultimate tragedy of marriage.
โReality is that when a supposedly unfaithful marriage, or romantic, partner is dead, they are dead, and they are so with all the things the murderer demanded; they will never come back. Much as when the supposedly betrayed marriage, or romantic, partner has committed suicide, there is no knowing that they will find what they demanded of their partners on the other side.โ
Thatโll be it for today. If you want to get married, do so and be happy; only if the matrimony meets your conceptual and functional expectations; not forgetting obligations to yourself as a person and as a matrimonial partner. If the marriage doesnโt work, get out of it. Fast. The paradox is that youโll never know if your marriage will work or not until youโve gotten into it first. If it works, it works. Well and good. If it doesnโt work, it doesnโt work. Leave.
Divorce might cost you a lot of things in the beginning. It is what it is. Freedom doesnโt come cheap. Hang in there. Have hope. Keep the faith. The future is bright. Time heals. Make it your goal to live long enough to see the good that the future has in store for you.
SIMON CHILEMBO
OSLO
NORWAY
July 03, 2023
๐จ๐๐๐ก๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐ฆ ๐๐๐๐ง๐ค+ ๐ฃ๐๐ข๐ฃ๐๐
๐๐ฐ๐ผ๐ป๐ผ๐บ๐ถ๐ฐ๐ฎ๐น๐น๐ ๐๐ฟ๐ฟ๐ฎ๐๐ถ๐ผ๐ป๐ฎ๐น ๐๐ถ๐ด๐ผ๐๐ฟ๐
Uganda has recently legalized extreme persecution of LGBTQ+ people. People of non-heterosexual dispositions now make love with state sanctioned murder threat looming over their heads. The Ugandan state seeks to eradicate LGBTQ+ people from the face of the earth. This is a flagrant, futile, outdated, time and resources wasting exercise rooted in ignorance in the face of the most enlightened time in the history of humanity, the 21st Century. Pathetic.
Enlightened, liberated, forward-looking, resourceful, valuable people of the world know that sexuality isnโt a matter of choice but an inherent state of being. As but an extension of the infinite totality of being human in its as infinite expressive forms, sexuality is exuded and played out from the core of a personโs essence as encoded in the personโs unique genetic makeup.
Sexuality is permanent. Sexuality is not acquired. Sexuality is not a disease; it cannot be cured, neither medically nor magically, nor by any other outlandish method. If God made man in her own image, God is then the queenpin of sexuality. Use of Godโs prayers to ๐ค๐ฐ๐ฏ๐ท๐ฆ๐ณ๐ต homosexuals is tantamount to asking God to annihilate herself. Herein lies invalidation of the existence of an omnibenevolent, all-loving God. Amen!
Sexuality is not an attitude; it is not a lifestyle. Sexuality is what it is: it is it โ a constant. It is the unidirectional, one-track express train towards the orgasmic peak experience that, in a perfect world, those in love aspire to achieve as a consummation of their oneness in love in all the possible constellations of love matchings humans are capable of as to their diverse intrinsic sexual orientations.
Every personโs unique genetic makeup is in turn an extrapolation of the human genome. The human genome is the unalterable existential thread that binds humanity together in its diversity of physical and physiological attributes. Thatโs how you can love who you love; and, where applicable, you can reproduce with whom you will, regardless of race, status, colour, or creed.
Donโt come to me with the ๐ฆ๐ท๐ฆ๐ฏ ๐ช๐ฏ ๐ฏ๐ข๐ต๐ถ๐ณ๐ฆ, ๐ฆ๐ญ๐ฆ๐ฑ๐ฉ๐ข๐ฏ๐ต๐ด ๐ฅ๐ฐ๐ฏโ๐ต ๐ค๐ฐ๐ฑ๐ถ๐ญ๐ข๐ต๐ฆ ๐ธ๐ช๐ต๐ฉ ๐จ๐ช๐ณ๐ข๐ง๐ง๐ฆ๐ด crap talk. Of course, these animals are of incompatible breeds. They arenโt genetically wired to be sexually stimulative of one another, to begin with.
Depending on the ever-abundant factors affecting the lives of the sources and quality of human reproductive material, i.e., sperms and eggs, the outcome from fertilization to birth (assuming a problem-free pregnancy, and survival of the birthing agony), a child, can be anything of manifestations of being human. For example, the child can, amongst a myriad of other possibilities, be
- Wholesome and healthy
- ๐๐ฎ๐ฑ๐ฆ๐ณ๐ง๐ฆ๐ค๐ต, ๐ข๐ฃ๐ฏ๐ฐ๐ณ๐ฎ๐ข๐ญ, and/ sickly. I.e., have physical, and physiological incongruities reflected in all kinds and extents of physical handicaps and mental or cognitive incapacities, if not inadequacies
- Distinctly male or female as to the construction of relevant reproductive organs; hormonally steered
- ๐๐ข๐ญ๐ฆ –๐ง๐ฆ๐ฎ๐ข๐ญ๐ฆ –๐ช๐ฏ –๐ฐ๐ฏ๐ฆ. I.e., intersex
- Reproductive or barren upon attainment of sexual reproduction maturity age
- Sexually active or celibate
- Heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, and much more in the human sexuality expression spectrum.
It ought to be a no-brainer that LGBTQ+ people are human just like everyone else. They have the right to live; just like everyone else. They have feelings; just like everyone else.
From an ethico-moral standpoint, show me an immoral LGBTQ+ person, Iโll show many more amoral heterosexuals. By the numbers, heterosexuals are by far responsible for the worst human-to-human and human-to-nature atrocities ever.
Iโm convinced that the world would be a better place for all were people of the world allowed to love mutually consensually who they love of their psychosocial maturity equals. That means that, bearing high the flag of ๐ญ๐ฐ๐ท๐ฆ-๐ช๐ด-๐ญ๐ฐ๐ท๐ฆ, ๐ญ๐ฐ๐ท๐ฆ-๐ธ๐ฉ๐ฐ-๐บ๐ฐ๐ถ-๐ญ๐ฐ๐ท๐ฆ, you donโt go around sexually abusing children. You donโt go around taking sexual advantage of the weak and vulnerable. You donโt go around defiling animals.
AVAAZ E-MAIL: UGANDAN LGBTQ+ LAMENT
On June 4, 2023, I received an e-mail from the global campaign network, Avaaz. This was on behalf of an anonymized Ugandan LGBTQ+ rights activist asking for moral and financial support. Iโll print the e-mail in full:
ALERT: BRUTAL ANTI-GAY LAW SIGNED — FINAL CALL TO HELP!
WARNING: This email has descriptions of sexual violence that may be upsetting.
Dear Avaaz members,
I write from Uganda, where a vicious ‘anti-gay’ law was just signed into existence — and gay people are being hunted like animals.
Days ago, neighbours castrated a transgender person with a kitchen knife. We couldn’t go to the police as we’d be arrested — and had to search for a friendly doctor, as most wouldn’t help us.
We’re being fired from work, rejected by family, evicted, beaten, rapedโฆ and worse.
I’m appealing for your support. Please.
This could be our last call for help. Under this new law, everything we do, including sending this email and raising funds, will soon become illegal. But right now, before the law is implemented, there’s still a narrow window when LGBTQ+ groups can receive support — and your donation could help save lives.
You’d fund safe houses where people can hide, along with emergency medical care, legal support, and trauma counselling. We urgently need more safe houses, as we constantly have to run when angry mobs arrive.
We’re being flooded with frantic calls for help, but without more funds we can only help a tiny fraction of people. I’m heartbroken, and don’t know where else to turn.
And it’s all because of who and how we love. In the face of unimaginable cruelty and violence, please stand up for our right to Love. Donate what you can now:
The new law effectively makes it impossible to exist as an LGBTQ+ person in Uganda.
I could get a life sentence for kissing my partner, and be executed for repeated homosexual ‘offences’. Renting to gay people is now illegal — and I could serve 20 years in jail just for sending this email.
They call us “ungodly” filth, but we aren’t the ones inflicting unimaginable cruelty on already vulnerable people. I know girls who’ve been raped by family members to ‘cure’ their ‘lesbian disease’.
That’s why safe houses are so critically important– providing a place of sanctuary in a country burning with hatred. With your help, we could:
- Fund dozens of new safe houses and emergency shelters across the country;
- Provide emergency health care and legal support for those who’ve been arrested — and meals for people in jail;
- Help fund the development of a new legal case to challenge the law in court; and
- Power emergency response campaigns, like this one, to defend communities facing discrimination, assault, and war around the world.
Every penny raised will support LGBTQ+ people in Uganda, and power Avaaz’s emergency response work around the world. By donating, you wonโt just be helping in Uganda — youโll be ensuring this crucial capacity is maintained for others like me, facing unimaginable terror.
Gay, straight, lesbian, transgender — we all just want to live and love in peace. I don’t know when that day will come, but it is not today, and our fight for love must go on. Wherever you are in the world, please stand with us. Donate what you can now.
| I’ve been part of the Avaaz community for years. I’ve seen the difference it makes when we come together fast for those in need. Now it’s my community being attacked — me and my people need this movement’s help. With hope and the deepest of gratitude, ****** and the whole team at Avaaz Note: As the anti-gay law has just been signed, the consequences for an email like this could be deadly — in many ways, they already are. For that reason, names have been removed and photos are anonymous. PS. This might be your first donation to our movement ever. But what a first donation! Did you know that Avaaz relies entirely on small donations from members like you? That’s why we’re fully independent, nimble and effective. Join the over 1 million people who’ve donated to make Avaaz a real force for good in the world. |
๐๐ข๐๐ฆ ๐๐ก๐ง๐-๐๐๐๐ง๐ค+ ๐๐๐ฉ๐ ๐๐ก๐ฌ ๐๐๐ข๐ก๐ข๐ ๐๐ ๐ฅ๐๐ง๐๐ข๐ก๐๐๐?
Now, I ask a rhetorical but serious question with profound socio-economic analysis implications:
Can Uganda, or any other tyrannical anti-LGBTQ+ country, for that matter, provide statistics showing any value-added number to the countryโs annual GDP accruing from the persecution of LGBTQ+ people in all its extents?
