Conversations With Myself

The political landscape in the DRC has been one of major interest and also has been subject to a lot of debate, conventions and international aid all in the bid to help stabilize this central African country that has been plagued with ill management, corruption, stomach politics and dictatorships since 1960 when it received its independence.

However, after 18 years in power the inevitable eventually happened and along came the end of a tyrannical rule, by an ego maniac. For 18 years the DRC did not have a functioning diplomacy, which further isolated it from the world stage and kept it under eh shadow of dependency. The ascent to power for Joseph Kabila was one very common to the African political landscape. Father rules with an iron fist and is assassinated in a murder that has not really been properly solved and in and also monarchical manner the “son” assumes power and sits on the presidency for 18 years.

Already from the ascension to power we can begin to question the legitimacy of this power (I mean a 29-year-old who did not speak any official language of the country). If history has not taught us anything, the DRC was and is still a republic and not a kingdom. If this is so how do we have a passing on of power? Father gets assassinated and ‘son’ takes over. Alas let us not get stuck in the semantics of the past.

Fast forward 18 years later the political landscape in the Congo begins to change, the people are getting tired of this vicious cycle of autocratic, kleptocratic rule.

In enters our next actor, another who has ascended to the seat of power following his father, Felix Tshisekedi, enters at the right time and places himself at the place to be able to strike a deal which sees Kabila let go of his power and allow for a “free” and “fair” election process.

Like with most elections on the African continent this was not without its own controversies and doubtful moments. To the extent that Mr Martin Fayulu (one of the electoral candidates) still to this very day claims that he is the rightful winner of the election (mind you with results that made no mathematical sense).

Sadly this article is not an analysis of the elections or of these political players but rather the great power struggle of Kabila and his endless efforts to protect his interest, and maybe a possible return to the  presidency if all goes according to plan (so much for democracy). These power struggles did not start now, they have been happening since the days of General Mobutu when he took power and in fact it has happened with every single dictator that has taken power on the African continent. It’s a battle for power, power that is gained through the monopolisation of resources, fear mongering, autocracy, kleptocracy and a complete disregard for the people they are leading.

For Kabila it has been no different, fearing persecution after he has left he seat of power- which afforded him the immunity that he has had for such a long time- the aim was not to leave power without having a means of security making sure that his leaving was not going to backfire, however, if Tshisekedi’s recent moves have been any indication then rest assured the plan is not working. As an exit plan the aim was to strike a deal that would gain him some sort of immunity, immunity from any form of immediate persecution but unfortunately the chickens are slowly coming home to roost.

After making a backdoor deal with the now president Felix Tshisekedi to allow him to continue being an actor in the Congolese political landscape, Kabila hoped to be the puppet master, and control everything from the shadows. Alas, the political novice has shown to be immovable and impenetrable much to the dismay of Kabila and his cronies.

But what does this mean? Truth be told although the ex president has not managed to control Fatshi like a puppet although he still controls majority of the senate, and most of government. He has the speaker of the house in his camp, the president of the senate and his cronies hold key government positions such as the premiership just to name an example. However, this has proven not to be enough, there is some sort of national consciousness a sort of awakening by the Congolese people which has polarised the political landscape.

For finally there is some sort actual democratization happening throughout the country. Undoubtedly the Tshisekedi era has brought about a certain freedom in the Congolese political terrain that was not seen before in the 18 years of Kabila. One would hear stories that it was almost taboo to bad mouth the president on national television or national radio. Kabila had a regime of fear mongering, like his predecessor there were grim stories of inhumane things being done to people who dared defy him opening or secretly.

Even after he has stepped down from the helm of power, Kabila has managed to maintain a firm grip of power on his party the PPRD. To the extent that both the speaker of the national assembly and leader of the senate (both allies of Kabila) would stand up, leave their seats to go and greet him as he enters the assembly when parliament reopened. The power struggle is very clear and very much alive in the DRC.

Given that the back-door deal with the incumbent did not go as planned the next best thing is to make sure that he solidifies and tightens the positions of power and influence that he already has. However, as time goes by and people both in government and outside government become ever more and more conscious of the current change in the status quo, the balance of power is tilting, and the time and era of Kabila is slowly coming to an end. The end is neigh and the question now remains, how will that end be written? Will it end with the arrest of Kabila? Will it end with is prosecution and for the 18 years of pillage and plunder that he allowed under his watch? Only time will tell and if the incumbent plays his cards right, we will finally see justice at play in the DRC.

Why I write.

My writing is not as per the convention, I do not aim to add to a body of literature. Neither do I write to follow the wave of discourse and I do not expect my writing to fall within any category of knowledge areas. These writings are my thoughts, translated on paper. These writings are a way for me to invite the reader into my mind, asking them to join me in a conversation with myself.

After reading a New York Times article on Charles Webb (author of the 1963 book “The Graduate”), I began thinking about a term that we all use in common everyday lexicon, ‘Privilege’. My aim in this edition is to present a multifaceted view of privilege, I present privilege as a quality that we all possess based on our gender, race, and socio-economic background and the many ways in which we exercise these privileges.

