It took action, not mere optimism, for the attainment of racial equality in South Africa as well as in post-independence United States of America. It took action for democracy to be achieved in parts of the Arab spring. I hate to make you think that I am a revolutionary (even if you think I am, I shrug it off) or that you should act like one, but exactly that is the problem. No one wants to act the hero. Everyone seems comfortable with the status quo. We want change, yet scared to death to face up to the challenge. We seem to embrace the meagre privileges that accompany subservience. Well, some want to act and actually do, but no one wants to be seen as acting too much, speaking too loud, or fighting too hard. No one wants to hold out for long but we would rather thread the disheveled road of cowardice. Like two lovebirds, we want kisses, hugs and romance; we implore a romance with the oppressor, our enemy.
Our Parents had refused to deal with their own obstacles and now it is a full-blown problem. They refused to deal with their own differences; consequently, it has metamorphosed into a cancerous conflict. They circumvented uttering civil speeches, now we have to voice angry yells. They shied away from fighting small battles, now we have to deal with a full-blown war. These, unfortunately, are some of the inheritance we have in the ‘will’.
My peers in U.S., Japan, South Africa and even Ghana are not busy fighting for basic human rights and an efficient democracy, they are not clamouring for free and fair elections, their schools do not have disrupted sessions and unwarranted breaks which we have code-named 'strike'. Their Parents already fought these battles, my peers have moved on to research, exploring their creativity, improving technology, making the world a better place. But here I am, fighting my parents' battles, battles that should have been fought several decades ago, battles that I should be reading in the history books, in the comfort of a well-equipped library . Howbeit, here I am, fighting these battles and with the same blind optimism as they, hoping, no, wondering when I would start to face mine.
You may not know, but the most tiring of battles are those which you fight while the one being helped out seems unwilling and reluctant to fight his battle. How much worse is that battle in which the beneficiary becomes a direct obstacle to your victory, that in which the one being done a favour decides to join forces with the enemies against you?
There is unpopular government legislation, a protest is announced and our parents would call us on phone, begging, cajoling, compelling and persuading us not to go anywhere near the protests or the protesters.
There is an on-going mob action and your dad walks by, dragging you along, ordering you not to speak against the ravaging violence. Your neighbour descends upon his spouse like a beast on drugs and your parents advise you not to call the police, they tell you to mind your business, and if you refuse, citing that the victim's scream is getting louder, they simply increase the volume of the Television set.
Your parents deny you the privilege of text books, but are ever willing to pay the examiner to have you assisted during the examinations. Parents do not want you to have relationships with the other sex, yet they cannot tell you why. They do not want you to read books with sexual content, yet they will never get to tell you anything about sex and sexuality. Parents give you pittance as pocket money, yet they borrow to give to the CHURCH, because stating that they are giving it to the Lord may amount to blasphemy, considering the type of atrocities perpetrated in these religious houses.
Election is tomorrow, dad activates a total lockdown of the house today, until after the elections. They neither vote nor want you to. You tell them about speaking up, you tell them about honesty, about paying the security guard a little more, about talking to the house help a little more nicely, about giving the driver some time-off, you tell them about respecting the human rights of the domestic staff, about obeying the red lights. You ask them if they saw the 'NO U-TURN' sign, you tell them to slow down for these young school children at the Zebra crossing zone. They always say no. They tell you that is how life is, “it's a battle”. They leave the real oppressors and marginalize their fellow oppressed neighbor. They hit the wounded, spite the domestic staff, splash mud water on the beggar and still scuttle away shamelessly.
They leave the real battles for us to face and even when we try to, they ask us to stop. They become obstacles, they tell us the government is sacred, they tell us not to say this beyond the confines of the house, but we are tired. If we act like them, then our children would have to fight two generations’ worth of battle. We must act-up and stop leaving problems as inheritance for our children.
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