Well, in Norway, for example, one of the countryโs most important conglomerates is Orkla. โOrkla ASA is a Norwegian conglomerate operating in the Nordic region, Eastern Europe, Asia and the US. At present, Orkla operates in the branded consumer goods, aluminium solutions and financial investment sectors. Orkla ASA is listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange and its head office is in Oslo, Norway. As of 31 December 2021, Orkla had 21,423 employees. The Group’s turnover in 2021 totalled NOK 50.4 billion,โ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orkla_ASA
Orklaโs Majority Shareholder is Stein Erik Hagen, 66 years old. As at June 25, 2023, heโs worth US$2.1 billion, making him the 1468th wealthiest man in the world; number 6 in Norway as at February 24, 2023. Stein Erik Hagen is gay. Culturally sophisticated, he is a renowned international art collector, and philanthropist.
Norwayโs GDP in 2021 was US$482.17 billion. Population number stood at 5.4 million then. Thatโs against Ugandaโs population of 45.8 million people, and GDP of only US$40.5 billion in the same time period.
Norwayโs highest standard of living in the world is powered by people in all walks of life, including, in all national production, service, and leadership strata. Norwegian LGBTQ+ people are/ have been, amongst others, Government Ministers, Bishops of the Church of Norway, and many more in the commanding hights of the economy. Much as it is a generational global trend, the Norwegian arts and culture industries are teeming with LGBTQ+ people. I have yet to see Norway come even anywhere near to going under. In the meantime, the country just keeps on growing on and on as a world economic and geopolitics force.
The biggest brands in the global fashion, design, and cosmetics industries are a trove of some of the biggest creative talents in the world, some of the most influential of whom are LGBTQ+ people living with pride. Their enterprises are global economic giants to reckon with; creating hundreds of thousands of jobs across the world, and paying billions of dollars of value-added GDP revenues in various countries. One of the greatest flesh and bone human brains to ever walk on our planet earth is Leonardo Da Vinci. His phenomenal interdisciplinary work in the sciences, mathematics, art, and philosophy permeates all aspects of our modern life. The man was gay.
So, Uganda and your fellow tyrannical anti-LGBTQ+ countries in the world, what are your value-added numbers to your respective countriesโ annual GDPs accruing from the persecution of LGBTQ+ people in all its extents?
It is globally demonstrable that persecution of LGBTQ+ people deprives society of vital workforce resources across the board. LGBTQ+ persecution is clearly counterintuitive to equitable national economic growth; which is even more glaring in poor countries like Uganda.
The like-minded oil-rich, religio-conservative Gulf states have managed to harness their ultra-wealth to overrun all local and international resistance and critic against their atrocious anti-LGBTQ+ practices. However, these societies could attain even higher standards of living and more credible and durable geopolitics influence had they allowed their citizens to unleash their full human potential, free to mutually love who they love of their contemporaries.
And in Ukraine, the countryโs LGBTQ+ people are together with their fellow in-action citizens fighting side-by-side against Putinโs imperialistic invasion of their country. Because they, indeed, are people like any heterosexual, LGBTQ+s are also capable of killing other beings. Violence and murder arenโt the prerogative of mad heterosexuals with potentially dubious sexualhabits camouflaged in their irrational hatred for LGBTQ+โs. Like in all Human Rights struggles, when push comes to shove and the oppressed finally pick up weapons of war and fight back, the latter wins. Wake up, bigots, and smell the coffee!
On June 16, 2023, Presidents Cyril Ramaphosa and Hakainde Hichilema, of South Africa and Zambia respectively, led an African peace mission to Ukraine and Russia. Iโll leave discussion of the merits or demerits of this trip for another time.
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni chickened out at the last minute because of the escalation of Putinโs attacks on Kiev. Putin even launched another attack on Kiev whilst the African delegation was in town, defiantly breaching and giving a blatant โ๐ง โ to International Relations protocols.
The aggressor was simply making a point that he could have the ๐ด๐ฎ๐ข๐ญ๐ญ ๐ฑ๐ญ๐ข๐บ๐ฆ๐ณ๐ด African delegation sent back to their respective countries in body bags, if he wanted to. The Africans recovered from the shock, talked with Zelensky, and went on to check on Putin the following day, anyway; wagging their little tails like poodles. Progressive South Africans look at Ramaphosa with dismay. Thatโs Mzansi for you fo sho; myopic, parochial, outdated-communistsโ bootlickers.
Real men persevere even in the most ominous of circumstances. Real men may be as gay as those fighting in the Ukraine army against the Russian invasion. A warrior is a warrior regardless of who of sexual maturity equal and sexual orientation they love.
Real men and women know that once they become a head of state, death comes with the territory; they automatically assume tyrannical or constitutional prerogatives to terminate or redeem life, according to prevailing circumstances. They also embrace the reality that they can under variable circumstances get killed on the job on any day.
How much of a ๐ณ๐ฆ๐ข๐ญ ๐ฎ๐ข๐ฏ is LGBTQ+ loathing Museveni, who got scared โsโless out of thechances of getting caught up and dying in the Putin-made killing fields in Ukraine, I wonder? With no guts to face up to his national sovereignty leadership equals, he goes after soft targets, the LGBTQ+ community of Uganda. Coward. Loser.
South Africa legalized same sex marriage in 2006. Although there are still unofficial, yet potent obstacles here and there, the LGBTQ+ community thrives in the country. LGBTQ+ personalities feature prominently in all spheres of South African econo-socio-politico life. And their influence grows by the day. After 9 (oโclock, pm), hetero-married South African gay men exit their closets for their true loves outside.
Despite its governance challenges, South Africa remains a haven for Africans running away from their dysfunctional, war-torn anti-LGBTQ+ countries, including Uganda itself. South Africa remains an African economic powerhouse providing sustainable entrepreneurial opportunities for African immigrants from the latter countries, Afro-xenophobia violence issues notwithstanding.
Whatโs funny about Uganda in this context is that I first came across the words ๐ฉ๐ฐ๐ฎ๐ฐ๐ด๐ฆ๐น๐ถ๐ข๐ญ๐ช๐ต๐บ and ๐ฉ๐ฐ๐ฎ๐ฐ๐ด๐ฆ๐น๐ถ๐ข๐ญ๐ช๐ด๐ฎ in an article in Drum Magazine in 1972/3. Fifty years ago, in Welkom, my hometown in South Africa!
If I recall, the article was about how Ugandan men would meet up at local Sunday afternoon football matches in their villages. Some men would, then, pair up and disappear into the nearby bushes to engage in ๐ฉ๐ฐ๐ฎ๐ฐ๐ด๐ฆ๐น๐ถ๐ข๐ญ activities, the article reported. It was a given that many a girl would go down with their boyfriends as well. Of course. ย
At age 12/13 then, this thing about homosexuality and homosexualism confused me a bit. I then ventured to ask an older friend to explain for me. Buti-Gabriel was in โJCโ/ Grade 10 at that time; he sure would know these things, I reasoned. He told me that homosexualism is when men sleep together like we sleep with our women.
โThey do it slightly different, but thatโs basically it: having sex together man-to-man,โ Buti-Gabriel said. He further reminded me that we already knew how lonely men living in the then โMen Onlyโ hostels in Welkomโs gold mines had sex with one another in the absence of women. Aha, oh, yes, of course!
These womanless men came from the entire Southern African hinterland, as well as remote-lying, extremely poverty-stricken parts of South Africa. The guy said this in as matter-of-factly, and as ever cool as he was as a person and older brother that I had grown to be very fond of. Iโve had a laid-back attitude towards homosexualism since then.
A life-long ๐ โ๐ฎ–๐ข–๐ญ๐ฐ๐ท๐ฆ๐ณ–๐ฏ๐ฐ๐ต–๐ข–๐ง๐ช๐จ๐ฉ๐ต๐ฆ๐ณ, Buti-Gabriel taught me how to be a gentleman to girls, and subsequently to women in my grown-up age. We remained great friends until he died in 2016. I miss him dearly. MHSRIEP!
Prior to the intriguing homosexuality and homosexualism mystery in Uganda as Iโve related above, there had already been an especially edifying association imprinted in my mind about the country. One of the earliest hymns that I recall singing at my childhood school between 1965-69, St. Rose (Catholic) Primary School, Peka, Lesotho, was about the Martyrs of Uganda: ๐ ๐ณ๐ฆ ๐ณ๐ฐ๐ฌ๐ฆ๐ฏ๐จ ๐ฃ๐ข ๐๐จ๐ข๐ฏ๐ฅ๐ข / โLetโs Praise Ugandansโ.
Brutal Idi Aminโs entry on the Ugandan presidential scene, 1971 to 1979, shook the heavenly picture I had held in my head for the country of the great martyrs. I recalled the latter, forty-five of them, being held in the highest reverence in the Lesotho-South African Catholic Church community that I knew then.
Yoweri Museveni has been in power since 1986. He has taken the Ugandan murderous persecution plague to the next level.
As regards Zambia, the LGBTQ+ plus struggle is still hard, yes. However, Iโll make a sweeping statement and postulate that woke, Zambian middle-class youth growing up and grooving in the Lusaka party scene in the late 1970s to the late 1980s (I havenโt lived in Lusaka since 1988) will attest to the existence of a flourishing gay subculture in the city and the environs at that time. I canโt imagine it having been any different in the Copperbelt urban centres such as Kitwe and Ndola.
I also canโt imagine the Zambian gay scene as having diminished with the years. We had public secret gays as schoolmates and teachers, as relatives, including work colleagues.
I had just recently graduated from the University of Zambia in 1986 when, in one of my then business hustles in Lusaka, I got to strike a South Africa-Zambia commercial goods import deal with a super wealthy, fine-looking gentleman who, I thought, could probably leave an Afro-American movie star kissing his shoe heels. I got highly rewarded for the deal upon its closure.
