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Elliot Ziwira
At the Bookstore
In “Ghana Reveals Her Secrets”, Libyan poet, Omar Salem, weaves a captivating tapestry of verse to poignantly explore Africa’s heritage, spirituality, and resilience in the face of neo-colonial oppression.
Skilfully translated from Arabic to English by Gibrill M. Al-Munir and Published by Unity Media Ventures (Accra), the anthology celebrates the unity and solidarity of the African people.
As Africans on the continent and across the globe recently commemorated Africa Day, Salem’s masterpiece is a worthwhile read in that it unveils the African soul.
Penned during the poet’s diplomatic mission to Ghana, the collection is a powerful testament to the continent’s unyielding spirit and its unwavering quest for self-determination. Salem masterfully captures the essence of the African experience, illuminating the land as a symbol of pride, identity, and freedom.
Atukwei Okai, secretary-general of the Pan-African Writers Association (PAWA), aptly notes in the Introduction that Salem’s work is a remarkable translation of the “Dead Sea Scrolls” of African consciousness.
Comprising 20 poems, the collection is divided into different parts to allow for the release of varied episodes of the African experience. These separate incidents interact and merge; capturing the metaphysical, physical and emotional through time and space.
The story of the despondent lover; the hero in the poems, ceases to be his alone, as it transcends racial, and ethnic boundaries to capture the resilience of the African struggle of hope, decolonisation, and self-reliance.
With each verse, Salem weaves a rich tapestry of imagery, evoking the continent’s vibrant cultures, its people’s unbending spirit, and their steadfast quest for autonomy.
His words dance across the page, echoing the rhythms of African drums, the whispers of the ancestors, and the resilience of a people who have faced the ravages of colonialism, slavery, and oppression.
Salem invites us to bear witness to the beauty, the pain, and the triumph of Africa’s soul.
His poetry is a clarion call to remember, honour, and celebrate the continent’s rich legacy and its people’s unbreakable spirit.
The opening poem, “Africa: The Sun of Tomorrow the Day of the Future”, reveals Africa’s majestic beauty, and the inevitability of her existence in the world matrix.
Written through a combination of prose and verse, the poem examines how the West can ignore the continent’s rise from the slumber of colonial hegemony at its own peril.
The poet underscores: “Africa is the sun of tomorrow and the future days to come: the bright moon of civilisation that can never be eclipsed by Western technology nor her splendour dimmed by the AIDS epidemic nor the scourge of malaria.”
He expresses contempt at a civilisation that is premised on “racial discrimination . . . and the enslavement of one man by another.”
It is not lost on him that Africa is the beacon of the world’s trajectory into the future.
Salem admonishes:
“Consider my friends how your lives are going to be without Africa . . . how miserable you will be without the savanna forests in your world . . . without its mines of gold… without the Uranium deep . . . And without all other things that words cannot count . . . Oh, how wretched you are without the beautiful face of Africa!”
Reciprocity, as Ayi Kwei Armah advocates in “Two Thousand Seasons” (1973), is the way to go, as the world needs Africa in the same way the continent desires global interaction, to foster win-win outcomes.
Africans take pride in their land, which is both the abode of the ancestors and a source of livelihoods, without which they are doomed. It is the womb to aquatic, mineral, agricultural and other natural resources.
Africans, therefore, should understand that the key to unlocking the abundance of their heritage is embodied in the rich history informing their being.
As Atukwei Okai notes, they should be conscious of the whole “gamut of truths that had been suppressed about the rich heritage and powerful spiritual sovereignty of the African Soul as well as the indescribable magnificence of Africa’s future.”
Despite its vast mineral endowments, plundered through colonial pillage, the continent remains poor, while neo-colonialists continue abusing her at will.
Colonisation reduced Africans to subsistent croppers, barely existing beyond the tag of peasantry on barren land, while settlers occupied expansive tracts of arable land.
