Coming to terms with the past
The jigsaw puzzle
For everyone from the age of ten upwards.
About the producer
,,It was by default that brought about the development of this bespoke jigsaw puzzle. It is not a product you would instantly associate coming from someone with my temperament, I will explain!
Having arrived from Nigeria at the tail end of the 1960’s I was never interested in education. I just wanted to have fun and England had an abundance of allurements to keep me constantly entertained: there was music, fashion, night clubbing, girls, sports of varying forms, you name it they were all here. In contrast to where I was coming from, the infrastructure here made it easier and all the more pleasant to be immersed in the fun. However, I very quickly learnt that my enthusiasm to indulge in entertainment was going to be at odds with my culture, which demanded having a degree qualification as a minimum expectation, especially as one of the senior children; a category I fell into.
This meant I was completely at the mercy of my father who had a cast iron grip over my life. In the 60s, you must know, we were still living in the era where children were not allowed to speak in the presence of adults unless they were spoken to; a time where you dare not “eyeball” your father for fear your demise would be imminent. My father was a man I imagined was a Nigerian military officer, camouflaged as an employee of British rail. With so much castigation from him, I became so petrified I ended up with a stammer. I could not comfortably put sentences together without the obligatory pauses every so often when I was in his presence. This was to get worse; it was happening even in social interactions with friends and others.
In order to seek solace I built a cocoon around myself, a sort of escape mechanism by engrossing Herbert in sport. I excelled in many, but football was the most enjoyable of them all. I still recall even today the primary school we attended had never in its history won any accolade for the sport until my attendance. We successfully retained the trophy for the following two years until my departure. Ian Wright, the legendary Arsenal striker, was three years behind me at the school in the infants, with his prowess I suspect he also added to Gordonbrook’s fortune.
As an introvert with a speech impediment, I hid and dodged from public speaking. For me, public speaking only required a gathering of no more than two or three people to cause the inhibition to vocalise. I lived with this disposition for many years. After leaving home, I thought perhaps reading Law would cure the condition and break the cycle. So with relentless effort and dogged determination, I pursued the course and was eventually awarded the degree. I was 29 when I graduated, but still, nothing changed. Yes, I had acquired knowledge of the law but my constitution remained intact and I could not shift the speech impediment that plagued me ever since my childhood.
Fast forward May 2020, some 30 years later having come to accept my condition, one day a sudden rush of emotion would come to upend that order. It is unforgettable and is still as vivid today as when it occurred on 25th May 2020: I entered my flat, went into the front room to turn the television on only to see a man being lynched in broad daylight. I was traumatised with fear, an inescapable visual of similar events centuries past rushed into my head, when at least two people were regularly lynched on a weekly basis to a spectacle of hundreds, at times thousands of onlookers. Some used to take body parts of the deceased, whilst others took photos of the event and converted them into postcards that they then sent to friends. Only now, we are witnessing this act in the 21st Century in the presence of the entire global audience. Amazingly no one was able, or indeed capable of preventing or stopping it. I pondered: How can this be? Yes, I am talking about George Floyd.
As I watched the heart-wrenching event unfold…
…my organs went into spasm, and felt as though they were searching for a way to escape my body. I screamed numerous times for assistance but help did not come, I was alone! I watched and watched until Mr Floyd’s torso let out its last gasp of air from his lungs, like a deflated balloon. I knew right there and then he would be no more, his ordeal was over. Later accounts showed us how, in the final last seconds alive, he even tried using a finger to access air in order to breathe. The intent to take Mr Floyd’s life had been predetermined some time before the constraints.
The perpetrators mindset still arouses my curiosity today: how a group of police officers could pin a man to the ground [with intent] to asphyxiate him, is incomprehensible. To make a bad situation even worse, it was done in the most indifferent manner indicative of someone who was confident there would be no reprisal.
It was out of this macabre and gruesome occurence that I knew to remain silent was not an option that would be comfortable for me. To remain neutral on the matter is equally not a stance I could take; either would be tantamount to being complicit to the crime and an indictment to our generation, particularly those of us in England and Europe and of course America, where we have seen some of the worst displays of this behaviour perpetrated against Africans and their descendants.
Three things happened:
Something deep in my subconscious began to motion and reshape, recalibrating so as to adjust to what it witnessed; something that was going to disrupt and reverse the fear to speak in public and at the same time put a halt, or at least a noticeable reduction to my stuttering. At this stage I was not completely aware of what was happening but I knew something was brewing inside.
The second thing that happened, as if by impulse, I reached for a pen and paper and began to write a response to George Floyd’s murder. The finished material was rushed onto a website “racismtheresetbutton.com”.
