Dear comrade,
Welcome to yet another phase in this “struggle” of life. It is tempting to open with overtures like ”you must love to read books,” but you already know that — you are a student here. Of the plethora of books out there, (auto)biographies easily reign supreme. Bundle memoirs and histories do as well. What are histories but the biographies of societies? Societies are living beings that must evolve.
Biographies chronicle people’s lives. They speak to the psychologies of men and how they respond to the vicissitudes of life. These have a stubborn tendency to rebound and stay consistent. The more you study the lives of men, the more you observe the patterns and cross-cutting principles that govern this procession. This is one of the reasons you should take your Bible seriously. The Bible contends that there’s nothing new under the sun. It diagnoses a universal condition and offers an eternal remedy foreclosing the need for an update.
Biographical materials teach you seemingly immutable life principles. They contend that there is no experience you will go through that is that novel. The same goes for your four years here. The mistake we young people normally make is to think we are the first people to walk this earth. Homo sapiens have a thing for uniqueness. When we mope, we want to believe our challenges are so peculiar. Biographies quickly disabuse you of such notions. You may be unique, but apparently, you are not that special. We’ve seen you before. So read, engage, ask for help and use it when it’s given.
In Africa, the case for the wisdom of age — respect for gray hair — has been belabored, sometimes exaggerated. One ignores the counsel of elders at one’s own peril. Old people have this uncanny tendency to have the last laugh in our lives. There’s an African saying that what your parents can see sitting down, you cannot see standing up. Such is the place of experience. This changes our conception of maturity, which becomes the collective revelation and realization of old wisdom. Growth then would be the progressive realization that your parents and teachers were right after all.
This is why revolutionary movements invest in political education. Folks must be equipped with a coherent theory to guide praxis. The theory would be drawn from the collective experience of the group in question — their history, their biography. It would comprise an analysis of where the group is coming from, where it is now and on that basis, where it is going. The theory thus has a predictive element to it. Our collective human experience in the era of electricity would suggest that holding a live wire with wet hands would give you an involuntary breakdancing class. Worst case scenario, you meet your maker. Ignorance thus can be fatal. Failure to educate themselves politically has landed many populists in hot soup. They promise the wananchi (Kiswahili for masses) that their forebears are the problem. “Put me in power and your fortunes will change overnight.” They get there and reality (structural conditions) slaps sense into their heads. More on this in a future column.
The mainstay of biographies is the evolution of men. It goes without saying that man evolves physically and in his ideas. Marx and his disciples are correct, to a certain degree, in their case for where ideas come. Their assessment, however, of the place of eternal ideas does not stand up to historical scrutiny. Many of us live the way we do because of some ideas we are beholden to. We essentially act out our self-understanding.
In the aisle of biographies, up there is ”The Autobiography of Malcolm X” by Alex Haley. When I came to America, I was surprised to discover it’s not daily bread on the menu of school kids. The story is too complete, too rich, too rewarding — the exegesis of dialectics in human life — to not be essential reading. It is easily the ultimate story told of the evolution of a man and his ideas. Malcolm Little, Detroit Red, Malcom X (Nation of Islam) Malcom X (Organization of Afro-American Unity). Egg, larva, pupa adult. A colonized black boy with a neurosis to a man who gains a sense of identity then straightens his back. A politically apathetic man, then one who sees no chance of black and white America ever cohabiting and ultimately advocate for harmonious coexistence. The only literary problem with the story is that it ends too soon. Give him 10 more years and el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz would have surprised many with where and who he would have ended up. Evolution is the constant.
The story also reveals something about growth and change — it's a painful process. Real substantial revolutionary changes, in life and elsewhere, are costly. A price has to be paid. In the book, X narrates the story of drug addicts forced to go cold turkey by the NOI. For a moment, one doesn’t recognize oneself. There’s uncertainty. Uncharted waters. Unbeaten paths. But that’s the point. Something has to give if one is to evolve. The seed must die for a seedling to emerge. For a new life on earth, the birth pangs of a mother. It’s cold, in the heated sense, but it must happen.
There’s nothing revolutionary about stagnation. This goes for people who want to reenact history as well. Particularly those who romanticize histories that have never existed. Baldwin channeling Neil Galwin said something: “I’d be a fool to think that there was someplace I could go where I wouldn’t carry myself with me or that there was some way I could live if I pretended I didn’t have the responsibilities which I do have.” Be sure you will live with yourself these four years and the rest of your life. It’s imperative you figure out who that is. The learning and application is on the job. So persuaded by new progressive evidence, permit that revolution fomenting in your soul. The view from the double-giraffe shows that it should be a fulfilling process.
It’s apt to close with an except from our University President’s recent homily. “Growth whether spiritual, social, or intellectual requires that we move beyond the familiar, ... , the comfortable.” Something or someone must die. In many cases, in this case, there’s a high probability it is the old you.
Olemo Gordon Brian is a junior at Notre Dame studying political economy. He is currently studying abroad at SOAS University of London. He is deeply interested in Africa's development and the emancipation of man. You can contact Olemo at bolemo@nd.edu.
