Red Black Nonsense - 1.7 Million Apologies

I’m really terribly sorry that I have to do this. Ironic isn’t it? The fact that countless times we hear these words is most disheartening. How quick we are to apologize for being jerks; for doing something stupid yet expecting quick forgiveness. It is a truth that is blatantly human yet also understandably unforgiveable. However nothing should be unforgiveable...no? I admire the guts in a man or woman who takes responsibility for his/her actions. You did it...it was stupid...but yes! You’re not bloody sorry.

I do not write for a living. I write because it has become a part of me and one I don’t see myself giving up for anything in the world. That aside, I don’t see my brain being moulded into that of a disciplined journalist. The noble profession is miles beyond my reach for I would always choose emotion over reason. That is my art and I fell in love with it after I found it hard to channel my anger as a child. Now, unfortunately it has forced me to grow into a very angry adult. These words you read from me are not impulsive! No, they are calculated attempts to direct my anger into something positive. Call it some sort of “corrective self therapy”.

So I’m listening to the radio (rather eavesdropping on someone listening to the radio) and I heard the caller start a very personal conversation with the DeeJay who was evidently uncomfortable. After a minute of “nama naa la...yang ma loss...kanj nga maa setsi”, the caller started an advert for a business she was trying to set up. As would be expected, the deejay quickly turned up the volume of the music and hung up on the caller who had stupidly said her name on air. How I wish I knew the caller enough to smack her over the head with a pencil (I believe a stick would be a violation of her rights as a citizen first and as a woman second). Tell me though kind reader, how insanely ignorant could a person be to try something so stupid? Have you counted how many times I used the word stupid?

Now, taxi drivers I admire a lot! They break traffic rules, run red lights, impulsively stop their vehicles in the middle of traffic, spit whilst driving...and then...wait for it...they give you the finger. You know the finger I’m talking about; the finger which when standing alone represents vulgar language. If you return the finger or return their vulgar insults, they’ll park in the middle of traffic and step down for a fist fight. That’s the “maa tei” attitude right there. It should not be copied by any child reading this essay...ok I meant rant...but it is an honest representation of unbiased emotion. How hypocritical is it to drive on the highway without a deserved license, crash into another car, kill or injure one of the occupants due to your poor driving and then be sorry? What exactly are you sorry about? Buying your license, driving poorly, putting an innocent person at risk, or being caught with your pants down?

Talking of pants down, I remember ex-president of the United States of America saying on national television that he “...did not have sexual relations with that woman Monica Lewinsky”. That was a while after he received sexual favours underneath a certain, very famous desk from the white house intern. After a toss and turn – pun definitely intended - , it was a beauty to see “bad man Bill” – (bad man” is slang for really good man) do a complete about face turn as the media continued to haunt him with newer evidence of his sexual relationship with the young woman. He subsequently apologised to the American public and to his wife who would end up vying for the democrat ticket against current president Barack Obama. What exactly was Bill sorry for? Was he sorry for lying to the American public? Was he sorry for cheating on his wife? Or...yes you guessed right...was he sorry for being caught?

My words are always well calculated. I have discovered that we write, but people read. What we see in our words are usually not the same as what people perceive when they read through the lines. I choose my fights wisely. As I once said, it has never been a fear on my part but rather a respect for a learning process and I have never apologized for it.

One of the saddest things ever is the sight of men that have drained our national coffers dry for their own selfish interests being paraded before the law, only to apologize for their crimes. How exactly does a rapist apologize for taking advantage of a young girl below the age of ten? I am still baffled by this science. Maybe it is an art and not a science. Whatever it is, I say it’s a facade. It’s bulls and more bulls and there’s no way around it. I called out a “man of God” for a sermon which I thought was not his place to give and I would do it again. It was well thought through because I hate to come back apologizing.  Where I took my time to choose my words, I doubt he did anything of that sort and I advise those that found my words distasteful (If there were any) to bite me!

I spend more time in silence and solitude than any normal person should. Sometimes I am scared for my own mental stability. My writing, I have found is my personality, or at least a part of it. In my solitude I have discovered that silence is golden. In our moments of anger we have reacted to certain situations without looking at the consequences. That’s where I have found myself to be amazingly robotic (not trying to take Bubacarr Sankanu’s position of self praise). Knowing that every action has its consequences, I think before I act and immerse myself in those consequences before I make a decision. When those steps are taken, there will be little need to apologize.

Now someone accidentally jerking you with his/her arm whilst walking deserves a sorry but your best friend sticking her tongue down your husband’s throat was well calculated no matter how mathematically ignorant both parties are. So it might be true that a sudden realization comes upon us when we see the sadness in our partner’s eyes after we get caught but that’s where we man/woman up and say it; “Baby...I had to do it. You haven’t been all that I wanted you to be. I have tried hard to be patient but you don’t take your time to please me. Your best friend however has been working rather hard to make it worth my while. I know I don’t deserve your forgiveness” and you stop there. Yes, your tongue is itching to add an “I’m sorry” but your mind knows that you’re not. Maybe sorry does make the world go round though.

I never encouraged anyone to “NOT APOLOGIZE”. Showing remorse for our mistakes is a very noble thing to do. However, it is our blatant misuse of the phrase which paints me red and black all over. People have taken it for granted in the smiling coast. They put over a million people at risk for their grave crimes and expect an “I’m sorry” to erase everything. How gullible could 1 million people be? I think it has a lot to do with this passive culture of ours; “Billahi munyal...Ya’Allah baax na”. God never said we shouldn’t take responsibility for our actions, otherwise judgement day is a ruse and all this sin and commandments thing is just another Spielberg production!

A joke taken too far does deserve an apology. Dealing with human emotion is a very tricky thing. Sometimes we say certain words to people and they take them well and then on other days they jump at us with navy seal prowess and expertise searching for our jugular. Cases like those deserve all the apology they can get. It’s easy to explain. We are not sorry for saying it...we are just sorry for saying it THEN and THERE. We should have taken our time to observe the weather enough to see dark clouds hanging above the subject’s head. That is where and why we are sorry.

I once went to the “bitik” to buy a loaf of bread. The “peul futa” who had a serious cold held the bread with his hands after sneezing ferociously over them and he said “balal ma de boss” before he handed them over. I was confused! What exactly was he sorry for? Having a cold? Sneezing on his hands? Handling the bread? Or potentially passing on his “fresh cold” to me? I returned it (ironically knowing someone else would buy it) and I picked up another loaf myself. As i ate however, I tried to ignore the fact that he had handled all the loaves of bread upon their arrival. I was eating the bread with some “cow-foot pepper soup” so I believed the pepper would kill of the virus. At least that put me at ease and I wasn’t sorry that he was selling his sorry piece of bread to someone else.

A person that never apologizes is an arrogant piece of steak; a man that apologizes for his unintentional mishaps is only human; a man however, who seeks to apologize for his supposed premeditated “errors” even before they are committed with the thought that they would suffice when he is caught will apologize twenty times a day, lose the value of his apologies and end up being nothing more than the sorry piece of bread the “peul futa” tried to push my way.

TGBA