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We both know what it means, but does it have the same resonance? Have you ever known its absence? Have you watched it disappear?
Benin, 1972. Liberia, 1980. Ghana, 1981.
Oh, yes. It can vanish in a gunshot or a radio announcement that opens with 'fellow countrymen.' And just like that, dust clouds obscure the colours of daily life. Khaki green and black leather unsettle the streets. Trees, branches, shoots, and roots surrender to the furious wind blowing through the Sahel.
It always starts with one man and his gun, peddling promises of new beginnings. 'I have come to save you,' he says, his finger dancing on a trigger. Save yourself, soldier. We've been here before. We know what happens when the euphoria settles into a cycle of terror and fear. Soon, the jackboots take over the markets - left, right, right, left, right, wrong - fire. Strong arm of justice is fractured. It's house arrest for the gavel and the hand that wields it. Wigged warriors become acquainted with the jingle of a warder's key. Decrees overturn laws. Impunity trumps freedoms. We've seen it all before.
Sierra Leone, 1992. Nigeria, 1993. Togo, 2005. Mali, 2020. Chad, 2021.
We know how this goes. Freedom fighters flee in the dead of the night. Men and women are lost forever, shot, poisoned, blown up by letter bomb. Memory is tied to a stake, history silenced by firing squad. The sword decapitates the pen, spilling blood on every page. Words are no longer enough to keep the wise alive.
We've heard it all before - transition and return to civilian rule in 3 months, 6 months, 2 years, 10 years. A fragile state is caught in the crosshairs of a power struggle between those who fight with their blood and those who seize it for themselves. Power cleanses all sin.
Guinea, 2021. Sudan, 2021. Burkina Faso, 2022. Niger, 2023.
You talk about its erosion, the distress, the decadence, the disruption of institutions. You mouth the words on TV in small and in capital letters. Say something about state capture, sit-tight presidents, and strong men, but no one mentions the sit-tight imperialists who forget that we were here before they washed up on our shores, Bibles in hand, eyes on our gold, diamonds, and uranium. Colonialists, coupists. Who can tell one from the other in these seas of crime and corruption?
Some of us have walked this road before. We remember the wailing of the dispossessed, the disenfranchised, the disappeared. We know what it means when there is no escape from the heat of tyranny and every victory is snatched from death's yawn. This is why we fight to keep it. Fold it into our palms. Hold it tight. This is why we must hammer out its imperfections, pound it, mould it, bake it in the kilns of our histories. We chant because we remember, and we never want to live a day without it ever again.