After a business meeting that went late into the night one day, this man, we call him Mr Dukes, invited me for a snack and drink at his home in one of Lusakaโs finest neighbourhoods. His house so overwhelmed me with its beauty and raw manifestation of opulence that my immediate reaction was to make the comment, โAll the hottest girls of Lusaka would be in trouble if I had a house like this one, Mr Dukes!โ
He curtly replied, โHot girls are the least of my troubles, Mr Chilembo!โ
Serving efficiently prepared bacon-and-cheese sandwiches and tea, he stated, โI live alone here. I donโt need women in my life.โ
We ate in silence. Outside of business talks, I wouldnโt know how to start any meaningful personal conversations with Mr Dukes after that incident.
Nearly three decades would go before a mutual acquaintance would reveal to me that Mr Dukes was gay, and that he had had a harem of young men that he sexually exploited at will. Inviting me to his house may have been a trap, but, sadly for the man, my mind was on the things Iโd do with girls in his awesome house. Besides, he admired me for my Karate prowess and the local rock stardom I had already begun to enjoy in Lusaka. He really couldnโt impose himself on me. I learned that Mr Dukes died in yet another one of those gruesome road traffic accidents involving huge, luxury cars driven at high speeds on Zambian pothole-laden roads twenty years ago.
My feeling is that Zambia will soon legalize Gay Rights protection in the country. The country is on a path to economic recovery at a relatively better pace by far as compared to, say, Zimbabwe, where gays are โworse than dogs and pigsโ, according to projecting Robert Mugabe, the late and former dictatorial president.
The point I want to make about South Africa (land of my birth) and Zambia (my fatherland) vis-ร -vis the LGBTQ+ condition is that tolerance liberates positive energy in society. Tolerance inspires and sustains creativity. Tolerance unleashes productive empowerment across the board in society. This is a crucial element of overall national development and growth. The case of Norway as Iโve outlined above is a perfect example of how this works. And, Norway is but one of the LGBTQ+ tolerant countries with the highest standards of living in the world.
The fear that the LGBTQ+s want to take over the world is unwarranted. Unlike religion, no one is converted to LGBTQ+ existence. You are either gay, lesbian, bisexual, etc., or not. If conditions become such that more and more LGBTQ+ people come out as time goes on, what the heck? Thatโs the way of the world.
LGBTQ+ people of Uganda and the world, stand up and fight for your rights. You are not alone. We all suffer together. Freedom doesnโt come cheap. Absolutely ALL Africans ought to know this fact.
So, LGBTQ+ contradicts African cultural values? In what way is murder an African cultural values defence mechanism, then? Well, with effective brutality untold, Arab and, subsequently European invaders, applied relentless murder as a tool for imperial-colonialism imposition and sustenance. African has been left generationally culturally and cognitively raped and screwed.
Killing oneโs own people for them exercising expressions of an emotion as fundamental of being human as can be, love, does not make post-colonial Africa any better than the primitive former imperial-colonial masters.
As the human genome carrying entities, Africans are essentially not different from any other people on earth. In varying degrees according to location on the planet, and exposures to multitudes of natural and artificial variants that enable humanity to adapt or die in given situations, Africans face the same existential challenges and joys as anybody else. Therefore, the spectrum of sexual orientations manifestations amongst Europeans or Asians is not in any way divergent from that found amongst Africans or people of any other racial classification, the latter being a curse to humanity.
Therefore, insisting upon the narrative that LGBTQ+ism is un-African is as banal as it is downright lacking in cognitive development maturity. Unadulterated stupidity oblivious to the ever-growing abundance of contemporary human knowledge database. Human love sentiment is truth constant in time and space; much as is the human need for liberty, equality, and solidarity. That underpinning the universal concept of Human Rights.
Whereas the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was drafted without any African representation, the universality of Human Rights principles validity cannot exclude Africa. The assumption being that Africans are part of humanity. Much of Africa still under the Euro colonial yoke in 1948, no African country had the requisite political national sovereignty to be considered as worthy of participation in the process then. Independent Africa would eventually come out with its AFRCAN CHARTER ON HUMAN AND PEOPLES RIGHTS in subsequent years; adopted in 1981, and ratified in 1986.
๐จ๐ก๐๐ฉ๐๐ฅ๐ฆ๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐ฅ๐๐ง๐๐ข๐ก ๐ข๐ ๐๐จ๐ ๐๐ก ๐ฅ๐๐๐๐ง๐ฆ
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is a milestone document in the history of human rights. Drafted by representatives with different legal and cultural backgrounds from all regions of the world, the Declaration was proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in Paris on 10 December 1948 (General Assembly resolution 217 A) as a common standard of achievements for all peoples and all nations. It sets out, for the first time, fundamental human rights to be universally protected and it has been translated into over 500 languages. The UDHR is widely recognized as having inspired, and paved the way for, the adoption of more than seventy human rights treaties, applied today on a permanent basis at global and regional levels (all containing references to it in their preambles).
ARTICLE 1 of the UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS reads as follows:
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
ARTICLE 19 of AFRCAN CHARTER ON HUMAN AND PEOPLES RIGHTS agrees by saying, โAll peoples shall be equal; they shall enjoy the same respect and shall have the same rights. Nothing shall justify the domination of a people by another.โ
ARTICLE 3 of the UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS says:
Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.
ARTICLE 20 of AFRCAN CHARTER ON HUMAN AND PEOPLES RIGHTS agrees. It says, โAll peoples shall have the right to existence. They shall have the unquestionable and inalienable right to self-determination. They shall freely determine their political status and shall pursue their economic and social development according to the policy they have freely chosen.โ
ARTICLE 5 of THE UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS SAYS:
No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
ARTICLE 24 of AFRCAN CHARTER ON HUMAN AND PEOPLES RIGHTS adds that โAll peoples shall have the right to a general satisfactory environment favourable to their development.โ
ARTICLE 6
Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.
ARTICLE 7
All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination.
ARTICLE 9
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.
ARTICLE 12
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.
ARTICLE 19
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
ARTICLE 27
- Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.
๐ข๐ฆ๐๐ข ๐ฃ๐ฅ๐๐๐ ๐ฃ๐๐ฅ๐๐๐ 2023
Osloโs PRIDE PARADE 2023 was held on Saturday, July 01. It was a massive, happy, incident-free event attended by a record 90 000+ people; a rare event putting the beauty and love of Osloโs human diversity in world display without fear or favour. Norwayโs national television transmitted the event live. The huge turnout was defiant of the possible terror attack threat similar to that carried out outside the London Pub in central Oslo, June 25, 2022.
Itโs Monday, July 03, 2023 as I write this section of the essay. Iโll bet my last penny that the USA risks yet another day of shooting massacres across the nation on July the 4th than Norway shall any day soon endure satanic fires for being pro-LGBTQ+s right to exist happy and free in the country.
On Monday night, June 07, 2010, I reluctantly agreed to join a diverse group of some friends of mine for a beer at the London Pub, Oslo. I have never been into partying on weekdays, a fact my close friends know well. However, on this one night, my friends applied all the tools of the charm to get me to come along with them. We had to celebrate the final exams success of Greg, a younger, super talented jazz singer from Cape Town, South Africa. Ok.
All went well at the pub until I noticed that time was fast approaching midnight. I really had to go. A long working day was awaiting me ahead.
โOh, no, no, no, please, Simon, just wait another few minutes and we shall all leave this place together as a group and then go our separate ways home,โ cried Beya.
โArgh, man, ok! You guys are impossible!โ yours truly.
In the ensuing laughter amidst group amicable comments/ inside jokes like, โBlack Jew Simon just thinks money, money, money. He doesnโt have a social life!โ, the DJ suddenly plays full blast Stevie Wonderโs iconic Happy Birthday song. Before I knew it, I had been yanked onto the dance floor, and this group of between 20-30 men were singing along and dancing all around me. These men were all gay. That was the most wonderful surprise and kick-off moment for the subsequent series of parties marking my 50th birthday, which fell on June 08, 2010. A truly moving experience that I cherish to this day.
After the dance, a Champagne bottle was popped. For a moment I found myself sitting alone, as if my friends had made a quick dash and left me without any good-byes. Argh, just as well, I thought. I was set to go away, anyway. Suddenly, an unfamiliar, exuberantly perfumed, finely attired, beautiful young man sits next to me on the right, and makes as if to want to snuggle with me. As I turn to look at him, he looks me deep in the eyes and says, โBut, Simon, you ARE hetero, arenโt you?โ
โYes, I am,โ yours truly.
The disappointment wave emanating from the boy was palpable. As he apologetically and cautiously pulled away from me, a surge of paternal care cut through me, and the flirt in me woke up. So, I reached out, gently grabbed his hands, and pecked his left cheek, saying, โYes, I am heterosexual, but I love you for that!โ
In Norwegian, โ๐๐ถ, ๐๐ช๐ฎ๐ฐ๐ฏ, ๐ฅ๐ถ ๐๐ ๐ฉ๐ฆ๐ต๐ฆ๐ณ๐ฐ, ๐ช๐ฌ๐ฌ๐ฆ ๐ด๐ข๐ฏ๐ต?โ
โ๐๐ฐ, ๐ซ๐ฆ๐จ ๐ฆ๐ณ ๐ฉ๐ฆ๐ต๐ฆ๐ณ๐ฐ. ๐๐ฆ๐ฏ ๐ซ๐ฆ๐จ ๐ฆ๐ญ๐ด๐ฌ๐ฆ๐ณ ๐ฅ๐ฆ๐จ ๐ง๐ฐ๐ณ ๐ฅ๐ฆ๐ต!โ yours truly/ โโฆ But I love you all the same!โ
After my words and moves, I have never seen anybody waltzing away from me onto a dance floor in as glamorous and as joyful mood as that young man. Numerous eyes were on him. I hoped heโd find someone to love him then. That made me happy. I rose and quietly left the pub with the thought that, had that situation involved a girl, and I was in the mood, Iโd have gotten laid that night.
The terror attack tragedy outside the London Pub last year upset me at least as much as it did anybody else. Oslo gay groove house London Pub is a viable business entity. Public records show that it was registered in 2007. Itโs 2022 revenue was NOK 35 million, over twice as much as the previous year. During the said financial year, there were twenty-six employees. With outsourcing of security and other auxiliary services, thereโll be even more people earning a living working here.