Privilege is a phenomenon that has created social classes over the centuries. It has separated the rich from the poor. The aristocracies from the commoners, it has separated the learned from the unlearned, the male from the female and the white from the black. Moreover, it has been a topic of much discussion lately, from the academic spaces to the social spaces, ‘privilege’ is the order of the day. This word has created class struggles, social struggles which happen even on a person to person level. When we dream and aspire to be something or ‘someone’ we do so with the hope that it would afford us a particular privilege which we otherwise do not have.

Privilege has been the very foundation of societal stratification, my status in society is connected to my privilege. This is not all, privilege is not only a condition for societal existence but also a mental state as well. By this I mean that privilege is not only evident in status and money but also in speech and action. It is evident in our world views and the way we interact with the society around us.

The events which have shocked the world, and which caused massive protests in the USA are prime examples of this privilege that I am talking about. Through privilege, we are not only able to speak the way we want but also what we want. We are able to act in any way regardless of the consequence because we know that the system which we live in has been created to sustain and defend us.

The psychological privilege exists among all racial strata, through blacks it exists in the form of colourist views of each other, through whites it exists in the form of racism. This psychological privilege exists in our daily interaction with people; when we say where we live and where we shop and eat and hang out and study all these are indicators of the privilege which we are all under.

To say I am privileged is to acknowledge that I have access to particular comforts that others do not otherwise have.

Without even knowing we exercise our privileges on our surroundings through our actions. Society has told us that this sort of world view is okay, that having different socio-economic classes is okay. Through the society, we have accepted particular behaviours and have made them okay. Society has taught us that differentiating between one who is poor and one who is rich is okay and that we should always want to be the latter. Having status and a name is essential to society, it is the very vitamin of societal growth.  Our society thrives from creating levels, and we judge ourselves depending on these levels. Our kids in schools create social groups based on levels and this leads to others feeling let out and even in extreme cases suicidal. Social groups are formed to denigrate others and who they are because of the lack of sufficient privilege which cannot afford them the right to sit in those particular circles and be a part of a conversation.

I am very amazed by the mechanisms of society, the society we live in has been built on foundations which are proving to be weak and fractured. How can we live and thrive in a society that is based on so much relativity? Is this relativity healthy?

Maybe privilege is part of human nature, maybe we feel the insatiable need to categorize ourselves into classes in order to feel that we are worth something. Maybe it’s the fact that we live in a capitalist world-system that has privilege as a by product and if this is the case, does the socialist system or any other system address the issue of privilege? 

In conclusion, privilege is something that we face every day, that fact that I live in the suburbs and have particular amenities has already put me in a position of privilege. I am a man, and this affords me certain privileges. I go to a prestigious academic institution, this to is a sign of privilege but privilege only relative to me not attending a community college or being a woman or staying in a township.

Privilege exists in relativity.

Not withholding that there are different levels of privilege and the more privilege the more comfort. The most desired position some would say is the white male position of privilege, unlike the most undesired position of the black female. We all desire comfort, we desire to have access to things easily and without struggle and we know that this is the ultimate level of privilege that we desire. To achieve this desired level of comfort we need money.

Money is power and power is a privilege this is the ultimate level, this is the desire that all humans possess. As a black man, knowing that this is both an advantage and a disadvantage, money is the only way I could get access to my desired privilege level outside of my biological traits.

This is not wrong for one to desire a better life, especially coming from one of hardship and strife. This is repeated to us in the songs we listen to, rappers and singers chronicling there rise to fame and fortune and giving us a taste of what it is like to be at the top. Privilege also gives you the power to create, you create envy and want. Privilege gives us the ability to create desire to make people want to be us. It gives us access to things normal folk would otherwise not have access too, this is the system that we live in.

Some like, Charles Webb, decided to give away all his inheritance and bourgeoises lifestyle for more ‘simplicity’. As my mother would say in Swahili: “You gave it away because he had it.”, putting into perspective that being able to reject such comfort is to a sign of privilege…

The importance of conversations with myself is to reflect on life, not to give a blueprint on life, because firstly there isn’t one and secondly, very rarely do we ever sit back and thinks about the things that make us who we are. We are constantly preoccupied with the struggle for material gain that we skip on the essentials of knowing ourselves. How do we expect to be successful at the things we do when we do not properly know ourselves? This is what conversations with myself explores, it touches on the intricate and most basic yet fundamental aspect of human life in the hopes that we might begin to engage with ourselves more

In my continued reflections on life, I have begun to think a lot around pain and what it means for me and what it means for other people. Pain I have found can be a catalyst for something and the human resilience allows and gives us the strength to work with pain and turn that pain into something meaningful and worthwhile. There is pain that we get from having incurred physical injuries and there is the pain that we get from traumatic experiences.

