This is the third and most important in the series of a trilogy on the kinds of conversations I would like to have. The preceding being Creative Conversations and Cool Conversations.
Closure is perhaps the greatest need we have in life, as recently confirmed to me in my process of grief following the death of my mother. Our hearts and brains are a closed circuit. A story without an end is incomplete. And that end must have a label that fits our comprehensive capacity. We can process tragedy or comedy, but a question mark is only a baton bequeathed a future generation to run with to the tape.
This perhaps is what informs one of the Caribbean’s brightest and most forward thinking minds, Professor Hilary Beckles’ amazing statement that he believes that ‘the greatest movement of this 21st century will be the Reparations Movement’, thus extending a yet early invitation, as we creep towards the half-way mark of the century, for the brightest and best to hop on board; no doubt, if his premonitory hunch proves correct, there still is plenty of time for the riff -raff to join the train.
The Caribbean case and that of India, indicate how creatively explosive (or ‘dynamic’ for those who cant reconcile the juxtaposition) this conversation promises to be, for those unprepared to drop the subject for an easy (and relatively meaningless) life.
The common mistake made, especially by certain categories of people: Jamaicans, Caribbean people in general, in fact, Africa and her diaspora at large, and particularly, certain types in the society, such as politicians, preachers, academics, and bureaucrats of all types – professional committee members, meeting attenders, notetakers and such the like; is that conversation entails just ‘talk’.
Certainly, in the biblical sense, one’s conversation connotes much more than talk but lifestyle. Unfortunately, the ability to intentionally structure one’s life, in both energy and attention around select issues whether of personal import or internalized communal duty, still seems a luxury to ex -slaves accustomed to paying attention only to whip and wielder.
Nevertheless, our own prophets have encouraged us to wake up and live, get up and stand up, to continue in the emancipatory process till both mind and spirit are free to write our own ticket to our own destiny and conclude ‘the plot’.
Like Adam in the garden before Eve, limited to nouns, yet a noun doth not a whole sentence make. Naming a thing starts the process, but there is much work to do to contextualize ones reality, and then move beyond mere comprehension to creativity – arrange it to one’s own suiting; for only then can the whole be fully appreciated.
So I invite you into my world of words. Come walk and talk with me. Otherwise, what’s the point? If you have one, you are welcome to suggest it.
YeKengalé 