FEATURE ARTICLE


Chukwuemeka Uche OnuoraSunday, February 9, 2003
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[email protected]
Baltimore, MD, USA


JAJA AND I:
PONDERING THE COMPLEXITIES OF LIFE AND DEATH


Inspired by "Temporary Interruptions" by Rudolf Okonkwo, Nigeriaworld.com, February 4th, 2003

aja said,
"Be strong, be calm,
Knuckle up, don't stay down
Show death your game face"

Jaja said to me in my reverie
"Be ye not afraid to die or live
Life and death are faces of one coin
Like Janus in the Roman pantheon"

Jaja said to me
"I have journeyed to Hades
I have toured the cosmos
I dwell now in your pathos"

"But Jaja�" said I
"I am sick of the paucity
I am tired of hypocrisy
My desire is extinguished"

"The quest for a higher state
Has been violently replaced
By the fatalism of the predestined
A professed heretic, yielding to teleological doctrines"

"Uche, I know your pain"
Jaja said with a wry smile
"I am a victim of the inane
Success is determined by the amoral"

"To live is to fear the anti-life
To die is to embrace the anti-life
It is the axis around which we revolve
Either choice is a measure of degree"

"Your ultimate mission
Is not revisionist or reversionary
It is perhaps revolutionary
Anti-thesis to the status quo ante"

Jubo Jubogha fascinates me not because we held a philosophical and introspective discussion in my reverie, but because the story of his life reads like an epic; rivaling Homer's Iliad in terms of sheer euphoria and adventure. The complexities of his life story resonate soundly within my soul. I draw a lot of inspiration from the determination of his struggles and absorb bitter truths from the tragedy of his eventual downfall. I pondered Jaja's synopsis and the basis of his rationalization. Perhaps the brief interlocution with a reincarnated compatriot of Jaja's stature was a gift from Morpheus, or a sign of imminent psychosis, or maybe it is an indication of the inevitability of the ultimate personal sacrifice. Or maybe it is simply the flailing of a degenerate mind, degraded by the apathy of its environment. The irony of it all is that I am left to wonder what makes us regard death as the ultimate sacrifice. Sacrifice for whom or for what; sacrifice by whom? If death is the ultimate sacrificial act, then life must be the preeminent selfish act. Compounding the irony are two questions that bother me; two questions that are linked by their underlying premise, but perhaps confusing in their interpretations. Since we know that life and death are complimentary like Yin and Yang, the one beginning where the other ends, and perhaps vice-versa. Since we know that they are extensions of each other, a revolving symbiosis of states; is death, no matter how painful and unbearable, a subdued celebration? Is life a camouflaged mourning? Since we realize that life is futile in all its ramifications, and whereas we know that death is certain; shouldn't we recognize that to live, no matter how "moral" or "good", is to die? Are epistemological inquiries that ponder our existence an exercise in futility? Who knows, perhaps Agnostics have it right when they say that it is impossible to know. What is the natural state of our existence? Life or death, good or evil, apathetic individualism or bated collectivism; what is the intrinsic nature of humanity? Which comes first; life or death, egg or chicken? Perhaps it is simply a question of perception. Is there such a thing as good and evil, or do we simply have actions and thoughts; ideas and philosophies; cultures and norms viewed through different moral prisms? Faced as we are by the inexplicable travails of a certain race within humanity, perhaps different peoples have different natural states. Are Negroes victims of a coercive and entrenched mediocrity whose imposition predates even their ancestral memories, or is our natural state simply to exist in the treacherous realm of the anti-life?

Sometimes in the somber silence of pensive reflections, I reach down into the depths of my sanity and wonder to myself, is my life on earth really productive and if it is, to what end? Can the dislocation between the reality of our circumstances and the idealism of my aspirations, be assuaged or reattached by spewing the bitterness of my innermost feelings on the pages of a web portal? Will death grant more solace to the trepidations of my psyche? Will the struggle continue in the afterlife or does it all end here? After everything is said and done, does any of this really matter? My questions are wide-ranging, probably incoherent and disjointed; but I am sure that you feel my pain. The issues facing us in 2003 CE are the same as those that faced our progenitors prior to their first timid interactions with Dr. Bekee and his people. Lest we be precluded from debating the subject at hand, what is the academic explanation to our penchant for a worthless existence? Is embracing death the noblest antithesis to living a worthless life? Has the Negro race decided that accepting and urgently pursuing its inevitable demise, is the only way to return to our natural state of rest? And judging by the evidence on the ground, how long will it take us to achieve this feat?