The gay joint, London Pub is 50-50 owned by two gentlemen, Avni Fetisi and Selassie Desta G E G. I have reason to believe that the latter is of Ethiopian origin. And, last time I checked, Ethiopia was an African country. Just saying. Whilst living in South Africa as a child sometime in the late 1960s, my father once reminded a๐ฏ๐ข๐ต๐ถ๐ณ๐ข๐ญ๐ญ๐บ overbearing White car salesman that โMy money is NOT black!โ
Money knows no gender, no sexuality, no skin colour. Money just loves good business. If money makers are fair, theyโll pay their workers well regardless of non-professional considerations such as gender, sexuality, race, and all. Hopefully.
Violence against LGBTQ+ people and institutions will never succeed in ridding the world of people who love outside the narrow heterosexual stream. Launching surprise attacks on unarmed, peaceful people is a sign of sheer cowardice; idiocy supreme.
Real men fight men of their own sizes in real, bloody battles. At any one time, there are scores of wars played out in the world for trigger happy fools to go and play their silly, fake-manhood games. Prigozjin and his Wagner Group has room for soldiers of fortune he can use to feed the Putin-created meat grinder in Ukraine, for ๐๐ถ๐ด๐ด๐ช๐ข๐ฏ & ๐๐ฉ๐ช๐ฑ๐ด on South African oligarchโ State Capture braai coal flames. Check out Sudan too, if not the perennial DRC bloodbath.
It boggles my mind that a so-called man can run away from genocidal conditions in his country of origin – Iran, Pakistan, and others; find protection in Norway. Thrive. Grow up into a big and supposedly strong man. Is, or gets unhappy about the liberal, globally uplifting Norwegian way of life. Then decides to play the devilโs executor role and kill innocent people in/ of Norway; shooting them as if they were dummy targets in a shooting range.
There is no courage in fleeing from the fight for liberty in the land of your birth. There is no honour in killing your innocent, new landsmen only seeking to love who they love in the free world.
From the point of view of harnessing and growing a productive manpower resources base vis-ร -vis attainment of sustainable national developmental goals, there can be no bright economic future for Uganda in its use of state resources to persecute the LGBTQ+ community in the country.
As Uganda is not alone in this counter-progress tendency in Africa, I really do not see the continent coming out of the Africa Screwed. Africa Raped quagmire I mention in one of my earlier talks.
Africaโs future is doomed. All for leaders caught up in the ๐ธ๐ฉ๐ฆ๐ฏ ๐ธ๐ฆ ๐ธ๐ฆ๐ณ๐ฆ ๐ฌ๐ช๐ฏ๐จ๐ด syndrome. The techno-socio-economic future of the world is shaped by forward-looking, problem-solving leaders. These apply contemporary tools available and relevant today, addressing needs for a successful push into the future of ever so rapidly changing and growing understanding of the workings of nature.
As I use the expression, the ๐ธ๐ฉ๐ฆ๐ฏ ๐ธ๐ฆ ๐ธ๐ฆ๐ณ๐ฆ ๐ฌ๐ช๐ฏ๐จ๐ด syndrome refers to the inclination towards reliance on knowledge that may have prevailed once upon a time when society was high and mighty during, say, the Stone Age. Useless.
When progressive countries of the world are investing heavily inArtificial Intelligence (AI) Research and Development (R&D), Uganda is applying scarce resources in the hunt for Whoโs sleeping with who? At the same time Dead Aid keeps flowing into the country. Morbid.
๐๐ก ๐๐ข๐ก๐๐๐จ๐ฆ๐๐ข๐ก
Iโll happily engage with anybody that reaches out on this topic. Do write your comments below. But I am not in any way interested in any crap talk about God and religion. ๐๐ฆ๐ฆ๐ฆ๐ป๐ป๐ถ๐ป๐ป๐ป, God is the most divisive, most lethal of manโs responsibility escapism creations. Religion is a weapon of death in the name of God. Religious texts are murder prescriptions.
Neither am I interested in “๐๐ต’๐ด ๐ฐ๐ถ๐ณ ๐ค๐ถ๐ญ๐ต๐ถ๐ณ๐ฆ” reasoning. The moment I hear expressions like, โ๐๐ง๐ณ๐ช๐ค๐ข๐ฏ ๐ค๐ถ๐ญ๐ต๐ถ๐ณ๐ฆ ๐ฅ๐ฐ๐ฆ๐ด ๐ฏ๐ฐ๐ต ๐ฑ๐ฆ๐ณ๐ฎ๐ช๐ต ๐ฉ๐ฐ๐ฎ๐ฐ๐ด๐ฆ๐น๐ถ๐ข๐ญ๐ช๐ต๐บ!โ I see insular, static cultures oblivious to, or dismissive of local or global societal paradigm shifts with time. These insular, static cultures inhibit growth of curious, innovative minds. The latter being capable of, and ever willing to explore new frontiers of knowledge in efforts to find solutions to existential challenges facing society on all fronts.
Spearheaded by the ruling elites, parochial, conservative African cultures kill liberated human beingsโ creative potential. Myths intended to create perpetual fear and uncertainty in peopleโs lives are applied as effective oppressive tools, much like the holy scriptures in organized religions.
Bring me science of consistent, universally applicable, infinitely testable principles that effectively contribute to mankindโs efforts in the never-ending pursuit of bettering the quality of life for all on earth. I have no time for Conspiracy Theories bs-talk. Show me numbers. Thatโs all that interests me in this topic here.
This here is my voice. The voice of an independent, free spirit with no fear for the unknown, or peddlers of untruths and negative endeavours to the detriment of society. I speak for myself, reflecting the workings of my one-man intellectual and creative powerhouse.
I represent no particular interest groups anywhere. Neither do I speak on behalf of any special influential individual. I neither receive nor solicit any monies from any individual or groups, as a motivation to be their mouthpiece or speak favourably about them. Nobody owns me. No one owns my brains. I owe nobody no favours.
My take on the LGBTQ+ rights violations in Uganda and elsewhere is founded on universal Human Rights tenets. I neither hate nor disrespect the people of Uganda. My reaction is against appalling, out-of-tune-with-the-times, power abusive, oppressive, leadership. If the latter is fronted by Yoweri Museveni in Uganda, the heat shall be on him by default; it comes with the territory. Iโll lash out at any regressive national leader, be they Zuma, Mugabe, Putin, Trump, or whoever.
Purely from a Human Rights standpoint, I feel very, very strongly about the LGBTQ+ right to exist case. If I could have just one cause to fight for in my life, this would be it. As a matter of a deep-felt principle, persecution of LGBTQ+ people the world over touches the core of my injustices-against-humanity sensitivities in a profound way. This is a struggle for freedom. Any struggle for freedom is my struggle.
My pro-LGBTQ+ right to life is humanist, and is as solid as a rock. Those of my so-called relatives, friends, and other social relations across the board wishing to cancel me for my views on the LGBTQ+ question and other ludicrously controversial issues such as a womanโs rightto access abortion as she deems fit according to her life circumstances, may do so now. The time has come for hypocrites and cowards to stay clear. Good riddance.
It is okay to have differences of opinions on anything. In fact, it is absolutely natural that people all over the world will have certain commonly shared instinctually broadly and/ or narrowly defined proclivities according to their respective individual neuroendocrine systemsโ wirings. The latter being a function of both inheritance and infinite, known, and unknown immediate and distant environmental factors of short or lasting terms.
But it is not okay to hate. It is not okay to, by all means possible, actively work to exterminate people labelled as ๐ฅ๐ฆ๐ท๐ช๐ข๐ฏ๐ต and ๐ด๐ช๐ฏ๐ฏ๐ฆ๐ณ๐ด by those individuals or collectives wielding societal power.
For as long as I can breathe, Iโll speak and write for justice and fairness. Iโll stand for the weak and vulnerable. Amongst other motivations, I do this for our children for them to not be afraid of the future, no matter how weird and unconventional they might be viewed to be, and treated as adults. I have this vision that, given the superior knowledge and courage we impart in our children today, theirs will be a better world for all tomorrow.
The MAGA movement bans and burns books, curtails liberatory education for enlightenment provision for American children today. I shudder to think about how primitive the future world would be would MAGA ever dominate fully the American society. That would also spell hell on earth for American LGBTQ+s. And mine will be one of the loudest resistance voices. You ainโt heard nothing yet. The biggest global freedom storms are yet to come. To the oppressed, the persecuted of the world: ๐ณ๐ง๐ค ๐ฅ๐ด๐ณ๐ด๐ฑ๐ค ๐จ๐ฒ ๐ก๐ฑ๐จ๐ฆ๐ง๐ณ. Believe me.
SIMON CHILEMBO
OSLO
NORWAY
July 03, 2023
๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐?
๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐
DISCLAIMER
I do not have any academic nor professional training in art. My articulation of what art is a function of my laymanโs instinctual appreciation of things beautiful against the ugly; both in the figurative and abstract manifestations as my senses perceive it in any given situation and space, at any given time. All I know is how to think and write, and write and think. Art is what I feel. If I feel it, I can think it. If I think it, I can write it. Writing is my art, my artistic expression. Writing is what I do; all attributable to my academic training.
WORKPLACE OF BEAUTIFUL THINGS
People do from time to time visit museums of all kinds for all kinds of recreational, educational, and research reasons. I work at Norwayโs Nasjonalmuseet. The institution has proved to be an awesome literary creativeโs wet dream for me as an author and poet. I get at least one goosebumps moment each day I am at work. Tens of thousands of works of art are on display throughout the eighty-nine exhibition spaces at the museum. In all their widely variable expressive forms, these artworks move me in a way that ever fills me with love and joy like I have never experienced before. Working here is a privilege I am much grateful for.
At different points in about all the exhibition spaces in the museum, there are rest stations comprising benches upon extensions of which are placed, amongst other items, wooden playing cards. The cards have various quizzes and games for the guests to have a go at as they sit and rest. I, together with Ole, a fine but ever condescending colleague young enough to be my grandson, happened to have been engaged in a discussion about various aspects of the museum when we approached one such station. Ole then unexpectedly reached out and randomly pulled out a card from the bench extension. It turned out to be a quiz card with the question: โWhat is Art?โ; creating a gotcha moment that I saw Ole revelling in.
