Hope is the only thing left (Reflections on Black History Month)

By Omar Ndizeye

I couldn’t agree more with Morgan Freeman when he said, “Black history is American history.” I could also add that black history is the history of Humanity, reflecting the words of Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel:

Human suffering anywhere concerns men and women everywhere.

– Elie Wiesel, Night

These two great men remind us that wrong has no colour. That our fight to build a memory that serves as a lesson from our past should not be coloured but jointly fought for – so that all of us might together jump over the walls created by our unconscious past.

To do so, we must revisit the Wannsee Conference House where the Wannsee conference took place on January 20, 1942, and brought together high-ranking members of the Nazi Party to discuss what they called the Final Solution of the Jewish Question. As part of the same reflection on anarchy and vanity, we must re-read the 10 Hutu commandments written by Joseph Gitera in order to understand how intellectuals can write and lead their way to a humanitarian disaster.

James E. Young (2,000) At Memory’s Edge, After Images of the Holocaust in Contemporary Art and Architecture

By following the same line, we shall together revisit the history of slavery and the endless traumatic effects it left behind. We will see how the idea of ‘Other’ can become a human being’s main thesis, deepened with the superiority complex: ‘We are better than them.’

Of course, to understand it well, we shall together need to visit 265 Memorials of Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. As we reflect on centuries of oppression during this Black History Month, it’s important to revisit those cases. To think, rethink and analyse ourselves, especially as to whether or not we are so different from those who came before us.

It’s important to think about younger generations who grow up listening to these stories and who will likely respond with either shame or anger. Protecting young people is indeed the only legacy all of us should embrace; to ensure that today’s children will live life by remembering all these parts of history as an event and not as a routine of life, to repeat the words of Prof. Naasson.

As I kept thinking about this month, I thought about the last part of my book:

Hope is the only thing left to those who survive and choose to live a life beyond fear, pain, and loss.

This same word of hope is my message during this period when humanity confronts one of the most complex parts of its history. Deepening my understanding of this month pushed me to think about how writing would be part of its main activities. Writing not only tells the future about yesterday but is our way of sharing our daily life stories; helping others to understand our feelings, healing their hearts and sometimes even giving new motivation.

I think that, just as my book was a reflection of a life I lived as a young boy of 10 years, I also see Black History Month as a time for young people, when universities around the world are encouraged to organize dialogues around tolerance and diversity. I see it as a month when different media would give a place for young people to sit together from all communities and reflect on this history they inherited without their consent – for them to share wounds, frustrations, fears, and any anxieties resulting from this shared past.

Not only is this part of the collective healing of our societies, it’s also a time and space to look towards a hopeful future where our kids will grow up with neither complex nor wound from what they experienced or inherited from previous generations.

Let this month provide space for reflection on how we can together build a shared future for humanity where the celebration of each other’s achievements is guided by behavior change. This comes as a result of the trust and empathy built by us sharing with fewer judgments and with more appreciation of being humans in the same universe.