Jaja said that success (in life and the anti-life) is determined by the amoral. I have wrestled with the implications of that assertion. In the first place, what does it mean to be amoral; that is, what does it mean to be without moral quality? Morality I believe is a question of perception. It is what we perceive to be positive or negative morality that translates into societal and individual morality or immorality. The morality or immorality of our society becomes confusing especially when it depends on our natural state. If our natural state is the anti-life, then our society is headed in the right direction, and that means we are moral. By inference, if our natural state is life, then we are immoral. But since we are yet to agree on our natural state, then we must apply Jaja's principle. As such, it is my steadfast contention that according to the corpus delicti, the Status Quo of Negro society is amoral, and they have decided on delimits for success and failure. Because if we are moral then we are failing, if we are immoral then we are succeeding, if we are amoral, then we are succeeding or failing depending on our natural state. A return to our natural state (if it is death) has taken us all of recorded history to accomplish, perhaps the third-rate brigands moonlighting as leaders in Africana are really heroes, they have accelerated this descent or ascent depending on your moral prism. Is my logic warped or are our aspirations for any other contingency but apocalypse, mere pretences at nobility? If life is our natural predisposition, then why are we so hell-bent on realizing the anti-life? Why are all our policies and expectations geared toward death? Why do we defer to the bestiality and degeneracy of our collective ethos? Why do we subtly encourage depravity on the basis of ethnicity and nationality? We see the signs, we hear the cries, we feel the pains, and we know the facts; why do we ignore the criminal? If our natural state is life, the events that are transpiring throughout Negro humanity are criminal, they are corrupt, and they downright are evil. Any pretensions to the contrary reinforce my belief that our natural state is death. We excuse idiocy and decadence on the basis of ethnicity; we forgive individual inanity, but pray for collective advancement. The irrationality of ethnic exuberance clouds our judgment as we succumb to the primordial instincts of kinship over the rational humanness of objective vilification. It is happening today in 2003 in Nigeria, it will happen in 2007 if there is still Nigeria. I am leaning towards a line of reasoning that contends that our natural state is the anti-life, and that we are hell-bent on arriving at that state.

Jaja also said that life and death are the faces of the same coin, life is the anti-death and death is the anti-life. In other words, we in the realm of life cannot experience or fathom the experiences of residing in the anti-life; however he did insinuate that there is a natural anti-life state, an inevitable death, much like our existence here but with cosmetic differences. Our existence is simply a revolution between natural states, one life and one death. The unknown is the question of which state comes first. And once the journey from life to the anti-life is complete, can it be reversed? Will we have any knowledge and memories of the life state in the anti-life state and vice-versa? Since we who now reside in the life state have no rational knowledge and memories of the anti-life (that we must have transited to get here), this must mean that the two states are mutually exclusive. Is the Negro drive to return to its natural state intrinsic or acquired?

Now the ultimate question is this; can the revolutionary Upstart Quo wrest control of the determinants of our destiny from the Status Quo? Can we make our natural state life as opposed to anti-life? Can we brave the daunting odds against our convictions that we are right and they are wrong? In other words; can we become amoral, just for the sake of the struggle? Can we decide the basis of success according to our own dispositions without recourse to Negro humanity? Can we be dictators for a while, until the ship of kismet is sailing in the direction that we want it to sail? Will it be moral to be amoral? Morality is idealistic; immorality is realistic, at least that is the case in present day Negro society. Amorality is neither, it is impartial; Jaja said that the amoral determine success and I believe him; the question is; do you? To be amoral is to be without the encumbrances of moral qualities, it means that we decide on the best course of action and stick to that course no matter whose ox is gored. Some innocents will die, some guilty ones will survive, but that is the price of living for the future, we must move on, even as we mourn our brethren who journey to the anti-life. It is inescapable and resistance is futile, the irrationality of our plunge into the nadir of the anti-life whilst we still have a chance to reverse it, is obtuse. I embrace the inevitability of death for myself, but I reject the fatalism of its domination on our entire race. Negroes may die, but the Negro race must live on as contributors to humanity's existence on earth. Amorality cannot be for everyone because the consequences could be premature death. Most people are afraid of death, but those who have looked death head-on with their best game face on, and not flinched, know what I mean when I say that to embrace the anti-life is to conquer the fear of death. And a soul freed from the fear of death can lead the charge to live an uninhibited existence in life. One with no fear of death can rally the Upstart Quo in direct opposition to the Status Quo; one with an appreciation (not love) for life cannot be dissuaded by threats of death. Life and death are states around which our existence revolves; either choice is simply a measure of degree. That is what Jaja said.