A couple of weekends back, I attended a reunion in Leicester, England with a group of us who have one central thread that binds us together: we went to school and lived our formative years in Jinja, Uganda during the 1960s and early 1970s.
At that time, we created history together. We changed our world by living our shared experiences of the other. We were black, brown and white people who ate matoke with groundnut stew, curries and fish and chips too.
We lived and played as if we were in a borderless world.
During the reunion, we shared our stories and memories of times when, despite global and political turbulence, we lived and thrived in an environment where our cultures were like rich ingredients in a single mixing bowl.
Of course, as reality would have it, we did not grow up in a world without disharmony. Our lives in Jinja also bore undercurrents of societal and personal inequalities and conflict. Yet, as young people, we focused mostly on the good – together we made the difference that made the difference.
In today’s world, we are desperate to focus less on what divides us.
It’s good for us all to gather more regularly and share our visions of how to create more of what our unencumbered hearts know is possible.
We can remember the significant pockets of contributions we made, and continue to make, by collectively demonstrating how to be and live better in a world that is growing smaller and expanding at the same time.
On June 15, 2011, I was commissioned by the Greater Washington Community Foundation, in collaboration with Smithsonian Institute’s National Museum of Natural History, to create and deliver a poem during their Putting Race on The Table event. I entitled the poem, Speak to Us On Race.
Today, in the same Khalil Gibran inspired style of The Prophet, I would rename that poem Speak to Us On A Borderless World, because instead of focusing on our differences, it is time to envision and place harmony, collaboration, and peace on the table.
Speak into being that which you want to see in our world!
