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Funmi Iyanda
Lagos, Nigeria
Funmi Iyanda is a multi award-winning producer and broadcast journalist. She is the CEO of Ignite Media and Executive Director of Creation Television
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Thursday, March 06, 2008

silently telling

I woke up as usual at 5am and l cannot get the images out of my head, l sense the stories, locked behind the eyes, some dead, some weary, some angry but most vacant, just blindly vacant silent orbs.

I cannot rest for l feel in my soul a need to ask the story, a need to know the story and wrenchingly, a fire to tell the story with humanity, with understanding but with unflinching truth.

I worry, do they want to tell these stories and should these stories be told?

I stumble a little at the thought; can l afford to tell these stories? Even as l think this l hear Opeyemi’s voice, and l know that l will be less the human l am meant to be, less the soul my material body is encased around and certainly completely unfulfilled and unaccomplished as an entity if l didn’t.

I confront in my core the probability that the journey to functionality as a human group, a society of people and a nation perhaps lies in telling these stories and telling them with honour, understanding and truth.

I am aware of the belief that we have a culture of silence, but lately l have begun to question that as l question many other such “facts”. The more deeply I think about them, the more it appears that like many other issues of mass hysteria, mass inertia and mass dogma, the truth of it is only in a paper thin layer waiting to be peeled away to reveal the many layers of sound, voices, experiences and truths.

I find that l cannot rest unless l play my part in that unveiling.

I also find that l must get up now from my computer and start a day that will not stop till afternoon tomorrow so l implore you to have a little patience, l am going to make sense of all of the above.

I ask in the meantime that we all examine our being, what is the one thing, one story, one question, one statement l would make ask or tell if l didn’t fear indifference, futility, reproach or ridicule?

4 comments:

Ainehi Edoro said...

hmmm(sigh)...Sometimes, funmi, its beyond telling. Its not just that there is no final truth to tell (as you rightly suggest) about our stories but that our refracted past and fading future are things one cannot always easily express or give form in "Language."

Anonymous said...

T'eni ba dake, t'ara a ba dake. Taking liberties with the translation, a sick person who doesn't complain gets no attention.
Pray, tell whatever it is. One only dies once!!

Sherri said...

Girl,
do u feel a pep talk coming?
here goes:whether u know it or not, the truth is u have been called for such a time as this.
continue to follow ur heart
continue to be the voice to the voiceless and hope for the hopeless and i trust God will equip and sustain u.

fools will be indifferent to truth,will even ridicule and reproach the truth. does that make the truth any less the truth?

it may seem futile or even perilous, the truth got to be told.
it may not be measurable or apparent yet, but u are affecting lives for the better.

was Jesus not the object of ridicule and reproach?
son of man, son of God, zealot,who cares? he changed the world by speaking for the truth.

Anonymous said...

The problem with performance is that you have the burden of true and accurate representation, else one reduces the intensity of the experience one is portraying. The fact that you acknowledge your responsibility and are aware of your role makes me certain you will do just fine.

Is there anyway that one can view the performances of Vagina Monologues online? My friend got a role in Vagina Monologues on campus and I loved watching these stories of women so beautifully and tastefully done. I have emailed KIND.org and am yet to get a response.