Ivan Pitman Musingo
I remember the drums that morning. Not the ones for celebration or summoning rain. These were different and urgent. We were in the fields when the shouting began. Dust rose before the men appeared, wielding weapons we’d never seen. Some spoke our tongue, but their hearts were elsewhere. I ran, but my little legs betrayed me. My mother screamed like death had returned. They bound our hands and marched us through the bush for days. The old fell and were left behind; the young were flogged to keep pace. I didn’t cry; not out of courage, but because fear had dried my tears. These could have been the words of an African slave. A voice often ignored, yet central to the global economy for centuries. Today, history still commodifies the African slave, much like the slaver’s texts once did. But these were human beings, family men and women stolen, shackled, starved, and forced to stare death in the eye. It is time we honour them not as nameless victims, but as heroes whose blood still flows in our veins.
Fragments of a stolen past
I consider myself fortunate to have heard history from those who lived it. I spent time with my grandparents, who passed down age-old wisdom. Stories of origin, conflict, and change. My grandfather often recalled when exotic fruits first arrived: mangoes, bananas, pineapples, sugarcane. He remembered the first car rolling down dusty paths and how people gathered, unsure whether to flee or attack it. But more than anything, he spoke of war; the day his father left to fight in the White man’s war and returned blind from firing artillery on the front lines. That injury reshaped our family’s fate not forgetting the ones that never returned. These are our lived histories, stories absent from books, films, or school curriculums, especially from an indigenous lens.
I’m reminded of Fort Patiko in northern Uganda, once used by Arab slavers to imprison captives from the Lango and Acholi communities. Later, British “explorer” Sir Samuel Baker expelled the slavers and claimed the fort. Despite claims of a humanitarian mission, it became a colonial outpost. From shackles to rifles, Fort Patiko reflects how oppression simply changed form. And still, those bearing its scars are told to forget and move on, like kings without thrones. Looking back, people died, families were torn apart, and hope was extinguished at the hands of profiteers. Africa remains globally marketed as a vast, untamed wilderness, inhabited only by the starving and struggling. It’s time to retell our story and decolonise knowledge for future generations. History is often written by the powerful, suppressing the voices of the oppressed.
It is time to reclaim our narrative. Lack of colonial language does not equate to ignorance. Our ancestors governed themselves, preserved knowledge, symbols, and lived wisdom; consolidating the same resources the “civilised” came to plunder. Today, our struggle endures. Shaped by the shadows of slavery, colonialism, and neo-colonialism. Its legacy lives on through economic dependence, cultural erasure, and false global narratives. But we are not helpless. With education comes knowledge, and when applied, knowledge becomes power. Africa must embrace its truth, not as a relic of the past, but as a call to awaken. Let the drums sound not only as a warning, but as a rhythm of remembrance, resistance, and renewal.
Ivan Pitman Musingo, Founder of The African Pin.
