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Notes for later by Joe Pollitt

Notes for later...

I am trying to make quirky observations. Write about the obvious and dismantle the importance of race. Some among me would see me fail, as all they have is the skin on their backs to hold onto. Creating division, segregation and screaming of equality. How hypocritical and illogical it all seems to be to me? 

Anthropology is such a rich subject but it lends itself to thoughts of superiority and inflammatory language of the elite. There is an ugly distance created by the viewer and what is being viewed. No interaction just observation and so it becomes one of the ugliest subjects imaginable. 

The beauty of African Tradition and their Rituals is that they are flexible. You can expand them, tweak them, bend them and change them at a moments notice in order to accommodate those present at any time. It is like Voodou itself, it is kind and generous to everybody. The West Africans belong to an oral culture so nobody is tied up to some strict doctrine. (There are no Voodou Fanatics or Voodou Extremists). The West Africans who were taken as slaves, took with them these practices of honouring the world around them and their expert knowledge of nature. They adapted these practices to suit their new environments. This it is power of the Africa. This is her beauty and her strength. the flexibility to change and evolve perfectly at a drop of a hat. The ability to survive and evolve. Perhaps and I'm going out on a limb here but just maybe this is what true freedom looks like.

The Great British weakness is their inability to be flexible, which makes the society effectively static. This obstinacy cripples their ability to evolve. I have been thinking about Remembrance Day, 11th November at 11.00 O'Clock the public are called to prayer. They observe a 2 minute silence and hang their heads in quiet meditation, thinking about their military actions across the globe. This is their Traditional British Ritual. They remember their War Dead and at 3 minutes past 11 they continue their killings abroad. Here there is no flexibility. It is not a chance to change or apologize for their brutality across the known world. It is cold and calculated as they wallow in the blood or their dead and remember their murderous acts of War. The British inability to be flexible means that they are incapable of taking responsibilities for their actions. Decidedly, this makes Britain an immature and irresponsible Kingdom. What I am trying to achieve by pointing this out, is that Great Britain is inferior to an African Society, because of it's uncompromising ability to change. So we they stuck inside an archaic bubble that is not of their making and seen as unpatriotic if they don't observe these bizarre practices or fail to adhered to the letter of the Law. In reality they pay little if any respect to their dead by allowing others to follow in single file. This murder factory must stop and a sense of global responsibility observed and the perpetrators, at the highest level, should be held to account.

Rethinking all that I have been taught and want to write something out that will try to explain why African Art will shape tomorrow's world. African Art is not a performance by some Celebrity Artist, but more about Traditions and Rituals. It is so difficult for African Artists to work within the parameters of a Western notion of Art when the word "ART" simply doesn't exist on the Continent. It is so difficult for Westerners to understand the complexities of Tradition and Rituals that are practices on the Continent of Africa because they don't conform to any dateline of time frame. The West is dictated to by their rigid Traditions. We must kiss a girl or boy on Valentines Day and send gifts and cards to support a greedy economy; most buy into this nonsense. We are forced to take time off when Jesus was born at Christmas and again send cards and gifts to support a greedy economy; most buy into this nonsense. Everything in the West is structured and ordered, the populations is required to be compliant, this is polar opposite to those in Africa. Africa is far freer than the West as it's Celebrates life in a more personal fashion, this is not only Liberating for the peoples of Africa but is the glue that holds a healthy community together. The West has so much to learn from African Art and this is the vacuum the West has created since the beginning of the last Century.

Holding onto power via education. Censored by the idea of being qualified to write or not, what a load of nonsense. Although clearly the minority the world is shaped by the few and the majority are excluded. This idea that the minority are the majority is becoming outdated and soon the penny will drop and things will be shaped very differently in the future.

Poems to Child Miners in Central Africa.

I am thinking about the children being sent down the mines in Congo and it reminds me of William Blake and the chimney sweeps of London Town and this week the Artists of Africa are exhibiting their artworks in the Capital. This is an ideal opportunity to draw attention to these humanitarian issues.

https://www.bl.uk/…/william-blakes-chimney-sweeper-poems-a-…

Let us write poems for them..This is my poem.

CONGO ORPHANS

You send the children because the adults are just too big to work in a space that small...I understand, it is hardly your fault, these children have nobody to parent them, so they become the victims of our Modernity. Working for motoki, black-eyed beans or rice and warm sugary cups of tea. Some as young as six years old, wearing battered t-shirts marked with mud, and ripped shorts housing thin grubby knees and feet covered by tattered old stained plimsolls as they squeeze inside holes digging like moles for a dime size metal worth billions.Winners and losers I guess..

Somebody has to suffer so why not the African orphans? Who will care for them in our visible world of maps, drones and high spec cameras based in Outerspace, which can detect all kinds of resources from all around the globe? The child miners are invisible from us here, as we type on upgraded keyboards and thumbing up every message written on smart phones....I wonder how many of these orphaned children think our phones are smart? Capable of making them work like dogs in confined spaces when they should be playing in safe open fields; in parks and learning to ride on stabilized bicycles and swim in chlorinated waters whilst making friends with other kids their age and eating ice-creams? I guess...Not for them hey...This is a disgrace that has not been sanctioned by the Users. It makes us criminals, guilty of having no conscience. We need to resolve this yesterday, not today and tomorrow it will just be too late. Wipe that blood off your hands #Apple #Vodaphone #Nokia #Samsung and I will wash my hands after typing out this poem. I feel sick being apart of this heartless Modernity.

Kofi Mensah 09/10/2016

Everyday News by Kofi Mensah

Everyday News

Sitting overdosing on pointless information. 
Anxiety at an all time high.
Too stressed to leave the house for fear of not 
understanding my mobile on my return.
They have upgraded me. I didn't ask them to and 
what have I done to deserve this promotion?

Checked my emails that are telling me I need to Link-In 
to this Africa, that Africa, Afronauts on the moon 
want to connect and am I interested?
I need to revise my thinking on Word for Windows, 
as it too, has been upgraded and would I like a new 
password as the old one is far too obvious? 

"Open Sesame".....

My Apple is writing me notes. 
I haven't been on iTunes enough so they are 
considering whether or not they want to 
keep me as one of their loyal customers. 
My Kindle has given up on me even though it has a full battery.
Amazon Pride is not being offered to the likes of me. 
Ebay have blocked me for virtually stealing one of their jokes. 
My Supermarket reward card has been cancelled 
and all my points have been donated to those 
far more worthy than myself. 
My line rental is all but expired and I am having 
serious doubts if I actually want to continue at all.....

Notes flying through my letterbox, 
indicating that I am some kind of moron
for not switching my energy supplier.
A handwritten letter thrown on my welcome mat 
from a Church up the road,
with the news saying that they are all praying 
for my soul this coming Sunday.

Meals on wheels left me a message to get in contact 
and would I like to feed the 5000 and
some little fucker has pushed a plastic bag through my window telling me to fill it up for some starving child in Portugal...
Little did they know, I have sent all my spare change
to save an old donkey in Brazil.

Kofi Mensah, 10/10/2016