It is that time of the year again when men and women in uniform flood our streets and offices with small red flowers called poppies.
It is then up to us to give whatever we can in honour and support of veterans who fought in the first and second world wars. That is the primary purpose that this exercise serves, although behind this practice may be read several layers of meanings speaking to our histories, present and futures.
As people living in the post-colony, the significance of the Poppy Appeal Week ought to even be greater. The poppy flower is said to have blossomed on the battle fields of Europe at a time when the First World War was at its peak.
These were fields of carnage where lives were brutally taken by any means necessary. Germany, particularly, unleashed lethal chlorine gas, which killed more than 87,000 allied soldiers.
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The casualties on the other side were also in alarming numbers. This was a time humanity lost hope in itself, and when this flower emerged from the trenches of this violence, it became a symbol of hope and many other things.
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As Africans, this flower should also take up several meanings in our context. To begin with, it should remind us that we were once under the bondage of Western countries that divided our land and forcefully took our resources from us.
They did not stop at taking the land, the precious stones and the oil. The colonialists went further to dehumanise our brothers and sisters – first stealing them away as slaves, and then later forcing them to fight in a war that was not theirs.
The two world wars were not world wars. These were Western wars in which we were forced to fight by the unfortunate fact that we were under Western bondage.
As such, Africans and other colonised peoples must not be proud of fighting in these wars. We must rather regret our histories of oppression. The poppy flower should make us rage against injustice.
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To us, this flower should also serve as a symbol of thinking through the strides we have made since that injustice. We must reflect on the steps that our nations have taken, away from that place of destitution.
Malawian soldiers were forced to fight on the allied side of the war – the British/American side – but did we benefit from the sacrifices of these people? We lost lives in these wars in the name of empire and we should be thinking about reparations.
African countries have not been repaid enough for the injustice that the Western world did to them. Several decades after the official end of colonial violence, we are still servile to Western countries.
Part of the problem can be attributed to our leaders who fail to unshackle their minds from colonial legacies and appetites. Africa must move on and that demands rational and revolutionary leadership.
This poppy week should also remind us about the continuing violence of war that refuses to end. What good does it do to remember the evils of the past when the most powerful are still waging war on the powerless?
As we speak now, the same Westerners who made us fight in their wars are killing each other in Ukraine. There is also a callous war, almost genocide, currently taking place in Gaza.
As the cliché goes, if there is anything that we have learned from history, it is that we never learn from history. So, maybe 50 years from now, some other flower will adorn our breasts in memory of those they are killing today.
At the end of the day, as we remember our veterans and appreciate the sacrifices that they made, we must not forget the most important things behind this practice.
African veterans who fought in the world wars were victims of a system of oppression and they must be fully compensated for that.
As a nation, we must also be able to read the world and not replicate mistakes of the past. Our political leaders must use this poppy week to speak back to the powerful – to reprimand the West. Condemn the wars currently being waged.
Do not blindly take sides because you are poor. Tell your masters to stop the war.
