Drop, Chain and Accordion

Harbingers of malnutrition
The Four Horsemen of hunger season
While the first three duly entered our vocabulary
The fourth, left to shame, was pushed to the recesses of memory

The drop was the most embarrasing of these musketeers
Because, when first encountered, he caught you unawares
The sudden drop of your clothing - you were now half your size
Exposing your nether regions to the fresh air and curious eyes

By the time you got to the chain or the accordion, you'd find yourself spent
Having long made your peace with this state of affairs: eternal Lent
Accustomed as you were to - call it by its name, starvation
After all, you were living through a proper People's Revolution

Marking the spot on your belt where you would pierce the extra notch
Or wearing belts where you previously had none - acceptable loss
Improvised contraptions for your skirts and trousers hopefully holding
Under military rule, we were at a remove from skirt-and-blouse voting

The second horseman, the chain, spoke to tears and sorrow
A cynical description of a neckline that was now hollow
Jewelry of a sort, a macabre, if fashionable, decoration
Thriftiness embodied in your very person, a celebration

The third horseman, the equal opportunity composer, the accordion
Orchestrated skinny rib cages visibly appealing to both old and young
A skeletal music of fatigue, unmet needs and quiet exhaustion
He devised a twelve bar blues, if you will, of quotidian suffering

As to the fourth, rickety, he mainly dealt with little children
Confounding in his physicality as should be readily apparent
Kwashiorkor, quite a mouthful, the dreadful disease
The characteristic bloating, the ironic mark of the beast

Weight loss, hair loss, failure to thrive, and apathy
And then we come to those now-distended extremities
And even with the outrage and the sense of violation
The question still remains, why were these men laughing?

Nature may be a cruel companion, what with droughts and brush fires
Yet it was a man-made disaster, preventable, and caused by these liars
With limited food resources, this had all the makings of a tragedy
Worse, they were warned well in advance at the time yet they carried on stubbornly

Quite bewildering though, and damaging to the psyche
To be branded as requiring all the world's charity
Stalking horses of hunger seasons past, harrowing and dubious legacies
Ancestral memories passed across the ages, fear and survival strategies

The fourth horseman, although it must be said, was rather solicitous,
Didn't lend himself to a coinage that was quite so felicitous
The lived experience was stark and dispiriting, disturbing in its dismay
Awful enough that even that angel Euphemism couldn't summon an uneasy phrase

Drop, chain and accordion, then, were the fateful entries
Albeit History gave unkind placement in the dictionaries
They would be prefixed in the lexicon by his name
To the Flight Lieutenant's great and everlasting shame

Such however is the way of privation, the nature of its exigency
That, even in the darkest hours, in the depths of an emergency
Gallows humor reigns, it calls forth linguistic innovation and whimsy
Proverbial zingers, sharp aphorisms, etched forever in memory

...

Basket cases
Tiny coffins
Circling vultures
Calmly watching

Weeping mothers
Hunger pangs
And the crowds
Scrambling for crumbs

...

Starving children don't cry
Tears waste too many calories
Shame, that so many had to die
Shame, again, their swollen bellies

Hunger, a playlist

A soundtrack for this note (spotify version)

• Pearls by Sade
  Melodramatic as befits the tragic scene she describes, mournful this ode to wounded pride.
• Hungry Blues by Jimmy Johnson & His Orchestra
• Never Mind the Hungry Blues by Larry Carlton
• Got the Hunger by Alice Russell
• Them Belly Full (But We Hungry) by Bob Marley
• Man Hungry by Sugar Minot
• When Hungry Walks by Gregory Isaacs
• Hungry Belly Pickney by Freddie Macgregor
• Hungry Belly Dub by King Tubby
• Very, Very Hungry by Brian Eno & David Byrne
  An instrumental track from the experimental album My Life in the Bush of Ghosts

Bonus beats: Hungry Belly by Frankie Paul & Pinchers, mainly for the title for this is a story about girl from Flatbush named Aisha. And of course, three live versions of Sade's Pearls, a show stopper ever since she composed it.


...

After Hunger for Sale (Talking Drums, October 3, 1983)

And also for that friend who startled me with the vehemence of his reaction when I teased him about his short stature. "Some of us didn't have our growth spurt during those years, we had Rawlings chains instead". A brief, damning silence ensued before joviality made its return. With my vaunted exile meshed with his explicit denial, our friendship, perhaps, was salved by the balm of the musical imagery. But the bitterness lingered.

And if archeologists can detect the evidence of famines and stunted growth like tree rings, etched in human bones, linguists and social historians can similarly escavate matters. Both earthquakes and man-made disasters leave their marks. Dzorwulu becomes 'the place that dropped', the valley of urban remembrance. Drop, chain and accordion as pointed modes of resistance in our hunger season.

Poetry as cultural memory then. Coinages bear the tide marks of social distress. In any case, this one's for you.

See previously Identification Haircut and, retrospectively, AFRC Member

File under: humour, hatchet job, satire, culture, observation, perception, language, Ghana, Africa, coup, rogues, dictator, military, famine, disaster, failure, outrage, memory, Observers are worried, poetry, toli

Writing log: September 18, 2022

Mercurial, They Call Him

Portrait of a narcissist, a few essential traits
A slight never forgotten, don't you make that mistake
A double heart filled with unspoken threats
He wears the mask the audience deserves

Portrait of an opportunist, moral flexibility in abundance
Reversals galore but he rolls with the punches
His interests always trump friendships, let's call it expedience
For survival beyond the day's end is his sole allegiance

Portrait of the vain, hollow on the inside
Entitlement in stiff competition with pride
His secret weapon, a genuine sense of self importance
Chock full of certainty about the rightness of his cause
To call him self centered is to merely state the obvious

Portrait of a deceiver, all things to all men
Lying with a straight face, his enduring strength
Pitch perfect delivery, you could swear he believes every untruth
Surely, to impugn the purity of his motives? What are you, uncouth?

