Forgive Us, Our Mother, Africa

Oh Mother Africa, a hundred millennia ago the All-mighty Creator breathed unto us a soul and you gave us birth. And with your permission and blessing, we left to people a world of continents. Some were very cold and severe and some were warm and beautiful, but all were welcoming of life. We remained abroad for long. We thrived and evolved into a myriad of shades, shapes, looks and sounds. We built civilizations and we developed new forms of knowledge. We did not know war or hatred in those early days because there was always another frontier for us to explore. We learned to trade with each other and create more wealth for all. It was through your blessings and early lessons, Oh Mother Africa, that we were able to achieve so much.

But then things started to go wrong. Some places where we lived started to get crowded and our knowledge slowly turned to knowledge of war and disharmony. We fought with our neighbours, forgetting that we were brothers and sisters from a common land. We grew stronger in our knowledge of weapons. We developed new ways of conquering other people. We built tanks and ships, so we could have superiority over others.

Soon we returned to you, Mother Africa. But we did not come in peace. We came back armed with knowledge of destruction. We took our brothers and sisters into slavery, out of our pride and prejudice. We coveted their lands. We took what our brothers and sisters gave out of naiveté and we took the rest by force. We partook of the brew that Cain drank when he slew Abel. Pride allowed us to learn the devil’s evil ways. We polluted the earth with our false knowledge. It is knowledge not for life, but for death and annihilation of the entire planet. We developed material superiority and technological know-how so that we now mock God with our worldly power.

While we were gone, our brothers and sisters in Africa, sustained you. They developed languages of love and beauty and songs of heavenly praise. While we were slowly sowing the seeds of our own destruction, you gave birth to other souls, who remained with you, dear Mother Africa. They were succoured by our Heavenly Father, who sustains all new little ones and gives meaning to life and love, with a myriad of cultures and languages and sustained them throughout the millennia while we were away.

But armed with arrogance, pride and prejudice we schemingly mocked your loving soul. We humiliated and oppressed our brothers and sisters. We brought sadness and loneliness. We have pride in our hearts. We have not conquered our own lust that we brought back to your door from our conquest of other continents. We came back at you with much maligned thoughts. We, your first born, were away learning hatred, war and vengeance. We sold our souls to the devil and when we came back, we mocked you, our own Mother.

How will you forgive us, dear Mother? How will you forgive us, dear Mother of all the world’s children, who now stand at your door? How will you forgive us, Mother Africa?We brought to our brothers and sisters concepts that were alien and immoral. We brought the concepts of war and spoils of war. We brought the concepts of wealth and immoral behaviour. We brought concepts of greed and selfishness. The concepts of how to take by force from those who have not or who have little and to give it to those that have. We shunned the teachings of great teachers, like one who came two millennia ago. We rebuked him and tied him to a cross. We shunned good advice. We belittled the elders of this continent. How will you forgive us, Mother Africa?

We set ourselves up as Kings of the Earth to exploit our own brothers, who welcomed us back and called us their long lost brothers. We looked down upon their color and said ‘we are of gray clay and you are of ebony’. We said, ‘how can we be brothers and sisters?’ Little did we know!

How will you forgive us? We are still filled with pride from alien concepts, which we find hard to release. How will you forgive us, our Mother? How will you bless this bewildered entity, who knows only how to hate and alienate? Forgive us, Mother Africa, and pray for our souls that we may truly repent before we destroy all that God has created. We beg forgiveness, Mother Africa. We pray you forgive your lost children, your eldest children around the world, who now need your help and guidance, dear Mother. Please, we pray, come to our rescue. Show us how to repent. Take us back to your bosom, Oh Mother of all mankind!

In the scriptures, the Lord said to the Children of Israel, ‘be ye then like the children of Ethiopia, that I may call you My own.’ Do not forsake us Mother. Please take us back to your bosom and call us your own.

Essay #382. Written on 28/06/2008

© 2008 Mahomed Ally Keshavjee. All Rights Reserved.