Talking about Oleโs gotcha moment, this was yet another one of those moments in which a person of European extraction comes to me with the pre-conditioned notion that Black people are not cultivated enough to appreciate the finer aspects of European culture. Anyhow, my immediate response, in this case, was, โArt is the capturing of an experiential moment in time and space in order to, perhaps, tell a story about that experience in the future. This capture can be in any form or medium according to the proclivities and talents of the artist.โ
Ole, โI hear you. But you will have to elaborate more on all that you have just said!โ ย
Seeing as we had to attend to each of our respective duties at work then, I replied, โI shall write an essay for you, then. Deal?โ
โDeal!โ
My definition of art shall be both conceptual and functional. Conceptually, I know art when I perceive it. I do not have to be told. I do not have to be instructed. I know art when my senses register it. Regardless of the representational form, the sentimental response that I get from experiencing any manifestation of art that I consider as beautiful is a constant. Conversely, an unattractive, unpleasant artistic form as I experience it emotionally affects me in the same way relevant to it irrespective of the form or the representational style.
Whenever I read a storybook (or even write one) that I enjoy, my breathing rate slows down, and the total bodily relaxation I get gives me a wonderful warm feeling all over; I get goosebumps, and my palms get warmer and moist. This kind of feeling brings me immense joy. The dreamy state it gets me into sends me into a fantasy world of all things possible. If I had been, for one reason or another, going through hard times, this state brings hope home; it fills me with a sweet sense of freedom. In this state, I am invincible. This is my subjective domain for defining what beautiful art is for me as my perceptive senses โ eyes, ears, skin, tongue, nose, intuition โ register it, feed my hormonal system (feel-good hormones), and the latter instructing my nervous system to induce my being to act accordingly. Pure joy.
Whilst recognizing it for what it is, art that is repugnant to me is exactly that. If it makes me cringe, if it casts a shadow of pessimism over me, if it fills me with negative thoughts and associations, if it gives me a cold sweat, then it is bad art for me. There are times when I can see beauty in bad, ugly art, though. I think about the hands, or some other body parts, that created the work. Every hand shall tell its story according to its ownerโs neuro-hormonal wiring and physical capabilities. One manโs apparent gory art may be anotherโs depiction of heaven. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Functionally, art is a conveyor of messages, a storyteller; a courier of generational narratives in humanityโs dances with nature and itself over time. Art can be an instrument of change. Art can repair the once broken. Art can inspire hope, faith, trust, and love. To the extent that art is a personal expression, art may speak for its creator. Art creators have the potential to make or break society. Ask God, manโs most divisive, master-of-carnage creation. God may have created man instead, her most complex work of art. The outcome is not any better.
Art is identity. Identity may be deception obscured in art. From the outset, art may be true by intent and purpose. But when human perception and interpretation of reality are as polychotomous as there are so many people on earth, art shall be true or fallacious as to the perceptive state and cognitive capacity of the observer. Therein lies the mystique, the intrigue of art. Who am I? I am a man in love with art.
Art is some powerful stuff. Art is a human creative potential deserving to be handled with tender, loving care. At its best, art is an instrument of peace; art has the potential to stimulate reflection on the human condition. We rise, we fall; art captures all that. Art is beauty. Without beauty, life is not worth living.
Beauty moves humanity forward and higher on the scale of qualitative and quantitative improvements in life. It is not for nothing that nations of the world, interest organizations of all sorts and sizes, wealthy individuals, and many others invest heavily in the promotion, conservation, preservation, and storage of some of our most impactful artworks over the epochs into the future. Art immortalizes human experience.
SIMON CHILEMBO
OSLO
NORWAY
TEL.: +92525032
April 07, 2023
RECOMMENDATION: Do you want to start writing own blog or website? Try WordPress!
Order, read, and be inspired by my latest and 9th book, 2nd poetry volume, MACHONA GRIT: Onslaught on Hate
๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐
๐๐ก๐ข๐ญ๐ ๐๐ฎ๐ฉ๐ซ๐๐ฆ๐๐๐ฒ ๐๐ฅ๐๐ฉ๐ฉ๐๐ ๐ข๐ง ๐ญ๐ก๐ ๐ ๐๐๐
Look to Ukraine War 2022
To see
Ukraine people tearing
Replacement Theory apart
In practice
The last of
European fascistic scum falling apart
Replacement assumes plunder
Predicates
Displacement carnage
Genocide
The last of
European American fascistic scum
Daily murder Black descendants
Ancestors of whom
Got displaced from Africa
Got placed into slavery in the Americas
Thirteen million of them
Two million of whom
Became meals for
Sharks of the Atlantic
African prosperity halted
With the gap of the loss of
Bodies and brains
Replaced forever by
Poverty and misery
Disease scaling the cake
Dysfunctional states
A legacy
The Democratic Republic of the Congo
But one case in point
Gory Leopold of Belgium
Exterminated ten million people
As if they were flies here
Numerous others left with
Amputated limbs
Setting standard for
Sierra Leoneโs Charles Taylor
Decades later
Rwanda genocide
Shocked the world
Historically objectively viewed
Replacement Theory
In practice
Gave us colonialism
Gave me Apartheid
As welcome to earth present
In South Africa
Displaced
My motherโs people
From their land
Subjected us to
Poverty-driven subservience
Decimated us
Denied us the living
Opportunities for
Human potential maximization attainment
Replacing our human worth
With
Systemic racism oppression untold
Supremacist repressive methodologies
Blue prints perfected here
Apartheid a fascist catchphrase
These days
If you ask me
Five-hundred years later
Iโm in Europe
Begging bowl
In my hands
โ๐๐ข๐ฏ๐จ ๐๐ช๐ฌ๐ฆ ๐๐ฆ๐ฏ๐ค๐ฆ!โ noose
Around my neck
Waiting for me
To take just one misstep
To lynch me
Survived
Have I already
Several a
Direct killer attempts
Me simply doing
What I gotta do
To be a decent human being
Everyday
Tailing after bounty
Stolen from my ancestors
Meanwhile
Hangmen-in-waiting
Scandalize my name
Already stabbed me in the back
That notwithstanding
Still standing
Stepping forth up-and-up
I can breathe
In America
Survivor posterity of my ancestral roots
Defy the highest odds
Living from day to day
Ever in search in the heavens
For reasons why
The colour of our skin
Is such an abomination
If there is a God
It is not for
People of colours
Children of the indigenous
Inhabitants of the
Americas land masses
Daily decry
Genocide of
Tens upon tens of millions of their ancestors
Fifty-six million perished
In the first one hundred years
At the hands of European scum settlers
Next time you see
The pre-match Haka
Do discern All Blacks
Souls of the Mฤori bemoaning
Replacement from their ancestral lands
In New Zealand
The Wallabies are no consolation
For the Aborigines
Replaced from their
Ancestral procreative spaces
To make room for replenishment of
Australian white supremacist
Grooming endeavours
Christchurch slaughters didnโt just happen
Beyond Peleโs legendary fecundity
On the soccer pitch
Millions more of
Survivor posterity of my ancestral roots
Languish
Displaced in
Brazilian favelas
And the hinterland
In Argentina
History just as dreadful for
Survivor posterity of my ancestral roots
Displace
Debase
Excruciate
Exclude
Incapacitate
Isolate
Replace
Discard
Eliminate
Thatโs the way of
Replacement Theory peddlers
In practice for real
Playing itself out
With impunity
With the right hand of God
Unbeknown to compassion
Jesusโ civility defiled
Today
Fleeing ravages of wars
Inseparable from
Ways of original global masters of
Replacement by murder: Imperialists
People of the world
Run to modern Europe unchanged
Steam to
United States of America the cursed un-united
Resurface in
The land down under
Traumatized
World emigrants
๐๐ฆ๐ด ๐ช๐ฎ๐ฎ๐ช๐จ๐ณรฉ๐ด ๐ฅ๐ถ ๐ฎ๐ฐ๐ฏ๐ฅ๐ฆ
๐๐ฆ๐ณ๐ฅ๐ฆ๐ฏ๐ด ๐ถ๐ต๐ท๐ข๐ฏ๐ฅ๐ณ๐ฆ๐ณ๐ฆ
๐๐ข๐ต๐ด๐ข๐ฎ๐ข๐ช ๐ฃ๐ข ๐ญ๐ฆ๐ง๐ข๐ต๐ด๐ฉ๐ฆ
๐๐ฎ๐ข๐จ๐ฐ๐ฅ๐ถ๐ฌ๐ข
๐๐ฎ๐ข๐ค๐ฉ๐ฐ๐ฏ๐ข
Want not to kill anybody
Want not to rape anybody
Want not to plunder anybodyโs land
They only ask for
Shelter, food, and love
Hopefully
Packaged in something called
Human dignity
Ukraine War 2022 style
In our times
White Supremacists
Scared shitless of
Self-created myths
Of non-white people of the world
Wanting to eat
White people
Off the face of America
My foot
We are better than that by far
Oh, come on
If racist whites
Have failed to eliminate
People of colours
From black to magenta
For more than half a millennium
What makes
Hot-nutted
Small White American men
With guns in hands
As in
Buffalo shooting
Think that they can
Eradicate us now
We define resilience, dudes
Black donโt crack
Goes the rap
Letโs all live together in harmony
Now
Oh, by the way
In the 21st Century
And years pushing on ahead
Monoethnics are dying breeds
Multiculturalism is
The future of humanity
United in diversity today
Grow up
And
Get used to it, yโall bigots
Wash your damn bloody hands
Stay clean
For human solidarity
For love
Abound in the world
Despite the mess
You ever
So relentlessly strive
To sustain
How dum
Can a human being be
๐๐ฆ๐ฆ๐ฆ๐ป๐ถ๐ป๐ป๐ป
END
ยฉSimon Chilembo 22/05-2022
SIMON CHILEMBO
OSLO
NORWAY
TEL.: +4792525032
June 02, 2022
PS
The pandemic is still in our midst. Fears and factual untruths havenโt abated. In my 7th book, Covid-19 and I: Killing Conspiracy Theories, I highlight fallacies red lights and how to identify them. Order the book, read, and be inspired by my philosophical exposition on the matter. It might save yours and your loved onesโ lives.