Carried Fanon's book around for a full year - wretched
Still occasionally tries to read it (practice makes perfect)
But underneath everything is a fundamental insecurity
Mommy and Daddy issues, the bitter roots of his immaturity

The need for speed, horses his first love
But anything with an engine would do
Nights out with the running partners
Booze, the hard stuff, ladies of easy virtue
After dark, how exciting, and all in the same room

It's fair to say that there are multitudes inside of this man
Characterized, everyone says, by his tremendous charm
Unrestrained, unfiltered, half baked, half-cocked
Empty but empowered, half truths, half thought

Absolved, then, of the burden of any sense of responsibility
Free to be a political actor altogether allergic to empathy
A chameleon - mercurial, they call him, the luckiest man alive
Just your luck that you're stuck with him, the best years of your life

Bad, a playlist

For what it's worth, this playlist was intended to stand alone but seeing as I haven't written up the liner notes in the 17 years since I made it, I suppose I can repurpose it as the soundtrack for this note. A couple of hours on a bad man (spotify version)

...

Timing is everything
Observers are worried

...

See previously The Conqueror's Catechism


File under: humour, hatchet job, rogues, satire, culture, observation, perception, military, dictator, blood, sin, greed, gremlins, Africa, violence, strategy, Fallen Angels, Observers are worried, poetry, toli

Writing log: September 18, 2022

The Memorial Lectures

In a time, then, of intense ferment and revolutionary fervor
When bishops were imprisoned, and judges were being murdered
Amidst vituperous outbursts, obscenities, from the leaders of the junta
Who would set upon any opposition their cadres, commandos, and militias

It took personal bravery from this eminent historian
More inclined to dusty archival work than the realm of the politician
But everyone had to play their part, not just the journalists
The man on the streets, even the poets and the satirists

The call still resounded after six years to stand up and be counted
For, even in those days of despair, the challenge had to be mounted
In the face of random, yet purposeful, terror and violence
To confront head-on the prevailing culture of silence
Up stood the good professor to give those memorial lectures

Political parties were banned, so they were couched as educational sessions
Our intellectual life in those days reduced to Green Book study lessons
Featuring long-winded missives from our friends in Cuba and Nicaragua
East German ideologues too gave input, as did theoreticians from Romania

It's fair to say that this minor act of defiance prompted a revival
A reappraisal, in many ways, of Ghana's philosophy of survival
Methodically and deftly explained with his customary sensitivity
What we choose to remember and forget, the workings of cultural memory

He stepped up to outline the essence of these fraught histories
Provided the background to give strength to quiescent identities
We owe him a debt of gratitude, this mild mannered man of qualities
For laying out the Ghanaian context of the sphinx modalities



In memoriam, Professor Alfred Adu-Boahen

Memorial Lectures, a playlist

A soundtrack for this note. (spotify version)

• Think by Curtis Mayfield
• So Much Things to Say by Bob Marley
• Sorry Ain't Enough by SAULT
• Culture of Silence by Jhelisa
• It's Enough by Lenny Kravitz
• Le Silence n'est pas un Oubli by T.P. Orchestre Poly Rhythmo
• Had Enuf by Al B. Sure!
• In a Silent Way / It's About That Time by Miles Davis

Part II of Sphinx Modalities, putting a human face to Sphinx

Further reading: The Ghanaian Sphinx: Reflections on the Contemporary History of Ghana, 1972-1987

I nominate this piece for the Things Fall Apart series under the banner of Social Living

File under: Ghana, appreciation, resistance, dissent, courage, politics, coup, dictator, strategy, culture, history, oppression, observation, perception, Africa, values, social, Social Living, poetry, toli

Writing log: September 11, 2022

We Don't Talk Politics

I saw him once in person, Eyadema père
Must have been a few months before his death
At ease in his dark suit and sunglasses, standing there
The big man, unsmiling as ever, impassive and stern

Almost forty years deep into his rule by then
His éminence grise was attending the gentle giant's inauguration
He stood out, sour minded, even as others were celebrating
The hard earned lessons fully learned by his subjects

None of my Togolese friends have ever discussed politics

No surprises, however, about his exercise of power
At that point, he was the longest serving African ruler
Everything had to pass through him, it was all about the money
Contracts, wives and daughters, all tributes to his authority

My Togolese friends don't talk politics, they won't be drawn

Still, unlike some of the others, he wasn't too flashy
The trappings of the personality cult weren't too ornery
Funeral minded however, there was no chance of a smile
A quick death for his enemies instead of a show trial

They laugh and cry like everyone but my Togolese friends don't talk politics

Favored client of Françafrique, pal of Jacques Foccart
All respect due to the Knight of the Legion of Honour
The indomitable son who received the Order of the Yugoslav Star
During our lost decades, he would even play the role of mediator

Sports, relationships, religion even, but my Togolese friends never mention politics

