The following assumes you care about humanity, if you do not, this is not for you…
I am an unapologetic child of hip-hop. This means my lips ooze with prize bars, from emcees that please these ears and eyes of mine freely granted to me by the divine man born in Bethlehem. Word is bond.*
this is the difference between emceeing and rapping, rappers spit rhymes that are mostly illegal, emcees spit rhymes to uplift they people -KRSONE
I mention this to introduce the heavenly wisdom found in the music of my favorite emcee, Immortal Technique. Not everything he says is in line with my faith, but he says and does more good than bad. I invite you to hear the text.
Here’s a toast to the dead… for those who died hard in the streets, soaking in red… for my enemies that are gone, I’m not a coward, so celebrating that would be wrong, I pray to God that your soul will come back again, so I can see you in the next life and finish it then, a toast to the dead, for criminals burning in Hell [sic], I wonder how many presidents are burning as well? emperors, popes, senators, generals? amputees feel unlucky until they see the vegetables… JDilla’s still alive as long as his music is, a toast to the dead… for those that’ll die today, the victims and those exonerated by DNA, the only thing worse than giving freedom to the guilty is killing the innocent and leaving your soul filthy, Immortal Technique, remember me when I’m gone, I encrypted my lyrics to stay alive in a song, so you’ll always keep a piece of my spirit inside, when you struggle to complete what I started before I died… realize that we are one regardless of our birthplace!
Exegesis:
-we should appreciate the dead, friend and foe alike
-we should be wary of power and authority
-without saying #1stworldproblems , which assumes 3rd world denizens can’t have trifling concerns, we should put our current woes (not Drake’s woes from the 6) behind us, and others in front of us
-when our flesh is eaten by the terrestrial worms, our ideas and words will remain, think of the permanence of our information brought by this digital age and act accordingly
-the written form is an effective way and has been so for thousands of years, to keep living (to be immortal)
-Immortal Technique leaves instructions, in his songs, on how he wants us to behave
-the behavior he seeks us to emulate the most is the behavior of being one, he wants us united
Background:
Certain South African denizens, who consider themselves more indigenous than other South African denizens, have beaten and killed people. Hundreds of people, pressured by groups of goons with guns (nation-States), have perished in the Mediterranean Sea, from poorly prepared travel arrangements. 30 Ethiopians were publicly put to death in Libya, by men too ashamed to show their faces, for the sake of a low-income homeless 1st Century Jewish Palestinian man, born of a poor teenage virgin in Bethlehem,** given the death sentence by the State, and married to communities of peoples across oceans, continents and generations, who call and have called upon his name.
Analysis:
Daesh (ISIS) does not appreciate other Muslims, let alone people who are not in Islam. We should appreciate everyone – the living and the dead. There are myriad causes, but the main cause of the shipwreck, the intra-African beef, and the executions is the power and authority vested in rulers by We The People. Let us take responsibility and cede power cautiously.
Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority; still more when you superadd the tendency of the certainty of corruption by authority. -Lord Acton
All the people who perished in these three events were migrants. Let us have ears that hear the voices of all migrants, hands that help all migrants and wallets that abet all migrants. The way that we dress, the one night stands that we have had, the cars that we drive, the places we travel to, the moistness of our jumpers (bball), the expensive foods we consume, the movies we watch et cetera, have a common denominator. They are all fleeting. What matters? The way we treat each other.
let’s change the way we live, let’s change the way we treat each other -2Pac
All of the writing that you have done on this subject, whether in your diary, on Twitter, on Instagram, on Facebook or in long-form like this, matters. Keep doing it. It is good.
Lisane Ge’ez is the root of many Ethiopian languages. Amharic is one of them. Lisane Ge’ez means “the tongue of the free peoples”. I identify as Ge’ez before Habesha, Ethiopian or any “tribes” my parents are from. To be Ge’ez is to be free. If we are free peoples (plural), then we are one in that we are free, but we are not boring because we are diverse. In Amharic (the 2nd most widely spoken Semitic tongue in the world) menfes (spirit), nefs (soul), istinfas (breath) and nefas (wind) share the same root. Though they are diverse, they are one. All of these words have to do with movement.
What moved Jemal Rahman? I would argue the question should be, who moved Jemal Rahman? I’m still not certain whether the martyrs were 28 or 30. Some people assume they were all Orthodox Christians. That’s a safe bet, normally, because that is the majority group in Ethiopia. However, Jemal Rahman, if you haven’t guessed from his name, is Muslim. Then why did Daesh put him to death with the Christians? Whatever, or whoever, influenced Jemal, he moved to be one with his diverse brethren. There was another martyr who undefined categories/borders we build. His name is Eeyasu YikuneAmlak and he had dreadlocks. Would you have expected Eeyasu, with his dreadlocks, to be so religious that he wanted to die for it? These were diverse people and maybe one or more of the martyrs will turn out to be Protestant. Maybe, one or more of them were Atheist, but reinvigorated into the faith that they were raised in, by a feeling of oneness grounded in the resurrection of that Jewish Palestinian I mentioned earlier. Who knows? God knows.
Conclusion:
We establish too many borders. Market anarchists call State borders “boarder Apartheid”. I like that. The metaphor is especially powerful given the current circumstances of bigotry in South Africa. But, there are so many other functional borders in our lives that we could live without. We establish borders because of height, weight, gender, religion, sexual orientation, time zones, area codes, flags, sports teams, culinary delights, hair texture, hair length, speed, strength, virility, fertility, skin tone, academic degrees, jobs et cetera. It is on us to change our behavior.
It is on us to jettison borders, and act like we are – one.
Peace be unto you all,
Heynok Elyas Negash Aweqe
Post Scriptum:
*RZA has been trying to get people to say bong-bong and word is bond for ages
**Bethlehem means the house of bread or the house of the word of God
the scriptural response (1500 words) – http://servetheway.blogspot.com/2015/04/the-orthodox-response-to-30-martyrs-of.html
the song response (2 minutes 29 seconds) in Ge’ez, English & Amharic – https://soundcloud.com/the-devoted-man/the-cross-is-our-atonemoment
2nd song response (1 minute 58 seconds) in English alone – https://soundcloud.com/the-devoted-man/salvation-to-our-god-original
the video response (12 minutes 15 seconds) in English with a drizzling of Amharic/Ge’ez – http://youtu.be/Hv8PwN4F6-8
the commercial/fundraising response – for the homeless and the needy in honor of the 30 Martyrs – http://teespring.com/semaitat.