The allegory of the hornbill

When I was young in primary I read a story about a noisy hornbill and the trouble he brought about to the whole forest. The noisy hornbill kept quacking through the forest. The forest was indifferent to its tirade. One lady bird however was cautious and skeptic of the wanton indifference in the forest. It warned that the noisy hornbill will eventually bring trouble to the whole forest and that the forest ought to check his excess of noise. The whole forest at the height of indifference opted to stay indifferent to the noise of the hornbill and the counsel of the lady bird. Every one simply minded his own skin. Then one day a hunter heard a loud hornbill in the forest and followed his incessant noise. He came to the clearing where the hornbill was and shot it off the tree. It fell where there were mushrooms and the hunter thought he should take the mushroom as well for eating with the hornbill. To his enthusiasm he found a snail next to the mushroom and took it as well to make good soup. He cut the banana next to them and lianas to tie and package his hunt. Thus much to the warning of the ladybird all the neighbors of the noisy hornbill did meet their end because of the noisy hornbill and their indifference to its excess.

The allegory finds relevance when put in retrospect to African colonization and more specifically the story of the Nile.  Colonization then and now is a process it starts off like cancerous cells and if unchecked spreads to the whole and kills the body and soul ad infinitum. Not so long ago euro imperialists colonized India and wanted to go there more often. They had to strenuously go round a forest continent impenetrable and ancient. The distance was painstaking and making it was a matter of probability. When the managed to put Egypt under their influence and construct a canal to ease access of Indian subcontinent. It proved a convenient and shorter way to access their investment abroad. However they later realized the invaluable River Nile and saw it fit to control Egypt and harness the Nile. The nile was subject to control and the had to expand territories down south to its source to ensure monopoly. They descended south gobbling territories I their wake. At the source they got to the more illustrious lake that they named after their queen maybe due to it benevolence and sustenance of territories all round it. So they occupied all land around this great lake. Then there came the fact that actually besides the water and the life, flora and fauna there was resources minerals and labor that was abundant and unpaid. And what started as a shortcut to India ended up as colonization of East Africa just like the proverbial hornbill hunter. The indifference of the neighbors to the takeover of one of them eventually brought the demise of all of them as a whole.

And that’s exactly what is happening in Africa toady! The Euro American alliance has brought out it military birds for display in Libya for self centered reasons. They let other despots like the Syrian and Bahrain administration slaughter protesters and are too quick to support, intervene and arm dissidents of Benghazi. The sheer might resources and media invested in the Odyssey campaign tells of the benefits they intend to assume once their puppet NTC gains undemocratic power over Tripoli. My point in alluding to the allegory of the hornbill is in call for action from AU. The domicile AU and other African states on the matter is appalling. We are showing utter indifference to the crisis of Tripoli like the hornbill’s neighbors and that will be our greatest undoing. What this crisis might end up being is a gradual re-colonization of the motherland if left unchecked. They already own our economies and we are indebted to them to the bone. Now they are brazenly administering territory on the motherland? Now they brazenly control the Somali coast in our own interest? Now they have brought us military help against El Bashir and are at the heart of oil producing Abyiei. And we know that the whole of Africa is their dumb vassal and satellite states. Soon all the bullshit about sovereignty and democracy they have been tutoring ass will be shoved aside ‘in our own interest’. Their philosophies will be redefined and re-colonization will be dubbed our best solution from ourselves. As we continue to play indifferent the hunter is bombing down Libya and we are the neighbors that will go down with it.

Africa, your silence is deafening.