In the weeks, perhaps months following…
…the publication of the article I spent considerable time mulling over what happened: the seemingly inescapable issue of colour and matters pertaining to it; the longevity of the problem; the way it permeates all of society and its ability to pass from generation to generation like the proverbial “relay baton.” It is an organic matter that has been in existence since before our mothers and fathers and their forebears ad infinitum, to at least as far back as the early to mid-1400s. I wondered also, when did it all start?
The cogitation became a preoccupation. Searching for a way forward followed. The question I repeatedly asked myself was: how do you rid a system that has been built into the fabric of society for some 500-600 years? How do we unravel the organism from its host, society?
This is what gave birth to the third thing that happened, “ Coming to terms with the past” jigsaw puzzle.
It seems to me there isn’t a silver bullet or panacea that could cure society of the delusion. It will take the whole of society and the whole of government coming together to work in a concerted effort to tackle the problem.
For me, the solution must be rooted in education, re-education, and decolonisation. In relation to the latter often when we speak in terms of socioeconomic and political relations between Africa and Europe, and indeed other countries, Africa is almost always viewed through the spectrum of the triangular transatlantic slave trade and plantation slavery, (hereafter, the trade). This lens needs to be cleansed, decolonised and freed from the effects of colonial influence and attitude. Coming to terms with the past firmly believes the best way we can tackle these issues is by re-educating the public, and educating children, about the history of Africa beginning from the early to mid-1400s, because it appears the minds of people have forgotten the contribution Africa has made to the world, and continues to do, especially people in the rich world.
For the change to be fully effective we will need to rewrite school lessons and remodel university curriculums in a way that incorporates the history of Africa. The change will also require those responsible for teaching, imparting and dissemination of knowledge, like the media, journalists and others to rethink the way the world is explained.
Coming to terms with the past jigsaw puzzle gives a quick panoramic pictorial guide to the subject; how a nation was decimated, and its people used as labour to build the world as is seen today.
The puzzle is intended to elicit the larger conversation about the journey of these people and why societies find themselves in the current quagmire we are today: inequality and racial conflicts.
I am happy to see Universities here and across the Atlantic have begun a discourse about the trade. The church of England has also made huge strides on the subject, with £100 million fund set aside to assist the descendants of the transatlantic slave trade.
It is important we begin to teach children this history if we are to break the generational passing of the “diseased” baton. We know the success of every nation depends on its children, and if their mindset is imbibed with delusions of history it follows they will pass those on also.
It is for these reasons I commend this puzzle to you and to schools, because it brings the most important demographic, [our children], into line with the conversations taking place in the tertiary education system and the wider community.
The Jigsaw Puzzle:
COMING TO TERMS WITH THE PAST
The jigsaw puzzle is now selling at:
The Old Royal Naval College (opposite The Cutty Sark)
Greenwich
London
SE10 9NN
Tel: 020 8269 4755
Product email address: [email protected]
Price £15
Price online £15 plus £6 p&p
About the product
The German-American professor of economic sciences and holocaust survivor, Irene Hasenberg Butter, tells us about the importance of narrating the story of the horrendous events of the holocaust so it is kept alive and not forgotten. Only recently, a poll conducted in America about the holocaust identified two-thirds of millennials did not know what “Auschwitz” is, which is twice the percentage of US adults who also did not know. The study was conducted by the Jewish organisation “The Claims Conference.” Whilst many Americans lack the historical knowledge and understanding of the tragedy, the survey found many Americans had a desire for holocaust education. Some 93% surveyed said all students should be taught about the subject in schools.
It appears to me, the same is true with the young and old of today’s generation in respect of “the trade”, in Europe and America. This is a story like the Jewish holocaust, which has so much blighted the world it should be told with equal vigour and depth. Both children and the adult population lack adequate knowledge of the events, and many are conflicted about what happened and the issues surrounding the saga.
The subject engulfs the entire planet. In order to develop a counterbalance to its effect and destructive nature, we need to create an article or product that can be deployed in a way that is as ubiquitous as the illness; a product that will help prevent its transmission from one generation to the next.
Coming to terms with the past, for me, is one such article. It fulfils many important purposes, most significant amongst them are: it is a great learning tool; in the hands of children and in school environments it will make a cooperative learning technique, and because of its historical perspective and the joint cooperation of the classroom, it will hugely reduce conflict amongst school children [for me, the most important demographic in the fight against racial inequality], and bring about more enhanced intercultural relations- the goal of the project. As a follow-on, coming to terms with the past will help promote better learning, and improve student motivation and enjoyment of the learning experience. It is important also to note that having a visual and mental geographical representation, together with symbols, helps to facilitate remembering details of events.