DISCLAIMER: I neither offer nor suggest any cures or remedies. I promote fearless, independent thought and inclination towards pursuing science-based knowledge in times of, indeed, frightening, life-threatening phenomena in the world.
RECOMMENDATION: Do you want to start writing own blog or website? Try WordPress!
๐จ๐ฆ๐ฆ๐ฅ ๐ข๐ฅ ๐ช๐๐๐ฅ๐? โ ๐จ๐๐ฅ๐๐๐ก๐ ๐ช๐๐ฅ ๐ฎ๐ฌ๐ฎ๐ฎ
๐๐ ๐ถ๐น๐ฒ ๐๐ฑ๐๐ฐ๐ฎ๐๐ถ๐ผ๐ป ๐ข๐ฝ๐๐ถ๐ผ๐ป๐: ๐ฌ๐ผ๐๐๐ต ๐ค๐๐ฎ๐ป๐ฑ๐ฎ๐ฟ๐
During my stay in Lusaka, Zambia, 1975-88, some of my most memorable social interactions involved meeting older and veteran, mostly male South African freedom fighters. These were ANC members. Then in their mid-thirties and above, some of them had travelled the world. They would have been in pursuit of various goals, which included:
- Mobilization of international support for the South African liberation struggle efforts
- Military training
- Education
About all the veterans exhibited the abhorrent traits of arrogance, tribalism, bullying, cantankerousness, outright stupidity, and violence endemic of South African kassie/ township life. Hard partying involving huge consumptions of alcohol and drugs and all that it entails were an integral part of the deal. Needless to say. Shebeen culture carried with into exile. Not that Zambians were any less of party animals.
These veterans were people of all sorts, with all sorts of familial backgrounds. They, or we, as individuals or as special-interests sub-groups were motivated and threaded together by the collective higher dream of the attainment of the liberation of South Africa from Apartheid oppression.
Much as they loved to party by default, the majority of these people took their liberation struggle work very, very seriously. They were highly knowledgeable in the various fields of Social and Natural Sciences, including Mathematics. Some had had guerrilla operations experiences within South Africa in the 1960s; also, Mozambique and Zimbabwe in conjunction with fellow freedom fighters in those countries. Others had participated in major international wars, such as the Vietnam war, and in Latin America. These were hard people.
There were three distinct individuals with whom I shared intense mutual dislike for one another. Each in their own ways reminded me of some older guys and grown-up men that were generally not nice people back in my kassie, Thabong, Welkom. These horrible guys hated especially the ever vocal and visible little boys like myself then. It didnโt help my situation being son of an envied foreign man from Zambia. I had already been in Zambia for several years when I heard that, on separate occasions, five of the horrible guys got stabbed to death by younger boys on the streets. Good riddance. For the obnoxious people these men were, their souls deserve neither rest nor peace wherever they may be in after-deathland.
Regarding the three older exiles that didnโt like me very much in Lusaka, I imagine that a mortal confrontation would have ensued at some point had we been in South Africa then. The likely murdered wouldnโt have been me.
Zambiaโs relatively laid-back culture had a way of dampening our wild South African township streaks. Otherwise, I got along fine with everyone; particularly those that found me โinteresting to talk big struggle issues toโ; their words, not mine.
My favourite was Comrade Mjaykes. He was Commander for a unit of younger, recently arrived immediate post-1976 Soweto student uprising exiles. Overriding objective here was to debrief the traumatized youth with various available and relevant medical and therapeutic methods. Intense and continuous conscientization political education was an unavoidable part of the package. And this was the fun part for me. Much of my fundamental geopolitics principles understanding was founded here.
Contrary to many a senior veteran, on the outset, Comrade Mjaykes was an unassuming personality. But he was one the most highly trained and educated around, both militarily and academically. He trained a lot, often alone late at night. He was very fit. And he read a lot too. Of his few personal possessions other than his books, he treasured a satellite radio that he had bought on one of his travels abroad. Commanding English, French, German, Russian, Spanish, and Swahili languages, the super veteran used the radio to listen to current affairs programs from all corners of the world. He was a well-informed man.
Being an exemplary leader with superior oratory skills, Comrade Mjaykes was a complete warrior in my eyes. An enduring source of inspiration that I last saw in 1981. Sadly, he was one of the earliest victims of the scourge of HIV/AIDS pandemic that began to ravage southern Africa and the rest of the world from the 1980s onwards. Comrade Mjaykes died in the newly liberated Rainbow Nation, South Africa, in December, 1994. No doubt, his soul is resting in eternal power. I canโt help but often wonder as to what he would have thought of the South Africa of today.
Acknowledging my Karate prowess already in 1977/ 78, Comrade Mjaykes said to me one day, โMuch as I know youโd make a much better soldier than all these young comrades here, Iโd rather you went to school first. You have the kind of brains there is a shortage of in our political leadership structures, see? We should be able to organize for you a scholarship for studies abroad. Iโll talk to your parents about this.โ
โThat would be nice, thank you! You know, my fatherโs biggest wish for my two siblings and I is that we could go and study overseas. But thatโll remain a pipedream because he could never afford the costs of an overseas education for us. Life is really hard for our family in Lusaka, as you know well.โ
โYes, I know! Your father is a good man. He deserves all the help we can afford him in that regard.โ
โThank you, Comrade! My parents would be extremely happy and grateful if mzabalazo/ the liberation movement can help.โ
โIt should work out for sure. But, unfortunately, currently available scholarships for full education up to university level are from Yuseserese/ the USSR (The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics). However, no, I donโt want you to go there even if you could leave tomorrow. My analysis of you and how you think tell me that you obviously are not Yuseserese material.โ
โWhy? Howโs that? All I want is to be a doctor. A doctor is a doctor, no? There are Russian doctors at the UTH/ University Teaching Hospital, right?โ
โCorrect, a doctor is a doctor to the extent that he or she thinks only within the context of being a doctor and nothing else beyond.โ
โI donโt understand!โ
โLet me explain, Sae: you see, being a doctor, or any other modern, academically attained profession for that matter, is but just one of the multitudes of tools available for us to apply in the overall growth and development of society. Youโll, of course, recall that growth refers to the actual physical expansionary attributes of society; infrastructure, for example. Whereas development refers to the total conceptual and practical work that goes towards visualizing and realizing measurable qualitative and quantitative transformation of society.โ
โYes, growth or lack thereof is a function of ideas and tools constituting a societyโs developmental visions as espoused by the incumbent national leadership.โ
โAbsolutely, Sae. Do remember that the developmental visions are promulgated in national development plans over specific time periods. Your brilliant explanation is further proof that sending you to Yuseserese will be a waste of what I see as one of the most promising of future leadership brains in our soon to be liberated South Africa. You must go to the West. Most of our smart ANC leaders in exile send their children to the West, anyway. Thereโs a good reason for that.โ
In arguing his case, Comrade Mjaykes repeated a summary of standard rhetorical statements I had heard numerous times before:
- The Soviet Union is a Socialist state.
- Socialism is a transition state. Socialism puts together all the building blocks leading to Communism attainment.
- Socialism shall build a strong state designed to enhance optimal economic growth and protection of society and all that guarantees perpetuity of the imminent march to Communism.
- Communism is the highest state of existential wellbeing attainable for society. Under Communism, classes are non-existent; all are equal with equal access to all resources necessary and available for a life of non-ending abundance for all.
- The state machinery, i.e. bureaucracy, has the function of managing efficacy of Communism towards the full satisfaction of societal needs. Under Communism, given certain specific skills according to different levels of societal engineering and resources production and distribution administration, all are at the service of society first and foremost and last.
- Communism has no room for individualism, the basis for societal stratification, or classes creation. When Christianity and other religions talk about heaven, thatโs another language for the perfect Communist state, actually. Only that Communism has no overbearing figures of God as portrayed in religious belief systems.
โThat is the rosy picture of Communism, Sae. The reality is different. Just like the concept of heaven for the religious, Communism is utopian. The march to Communism starts and ends in the already dysfunctional Socialism, really.โ
โBut I thought that attainment of the Communist state was more realistic because it was based on the dialectical material world for material human beings without mythical angels and gods in even more farfetched heavens above somewhere in the distant sky.โ
โCommunism attainment would be more realistic had it not been for Socialismโs killing of the human spirit, Sae.โ
โYou are losing me now, Comrade Mjaykes!โ
โI know that no one here has ever mentioned that last statement to you. I deliberately chose to prematurely take your political education to the next level now. Thatโs only because I really want the best for you and the future liberated, non-Communist South Africa.โ
โIf I may say so, you are beginning to sound like a sellout, Comrade Mjaykes. Arenโt you risking condemnation by others should they hear you talking like this to me nowโ
โNo, my views in this regard are already known to even the highest levels of our command structures. My devotion to the struggle is known; I having been tested on many, many occasions over the years. But because we, the ANC, arenโt hard-core Socialists yet, thereโ still much room allowed to hold principled divergent opinions in the on-going discourse of how to establish a unique, workable developmental model for the future South Africa.โ
โI see!โ
โAnd that is the point, Sae; behind the apparent success of Socialism in the USSR, North Korea, Cuba, and China, to name the most prominent, there are millions of robotized people whose senses of individuality have been broken to the core. Indeed, people may be provided with the best education in the natural and social sciences, producing top doctors, engineers, economists, and many more vocations. But thatโs often as far as it goes.
