The Smile of the Lord

By Baba Galleh Jallow

With Obama鈥檚 victory, Africa鈥檚 despots must be seething with shame. Slumped in their ill-begotten seats, they gaze in awe as a free people elect their leader of choice, graciously concede electoral defeat, graciously accept electoral victory, acknowledge the enormity of the challenges ahead, express their determination to overcome, reiterate their human fallibility, celebrate their victory against enormous odds, reaffirm their conviction that they can, and move on with their lives. Deep down in their darkest hearts, these despots wish that this moment will quickly fade away, fly with the winds, never come again, never be spoken of, thought of, even imagined.

But No! This moment will not go away or be ever forgotten. This moment will remain an indelible testimony to the audacity of hope, a defining moment for the imminent fall of heartless bullies who hold millions of people hostage, greedy despots who wish to forever suck the blood of their peoples and deprive millions of unborn children of their God-ordained rights to bright and hopeful futures. It marks a milestone in the fall of despots who turn their beautiful nations into punching bags, monstrous bullies who murder their people鈥檚 rights to hope, to humanity. It is sign, that the end is near for those fat-cheeked monsters who turn their people into donkeys, slaves to their wanton greed. Those devils in human skin whose callous hands strangle the tender necks of unborn babies, who microwave hope to death. Those men who are men but in shape and form, whose little minds can only think of themselves and the satiation of their gross appetites, their gross lust for power and glory which they will never win. Those soul-blind men who can鈥檛 see that power and glory will not be obtained through the shedding of innocent blood and tears, but through the free labors of the mind, through the generous flowering of the senses, through the power of hope and creativity, through the soaring of the human intellect to the limitless depths of space.

How so terribly sad that in those lands of plenty, there is merely want; that in those lands of innocent peaceful, there is only strife, that in those lands of plentiful hope, hope so plenty that it could drown the world, there only lurks a hopelessness that saps the energy and numbs the mind, thanks to the evil and clueless machinations of buffoons in power. How so tragic that in those lands of beautiful hearts and beautiful minds, only the heartless ugly and the mindless tyrant can smile and eat their fill and sleep in comfy beds. How so tragic that in those lands of the generous, only the mean and the miserly prosper; that in those lands of neighborly love, neighbor slays neighbor, brother cuts brother to bloody pieces, and sister kills sister because a few wanton and greedy men will not let the people dream.

Watching those hopeful souls sing, cry for joy and celebrate the triumph of human creativity over hypocrisy, of hope over despair, of change over mindless continuity, Africa鈥檚 despots must shrink with shame for lording it over souls that cannot not sing of hope; for suppressing and oppressing innocent men, women, and children who have been reduced to bundles of shivering fear and hunger in the dusty, thirsty, thorny, and viper-infested sands of Sudan, in the cracked plains of Chad, cradling the cold ridges of Mount Kenya; those poor souls driven from their homes, cruelly snatched from their loved ones and thrust into the jaws of the snake infested jungles, food for the hungry hyena and gluttonous vulture, their flesh and blood and bones strewn like so many evil trophies in the weeping forests of Central Africa. These despots shall be questioned about the fates of those poor souls waiting to be raped, waiting to die, waiting to be torn to pieces by wild beasts of prey only because a few greedy and mindless tyrants want to spend the rest of their empty lives wallowing in obscene laps of luxury; those souls for whom the very sound of hope is alien, yet for whom hope is the only reason to live, but who now feel the Smile of the Lord upon their faces.

No, puny little despot. This moment will not go away. It will refuse to go. It cannot go away. It has been poured into the river of time. It is a sign of the times, of hope for the oppressed; the trumpet of doom for all you heartless tyrants and little minds. It will not go away, for it is the Smile of the Lord upon the earth. It is the Smile of the Lord upon our faces.

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