Salem reasons that Africa should not always be the punch bag and astonishing beauty, who remains in the limelight as a tool for sexual gratification, in spite of her rich womb.
The powerful imagery and metaphor used in “Ghana Reveals Her Secrets” play on the devastation and crestfallenness of two lovebirds preyed on by a callous world.
Hence, their vulnerability and fragility pave the way for easier interpretation of the African’s feelings of displacement, exploitation and alienation.
Salem purveys the allure of the beauty manifest in hope using natural images of the night, moon, sun, and dawn.
Though the night may depict darkness and hopelessness, the image of the moon complements and counters that of the sun, which has the same capacity to destroy and construct.
Thus, portraying the paradoxical nature of life.
The extended metaphor of the night merges with the symbol of dawn to denote a new day, and connote an era of hope, expectation and fruition.
The title poem, “Ghana Reveals Her Secrets”, combines lyricism with wit to proffer hope to the agonising beau; the true African. Witnessing the brutal rape of his beloved—the Motherland—he bleeds inside.
Ghana, the poet’s enchanting sweetheart, mesmerising the world with her beauty, metaphorically stands for Africa, the paragon of virtue.
As she professes her undying love to them, Africa implores her children to remain true to themselves, and refuse to be subdued; giving glory to the Creator, and not to mere mortals.
This is evident in the poems “The Disappointed Lover”, “When the Soul Bleeds” “Hymns to the Face of Africa” and “Presages of A Fortune Teller”.
Notwithstanding past setbacks, hurt and betrayal, which seem to permeate the present, the African’s spiritual connectedness to God makes it possible for him to espouse the glowing light in his future.
Salem awakens his people to the power of spirituality over humanity.
He intimates:
. . . in the graveyard of my Soul . . .
You shall never take God from my heart . . .
For I am engraved upon the face of lightning
And storms breastfed me with their milk
And in my heart I carry
What still remains of prophetic embodiment (“When the Soul Bleeds”).
As the voice of the voiceless and “truth’s defence” (Pollard, 1970), the poet offers himself as the sacrificial lamb for Africa’s cause.
He is conscious of the need for self-abashment and sacrifice for the African dream to be realised.
Salem draws Africa to the history of struggle championed by the likes of Kwame Nkrumah, whose ideologies were shaped by the belief that: “Only the best is good enough for the African”.
Indeed, through their own designs, Africans can free themselves from the colonial yoke of subjugation.
It is the duty of every African to redefine and reshape the Motherland’s dream through a truly African sensibility.
Therefore, as Africans, we should be wary of getting swayed by suitors clad in Santa Claus’ garb to hide their nefarious intentions.
Plunder glossed over as aid should be collectively guarded against.
Impoverished democracy is not what is yearned for, but a better standard of living for the majority, in a world where diseases are not manufactured to decimate presumed inferior races; where everyone is equal. And, where wars are not manufactured to create anarchy and chaos as a way of plundering others’ ancestral resources. In such a desired world, the power of the mighty is checked to ungag the voices of the feeble and vulnerable; mutilated, displaced and molested over generations of stoic submission.
Also, in the world we all aspire for, the multiplicity of religious and cultural beliefs is respected, and the word “terrorism” is not used selectively.
To capture it all, Salem implores in the poem, “For Your Eyes Only All Poesy”:
“In your palm
The African moon is born
And all tyrants
bow in homage to
its dazzling light.
Salem suggests that the Motherland, whose womb flourishes with treasures untold, must sure-footedly shatter night-falls in the wake of promising dawns, and map out her destiny.
She must express choice without surrendering herself to the whims and insidious glares of unfortunate suitors, feeling chided by her independence of will.
It is time for Africa to shine and redeem herself.
Indeed, Omar Salem’s “Ghana Reveals Her Secrets”, is a must-read for anyone seeking to understand the depths of African culture, the power of African people’s stories, and the unrelenting pursuit of their heritage and destiny.
Online Reporter