But the many prizes couldn't launder his reputation
The curdled bloodstains at the heart of a tyrant's reign
Lingering, the squalid and tawdry murders underneath it all
Worse still, the dynasty continues apace, his son succeeded him

Almost thirty years now
The silence of my Togolese friends weighs
Never once have they slipped
And so we discuss the weather

We Don't Talk Politics, a playlist

A soundtrack for this note (spotify version)

• I keep forgettin by Michael McDonald
• Weather by Amel Larrieux
• I don't want to talk about it by Rod Stewart
• Don't mention my heartache by Nathalie Cole
• No politics by Amp Fiddler
• Talk about the weather by Yves Paquet
• N'bo Eyadema Mobutu by Napo de mi amor
• Murderer by Barrington Levy
• Talking about the weather by Tess Parks
• Don't talk about it by Culture Club
• Let's talk about the weather by Michael Hill's Blues Mob
• I don't want to talk about it by Rita Coolidge

See previously The Conqueror's Catechism


There was a touch of poetic license if not despair when I wrote the above in 2023, I hoped then, and hope now, that a new generation would prove me wrong; 58 years should be enough, right?

...

Timing is everything
Observers are worried


File under: fear, rogues, dictator, gremlins, Eyadema, Togo, Africa, humour, culture, blood, observation, perception, huhudious, hatchet job, violence, Fallen Angels, Observers are worried, poetry, toli

Writing log: October 23, 2023

Aliens Must Go

Legitimacy and exile
Aliens must go

Papers and passports
Inspection of identity

Stamp of approval
Proof of residency

Overstayed welcome
Fairweather friends

Fiasco
Exigency

Scapegoats
Contingency

Indefinite leave to remain
There's a price to be paid

Fraught deadlines
Tight timetable

Hasty evacuations
Explicit threats

Swift deportation
Fractured boundaries

Unkind labels
Verbal taunts

Herd of illegals
Circling touts

Overnight precarity
Status in doubt

Expulsion orders
Border crossings

Crowded ports
Land checkpoints

Dispersed families
Rushed upheaval

Overstuffed bags
Hurry

Tension, loss
Worry

Official decisions
Informal penalties

Enforcement actions
Emboldened gatekeepers

Entry permits
Mournful exits

Brethren
Neighbors

Rivals
Strangers

State of emergency
Failure of diplomacy

Ancestral memory
Histories of dislocation

Politics of closures
Season of migration

Internally displaced
Traditional evacuees

Modern travelers
Sudden refugees

Aliens must go, a playlist

A soundtrack for this note (spotify version)

• Gone baby, don't be long by Erykah Badu
• Uptown by Raphael Saadiq
  The plaintive refrain and coda is the sound of wist: "I'm leaving this town"
• I gotta get away by Gloria Barnes
• Pack'd my bags by Rufus ft Chaka Khan
• Leavin' by Tony Toni Tone
• I gotta go by Lizz Fields
• Don't talk to strangers by Prince
• Gone baby, don't be long by José James
• Don't talk to strangers by Chaka Khan

Bonus beats: Don't leave me this way by Thelma Houston


See previously Bags and Stamps (Ghana must go) and Expulsion orders

...

Postscript (June 3, 2025)

My current publishing schedule means that what you read above today was written three years ago (Indeed, if I don't pick up the pace, the trifle I wrote today will only see the light in 2038, 12 1/2 years from now). That being said, I am struck that the above musings on displacement, forced and otherwise, that I wrote in 2022 still seem timely.

I was then in the process of digitizing the Talking Drums archive and taking in the reverberations of arbitrariness and the reign of strongmen in khaki in what I read in those pages. The ripple effects continue over the surface of our regional politics.

My friend Senam had just published her dissertation and was sharing some of the stories that she'd unearthed in her excavation of this, our signal topic. Ghana must go has a very tangible legacy beyond Nigeria and Ghana. It is a living history, disclosed often by artful omission and subject to the opacity of our elders. It a family history and, in its sweep, marks its bearers.

More recently, I've been thinking about the exodus from Sudan and what that country has suffered in the past two years, the reign of locusts, if you will. You don't hear much about the strain on the surrounding countries and the fodder for resentment that any old demagogue could harness if they chose to do their worst. I've been thinking of the smaller but no less disruptive waves in the Sahel region where many leaders are indeed inclined to do their worst for fear of losing their positions. Displacement seems to be the rule and many of our neighbors' houses are on fire.

This is a time of brutes.

And here, again, I welcome the US to the Third World. The Stephen Miller incited and Trump led assault on everything is hitting many near and dear to me. Things have long moved far beyond rhetoric. Livelihoods and personal safety are affected, even moreso than usual for those darker than blue. Unspoken threats now explicitly verbalized. And horizons have contracted. Many now adopt a fetal pose to shield from the incoming blows heeding the warning: protect yourselves at all times.

This is a time of precarity.

And exhaustion. Take, say, immigration for example. Many of my cousins are on student or other immigrant visas in the US, and are currently weighing the calculus of just being themselves versus adopting a studied pose of neutrality and normalcy.

No sudden moves is the refrain, don't become a target etc. It looms, that culture of silence. It's present, the retreat to that mask of civility that we wear all too well.

This is a time of erasures.

People disappear, sometimes literally pulled off the streets, bodies are snatched with glee. But worse is the eclipse of the soul. Pieces of identity are being erased. The spark and joie de vivre in many is being extinguished, curtailed by cruelty and disembodied by vindictiveness. I can't recognize so many folk.

