The modern African man who feels he is accomplished, who feels he has pummeled and defeated all his competitors within his weight class, who feels he has gathered a plethora of degrees and mastered vast work experiences with firms that have branches in distant locations, still feels for something more.
A nagging ache pervades his soul. It is not an ache he feels while gallivanting around town in his luxury badged SUV. It is not an ache he feels while rolling down his passenger window from the comfort of the driver’s seat with a gentle touch of a button to beckon the sales girl by the road. It is not an ache he feels as she scurries to retrieve his latest craving, the whiff of this or that entering his nasal cavity that overwhelms him, at a moment’s notice. He feels this ache not going on his daily rounds but in the evenings after the wife and children are resting in bed and his belly is overfed. The bedrooms in his story building are full and furnished. But still he feels something that he cannot buy in the store or by the road. He longs for something beyond what he holds presently in his grasp. He longs for civilization.
How could a man so simple-minded long for something so complex? A man so concerned with the physical long for something so abstract? He is well aware of how and when to feed his stomach but not his soul. His stomach is well attended to and well fed but his soul, if it needed the same measure of nourishment, was only met with a teaspoon in kind. His longing was unlike the civilization or barbarism that nagged at the souls of his pale-faced neighbors way up north. His longing was more precisely surmised as a struggle between civilization and primitivism.
The modern African man thinks of himself as a man. He believes as much when he looks in the mirror and sizes up the bearded, muscular fellow peering back at him. But besides his post-pubescent hair with the occasional signs of gray, he has little to show for his masculinity. Most pressing, his environment is in tatters. He has not shown his capabilities of building a foot bridge, much more a freeway overpass. He has not demonstrated his ability to manage the affairs of a planned neighborhood, much more the affairs of a entire nation.
His ache pains in the failings of himself and men of his ilk to painstakingly manage the individual fractals of their lives as individual pieces of a puzzle then to cooperate and assemble those pieces together as a large whole. It is from this puzzle that civilization is achieved. The small pieces when held apart, at different angles, in disparate order appear chaotic and jumbled. However, the bigger picture becomes clear when the small pieces are assembled neatly and in concert with others. To complete this process repeated times with regularity and efficiency means to become more disciplined. To complete this process repeated times with greater difficulty and accuracy means to become more refined. Civilization, the kind that elevates a group from primitivism, requires high levels of discipline and refinement. It requires high levels of collaboration among fellow men who have attained these feats and who work diligently to maintain them.
The quest for civilization thus might discourage men who would fast indulge in the ostentatious pastime of adorning themselves with their accolades. For all the trophies and medals I have seen, I have not come across one that read: Most Civilized. (Perhaps there should be.) But until that day comes, there are no laurels for an advanced human existence. The honor lies in the intangible, in satiating that nagging ache for which there appears to be no instant remedy. For what shall it profit the modern African man to gain the world but to never with his fellow men achieve civilization?
While the pale-faces’ struggle is between civilization and barbarism, the Mis-Educated Than His Ancestors (the METHA) in Africa struggle between civilization and primitivism. In essence, one struggles with his violence and the other other struggles with this childishness.
Man, it is the sad truth. All the great heights achieved by a man will ultimately be judged by his impact on his fellow men and their impact on him. It feels weird, now that I read Amara’s essay for a man to achieve greatness outside the village while the entirety of his own village remains unremarkable together with the village men in it. Unless the man expects to never again return, this strategy of avoiding “high levels of collaboration” with village men will only quickly erase the heights achieved by these great men outside the village.