Forgetting has caused us pain, it has divided us and robbed us of our collective memory. We are now scattered in foreign lands, and even in the lands of our ancestors we have become visitors. In our forgetfulness we have lost that which make, define and unite us.
The past that we hate so much has stolen evocations of our hijacked futures. We suffer a history of stolen years and a future of ‘borrowed’ years. We are born within histories that have reduced us to moving images of our unrealized potentials of self. Glimpses of our freedoms resides in our rituals, art, dreams and prayers, through which we are able to reconnect with our inner essence, but this too is temporary. Can our freedom go beyond song, that moment of singing, of drumming and prayer? Perhaps our very songs will someday transform our realities in this strange world.
The memories we have lost, are memories of tomorrow.
Nduduzo Makhathini
