There is no substitute for love of relatives and friends. Our love for one another is paramount but we cannot be blinded or take the rewards for granted before euphoria sets in. It is at this point where we are caught unaware and flat footed. At the same time, we cannot be on alert all the time, weakening our defense mechanisms that are needed in case of real threats.
Unfortunately, many people have succumbed without adequate defense mechanisms because we did not learn how to prevent, run or move far away from threats. We must distinguish the times to run from times to fight back when pushed to the wall. Every animal has its defense mechanism to preserve its life against internal and external threats.
We use defense mechanisms to fight diseases internally and other threats externally as flight or fight. Many of us learned more about this during Covid-19 invasion of our bodies. The body has to fight for survival or die. When cancer infects the most valuable part of our body, we are advised to cut it off before the disease can metastasize to all parts of the body.
Regressive behavior and bullying have been resurrected, even in the so-called civilized climes. It is so worrying, some people see another civil war within or a new world war. The cause of the anxiety are a few block heads bent on control of people around them or sacrificing many more people at the ritual of wars. We experience it in Sudan and Ukraine again.
The world is on edge terrifying and denying resources and solace to the most vulnerable: children, Youths and the old. These devils are spreading out into Diaspora after killing their African communities to repeat and spread the same venom within their relatives, friends and communities. Many individuals lurking in our midst as sincere relatives and friends are actually devils in disguise.
Anyone that preaches the world is a breeze full of kindness and roses is not preparing you for the reality of mental health. A few of us, apart from the parents, will always remember a popular student sent to college. He was generous to a fault with friends out of the goodness of his heart since he came from a wealthy family. The same friends he sponsored out for a good time, watched him struggle and die while he was having fun with them in the swimming pool. How could they, of all people?
What we should be preparing ourselves for is how to cope with the thorns within the roses. As we get older and wiser, we must choose our battles carefully. Preaching only heaven is a breeze full of love and roses when we get out or die, is not preparing you for the world’s reality or anguish of mental health. Be aware that we live in communities of a few dangerous thorns and many more roses. It is inevitable.
What we should be preparing ourselves for is how to cope with these few thorns within many roses in our communities. Disappointment from unexpected sources could be a source of depression. No where is the anguish and oppression more painfully felt than in Africa, where the world’s face of poverty has shifted to. It is biting hard. Aggravated by enemies within that are willing to sacrifice their own people for a pot of portage. Especially, foreign printed papers they refuse to invest at home.
Powerful vultures operate on the notion that the poor, because of their ignorance, will always be with us. They might as well exploit their weaknesses. Give everybody a million; in a year some will become poor while others become billionaires within the same community of millionaires. The glee on their faces when adorned by the foreign printed papers they cannot print but good to laundered outside Africa, impoverished our individual African community.
The same predatory tendency is demonstrated when looking for recruits they could take advantage of. They display the same characters we recognize but many still melt into their camps as disposable foot soldiers. It only takes one of their abhorrent characters they share with the gullible to recruit, no matter how other detestable characters espouse disadvantage their poor members.
We can no longer tolerate internalized deadly aggression within families, communities, states and Africa without reducing ourselves into ashes. Rogues are encouraged and some question our mentality for not holding them accountable. They are willing to become second class citizens or risk punishment abroad rather than give up the criminal privilege of looting and laundering our income needed for development in order to get out of abject poverty.
These individuals exist in every community and we know them. They are our friends, relatives and country men. Since we trusted them and raised them from our families, they divert our attention and feed on our loyalty by sponsoring ethnic violence for selfish reasons. These oppressors operate on the notion that since the poor and the ignorant are gullible, they will always be with us, no matter how you try to educate them.
So, they might as well exploit our weaknesses for personal gain. Give everybody a million in any community, scammers see opportunities. By the end of the year some will become poor while others become billionaires within the same community of millionaires. So the filthy rich man asked: if you are so educated, why are you not rich. He answered that if you are so rich, why are you so uninformed. A fool and his money would soon part.
Africans are too often at war fueled by ethnic rivalries and xenophobia. The foreign accomplices of our oppressors supply enough ammunition to all sides with devastating forces to destroy whatever we labored so hard to build over the years. Yet, the people we choose to lead us or voted for turn personal ambitions into civil wars. By supporting them based on ethnicities in their pursuit of blind ambitions, we work against our own self interests.
The rich and powerful would throw their mothers under the bus to get their ways. Civil wars should be waged against them, not used to fight against one another. Our fighting spirits must be saved to repulse oppression and suffering in the midst of plenty.
Farouk Martins Aresa @oomoaresa