Sidenote: one of my cousins was recently accepted by Harvard, all his hard work paying off. After the initial celebrations, however, everyone in the family has been holding their breath as we watch that institution and others being targeted. The saving grace is that he was born in the USA and so is somewhat shielded from the trials of non-citizens. (I'm still somewhat curious about whether the currenly stymied attack on birthright citizenship would notionally affect him, or if that strange interpretation would only affect births going forward). I don't envy him. He gets to wear multiple mantles as a living embodiment of Stephen Miller's worst fears, a foreign student but also an American-African and that's before he even opens his mouth. I really don't envy him. What paradise have we lost?

Anyway... Perhaps, this is all background noise, and, as I'm often reminded, the virus sets the timeline. The ongoing pandemic can make all this turmoil in the world moot, a sideshow at best, in very short order.

Aliens must go. I too will make my accommodations. I continue to focus on small things and move to my own tune. The present collection of toli, being doled out every week, bears a title that is all I aspire to: A Comfortable Unease.


File under: Ghana, Nigeria, culture, immigration, displacement, exile, memory, Africa, history, politics, dictator, coup, loss, observation, perception, refugee, Things Fall Apart, Ghana must go, poetry, toli

Writing log: September 6, 2022

Expulsion Orders

For some, this was the second go-round, a reprise of the upheaval
The scenes at the ports, palpable despair, teeming, almost primeval
When the land borders briefly opened, a brave few chose that route
A long, dangerous journey with opportunist predators to boot

You would think there would be sympathy for these returning wretched
Yet the provisional government called them "recalcitrant and hollow-headed"
You see, earlier on, most had simply voted with their feet
Foregoing chaos, they'd packed their bags and left the country

Now, exiled souls twice removed, this was their homecoming
Leaving in a hurry, running away with just what they could carry
Tough love from the authorities on both ends, no tears for aliens
And extra scrutiny at the border, "non-Ghanaians are not welcome"

Ghana must go is how the trauma is recorded in folk memory
The damage was done and, worse, it was all so unnecessary
But such is the fraught and bitter legacy of the expulsion orders
As goes the proverb, try not to die when you are surrounded by vultures

Anybody could have told the authorities in Lagos that is is impossible to evacuate 700,000 (their own estimated figure) under their own imposed stringent conditions, within the period of one week that they opened the land borders

— Talking Drums May 1985

Talking Drums, May 20, 1985

Expulsion Orders, a playlist

A soundtrack for this note (spotify)

• Exodus by Bob Marley & the Wailers
• We trying to stay alive by Wyclef Jean
• Refugee Rolling by Sierra Leone's Refugee All Stars
• The Exodus has Begun by Prince & the New Power Generation
• Get out of Town by Ella Fitzgerald
• Refugees by Gerard Musgrave
• Go Home by Gerry Mulligan & Ben Webster
• Pitche Mi by Youssou Ndour & Super Etoile de Dakar
  stately and mournful from the excellent contemporaneous album, Immigrés

Bonus beats: Shame on me by Alexander O'Neal

See previously Bags and Stamps

File under: Ghana, Nigeria, culture, immigration, displacement, exile, memory, Africa, history, politics, dictator, coup, loss, observation, perception, refugee, Things Fall Apart, Ghana must go, poetry, toli

Writing log: August 17, 2022

Ritual Tributes

Apropos public grief, herewith a sampling of tributes to Yuri Andropov by African leaders after his death, as reported in Talking Drums magazine (February 20, 1984)...

The public expression of grief can be confounding especially when rituals combine with politics and the performance of power. At such times, perception is all.

The institutions that have staying power in human history are well practised at the spectacle of ritual tributes. The Catholic Church, and as we are currently seeing, the British monarchy, are experts in this realm, putting on a finely-tuned display with the pomp and pageantry of a well oiled machine.

Africans understand well the importance of funeral ceremonies, death being our close companion. Effusive outpourings are to be expected, furrowed brows and florid rhetoric - albeit with a sober countenance, in celebration of the departed. During our lost decades, even the rogues who were busy feeding on the carcasses of our body politic, and who, in the main, weren't the most gifted of wordsmiths, could be counted on to give a felicitous toast and ritual tribute. Solidarity matters and we were treated to the keen expression of shock and sorrow.

Their counterparts of today may be more sensible but are equally eloquent and performative, it goes with the territory. Observe well the statements of condolences - and acts, upon the death of the good Queen Elizabeth II.

The Soviet Union didn't last a century and their leadership transitions were sometimes fraught affairs but the Communist Party well understood the necessity of ritual tributes. Their populace and their clients duly performed. Shock and sorrow was expected, shock and sorrow was delivered.

Tributes to Andropov by African Leaders

Talking Drums, February 20, 1984

News of the death of President Yuri Andropov was received in Africa with shock and sorrow as expressed in the various measures taken by African leaders in memory of the Soviet leader.

In Nigeria a delegation led by the Chief of Staff, Supreme Headquarters, Brigadier Tunde Idiagbon, and including the Chief of Air Staff, Air Vice Marshall Ibrahim Alfa and the Minister of External Affairs, Dr Ibrahim Gambari, were in Moscow to attend the funeral.

Ghana: Three days of national mourning were declared during which Flt-Lt. J.J. Rawlings, Chairman of the Provisional National Defence Council signed the book of condolence at the Soviet Embassy.