The passing of my brother was one such experience for me, I felt a pain I never thought I would feel, and the grieving process was one that taught me to make use of that pain.

Pain… for some is an awakening of sorts, it is through pain that they begin to realize who they are and what they were meant to be. There is also a very fine line between feelings and emotions, therefore in defining pain we will be viewing this from the ancient Greeks perspective and that is pain as a feeling, as a sensation, a passion of sorts.

How and most importantly why do we as humans find the need to always try and find comfort out of discomfort? I am tempted to say it is a part of our nature but that would be short sighted of me to merely leave it to that. We process pain as a means to an end, this is because our full human experience is made complete through our ability to process our feelings and emotions.

To exist is to feel, it is to be sad and happy and it is to experience emotions. Emotions are energies in motion. Existence itself is an active process, we are constantly undergoing certain encounters with life which prove our existence.

Humans have the amazing ability of -through their existence- turning the worst experiences into the most amazing and motivational moments that have changed their lives. The pain of having lost a loved one or having undergone a traumatic experience, provides the platform upon which we begin to reinterpret and re-imagine ourselves and the world around us.

However, pain is only as good of an experience when you know how to navigate around it, when you know how to interpret that encounter. Feeling is as aforementioned a human attribute, we have to feel in order to become.

In an obscure and somewhat absurd world, we need these experiences to ratify our existence. The human struggle to the struggle to constantly want validation for who we are and what we are. Through the pursuit of careers, we are actively trying to define ourselves. When we have feelings, such as that of pain, the purpose is to then find this meaning of life it.

How do I find meaning out of a painful experience?

It would seem a bit unfair of me to assume this but, as a reminder to you, this is not a blueprint of how we ought to behave.

Pain is one such feeling that we hate (an emotion) and by so doing we try our best to root out that pain. The level of pain we feel is also very much greatly dependent on our attachment to that particular thing/ person that we were connected too.

In a continuous attempt to make the most out of this human experience, pain is a necessary by product of existence. The greatest stories are stories bred from pain because it is in pain that we find the strength to persevere.

Pain produces resilience and causes us to persevere, it gives us strength and courage. Without experiencing pain, we miss out on the human experience.

For some time now, the concept of “meaning” has been of much interest to me. I wanted to know why we give meaning to certain things in our lives and what is the definition of meaning.

My interests start one Sunday evening when I realized that people everywhere, we are plagued by the idea of purpose, we struggle through life and we battle ourselves so that we may be able to find the reason why we do things. The search for purpose comes from the idea of man’s search and or yearning to knowing “who he was”, all of science and the knowledge bodies that we have developed over the years have been trying to answer to the deeply rooted question of who am I?.

It is with this that we began to follow career choice that best portrayed who we thought we were and for some of us, we could not see ourselves outside of this. Our education, our knowledge base not only defined us but in essence made us who we became.

For this to make sense, we gave it meaning, we justified the things we do so as to ease our consciousness and our wanting.

Meaning has two perceived connotations, the first, it can be referred to as the definition of something such as, “what is the meaning of this word” and the second way is to see meaning as the larger implications and or consequences of something, it is thus used in an explanative or connotative manner- what is the meaning of all this?

I will start from the second understanding of meaning, that of meaning as having larger implications or connotations. I believe that adding meaning is a societal condition for existence.

I exists because my life has meaning, and my life is what it is because I give it meaning therefore my being who I am is dependent on the definition that I give it. This is seen in all the cultural norms by which we subscribe. The “skrr skrr” culture (for the lack of a better word) that is prevalent in universities today is one such example of this fluidity in giving meaning.

This culture portrays a certain homage to retro-style of the early 2000’s with a touch of modernism. We see people dressed in baggy pants, big shoes and a splash of colour, this culture however, is not only in the attire but is also seen in the mannerism that are used. A culture filled with modern trap music and all that it purports.

The culture like with most is one that has appeared and will most likely disappear with time, it has dawned on me that our search for meaning is ever changing, thus highlighting man’s emptiness, man’s void. A void of which we hope to full and in so doing we take on new tasks and hobbies and interest all in the hopes that it might fill that ever empty void which seeks to be quenched.

My writing this will challenge certain norms of the writing process, I do not write to give an answer to this questions, nor do I write to bring rise to this concept (for I believe that within in us all, at some point in time, we have asked ourselves the question: “who am I?”. Rather my intention for writing this is to present an already existing concept and to challenge the readers way of seeing society.

Most often we see society as being what it is, without the underlying nuances of its mechanisms.

This has led me to see the world with a particular obscurity. It is because of the obscurity of the world that we are driven to giving meaning and purpose. All this in an attempt to make sense of all that is happening.

That could be the only possible explanation, this persistent urge to always give meaning. The moment we do not giving meaning to the way do things, we are considered outcasts to the societal norms.

Every story and every journey has a beginning and most certainly an inevitable end. Life I Have come to learn is not about how long you have lived, or the amount of adventures you went on but it is about a job well done.