Thatโs because, through various political indoctrination methods, backed by extremely brutal national security forces trained to think and act as robotically themselves, the ruling elite ensure that the people cease to think independently and critically over existential questions.โ
โBut Iโve thus far been made to believe that people in Russia and all these socialist places live happily ever after. Moreover, Russiaโs support of ours and othersโ anti-imperialist struggles were for that the world must unite against capitalismโs exploitative socio-economic relations subjecting us to lasting poverty and subjugation.โ
โThatโs a myth, Sae. The truth is that us South Africans we are just too free-spirited, too wild to tame for Socialism. It goes without saying that Communism isnโt even worth talking about. Our allied South African Communist Party is a good platform for training in polemics and rhetoric more than anything else. Weโll discuss higher level Capitalism issues another time.โ
โI must say that this new side of Socialism has shocked me, Comrade Mjaykes.โ
โYou see, Socialism works for, and constructs linear thinkers; people who cannot think outside the box. People who think only in straight lines and right-angles in fixed operational spaces. Perhaps that may be one of the reasons Russians are superior chess players! I donโt know.โ
Itโs at about this time that my interest in chess waned. I dreaded the idea of my brains turning square! Indeed, many a South African liberation struggle veteran is a formidable chess player. If they ruled todayโ South Africa as exceptionally as they mastered chess, the country would probably be in a better place. But political leadership is an infinitely open field presupposing capacity for paradigm specific, or beyond as necessary, multifaceted thinking in problem solving and application of solutions derived thereby.
โYou have on many occasions demonstrated that you are a more independent and well-rounded thinker than your contemporaries here, Sae. I know that thatโs why some of the older comrades here donโt favour you much. They simply hate your guts. Highly educated as they are also, these guys donโt take it kindly when they are pushed out of their intellectual comfort zones, especially by a young comrade like you. They are Soviet educated.
โIโd hate to see you stagnate or degenerate intellectually as you get older. Thatโs why you canโt go to Yuseserese for studies, Sae, you see? One or two young comrades of your calibre have died out there before. Some have had mental breakdowns. It would break my heart to see that happen to you. Although the truth is suppressed in our organization, racism is also rife in the USSR. Encountering racism out there is tantamount to jumping out of the South African Apartheid pan into the Soviet racism fire, if you ask me.โ
At own private initiative elsewhere, the first scholarship chance I got for an overseas higher education was to Social Democratic capitalist Norway in 1988. I got stuck here. Primarily out of idealism and for love. No regrets. Norway is the richest country in the world. All things considered, life is as good as can be in Norway. Of course, never perfect, never fully satisfactory for everyone, but Norway does deliver for its people.
And the country is a leading Foreign Aid nation. Norwegian Finance Ministers have for years been megastars amongst their global colleagues. No Communism here. The few ardent Norwegian communists around are but fringe individuals or insignificant groupings with inconsequential social change impact, if any at all.
I write books now. I am what they call norsk forfatter. โForfatter Simon Chilemboโ sounds ever so cool! I write without fear or favour, freely following my creative fantasies to wherever they take me. I live happily ever after in an effectively non-Communist state. If Comrade Mjaykes could see me now! All gratitude due.
USSR-Socialist trained South African national leaders across the board fail to get the Rainbow Nation out of the mess theyโve plunged it in after the fall of Apartheid in 1994. In big geopolitics questions, the USSR yoke is sitting comfortably on South Africaโs neck. Mzansi drowning with a sinking ship that is post-USSR Russia fo sho.
The USSR fall with the Berlin Wall in 1989 give rise to Russia. In essence, Russia is the ghost of the former USSR. Ghosts are no touch of reality. It’s therefore not surprising that, identical to South Africa contra Apartheid’s subsequent collapse five years later, Russia never could rise from the post Berlin Wall shambles. Oligarchs ruthlessly plundered the Russian state coffers, taking corruption to the next level.
Post-1994 South Africa created its own egregious oligarchic class through the State Capture phenomenon. This has shown many a Comrade from humble beginnings becoming millionaires to billionaires overnight. They have acutely incapacitated the South African stateโs ability to optimally deliver the promise of a better life for all in a united, non-racial, non-sexist and democratic republic. The post-1994 South African oligarchic class has given the formally Apartheid state’s corruption colour. The former is living in the past. They have lost sight of the reality that Russia is not the USSR. Dismembering of the USSR is permanent.
In 2022, Russia invades Ukraine with chess moves mentality. Some things never change. It has turned out that Ukraine is not a chess board for Russia to play on as it wishes. Things have changed here. Parochial USSR legacy oblivious to this fact. Just for starters, young men of my age in the late 1970s are dying, falling like sacrificial chess pawns. The rest is a tragic war on a straight line trajectory ending potentially with a nuclear war catastrophe.
World in panic makes noise. USSR legacy ears are plugged. USSR marble eyes see imperial rebirth victory where the odds for survival are impossible to turn around. Meanwhile, Norway gives shelter and protection to Ukraine children and women running away from the ravages of Russiaโs war on their country. No better place to be. Communism allergic. Progressive society as close to heavenly terrestrial opulence as can be.
SIMON CHILEMBO
OSLO
NORWAY
TEL.: +4792525032
April 23, 2022
PS
The pandemic is still in our midst. Fears and factual untruths havenโt abated. In my 7th book, Covid-19 and I: Killing Conspiracy Theories, I highlight fallacies red lights and how to identify them. Order the book, read, and be inspired by my philosophical exposition on the matter. It might save yours and your loved ones’ lives.
DISCLAIMER: I neither offer nor suggest any cures or remedies. I promote fearless, independent thought and inclination towards pursuing science-based knowledge in times of, indeed, frightening, life-threatening phenomena in the world.
RECOMMENDATION: Do you want to start writing own blog or website? Try WordPress!
๐๐๐ฆ๐๐๐ฆ๐ง๐ฆ ๐๐จ๐ฅ๐ก๐๐ก๐ ๐๐ข๐ข๐๐ฆ: ๐๐ ๐๐ฅ๐๐๐ ๐ง๐ข๐๐๐ฌ
๐๐ฎ๐๐ฐ๐ถ๐๐๐ ๐๐ผ๐บ๐ฏ๐ถ๐ป๐ด ๐ฆ๐ฐ๐ต๐ผ๐ผ๐น๐: ๐จ๐ธ๐ฟ๐ฎ๐ถ๐ป๐ฒ ๐ช๐ฎ๐ฟ ๐ฎ๐ฌ๐ฎ๐ฎ
American fascists
Burn books away
From birth right
Knowledge deservant
Inquisitive by default children
Planting but ignorance
In the childrenโs brains
Drawing wet blankets
Over the childrenโs heads
Stifling curiosity
Grooming children into
Manipulable dum-witted goons
Never uttering a word
About their existence
Vis-ร -vis planetary realities
Of human relations imperatives
Of harmonious co-existence
Founded on empathy
Pathetic
Dum
Literary shied
Social intelligence deprived children
Wooed to strut
Self-destruction paths
They could be sheep
Submitting to abattoir
Life termination
Without a sound
Conditioned
To accept that
Itโs better
On the other side
Contrary to the line
I learned as a school child
Though
๐๐ญ๐ฐ๐ช, ๐ฆ๐ญ๐ฐ๐ช, ๐ญ๐ข๐ฎ๐ข ๐ด๐ข๐ฃ๐ข๐ค๐ฉ๐ต๐ฉ๐ข๐ฏ๐ฆ๐ช
For the uninitiated
That was Jesus
Nailed on the cross crying
๐๐บ ๐๐ฐ๐ฅ, ๐ฎ๐บ ๐๐ฐ๐ฅ, ๐ธ๐ฉ๐บ ๐ฉ๐ข๐ด๐ต ๐ต๐ฉ๐ฐ๐ถ ๐ง๐ฐ๐ณ๐ด๐ข๐ฌ๐ฆ๐ฏ ๐ฎ๐ฆ
See
Life matters but
Primarily here on earth today
Even if itโs a Black life
Even if itโs an indigenous life
Glowing red earth colours
Even if itโs the rest of multi-colours life
In the face of White life
Clamouring for supremacist ideals
Grounded in dark pits of ignorance
Hopeless situation
As of a slaughtered sheep
Grilled over black coal red fire flames
Cremation of books
Chronicling bloody
Murderous paths
In the construction of
American greatness
At the expense of
People of colour
Stolen from Africa
Turned into unwilling sacrificial lambs
Is a move to sow seeds of
Anti-truths about the
Dark history of
Great America facing
A bleak future
As real truth is told
In
Critical Race Theory
To repair America
For America to be great
Forever
For all
Equal in the law of the land
Equal in sharing in the bounty of the land
In the spirit of equanimity
In times of penance
Times of reparations
Times of mutuality of respect
Acknowledgement of humanityโs oneness
In abundance of
Love and peace
But
No
American fascists
Gnash teeth
Clench fists
Shoot guns
Spew expletives
Obliterate books
Lead children
Into adulthood
Devoid of question marks
Exclamation marks characterizing
American fascistsโ words
Noted down
By the literate
Non-readers canโt write
Illiterates duped
Into dark sub-worlds of ignorance
Violence
Conspiracy theoriesโ sitting ducks
Gobbling fake news
Day in and day out
Ever clouding their brains
In a bright world of wisdom
Striving to keep it together
For humanityโs immortality
On planet earth
Seeking answers to the
Hows
Whats
Whens
Whos
Whys
From the roots of question marks
Whilst ignorant buffoons
Seek to decapitate
The question mark
Eternalized in the written word
Storytelling
Asking questions about
Our triumphs
Our trials
Our tribulations
Giving substance
To the cry
We shall overcome someday
Instilling in us
Resilience
Against calamitous deeds of
