banner

“If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?”

Written by

Our title here is taken–directly–from Percy Bysshe Shelley’s poem, “Ode to the West Wind”.  But the article itself was inspired by a revolution-like event, actually by animal saving another animal: a revolt sui generis.

Throughout recorded history the human social and political drama have embedded scenes of interesting climaxes.   You may want to ask your own elders and leaders to tell you how they got to where they are.

This twenty-first century has witnessed more liberal usages of the the term revolution than feasible, it seems.   In the political sense, Africa and Africans are yet to commence the harvest of the fruits of revolts from oppressive regimes.   This does not mean that there aren’t pockets of “revolutions” on the continent which was once called ‘Dark,” currently being darkened by rapacious honor rabies.

In “Street Spirit (Fade Out)”, the musical band, Radiohead sang– about Africa’s condition–through the eyes of a West African city:

Rows of houses, all bearing down on me
I can feel their blue hands touching me
All these things into position
All these things we’ll one day swallow whole
And fade out again and fade out

This machine will, will not communicate
These thoughts and the strain I am under
Be a world child, form a circle
Before we all go under
And fade out again and fade out again

Cracked eggs, dead birds
Scream as they fight for life
I can feel death, can see its beady eyes
All these things into position
All these things we’ll one day swallow whole
And fade out again and fade out again

Just as the advisory of a people goes, everyday for the thief, one day for the owner; the fate of the lion seen in this video is a prophetic enactment of oppressive battalions in Africa. Just sooner, it will come to pass.

If revolution is a serious mental state of revolt against physical, economic, social, and psychological hardships, when will Africa’s come?  We can be certain of this fact, however: “If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?”

 

credits: P.B. Shelley, “Ode to the West Wind”; Radiohead’s “Street Spirit (Fade Out)”; Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom

Article Categories:
Culture · Heritage · Modernity
Shares