‘Things fall apart’

Transcribed from a March 27, 2020, audio recording on prisonradio.org.

The great African writer, Chinua Achebe, I believe, wrote a novel about the ravages of colonialism, which bore the title “Things Fall Apart.”

He borrowed the title from the famed Irish poet, William Butler Yeats, who wrote “Things fall apart, the center cannot hold, mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.”

We see, outside our doors, our windows, a world we did not know, that now exists.

A silent, unseen disease gives vent to massive unease and unleashes unprecedented fear.

Political leaders pose and preen, saying little of substance, and even less of sense.
But in every utterance comes a fevered subtext — “Praise me! Praise me! Praise me!’

While dozens and then hundreds die daily, and thousands, tens of thousands fall ill. Trillions of dollars dry up like fruit fallen from a tree, they fall rotten — unusable, gone like the wind.

Politicians fill the air with words, but no solution is in sight.

Several weeks ago. a pandemic came to visit the world’s richest countries, and things fall apart.

From imprisoned nation, this is Mumia Abu-Jamal