Illiterate buffoons
Ignorant
On the backs of educated fools
On orgies of destruction
Murder
Running around as chickens
Headless
As exclamation marks dropping
Constipation stool lumps
Emanating gas
Foul enough
To set a buffoonโs bottom alight
No wonder they can lie
Speak detrimental language
Until their mouths resemble
Their soiled bottom orifices
Elimination deserves better exit holes
Just when you thought
You had seen enough
Another fascist
East of Brexshit
Reduces Ukraine children to dust
Even still in mothersโ wombs
When you thought
It couldnโt get any worse
Estranged strong man of Russia
Against the world
Pulverizes Ukraine children in schools
Burying the seat of knowledge alive
When you thought
Bombing schools
Was a Taliban thing
Childrenโs toys
Remained unscathed
Silent witnesses that
Could never say a word
Have a story or two
To tell
Writers shall decipher
The stories
Truths about fascist atrocities
Crimes against humanity
Shall be documented in new books
Fascist ghosts captured
In the written word
For future generations
To know that
Right is might
Fire burns books
Truth is impervious
Biblical eternal satanic fires
Beckon fascists home
A place called hell
Everybodyโs gotta burn sometime
Books remake the world
Preserve the world
Justice shall prevail
One book at a time
If thatโs what it takes
Burning books
Bombing schools
Killing children
Are losing games
Wisdom rules
Ultimately
Let us read
๐๐ก๐
ยฉSimon Chilembo 14/03-2022
SIMON CHILEMBO
OSLO
NORWAY
TEL.: +4792525032
March 20, 2022
๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐: ๐๐ค๐ซ๐๐ข๐ง๐ ๐๐๐ซ ๐๐๐๐
๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐
High Priestess
Seer
Mother of my mother
Had people perplexed
Sceptical
Disclosing to them
Upon request
Likely future outcomes
In their lives
According to
Godโs revelations
In her spiritual outlooks
The 1980โ saw
Television bring
Bioscope and sporting events
In South African homes
A marvel in the townships
Changing peopleโs lives forever
High Priestess liberated
Television
Gave grandmotherโs visions
Explanatory form
God spoke
No longer invisible in the wind
But from a box
The people could relate to
The box in which
God
Performed and revealed his
Future plans for the people
To the High Priestess
Who told that
Television never
Switched off in her head
Empowering the people
For if grandmother saw it on television
It had to be true
The people were convinced
There were no
Fake news
Foxes on television
In those days gone by
Television association helped
Grandmother heal many a hopeless soul
Saved many a despairing life
I wish
She were here
If only for a prayer
On the other side of the world
My 21st Century
Television is in a computer
That under normal circumstances
Doesnโt switch off
Similar to the one
In grandmotherโs head
The computer television is
In the palm of my hand
I bring it to my face
So close
I wish it could
Get into my head
Make me speak
With High Priestess grandmother
Who has since
Retired to the
Ancestral spritsโ domain
Call it heaven
That I canโt even
Dream myself to
But Iโm here
Television in hand
Watching as it happens live
In real time
In modern television lingo
As a man bombs a hospital
In there died infants
Children waiting to be born
Died in their mothersโ bellies
Bombed in the maternity wing
Of the hospital
Devastating a people
In the worst possible manner
Kill fathers on the frontline
Kill mothers in hospitals
Terminate a peopleโs
Self-propagation potential at the source
Ultimate cruelty
I heard talk of
Crimes against humanity
On television somewhere
The other day
Other mothers-to-be
On the run
Birth in open spaces
Undignified on rumbled grounds
Trembling from artillaried earth
Dead bodies
In body bags
Name tags amiss
Thrown in a mass grave nearby
As if infectious-disease carrying animal carcasses
Burial rituals wonโt do
Missiles thundering overhead
Angels from hell gone wild
Others birth in crowded
Bomb-proof tunnels
Whilst numerous others birth
In lands away from
Their homes
A current people
Losing their present and future
All-in-one to a single war
Holding the world to
Ransom in one country
Fighting for survival
Against the onslaught of
One megalomaniacโs
Murderous land grab antics
Dreaming of recreating
Greatness-of-the-past illusions
Of a once upon a time
Empire built-on-sand
Collapsed under its own rot mass
I fail to make sense of all this
I wish I were
Seeing the future
As the High Priestessโ
Television in the head
Sheโd tell it showed her
In the moment
If humanity is one
Those dead children
Are mine too
Their mothers
Could have been my wives
The troubles of life
Women have to endure
In war and peace
As I see it
Make me want
To go to war
Stop
Mad men
Who donโt see it
That way
I inhale
Close my eyes
I exhale
Open my eyes
I see
High Priestessโ
Television in my head
It shows books
Flapping their pages
In the form of
A thousand birds
In a heart formation
In the sky
I see my pigeons
From when I was a child
Grandmotherโs face
Appears
It morphs into a white pigeon
Pigeon flies out of
The Popeโs hands on television
Lands on my laps
Becomes a book
My new weapon of war
In the season of death
In atrocious earth tremors
Owing to war machinesโ
Pyroclastic forces
In the envisaged silence of
Pre-suicide moments
When self-constraint
Channels of no return
Have been traversed
I feel happiness intoxicated
I canโt explain
The sense of freedom
I feel
Chilling my spine
So
I write books with love
I write for liberty
Watch me
Defy death
Stop the war
Save the children
Bring mothers home
Save the people
I ainโt no Messiah
Iโm only human
Of flesh on bones
I weep blood
For the dead
Who never saw
Their blood flow
Into rivers of pain
๐๐๐
ยฉSimon Chilembo 11/03-2022
SIMON CHILEMBO
OSLO
NORWAY
TEL.: +4792525032
March 18, 2022
๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐
๐๐๐๐ข๐ฌ๐ฆ ๐ข๐ง ๐๐๐ซ: ๐๐ก๐ ๐๐ค๐ซ๐๐ข๐ง๐ ๐๐๐ฌ๐ ๐๐จ๐ซ ๐๐ฆ๐๐ซ๐ข๐๐
Abused people
Adaptive people
Admirable people
Adventurous people
Alert people
Amazing people
Ambitious people
Ancient people
Appreciated people
Assertive people
Athletic people
Attractive people
Awesome people
Beautiful people
Blessed people
Blue eyes people
Boisterous people
Bravado people
Brave people
Brazen people
Bright people
Brilliant people
Capitalist people
Change people
Cheated people
Chosen people
Civilized people
Classy people
Clean people
Close to home people
Combative people
Competitive people
Confused people
Conscious people
Conservative people
Considerate people
Co-operative people
Creative people
Credible people
๐๐ณรจ๐ฎ๐ฆ ๐ฅ๐ฆ ๐ญ๐ข ๐ค๐ณรจ๐ฎ๐ฆ people
Critical people
Cultured people
Curious people
Daring people
Decent people
Demanding people
Democracy people
Deprived people
Deserving people
Desperate people
Determined people
Dignified people
Dominant people
Educated people
Emotive people
English speaking people
Entitled people
Eurasian people
European people
Exemplary people
Exhausted people
Faith people
Family people
Fertile people
First World people
Fleeing people
Flexible people
Free people
Freezing people
Frustrated people
Gifted people
Graceful people
Gracious people
Grateful people
Hard-working people
Hardy people
Heroic people
High tech people
Higher people
Hilarious people
Historic people
Hopeful people
Hungry people
Imperial people
Incredible people
Independent people
Industrious people
Information age people
Informed people
Innovative people
Intelligent people
Intuitive people
Leading people
Liberal people
Liberated people
Liberty people
Life-loving people
Like you and me people
Literate people
Live next-door people
Loveable people
Loyal people
Methodical people
Middle class people
Modern people
Money people
Moving people
Non-Communist people
Non-Marxist people
Non-Socialist people
Normal people
Open people
Oppressed people
Optimistic people
Our people
Palatable people
Party people
Passionate people
Patient people
Powerful people
Productive people
Prolific people
Proud people
Realistic people
Rebellious people
Refugee people
Related people
Religious people
Resilient people
Resourceful people
Responsible people
Revolution people
Robbed people
Robust people
Sacrificial people
Same people
Savvy people
Sensitive people
Separated people
Skilled people
Slavic people
Smart people
Sophisticated people
Sovereign people
Special people
Spirited people
Splendid people
Split up people
Strong people
Strong-willed people
Suffering people
Superb people
Supportive people
Survivor people
Sweet people
Talented people
Tenacious people
Terrific people
Terrified people
Thinking people
Traumatized people
Trendy people
Ukraine people
United people
Upper class people
Urbane people
Visible people
Wanderer people
Warrior people
Wealthy people
Well-off people
Well-read people
Wise people
Wonderful people
Worn out people
White people
Africans
Afro people
Arabs
Asians
Bitches
Black people
Buddhists
Christians
Coloured people
Hindus
Jews
Junkies
Latinos
LGBTQS
Muslims
People of colour
Sikhs
Weirdos
Again
Asking for a friend
Who is better
Who is worse
Who is who
To judge
My friend wants to know
Some more
Should the fascists
Have it their way
Whatโll happen to
American women
American children
American weak and vulnerable
When the second civil war
Has set
America burning
Whites scrambling for supremacy
Blacks insisting that
Their lives matter
In the inferno
Onlookers denigrating
From behind the southern border wall
America on fire
Burn motherfucker
Burn
Fat lady ainโt gonna sing
Anytime soon
Who whines
๐๐บ๐ธ๐ฆ-๐ฏ๐บ๐ธ๐ฆ now
As in
๐๐ข๐ฌ๐ฆ ๐๐ฎ๐ฆ๐ณ๐ช๐ค๐ข ๐๐ณ๐ฆ๐ข๐ต ๐๐จ๐ข๐ช๐ฏ
๐๐ฉ๐ฆ๐บ ๐ด๐ต๐ฐ๐ญ๐ฆ ๐ต๐ฉ๐ฆ ๐ฆ๐ญ๐ฆ๐ค๐ต๐ช๐ฐ๐ฏ
๐๐ข๐ฎ๐ฏ ๐ด๐ญ๐ฆ๐ฆ๐ฑ๐บ ๐๐ฐ๐ฆ
๐๐ฉ๐ฎ๐ข๐ญ๐ข-๐ฌ๐ฉ๐ข๐ฎ๐ข๐ญ๐ข
๐๐ฐ๐ฏ-๐ด๐ฆ๐ฆ ๐๐ญ๐ฐ๐ฐ๐ด๐ฆ๐ฆ
๐๐ฎ๐ฑ๐ฆ๐ข๐ค๐ฉ๐ฎ๐ฆ๐ฏ๐ต
๐๐ถ๐ด๐ฉ๐บ๐ข-๐ณ๐ถ๐ด๐ฉ๐บ๐ข๐ข๐ขโฆ
Keep God out of this
Itโs about us
๐๐๐
ยฉSimon Chilembo 07/03-2022
SIMON CHILEMBO
OSLO
NORWAY
TEL.: +4792525032
March 09, 2022
Simon Chilembo 