Earlier during a visit to Upper Volta, Flt-Lt. Rawlings had sent a message of condolence to the Soviet leadership noting that "the frailty of individual destinies should provide the world with fraternal solidarity that goes beyond ideological inclinations"

Benin: An extraordinary meeting of the Political Bureau of the sole party was convened followed by a declaration of three days national mourning. President Kerekou then sent a message of condolence to the Soviet leadership describing Andropov as "a worthy pursuer of Lenin's works."

Ethiopia: Addis Ababa radio reported Mengistu Haile Mariam's departure for Moscow and announced that flags would be flown at half mast in Ethiopia for three days.

Zimbabwe: Harare radio reported that Prime Minister Robert Mugabe was at the airport to see off President Canaan Banana and the Foreign Minister, Witness Mangwende to Moscow. Two days of national mourning were also declared as a further mark of the solidarity.

Guinea: The Prime Minister, Lansana Beavogui, delivered to the Soviet Ambassador a message of condolence from the people, party and President of Guinea describing Andropov as a man of peace. The Prime Minister was also in Moscow for the funeral.

Liberia: The Liberian leader General Doe sent a message of condolence describing Andropov as a staunch fighter for world peace

Congo: A statement issued by the Party's central committee declared two days of national mourning. President Sassou-Nguesso sent a message of condolence to the Soviet leadership describing the USSR as the rampart of peace, harmony, world co-operation and the progress of humanity."

Mozambique: President Machel was in Moscow to attend the funeral Earlier in his message of condolence to the Soviet leaders broadcast by Maputo Radio, Machel said Andropov had "wisely used his intelligence and serenity at a time when the aggressiveness of imperialism increasingly showed itself as a permanent menace against humanity's liberation."

Angola: Luanda radio reported the signing by President dos Santos of the book of condolence at the Soviet embassy and his description of Andropov as "a statesman and distinguished leader of the CPSU and a staunch fighter for peace, liberty and socialism."

Upper Volta: According to Ouagadougou Radio, there was a message from the Upper Volta leader, Capt. Sankara, saying that the loss of "this illustrious freedom fighter should further strengthen our revolutionary faith and vigilance."

...

(On election day 2020, this was the graffiti we came across on our walk. On the same trail we saw "Trump is the virus" and other unprintables by the same artist. I guess it was cathartic for them).

Soundtrack for this note

An ironic ritual tribute in Afrobeat.

• Coffin for Head of State by Fela

...

I would normally be moved to a poem, the language in the above passage is tempting; the music to be found in the homilies of strongmen and the men in khaki. Also, as a time capsule of cold war perceptions from the south, much could be drawn out. Still, one is conflicted. Circa 1984 the Soviet Union and General Secretary Andropov were not supporting the apartheid regime as Reagan and Thatcher were, indeed they were actively on the side of many African liberation movements. Still it's hard to resist commenting on the expressions of grief from say Comrade Mengistu, who was then Chairman of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), or the erstwhile Master Sergent (and then Doctor and General) Doe, the blood altogether blinds me.

Bread and circuses are not merely confined to monarchies. But this is a time of worldwide mourning and sober reflection, let's not pursue the thread...

...

Timing is everything
Observers are worried

See also: The Laws of Grief

File under: grief, culture, observation, perception, performance, language, ceremonies, ritual, politics, communities, history, groups, norms, Africa, Soviet, rogues, military, dictator, Observers are worried, toli

Writing log: September 16, 2022

Important Participations

The participation could have been normal and without a fuss, but Africa's enemies, Sudan's enemies and the enemies of peace-loving countries wanted to try and turn it into a drama, to prevent the president from important participations.

— Sudan's foreign minister Ibrahim Ghandour as quoted in Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir leaves South Africa as court orders his arrest to face genocide charges at ICC (Reuters, June 2015)

The boss is a Lion of Africa, you can't treat him like an animal
Denying him important participations is, quite frankly, criminal
Sure: trade sanctions, Security Council resolutions, and all the rest
But this new imposition is a bridge too far, he's quite upset

We all know his economic direction and commitment to reform
His policies have stood the test of time, the revolution moves on
You there, Madame Ambassador, don't give me that baloney about Darfur
When security arrangements and regional stability are what you care for

I don't see you picking fights with Vladimir of Russia
About how they dealt with their internal matters in Chechnya
Cross Mister Putin and you might get the poison treatment
Or the fruits of an exotic nuclear radiation experiment

To have him flee as if he was a warlord like Charles Taylor
For shame, he had to leave post-haste mid-bite and mid-dinner
He'd been promised a braai which, I understand, is a South African delicacy
One bite was all that he could manage before our team withdrew him hastily

So what if there was an early nexus with the Sheikh, Osama Bin Laden
We all make mistakes, you are lying in bed with Bonecutter bin Salman
And as for Al-Turabi, another Sheikh that thought he was a leader
Well, the boss taught him a lesson about the real meaning of power

Well you should know that there's something about Omar al-Bashir
That you've disrupted his jaunt to Johannesburg is a great slur
Recall, he who speaks with forked tongue is a master of statecraft
Quoth the proverb: When Allah created the Sudan, he laughed

No this won't do at all, I must say, on this point, let me be explicit
On pain of blowback, this your hasty decision you'll have to revisit
Recall when He of the Little Green Book was here, we held excellent discussions
I warn you: stop preventing the president from important participations

