LIFESTAMPS ... lifelong lessons: TRIBAL SENTIMENTS

He used to work for my dad years ago. He was the guard and also the gate attendant when he was on duty. He was quiet and elderly, slim and soft-spoken. The way he walked seemed to tell me that he had things done for him in his growing up days. Don’t blame me please, I read people from how they walk to how they look and even how they pose in their pictures and seriously it works for me more times than not.

I was in my starter years in the
university when we became friends. He would sit in his little room and I would sneak out of the house when I was free and we would chat about issues. He always loved to know that I could associate with him without boundaries. For me I felt he had experience and as an elderly person I stood to gain one thing or the other. If I gained nothing, I would at least know how it feels to be who he is.

He got posted to another officer and I lost touch. One day I met him at his post in the administrative complex of my recent work place. I had been employed as a senior staff and he was still holding fast to his duty of being a guard. He had more respect for me because I was read and now I was working at a higher office that he can attain given his qualification.

Asides that, I was more engaged now, our discussion and relationship didn’t change as far as I noticed. I still laughed and he still pulled at me as we did back then. This time around, the things he inquired of me were different from back then. I was more mature now and more accomplished in life, to state it that way.

He lowered his voice as he asked me when I would get married. He was a family man and such questions hardly ever go unanswered if you have ever been asked by elders who knew your growing up years. I told him I was still praying towards it and he said I should be careful whom I committed myself to. I thought the advice would stop there but then came the shocker. He said he hoped I was looking towards marrying someone from my tribe!

I smiled and told him that it wasn’t for me to decide. He didn’t buy that. He began to reiterate the advantages of marrying from one’s place and all he said fell on deaf ears. I listened but I didn’t take anything he said to heart. I had done a mental assessment of his marriage and looking at him I could tell he wasn’t having the best of marriages. Don’t forget that we had been close years ago when he worked for my dad. The outlook of a man tells how his home is most times and remember I told you I read people. I am not always right but my analysis is hardly wrong because I do not base it on sentiments.

As much as I agreed with almost all he said, I told him that I wasn’t tribe-conscious. Every individual is individual in his thinking and outlook towards life. Circumstances that favour one may befall another. No man does right by judging his life based on another man’s life. That it worked for him doesn’t mean it would work for me. I wasn’t telling him I had found someone from another tribe but I was trying to help him see that by virtue of my growth, I had lived beyond some world-view especially about things that are predominantly earthly and having no heavenly or spiritual backing or foundation.

I told him that the fact that one marries from his tribe does not suggest or guarantee the best of character or virtue in one’s mate. The moment I said that, I noticed he grimaced and his smiled turned to scorn. I watched closely. He shook his head and he seemed to have aged more in those few moments. New words formed on his lips. Words that were in outright contradiction to the advice the conversation started with.

He told me how his aunt back then told him of a nice, homely young lady that was ripe for marriage. Since he was eligible and ready to be married, he took the counsel of his aunt. He made the right choice. She was from his village and just lived probably compounds apart. He hadn’t known her before but like it was in those days, his elderly female relatives had done their research and this lady was a wife-material. One they would want their son to marry. He married her and all was well.

As he spoke more about his marriage, I could tell the reason behind the wrinkles on his face and the etched skin that looked so ancient and worn out. He told me that his marriage to his wife (the nice, homely young lady that “Aunty” recommended for him) is what he still regrets till date. I did an instant mental rescheduling of all my appointments and poised to listen to this part. My “deaf” ears were healed instantly.

He lamented how she starves him. How he has to struggle to get food and money home and when his wife began a local eating business, she neglected him as if he was a door man at home. He kept saying things I even got scared to assimilate. He said his wife was a bad woman. He had nothing positive to say about her and for the first time I saw how his expressions spoke far more and louder than his words could ever pitch. He went into details and at the end of his talk, he concluded that a man that wants to live long shouldn’t marry a bad woman. He used the same mouth to tell me that marrying from the same tribe does not give an assurance of marital bliss. According to him, he was a living witness and he wouldn’t deceive me.

I wasn’t confused but I wondered why he initially had to prod me in the path of making a tribal union stand out at the expense of making a decision based on spiritual guidance and insight. I could see that despite what he was going through, the world-view of safety and security was really warped and he was still not able to extricate himself from it. I felt for him but it added to my reasons why I must be led before I act. I still see him occasionally and in my wildest dream, even apart from the tales he told me, I wouldn’t aspire to be him for a moment.

Many of us believe like our parents that it is easy to handle relationships if both parties are from the same tribe. That is conditionally true but not absolute. Every man is different and one’s tribe is a conditioning mechanism, a mould which is primary but not as effective as we think. When a child is born, his mind is a blank slate. The family that brings him up, to a large extent, determines who he becomes, not necessarily his tribe. He has no language when he is born, his environment and social behaviour determines what he learns. Many things we are and have become were never inherent. They were adopted and no two can adopt the same, the closest we come is – similar.

We must respect individual differences and not condition our minds to judge personalities by cultures and myths about tribes. They may go a long way to determine a lot but it should be stated clearly that everyman is who he has made or allowed himself to become. No tribe holds the virtues and no tribe harbours the vices. We are capable of the best good and the worst bad. Life and living is a personal choice.

We as Africans complain of racism but back here we practice tribalism even in issues of love that has no tribe or human origin. I do not preach my personal doctrine but when we are faced with life-death decisions, whatever doesn’t matter then had never really mattered and trust me, tribe is not on the list of options that matter. Not on my list.