|
Harvest of Hate — Mary's Saga
WorldPress.org, August 11, 2006 by Roland Bankole Marke
My name is Mary Bangura, although I was born and baptized Mary Talabi James, at Saint John's Maroon Church in Freetown, Sierra Leone: to a middle class Creole family of Liberated African roots, forty-seven years ago. This was the period when Sierra Leone was at the crossroads of British imperialism and a self-determination struggle for emancipation. I emerged from a warm, enchanted culture, where men desired tailcoats and top hats, and women gracefully wore long, flowing, decked kabaslot and kotoku, a unique hybrid of Western and African cultures. I'm a diamond in the rough; who had no college education, but only a sound secondary education.
Growing up in post independence Sierra Leone, life seemed rosy. Exchange rate of our currency, the Leone was 85 cents to the dollar. We chose which supermarket the family could shop in for our weekly grocery. There was Choithram, Challeram, Chanrai, and many more. Ah! But this was virtually short lived: A one party democracy that degenerated into dictatorial regimes followed this era of prosperity. The middle class status that I once enjoyed diminished entirely over the years. As a single mother, my upbringing had prepared me for the difficult challenges that were to come. But, in 1998, as most middle class families, my three children and I were further reduced into destitution by poor leadership under a military leader turned politician.
On Jan. 6, 1999, I was taken by storm. Feared Revolutionary United Front (R.U.F.) rebels had invaded most of Sierra Leone and were approaching Freetown maliciously. But our government discounted the validity of any imminent threat, and called them rabble-rousers. Warnings, fused anxiety, vicariously climaxed my despair, as denial, panic, and tardiness emboldened them to accessible intrusion, to which my beloved country would fall. Originally, my country was very peaceful, especially as we sailed through a bloodless transition from colonial rule to independence. Its reputation as the home of higher learning in West Africa had earned the accolade, "The Athens of West Africa." I recall those good memories of my secondary school teacher, a demagogue, who would brag as he tapped the desk with a rattan. He was proud of the high reputation Fourah Bay College had built in the world of academia. "Sierra Leone's premier college is the Athens of West Africa and a citadel of learning." He spoke proudly of its educational acclamation and continued a disdainful discussion on Sierra Leone being discovered by a Portuguese explorer called Pedro Da Cintra in 1462, who is believed to have named it Sierra Lyoa (Lion Mountain). He would argue vehemently, "But others were here before him and how could he have discovered our country?" And this would amuse me then. I knew that my ancestors were not indigenous inhabitants, but freed slaves who once settled in Freetown.
The full text of this article/excerpt can be found at WorldPress.org.
|
