Part of a Movement: It’s The New Year!

No matter how dark the moment, love and hope are always possible
George Chakiris

As 2021 draws to a close, it has been another extraordinary and challenging year—a replica of 2020. I have taken stock of my life, and I am grateful and blessed to be alive, surrounded by love. Many people aren’t so lucky, and that’s not lost on me.

Our world has changed in more ways than one. We are still battling a pandemic that has taken over millions of lives; I have lost count of the dead. Yet, our world finds a way to renew. When a new day dawn, we repeat living all over again. People fall in love; they fight, bicker, and save lives. People have just been, well, human.

However, I am determined to live my life as part of a positive movement of change. I want to make a difference and foster love rather than hatred, encouraging generations of people who are determined to preserve life, not destroy it.

We will open the book. Its pages are blank. we are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called opportunity and its first chapter is New Year’s Day
Edith lovejoy pierce

I will not make a new year resolution. Instead, I want to put a smile a people’s faces. We all need to laugh more and enjoy every moment of our lives. Why? Because our time on this part of heaven is so short.

Happy New Year to all my friends and everyone reading this. May God bless and keep you all!

Much love, always.

Saving Humans

Jun5

Photo credit: Flickr

We’re all human, aren’t we? Every human life is worth the same and worth saving.”

J. K Rowling

Humanity has always been on the brink of destruction several times.

Studying history is akin to studying the art and history of warfare.

We kill, we hate, we love.

And then we do it all over again, forgetting that we bleed the same.

And we walk in twos, talk and smile.

We all have hopes and dreams.

We teach our children to hate another, we fear what we don’t know.

We change history.

Hatred destroys the hater because we were once created to love and laugh.
Hatred twisted the reason we exist.

When you love people, you love yourself.

When you hate, you’re killing your essence, your humanity.

It’s the law of the universe.

So, what do we do?
Let’s love ourselves.

Start.

Today.

Much love, always!

George Floyd’s Tears Echoes Through Eternity!

May29

The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.
Albert Einstein

In the height of ’Jihadi John’ reign of terror, the Islamic State executioner who derives pleasure in executing journalists, that image stuck in my mind because it was widely available online. However, it has been replaced with Derek Chauvin grinding his knee into George Floyd’s neck while the poor man cried for mercy. When Jihadi John murdered several innocent journalists, mostly whites. I was angry and wrote about the atrocities of ISIS. It has come as a surprise that people are eerily silent about the murder of George Floyd, although, after a while, protests has erupted around the world against racism.

Alas, Derek and countless other heartless cops in the US are terrorists protected by the state. The US President has threatened to kill looters but killers like Derek would not have been arrested without worldwide protest. Killer cops like Derek Chauvin are degenerates, racist and divisive.

I grew up in a picturesque little town in Nigeria watching American films, Hollywood portrayed the US country as a land of the free, where everyone is the same, and actors fight for peace. However, that was just Hollywood. Minnesota cop, Derek Chauvin committed murder with people filming while bystanders pleaded, George Floyd also pleaded for mercy. That scene was not from a wild western flick, and yet, the cop was only arrested after an outcry and worldwide protest.

There are so many terrorists like that in the US, terrorising the lives of African Americans. Killing them with impunity, and if prosecuted, Jury always find them doing their job.

I am black British, not American but I have to speak out against this seemingly calm terrorist while the President was also inciting more violence? Looting is wrong, but you don’t encourage more racists to start shooting and killing, and then it becomes an orgy of violence. There’s something called ’dialogue’ even kids do it.

I am very sad for George Floyd, the US has lost the last shred of respect I had for it as a democratic country where the lives of anyone with a darker skin tone is in danger, from an erratic and unstable government to devilish, racist citizens to people who found this difficult to talk about.

Derek Chauvin and other terror cops that has killed so many innocent black people are inhuman, but the brilliant thing about civilisation is this; change is constant.

Hope

Apr14

Hope is a mere four-letter word, but it is loaded with life in these unprecedented times. The world is grappling with a faceless enemy that can not be annihilated by bombs or weapons of mass destruction. We have to fight together, regardless of our race, religious affiliations or differences.

Andre Bocelli’s voice resonated through an empty street in Italy but with it comes hope amid death. The song ‘Amazing Grace’ has been sung several times, but this performance outstrips them all.

His voice carried with it, the gift of rebirth, and how Jesus Christ’s resurrection gives hope to all of humanity. One of my WhatsApp groups in my local church, BE Church in Barking, London shared the clips, and I just had to do the same.

