Amagi: Return to the Mother

  Urukagina, the leader of the Sumerian city-state of Girsu/Lagash, led a popular movement that resulted in the reform of the oppressive legal and governmental structure of Sumeria. The oppressive conditions in the city before the reforms is described in the new code preserved in cuneiform on tablets of the period: "From the borders of Ningirsu to the sea, there was the tax collector." During his reign (ca. 2350 B.C.) Urukagina implemented a sweeping set of laws that guaranteed the rights of property owners, reformed the civil administration, and instituted moral and social reforms. Urukagina banned both civil and ecclesiastical authorities from seizing land and goods for payment, eliminated most of the state tax collectors, and ended state involvement in matters such as divorce proceedings and perfume making. He even returned land and other property his predecessors had seized from the temple. He saw that reforms were enacted to eliminate the abuse of the judicial process to extract money from citizens and took great pains to ensure the public nature of legal proceedings. In this important code is found the first written reference to the concept of liberty (amagi or amargi, literally, "return to the mother"), used in reference to the process of reform. The exact nature of this term is not clear, but the idea that the reforms were to be a return to the original social order decreed by the gods fits well with the translation." "I’m just as fucked up as the man next door; I just don’t beat myself up about it as much as he does. That’s the enlightenment I know.... And sometimes I notice he beats himself up much less than I do. Those days he is the enlightened one and I’m proud to call him Teacher" – Eduardo Zambrano I have been trying to bind myself to my family, in as much as it is my will to do so. I have chosen to do it for the rest of my life, I have been away from them for too long and it begins to weigh on my heart. Fifteen years is a long time, too long for a people like us that pride ourselves in having strong familial bonds. Education can suck; the stuff you are taught in the classrooms can be downright nasty and mean and have you burn holes in your heart. It would tell you that some are merely dependants, those you would only see as extra mouths to feed and beseech you to lessen your company with these. It would have you believe that you are less than enough; that were it not for want of a pretty horse you would but be king. It would have you pen your name to countless pieces of paper, tell you that you are less without them but I say that the wee lad and lass that etch the symbol of their innocent love in the bark of an ageing mahogany tree, are more in substance and spirit than you that garners endless accolades from whence you would extract neither knowledge to build a life nor save one. The rains will fall and the tree will grow and if that symbol is etched deep enough, the years will be gentle and kind to it so that many a wayfarer and one day a logger will glimpse that kind of love. For even when man, with all his mighty tools stands before the tree, he cannot help but marvel at the intricate patterns etched on its face. I would be the bark upon which you etch your name, though I may not stand forever, I would build a house of love from this knowledge that I have sought. Is it possible to know the true wisdom that is held by an entire race? For even though we would not keep long and winding scrolls, regaling all of our valiant feats in this land and those beyond, have we not been here from the start? Human life itself began here, thus there is knowledge within us that we would do well to heed; when you feel the fires rage within you and find yourself torn between the wants and needs of this world, is it not right to ask what wisdom mother heeds? For I have seen her live a life. Short and tempestuous but there have been smiles and mirths that fill my cup of love. I would want for that wisdom. My mother put a clock to her life. Aware that she would be gone sooner, she sought to impart as much wisdom as she could. She willed that when she passed on, my brothers and I would inherit the spirit of sharing and giving, that we would always have need of each other in life. We used to own a tee vee, a vcr and a sound solo. She once said to me that when she died, she would that each took one so that we would have need of the other from time to time and thus be bonded as always. I will that I would keep her dream alive, but my kin like I are what we are; the material will not suffice and my heart would have and know more. There will always be life. That, at the very least, is one lesson you can take from it. It will endure. Even when your days are hued with blues, and the tempests never far and such would pass your days even unto the ending of your world; it will endure. In as yet a grand and complex a puzzle, as that which sets a flutter, the heart that wills and wants and would know more and yet there is enough too for the simple delight, the sharing of fruit in nature’s garden, where none but the birds and the beasts bear witness. I will sow my seeds in the garden, tend to them and nurture them, for life gives unto life and I would be an instrument of its giving.Where I come from, they tell us that we are enough for life’s purposes and that to allow ourselves to believe otherwise is a path to our own destruction. Would you that any man will lead you? Isaac, a philosopher friend of mine tells a story thus. The little boy sits at the dining room table, he loves Saturday mornings. He gets to have a heavy breakfast, watch tee vee and perhaps go play with his friends. The day is full of endless possibilities; aaah! If only life could forever be this way! He turns to the task at hand, a bowl of cereal, weetabix with banana slices in cold milk just the way he likes it. He turns the page, and admires the pictures, he wants to draw. The man enters the room; he could murder a good breakfast he thinks, that was one hell of a night. Time to take stock of the night and weigh the world. He pours of a glass of juice, the fruits of passion, hmm, he likes and nods both in approval and acquiescence to his son’s greeting. This is his blood, he would that he will teach well how to live a life. “Isaac?”“Yes daddy?”“How is school?”“It’s okay daddy”“Come” They walk, father and son, without the house, compound and the man bending to pass through the metallic gate’s pedestrian’s entrance, emerge onto a busy road in the suburbs of Kansanga, circa 1997. The land is strewn with all manner of constructions, from hastily assembled pieces of tin roof, mud and wood to the more elaborate brick walled assemblages, they litter the foreground while nature’s tree strewn hills and skyline frame the scene. “You see all that” The man points to the street, bustling with the industry of humanity. “All these houses, roads, shops, streetlights, electric poles and all manner of constructions are there because of man. Do you understand?”“Uh, yes, daddy.” The boy timidly replies.“Don’t ever tell me that you can’t do and be anything. Okay? Let’s go and finish breakfast.” The little boy stares down the road; just beyond that turn, he knows a panya that leads to Joseph’s house. He will go and play games with him later on, and they will talk about girls and movies and have a grand old time. He would paint big robots in the sky, if everything is just a construction of man, big robots with wings. My grandmother called me jajimondi and many variations thus, having given up on pronouncing my name. She is the kindest, old lady I know in the world. I have not seen her in years, yet I remember a stain toothed smile, strong hands and a gaiety that never changed with the seasons. We would walk to the gardens together, oftentimes to the one across the road, where the peas grew, next to mama Bright’s household. We would fallow and plough, seed the land, weed and watch nature and time take its course. Methinks there is a lesson there. She still lives, my grandmother, though I am almost certain her memories are a little less than before but she is grandmother and will always be. I remember things as far back as one stormy night, hurried feet and heavy laden arms. Bag of soldier’s boots needing shadow. Smell of fear in the air, down the hole to never return, boots, bag and bones forgotten. Yet I remember. Is it a curse? To hold on, even when the passage of time bids you free your heart, is it weak to remember? One day I will build a home, not too far ahead now, for now I know. Tomorrow, we will build a house of dreams, we will lay every brick with love and care and bid it stand through the ages, the house that you and I built. Such as it may be, it will be, but for me, it will be “The House of Tomorrow”.I have passed through the fire. There are those of us for whom the ways will not be easy, for we must learn that which lies on the fringes, in old knowledge and dead beliefs. We are the bands that give our essence to the race, we that practise the ways of old, the ways of mother. I would be worthy to be weighed and measured one of you, if you should look with favour on this scrip of mine, it may not count for much in today’s world but it is borne of love. I will walk as God among you, but only in my world and over myself. The lines of my ethics and moralities, I will hold only for my conduct and thus do as best as I know how, for I have learnt that it is what you do that matters most in life.