A cultured knoll called “Defiance”

If you have not watched the BBC documentary called ‘Planet Earth’, you should hurry and look for it. It’s an amazing exploration of the marvels of our planet and reveals enchanting animal behaviour that will capture your heart. But it also has chilling scenes that may revolt you out of your skin – if your skin is not thick enough not to give way!And, indeed, when you observe that “not-to-give-way” playing out in the life of these animals, you’ll get satisfaction that will erase all the revolting parts you’ll have seen.For instance, there is the episode that shows the behaviours of animals in the forests of the wild. In one scene, hyenas are chasing gazelles all over the wild and then zero in on one on whom they noisily feast. In another, the hyenas encounter one gazelle that seems rather stubborn. I don’t know how it happens but they seem to be in agreement with lions so that these take over and chase-growl the gazelle into a now-frightened pulp of a lunch. Then hyenas come in to ‘clear’ the leftovers.What’s revolting is that some animals have accepted this life of running around in circles even when they know they’ll inevitably end up as another animal’s lunch. And that some animals have taken their stealthy behaviour of capturing other and feeding on them as their right. You watch when a family of lions is staring down a resigned gazelle and hyenas are behind them waiting for leftovers, their laughing giggles sounding like a round of applause.In another scene, a camera zooms in on one gazelle standing tall on a knoll and you are gripped by fear, as the camera pans out to reveal a pack of hyenas sneakily closing in. They come up and then start ‘shouting’ him down but the proud gazelle stands his ground. After some time of ‘laugh-giggling’ they seem to give up and go on, apparently in search of easier prey. Then, as if on cue, a family of lions slowly emerges from the surrounding bushes but, somehow, the gazelle does not take flight. You are amazed when, instead of attacking, the lions also lazily wander off, seemingly also not ready for a faceoff.A lump of pride rises in your throat but it is short lived, as you remember that, however stubborn, the gazelle’s time will come. Your anger rises when you remember that this is the wild and, just as some herbivores can only live if they feed on grass, carnivores can only live if they feed on other animals. It’s the case with all species of animals. But the anger ebbs when you resignedly accept that life in the wild is supposed to be like that. It’s not a life that these animals chose. Life for them is not a case of “to-give-way” or “not-to-give-way”. In the wild, life is “to-give-way” because super natural powers have willed it that way. The animals are not to blame.But this column has never nursed ambitions of claiming the lofty passions of the philosophy of life in the wild or the sociology of its inhabitants. It has always been an attempt to make sense of why people from across the oceans want to shape a narrative for Rwanda of their own choosing. Why don’t these outsiders want to take the observation chair and watch as Rwandans tell their story? Seeking an answer to that question is this column’s raison d’être, though it may be an attempt in futility. Still, we shall not tire in trying. On the sidelines of the UN General Assembly last month, for instance, heads of practically all Western Countries besieged President Paul Kagame to demand why he was doing nothing about the problems in the D. R. Congo (DRC). And why, rather, he was compounding them.DRC, remember, is the mammoth mineral-rich country that dwarfs Rwanda as its neighbour to the west. It is a country that Western Powers have passionately loved from the time one of their nationals first sighted it in the late 19th century. That the cause of defending DRC could galvanise all the said powerful heads of state, when the cause of stopping a genocide that saw more than a million Rwandans perish could not, is testimony to the strength of their love for the country. But Rwanda need not see the testimony, knowing how these powers threatened to wiped it out for going in, in the late 1990s, to repatriate its nationals being held hostage by genocide fugitives holed up there.For their love then, why don’t these Western Powers help give peace to the poor citizens of DRC? They know that even if Rwanda were to go back, this time to assist M23 split up the DRC or topple its government, it would need to amass the capacity to also sponsor or contain the sixty-or-so rebel groups that are peppered on literally every part of the country. Add to that the new rebel groups springing up by the day and you’ll see that only collaboration between these Western Powers and regional countries can translate the DRC into a country that gives hope to all its citizens. Western Powers can only show love to the citizens of their beloved DRC by sponsoring this collaboration. Or do they love the DRC without loving its citizens?Pardon me for asking, but when you see the gleeful ‘laugh-giggling’ sounds of baseless accusations against innocent third-world countries by UN expert-groups, rights and media organisations, sundry dubious individuals from the West, instead attempting to define the problems of DRC as they are, you can’t help but ask. And when you see the commanding growl of the most powerful of this world follow, as if on cue, parachute in an erroneously defined situation, you can’t help seeing in it an attempt to drive the last nail in the coffin of their chosen victim.But some of the weak of this world are standing on that knoll and refuse to be stared down, strengthened in the knowledge that this is not the wild. Assured that the civilised world has a culture that knows the might of right, they’ve named that knoll “Defiance”. Their way is “not-to-give-way”, ‘laugh-giggles’-and-growls of aid-cut threats or not!

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A cultured knoll called “Defiance”