The small information booklet in the jigsaw puzzle, narrates an account of how Europe and America appropriated the continent of Africa, and how they proceeded to decimate around a third of the continents population of around 100 million at the peak of the trade, in the early to mid 1800’s. It was a genocide and holocaust of unprecedented magnitude, some 5 times the scale of Jews murdered in the holocaust. It was so grotesque and repulsive the poet and politician, Aime Cesaire in his book “Discourse on Colonialism” described it as “Hitlerism before Hitler.”
It is important we tell this story because the ones being peddled by the West are airbrushed out of societys’ collective mind, and designed to obfuscate what really happened. At times they demonstrably fabricate facts. Often the history of the world is told with the continent of Africa on the periphery, like talking about the animal kingdom and giving little credence to the king of them all, the Lion. The author, Henry French, likened it to telling the story of our solar system and not putting the Sun at the centre.
In order for children to build a life of meaning and hope, at a time when we are still living with the legacies of the trade, it is our responsibility to sensitise them to an accurate account of historical events that relates to them. The puzzle helps to demystify these accounts in an enjoyable and interactive way, especially for us, the millennials and future posterity.
In closing
George Floyd’s assassination in May 2020 in America, with its global ramification that subsequently morphed into the Black Lives Matter Movement/Campaign; Donald Trump’s Presidency that ended on January 2021 with claims of racism compounded with charges of insurrection; and now here in the United Kingdom we see the same issue of race engulf the British Royal family, the media, and indeed the entire British society, spilling into America. In fact we have not seen this before. See Megan and Harry issue.
We are at a turning point. And if we are observant enough we will see that history, and the powers that be inform us that if we continue to ignore or pass our responsibility to unborn generations either deliberately or inadvertently, then it (history and the universe) will continue to represent and re-present those issues again and again, until we confront and put the issue to rest.
We should follow the example set by the Germans in the way they tackled the hatred that Hitler and the Nazi party had towards the Jews after World War ll. They came together to have a National conversation about the horrors of the holocaust and the crimes perpetrated against the Jews, through a process called “vergangenheitsaufarbeitung.” It was a fruitful endeavour that eradicated the hatred against the Jews by some in Germany.
Societies have spent too long talking about discrimination, prejudice, and the most contentious of them being “racism.” In my estimation the latter is nothing but a symptom of the trade and an agreement by the West to commit a holocaust on the people of Africa, not just in the continent but beyond. Not much is said about the causes- the conversion of human beings to human chattels that are disposed of and traded like any other property.
The substantial discussion we should be having should be directed to the history of TRIANGULAR TRANSATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE and PLANTATION SLAVERY. If we can teach children and young adults this history society would have done well to dramatically reduce the occurrence of the symptoms of the disease. It is by giving full accounts of what happened, and accepting and coming to terms with them that society can begin to work its way out of the quagmire it finds itself in. We want to commend the Archbishop of Canterbury and Governor of The Church of England, Justin Welby, for not only acknowledging the historical link the church had to slavery, but by pledging the sum of £100 million to address past wrongs, and indicating that the pledge was only a first step towards its effort to make amends.
It is notable also that many Universities here and across the Atlantic have begun to look into the role their Institutions played in the trade. In America we see universities like Harvard, Columbia, Princeton, Yale, Virginia and many others all engaged in this discussion. See: Craig Steven Wilder, a historian and author of “Ebony and Ivy; Race, Slavery and the Troubled History of American Universities. On this side of the ocean we see comparable universities like Glasgow, Cambridge, Oxford and others doing the same, looking into their respective links to the slave trade. The results show that the Universities’ members and institutions benefited from, and shared in the prevalent culture of slave ownership in the period. See: Joseph Foster, Alumni Oxonienses: The members of the University of Oxford, 1715-1886, 4 vols. (Oxford: Oxford University press, 1891 & Rev. Charles William, Boase, Registrum Collegii Exoniensis: An alphabetical Register of the Commoners of Exeter College, Oxford, Vol. 2 (Oxford: Printed at Baxter’s press 1894)).
It is not just important to educate children and re-educate the general public, but in doing so we must ensure that the people responsible for the dissemination of knowledge are mindful of the narrative they give about the continent and people of Africa. We must teach children about the trade in schools. If we can do the foregoing we would have begun to decolonize the way Africans are viewed vis-a-vis interpersonal relations between the peoples and continent of Africa, and the rest of the world, as well as in relation to commercial dealings. As presently business negotiations are transacted through the spectrum of the slave trade.
It is important that the subjects children are taught in schools are free from colonisation and be based on facts, the history of their people and any science[s] relating to it without fabrication or obfuscation.
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HERBERT WANOGHO
(promoter and producer).