Tracing some Fallen Angels

• Bashir fires Sudan foreign minister Ibrahim Ghandour (April 5, 2018)
• Omar al-Bashir's regime ousted (April 11, 2019)
• Ex-Sudan Foreign Minister Ibrahim Ghandour arrested for "involvement in sabotage operations" (July 1, 2020)
• Former Sudan Foreign Affairs Minister Ibrahim Ghandour and collaborators acquitted of terrorism charges (April 8 2022)
• Sudan alarm at return of Bashir loyalists and the NCP (June 18 2022)

The Boss, a playlist

A soundtrack for this complaint. (spotify version)

• The Boss by James Brown
  Paid the cost to be the boss. Black Caesar was the soundtrack of the original fallen angel
• Boss by Count Sticky & the Upsetters
  Lee Perry's High Plains Drifter is dub magic
• Blind Man Can See It by James Brown
  The greatest breakbeat. You can't stop important participations.
• Everybody Wants to be the Boss by Oliver Cheatham
  A disco groove, the boss has no regrets

One wonders: will he have the last laugh?

...

Timing is everything
Observers are worried

File under: rogues, language, hatchet job, dictator, language, culture, observation, military, Sudan, politics, Africa, law, crime, violence, Observers are worried, Fallen Angels, Things Fall Apart, poetry, absurd, toli

Writing log: Concept July 16, 2015; April 24, 2021

Idleness Outlawed

He'd decided to go even further than the communists
Who maintained that it was illegal to not have a job
The future emperor improvised with this novel twist:
The added condition that idleness would be outlawed

Thus "Idleness Outlawed" read the headline in Africa Report
The news intimated something akin to a kangaroo court
For idleness isn't disturbing tranquility or moving to cavort
Inertia, even Barthelby's, doesn't normally incite contempt of court

Thus the first of August 1966 was a date to remember
To paraphrase, always something new out of the heart of Africa
The Central African Republic government made laziness a crime
Punishable by up to a year in prison and a heavy fine

All was laid out in a decree emphasizing the "national duty to work"
The regime stated that healthy residents of both sexes - the young turks,
Between the ages of 18 and 55, must show evidence of working for a living
Or get the "or else" treatment, the unspoken threat of a Bond villain

The statute book stated violators faced arrest by "control brigades"
That would "scour the country in search of loafers" and those who strayed
Earlier, the President told government officials to "shake off their lethargy"
If they wished to avoid being fired, or transferred for defying authority

That literary man Bokassa, as history bore witness,
Hearkened explicitly to Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness
Fears of being transferred into the bush in Central Africa were not overblown
For indolence could prompt a journey to the epicenter of the torrid zone

This was, I suppose, years before he crowned himself Emperor
And before we started to hear the cannibalistic rumours
He had taken over months earlier in a coup on New Year's Eve
His countrymen were to experience dread they could hardly conceive

"Scour the country in search of loafers" and "shake off their lethargy"
The things that we have suffered in Africa, it doesn't bear scrutiny
The panache of uneasy phrases, the inventiveness of their euphemisms
The African leaders bestiary, rogues who heed the conqueror's catechism

Idleness Outlawed, a playlist

A soundtrack to shake off our lethargy. (spotify version)

• Idle Moments by Grant Green
  The quintessence of mellow moods, unhurried and lush
• Work to Do by The Isley Brothers
  Easing into things with Ronald Isley's falsetto
• Idle Time by The New Mastersounds
  The refrain: Idle Time, the devil's playground
• Work Song by Milt Jackson and Oscar Peterson Trio
  Swinging in the chain gang in the torrid zone
• Let's Work by Prince
  Uptown funk in the pocket
• Work Song by Oscar Brown Jr.
• This Ain't Work by The New Mastersounds
• Idle in a Kangaroo Court by The Clash
  The sound system of history's best control brigade

...

Timing is everything
Observers are worried

See also: In Praise of Idleness by Bertrand Russell

File under: rogues, satire, humour, hatchet job, Africa, dictator, culture, observation, perception, history, absurd, whimsy, poetry, Observers are worried, toli

Writing log. Concept: July 9, 2020; March 29, 2021

The Conqueror's Catechism (Part 6 The Heavy Mantle)

Part 6 of The Conqueror's Catechism (see previously)

VI. The Heavy Mantle

And for the putative opposition, the remedy is character assassination
At first. And then, if necessary, one can proceed to physical liquidation
A penchant for frequent reorganization to keep competitors on their toes
Call them sellouts and traitors, it's not really a trial, it's a show

All is left to the man of the people
   who wears the heavy mantle of populism
And accuses all others as petty bourgeois refuseniks, prone to vandalism
Shirtless perhaps, or with his sleeves stylishly rolled up,
   behold a man of action
Servant of the downtrodden and the common man,
   enamored of mass mobilization

Regimes, for their continued survival,
   require some amount of indoctrination
A few true believers will argue the total sagacity, the rhetoric of delusion
Chairman Mao had his Red book,
   Lenin had What Is To Be Done at the outset
Even Stalin, no wordsmith he, had his impenetrable doctrinal texts

Hitler, though, had a way with the furious speech,
   and even the dismal pen
No wonder Prince sang of 1999,
   we all needed the twentieth century to end
There is only a matter of degree between the rogue authoritarian
And the pinnacle of infamy in human history, the totalitarian

