Cry, the beloved Africa – a tale of two experiences

As we ponder celebrating Africa Day on Monday, from an African bifocal perspective, we need to think about a day when the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic is a nightmare of yesterday.

Without fearing contradiction, we will be able to say: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us.”

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We would go further to say that it was the age of wisdom because we started listening to our sagacious elders who dug deep into African knowledge systems and told us to consider African herbs such as Lengana to keep us going in this difficult time as we awaited those who were legalised to find comprehensive solutions to bring them forth.

We would say it was the epoch of belief because we rallied behind our leadership in our different African states across party political spectrums, because we believed the likes of President Paul Kagame in Rwanda, President Andry Rajoelina in Madagascar and President Cyril Ramaphosa in South Africa could save us through their benevolence as they focused on using their state power to combat the deadly pandemic in the best ways they saw possible and plausible.

With all of this in mind, no other superior logic would supersede ours when we echo the words of Dickens when he said: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us.”