There is hope for all, we just have to believe it!

Much love, always! 🙂

The Fight for Freedom

Jun5

(Allied forces in a landing craft, 6th June 1944)

It’s 75 years tomorrow when allied forces landed in the vast beaches of Normandy, France. Several European nations came together after Germany occupied France. These brave soldiers waged a decisive battle against Adolf Hitler and his German forces entrenched in occupied France, and their bravery finally fostered peace in Europe, and the rest of the world.

Whether we have been able to achieve enduring world-wide peace is still up for discussion at a later date, but the Allied forces put an end to the gory adventures of Adolf Hitler, and many of us live in relative peace today. The fight for freedom was encapsulated in a moving speech by William Churchill on May 18 1944, he said:

‘’We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask, what is our policy? I will say: It is to wage war, by sea, land, and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory despite all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be.’’

The United Kingdom, under the leadership of William Churchill, joined the rest of Allied forces to fight against a force so brutal it is intent on the total annihilation of several nations of the world. The Allied forces worked towards the goal of defeating the enemy on 6th June 1944.

They are our heroes.

The world is not totally at peace, but what we have today is a luxury we can only dream of if Adolf Hitler’s dream to rule the whole world was realised.

Let us rejoice today, and hopefully, the coming days will see a more peaceful world free from slavery, racism, poverty, murders, hatred, and petty human emotions that inhibit living peaceful lives.

NP: I haven’t been able to update my website due to health issues, work commitments, and postgraduate studies. I have respite for a few months and would endeavour to post more articles and would also visit many blogs as much as I can.

Much love, always. 🙂

The Ugly Side…

Aug13

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”The most beautiful as well as the most ugly inclinations of man are not part of a fixed biologically given human nature, but result from the social process which creates man.” Erich Fromm

Recent events in the world are enough to sum up the fact that humanity’s ugly side appears to be dominant. We are very quick to tear apart than build, we hate anything that remotely differs from our way of thinking. We want to love but find that so difficult, rather it’s easy to be suspicious, have zero empathy and yes, we find a safe haven in hatred.

James Carroll got it right when he wrote, ”we cloak ourselves in cold indifference to the unnecessary suffering of others, even when we caused it.”

Hatred brings out our ugly side when we hide behind our knowledge of what’s right and wrong. We believe our lives are somehow a priority compared to others and when we’re not having things going our way, we’re quick to complain, bemoaning our fallen state.

We’re also beautiful creatures, that is when we want to be. Imagine doctors risking lives and limbs to save Ebola-stricken victims in a remote village in Africa or people pooling resources together to save Syrian refugees from the freezing sea. That, is the beauty of human nature just to mention a few.

However, we all have ugly sides, if not, why do we have laws trying to curtail our nastiness from spiralling out of control?

I penned this article shortly after the Nice truck massacre, somehow I couldn’t publish it but it’s still relevant today. Most of the time, it’s very difficult to comprehend when such tragedies occur, like the killings of African-Americans by rogue white police officers or the killings of thousands by the so called Isis’s mad soldiers or the time when Lord Gen Jeffery Amherst, British Commander-in-Chief of America wrote to Col. H. Bouquet to use Biological weapons (small pox laden blankets) in July 1763 against Native American Indians. He wrote, “You will do well to try to inoculate the Indians by means of blankets, as well as to try every other method that can serve to extirpate this execrable race.” Hitler wanted to wipe out the Jews and subject the world to his madness. In the end, I think our lives shouldn’t be mapped out based on such events no matter how sad.

Humanity is renowned for fortitude in the face of extreme violence. Hitler was keen to turn the world into a huge wasteland, but he failed, even though, in the process, millions lost their lives. The incredible thing I’ve realised is this, our ugliness and monstrosity would not prevail over the beauty and love inherent in us (this is where free-will comes in). That’s contradictory but it’s the truth. As Daniel Goleman wrote, ”societies can be sunk by the weight of ugliness.”

There’s real hatred in the world, just check social media where some segment of humanity compares others as inferior to them. It’s heartbreaking but over the millennia, it’s been part of the history of mankind, the pervading hatred, the palpable feeling of helplessness experienced by slaves which brought the brutal book, ‘The Heart Of Darkness ,’ written by Joseph Conrad to mind. More than ten million people had died in the Congo in the 19th and early 20th century under the rule of the notorious Belgian King, Leopold II. The Congo had been plundered and its inhabitants killed with ruthless efficiency. It’s one of the greatest acts of mass murder in human history. That’s humanity’s ugliness at its height. According to a review on Amazon, ”Conrad makes it painfully clear that the heart of darkness can reside within us all,” how sad!