A roll call of emperors, dictators, and plain vandals have come and gone
Ask yourself where your present tormentors would stand in the pantheon
The enduring legacies of conquerors are often promoted
Indeed, the massive genetic imprint has long been noted
Of the famed Mongol emperors, scions of Genghis Khan
Awesome, none dared called them to their face barbarian
For fear of the dire repercussions of that insult
Nay, the great leader deserves a personality cult

Modernity imposes a triage
   on those who might reach the upper echelon
Dwindling numbers attend the closing ceremony
   of an era hopefully bygone
Of fierce warriors, even female like Boudica,
   or more like Attila the Hun
Nay, the Ming Dynasty is so called
  for being the last to rule over the Han

Los Conquistadores, El Supremo, with the martial outlook,
If all goes well, you can be known as He of the Little Green Book
In time, you can print the pamphlets
   to be shared of your empty aphorisms
I'll simply suggest the title, Dear Reader,
  The Conqueror's Catechism

Conqueror's Catechism, a playist

A soundtrack for this note bookended by the cool ruler himself, Gregory Isaacs, and heavy on the reggae angle of things. (spotify version)

• Cool Ruler Comes Again by Gregory Isaacs
• I am the Conqueror by Dennis Brown
• Duppy Conqueror by Bob Marley
• Winner by Omar
• The Winner Takes It All by ABBA
• Stoop to Conquer by Original Wings International
  The reaction to the trauma of Biafra played out a decade later even in afrobeat funk.
• Los Conquistadores Chocolatés by Johnny Hammond
• The Spoils by Massive Attack & Hope Sandoval
• The Winner by Alton Ellis
• Oh What a Feeling by Gregory Isaacs

The Conqueror's Catechism

A few articles of faith

1. To Loot Without End
2. Droit de Seigneur
3. The Dictator Dictates
4. An Iron Fist
5. The Ruler's Rules
6. The Heavy Mantle

This piece went far beyond a haiku to become positively Talmudic in scope, hence the experiment in splitting it and dispensing over a week. Or you can wait for the book to put it all together... Do let me know how it went down.

I nominate this internal displacement for the Things Fall Apart series under the banner of Fallen Angels.

File under: humour, satire, culture, blood, sin, greed, poetry, observation, rogues, dictator, gremlins, perception, huhudious, hatchet job, violence, strategy, Fallen Angels, Observers are worried, Things Fall Apart, toli

Writing log: Concept: May 1, 2006; April 6, 2021

The Conqueror's Catechism (Part 5 The Ruler's Rules)

Moral flexibility... Part 5 of The Conqueror's Catechism (see previously)

V. The Ruler's Rules

Repression and brutality have their uses, these are the ruler's rules
These daily dealers of dread are known to dispense wanton abuse
The incredulity of mankind is the main target, per Machiavelli
Amoral despotism, in its prime, acquires an aura of inevitability
"I am your dreams", was softly proclaimed by Atatürk, and without irony
Similar gnomic notions are often heard.
   What, after all, was manifest destiny?
Neck deep and drenched in it,
   a dribbling of blood thickens the stew of iniquity
A meal best served with a side dish,
   an amuse-bouche, of unalloyed hypocrisy

There is an organizing principle for the conqueror that is rather radical
That is the notion that absolutely everything is transactional
The sense that in all things, it is all about the deal
Underlies the public relations they pursue with zeal
Summon up some scribes,
   and give them a mandate to make it all palatable
Some wordsmith can conjure up the right phrase, say, call you mercurial
A painter in times past, later a photographer for the transaction
Extol your charisma with words and image, power is its own persuasion

The rogue capitalist running rampant is a gilded conqueror landmark
That is, he who extracts labour
   pocketing the surplus per my poor man's Marx
An all too human extractive industry in the pursuit of rent seeking
To the socialist, what we behold is a case of government by racketeering
Oligarchs throughout history are venal, there are only minor distinctions
Per the critique, between the businessman and the oligarch
   it's only ambition
To separate the working class from the means of production
   and extract surplus value
The self appointed toll collector
   enjoys the fruits of the monopoly that accrues

By definition all gangsters heed the outlaw sensibility
For mobsters, this "thing of ours" defies authority
Submitting to square john's rules is not up for debate
The conqueror's endpoint in this mode is the mafia state
For every contract awarded, one must get one's cut
As to fulfillment, that is, at best, an afterthought
Bush's signal policy achievement concerned the importation of mangos
Follow the money and recall: it takes two to do the corruption tango

Conqueror's Catechism, a playist

A soundtrack for this note bookended by the cool ruler himself, Gregory Isaacs, and heavy on the reggae angle of things. (spotify version)

The Conqueror's Catechism

A few articles of faith

1. To Loot Without End
2. Droit de Seigneur
3. The Dictator Dictates
4. An Iron Fist
5. The Ruler's Rules
6. The Heavy Mantle

This piece went beyond a haiku to become positively Talmudic in scope, hence I'll split it and dispense over the next week. Or you can wait for the book...

I nominate this internal displacement for the Things Fall Apart series under the banner of Fallen Angels.