Unfortunately, the killings in Congo is still ongoing, according to an article written by Owen Jones in the Guardian Newspaper on 6 March 2015, he lamented, ” African lives did not matter enough: a death toll of up to 6 million would surely not have been tolerated elsewhere. For the West, it is a country of little strategic importance.”

Overall, I still believe that our ugly sides can be tamed, maybe I’m wrong?

This article is open to debate, let me know what you think.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend wherever you are in the world!

Much love, always. 🙂

Surviving Decay…

Sep30

(Photo credit: Flickr)

”Although the living is subject to the ruin of the time, the process of decay is at the same time a process of crystallisation, that in the depth of the sea, into which sinks and is dissolved what once was alive, some things ‘suffer a sea-change’ and survive in new crystallised forms and shapes that remain immune to the elements, as though they waited only for the pearl diver who one day will come down to them and bring them up into the world of the living.”

Hannah Arendt.

I saw this quote by one of the most brilliant minds of the twentieth century. I studied some of her writings, and was pretty impressed by her bluntness, ingenuity, and simplicity. Some of her works are ‘The Origins of Totalitarianism, ‘The Human Condition,’ ‘On Revolution,’ and ‘The Human Mind.’

It’s a known fact that when we don’t really use our cognitive function, we rot and decay. It’s no wonder that people with warped views of the world and society caused most of the evil in this present age. In layman terms, cognitive function can be aptly described as ‘an intellectual process by which one becomes aware of, perceives, or comprehends ideas. It involves all aspects of perception, thinking, reasoning and remembering.’

I won’t go into too much details about the lack of this important aspect of our civility as humans, I’ll just try to touch base with some of the setbacks we would experience if we don’t use our brains. Lack of cognitive function is responsible for most of the ills in our societies today. Citing the examples of religious bigots like Islamic State murderers, Boko Haram and serial killers whose brain have been irreparably damaged by their intellectual paucity, its little wonder that they believe in fables and riddles purportedly yarn to elicit their obedience.

Decay is essentially part of all living things, we are born, we live, we grow old or maybe not, and then we die and the decaying would start. All living things, especially humans, have the extraordinary ability to survive decay through our offspring, thought patterns, actions and deeds.

How do we leave great legacies behind? How do we defeat the theory of decay which governs all living things? It’s simple – our thought processes is as important as the air we breathe because that would ultimately affect our choices in life, beliefs, and the quotidian or relatively mundane life we led.

Another thing I wanted to point out, also by Arendt, was the effect of thoughtlessness in the life of human beings, it’s always disastrous to lead a thoughtless life. This was aptly described when Hannah Arendt went to Jerusalem on behalf of The New Yorker, to report the trial of Otto Adolf Eichmann, who was accused of crimes against the Jewish people, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. Arendt described Eichmann as thoughtless; quiet authentic inability to think. Succinctly put, absence of critical thoughts can actually turn us into a monstrous, stupid, or crass entity who could be easily blown apart by every wind of doctrine.

Critical thoughts are what makes us the higher beings, capable of making sane, rational decisions. That’s simply what differentiated us from animals.

Arendt is a political theorist but many scholars hailed her as a philosopher. I love reading her works, it makes me think deeply about life and society in general. The above quote could be used and interpreted in several ways, I have chosen my way and that is the fact that we can surely survive decay. We only need to think and we’re free to create a better life for ourselves and everyone around us. Life is in stages, enjoy it while you can and THINK before you act.

NP: The life of a writer is a lonely one, I’m still slaving away on my books hence the sporadic updates on my website. I’ll be visiting your blogs as time permits. I hope you enjoyed reading my thoughts, I’ll love to read what you think. 🙂

Enjoy the rest of your week my friends!

Much love, always. 🙂

Out Of The Ashes

Jul8

(Photo credit: Flickr)

I believe in life after death, not every one does, but I do. Human beings aren’t merely flesh and blood, we have souls, and soul are indestructible. I’ve got friends who are atheists, so I’m not going to expand too much on this before I start a debate that would rival a sitting in the House of Commons.

Yesterday marked exactly ten years when people with warped views of life took the lives of 52 Londoners, they also left almost 100 people with life changing injuries and scars. Yeah I know, my post is a day late but the topic isn’t. After work yesterday, I caught a few glimpse on the news and was sad at such wanton destruction of human lives. But I was proud, (in fact, I still am) to be a Londoner. Years has passed, but we’ve grown stronger as a city. More tourists visited London than ever before, I love travelling on the tube, bus or on a private car. It’s testament to the fact that evil will and cannot win.

If we read the news, there’s always stuff that would make our tummies churn (my daughter always says that), but life isn’t all gore and horror. There’s the incomparable breath of fresh air, there’s the sheer joy of clean water, what about the juicy goodness of an orange? The list is endless, life is good, and it’s tough, I won’t dispute that.

The relatives of the 7/7 bombing and the senseless and needless attack in Sousse would be comforted by the love and prayers sent their way. I believe in prayers but I also believe in living each day with a heart of thanksgiving in spite of my circumstances, that, I believe is what would keep me sane and out of the ashes of stress and despair. My husband used to say that everyone has problems, it’s just our ways of dealing with life’s daily grind that’s different.

I would end my post with this simple quote from Groucho Marx, ‘I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. I can choose which it shall be. Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn’t arrived yet. I have just one day, today, and I’m going to be happy in it.’ NP: I’m still writing, albeit slowly. I’ve informed my publisher of my inability to submit my manuscripts until next year. Life seems to have a way of sending many distractions my way and I always oblige 🙂 I hope everyone is fine. Please, stay safe! Much love to you guys, always! 🙂 🙂

The Promise

Sep30

Such Innocence… rights words make great men!

Yesterday night I was rummaging through my eldest son’s stuff ( he was asleep by then 🙂 ) when I found this note stuffed in one of the pocket of his school trouser. I simply presumed one of his teachers must have given him in his new Secondary school.

Here it is, word for word:

”There are three things that you must never do in life, for any reason…

The first is use drugs. Some of them taste good and they whisper in your ear that they will make you feel better than you could ever feel without them. Don’t believe them. Promise me you won’t do it.

I promise.

The second is use weapons. Even if someone hurts your feelings or damages your memories or insults God, the earth or men, promise me you’ll never pick up a gun, or a knife, or a stone, or even the wooden ladle we use, if that ladle can be used to hurt someone. Promise.

I promise.

The third is cheat or steal. What’s yours belongs to you, what isn’t doesn’t. You can earn the money you need by working, even if working is hard. You must never cheat anyone, all right? You must be tolerant and hospitable to everyone. Promise me you’ll do that.

I promise.”

And that was it. I was happy when I read it, I mean, there’s no preaching better than that. If our children, and even the society at large could adhere to this simple words, there would be no ISIS, no wars, and we would be having street parties daily. 🙂

*********

NP: Friends, I’m embarking on series of projects that would seriously impact on my ability to blog, nevertheless, I would always visit your blogs as often as I could, and I would also find time to write every week or every other week until New Year. Have fun guys and take care of yourselves. Remember this words, ‘Always do for other people everything you want them to do for you,’ Peter Nelson used to say that to me often, and he was my dad!

Much love, always!

🙂 🙂

Unknown

Aug19

”It is said that in 1923, seven of the world’s most successful men met at a Chicago hotel: the president of the largest independent steel company, the president of the largest utility company, the greatest wheat speculator, the president of the New York Stock Exchange, a member of the President’s Cabinet, the president of the Bank of International Settlements and the president of the world’s greatest monopoly. Collectively these tycoons controlled more money than there was in the United States’ Treasury.

Now, fast forward 25 years and let’s see what happened to them. Charles Schwab, president of the largest independent steel company, lived the last five years of his life on borrowed money and died a pauper. Arthur Cooger, the greatest wheat speculator, shot himself. Richard Whitney, president of the New York Stock Exchange, spent three years in prison. Albert Fall, a member of the President’s cabinet, went to prison for bribery. Leon Fraser, president of the U.S. Bank of International Settlements, shot himself. Ivan Kreuger, head of one of the world’s largest monopolies, also committed suicide. If the recent economic upheaval has taught us anything, it’s that money brings neither security nor happiness.”

I agree with the writer of the above stories that we ought to use our money to reach a hurting world with love because that’s the essence of life, the only way we could truly live. I read this a few weeks back and it had a profound effect on me and I thought, why not throw this open and find out what others think?

Now I’ve got a question for you guys! Where do you think you’ll be in 25 years? I get to choose the best answer and whosoever got this right and I’m sure many would. 🙂 would enter my world of creation, which means that I’ll use the best answer to write a short story based on the commenter’s vision of the kind of life he or she would be living in 25 years’ time.

In the meantime, you can all listen to these awesome guys, their song is truly refreshing! You can achieve a lot if you put your mind to it! And in 25 years, you could be on top of the world…