Next in Part 6: The Heavy Mantle

File under: humour, satire, culture, blood, sin, greed, poetry, observation, rogues, dictator, gremlins, perception, huhudious, hatchet job, violence, strategy, Fallen Angels, Observers are worried, Things Fall Apart, toli

Writing log: Concept: May 1, 2006; April 5, 2021

The Conqueror's Catechism (Part 4 An Iron Fist)

Disciplinary matters... Part 4 of The Conqueror's Catechism (see previously)

IV. An Iron Fist

As a matter of course, the ruler's rules always include looting
Backed by the overt threat of disembowelment, or simply shooting
The conqueror is said to govern with an iron fist
The implication is the perpetual cease and desist
A guiding principle and an early lesson learned
If you dare cross the founder, prepare for heartburn
Local funeral parlors have become a growing concern
Constantly busy, to dust you shall surely return

If you serve at their pleasure, conquerors can be quite affable
In person, by all accounts, most dictators are quite unremarkable
But give them an audience, give the man a microphone and he's gone
The same skinny man quietly sitting in the room can be transformed
He may love the performance but a leopard cannot change its spots
This family man will make you pay the price to show you who's boss
He'll be quite unafraid to impose an exacting reign of terror
To overcome with effort is the dictionary definition of conquer

To be governed by gremlins is no fun thing
So unpredictable are these beasts' whims
No matter how pragmatic you are,
   it's hard to keep up with their latest fashion
Quite understandably, there's no remedy yet invented
   for their lack of compassion
Nuance is not needed,
   and not to put a fine point on the situation,
Occasionally, you might face what amounts to
   functional defenestration
Dangling, face down, from the balcony,
   it's hard to disagree with their directives
Indeed the heavy hand of the conqueror
   engenders a forced change of perspective

There will be blood, that too is an occupational hazard
A periodic ritual cleansing, and the occasional massacre
All bloodthirsty patriarchs are well practiced merchants of tragedy
To remain at the controls, atop the commanding heights of the economy
To seize power, you break a few eggs to get the party started
Conquest is for the brave and not for the fainthearted
"All die be die", strategic killing has its uses, I guess
When cruelty is the point, its spectacle needs to be witnessed

Conqueror's Catechism, a playist

A soundtrack for this note bookended by the cool ruler himself and heavy on the reggae angle of things. (spotify version)

The Conqueror's Catechism

A few articles of faith

1. To Loot Without End
2. Droit de Seigneur
3. The Dictator Dictates
4. An Iron Fist
5. The Ruler's Rules
6. The Heavy Mantle

This piece went beyond a haiku to become positively Talmudic in scope, hence I'll split it and dispense over the next week. Or you can wait for the book...

I nominate this internal displacement for the Things Fall Apart series under the banner of Fallen Angels.

Next in Part 5: The Ruler's Rules

File under: humour, satire, culture, blood, sin, greed, poetry, observation, rogues, dictator, gremlins, perception, huhudious, hatchet job, violence, strategy, Fallen Angels, Observers are worried, Things Fall Apart, toli

Writing log: Concept: May 1, 2006; April 4, 2021

The Conqueror's Catechism (Part 3 The Dictator Dictates)

The will to power... Part 3 of The Conqueror's Catechism (see previously)

III. The Dictator Dictates

Truth, facts, objective reality are symbolic and mere alternatives
The conqueror reserves all rights, and is the only one who can forgive
Quoth the Sun King, Louis Quatorze, L'état, c'est moi
A self evident statement from the throne of le roi
An absolute monarch is quite obviously beyond scandal
Indeed, absolute absolutely implies a state vandal
It's as if those who have come to behold absolute power
Were granted a passport stamped "Given leave to freely plunder"

The dictator dictates at all hours in his electric circus
Diurnal rhythms are duly forsaken by those in his service
And all must pay careful attention to his dire dictums
Lest one, after a minor mistake, becomes the night's victim
Contra this nocturnal creature to whom obeisance is due
The rest of the country has to make do with nightly curfews
The conqueror's haki is the rare force in the world that allows the bearer,
Even after a panoply of mistakes, to exert their willpower over others

Reach back, if you will, to the East India Company
That rather fine epitome of British gunboat diplomacy
The opium wars: buy our drugs, feed addiction to your society
These dubious demands for free enterprise deserve notoriety
The slight was never forgotten about this assertion of power
The world-historic carry trade of greed and a state of plunder
Ultimatums galore, we'll give you the "or else" treatment
And cover up our trails with a haste that's rather indecent

Who'd have thought that Rhodes Must Fall would one day be the rallying cry
What with colleges, and even multiple countries named after that guy.
His confession of faith was an assertion of cultural superiority
Even as in practice administered by loudmouths full of mediocrity
We saw them in our countries, we heard of Gold, God and Glory
Centuries later, we are still recovering from baleful colonial legacies
To paraphrase Galbraith,
   human beings come to terms quite readily with authority
But when the statues come down
   they are treated with all available indignities

Conqueror's Catechism, a playist

A soundtrack for this note bookended by the cool ruler himself, Gregory Isaacs, and heavy on the reggae angle of things. (spotify version)

The Conqueror's Catechism

A few articles of faith

1. To Loot Without End
2. Droit de Seigneur
3. The Dictator Dictates
4. An Iron Fist
5. The Ruler's Rules
6. The Heavy Mantle

This piece went beyond a haiku to become positively Talmudic in scope, hence I'll split it and dispense over the next week. Or you can wait for the book...

I nominate this internal displacement for the Things Fall Apart series under the banner of Fallen Angels.

Next in Part 4: An Iron Fist

File under: humour, satire, culture, blood, sin, greed, poetry, observation, rogues, dictator, gremlins, perception, huhudious, hatchet job, violence, strategy, Fallen Angels, Observers are worried, Things Fall Apart, toli

Writing log: Concept: May 1, 2006; April 3, 2021