Redemption Song From The Pulpit

By Sunny Awhefeada

The year before he bade the world farewell Robert Nesta Marley, best known as Bob Marley, gave humanity an anthem of freedom for all oppressed people. What has now been canonized as “redemption song” was Marley’s last song released in 1980 before he died in 1981.It was his swan song. The song became an instant hit as it spoke to the condition of people in thralldom. Even in death the significance of the song was never diminished. It waxed stronger across time and space and it has become a song for all time. I heard the song as a child growing up in Ibadan and Evwreni. It was a significant constituent of my ideological menu as a young adult in Ughelli, while it fired the revolutionary zeal of my generation at the universities of Benin and Ibadan. The song liberated our imagination and kindled a revolutionary consciousness in us. Sadly, it only ended there. Many decades after my generation sang and danced languorously to its beats the idea of freedom remains an abstraction for us. Freedom has remained elusive. As we have learnt, and we have come to terms with the reality, independence is no freedom. Our people exchanged colonial shackles for postcolonial manacles in 1960. Marley’s consciousness was forged by the reality of slavery, racism and oppression which occupy similar index zone with colonialism. Although of African descent, Marley and his ancestors found a home in Jamaica as a result of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade that ravaged the continent for centuries.

The abolition of slavery in 1807 was not well received by slave owners in America’s North. For that the country fought a civil war from 1861 to 1865. The series of socio-political engineering that attempted to formally and finally eradicate slavery were resisted by some who felt that the order of nature augured well for the phenomenon of slavery. At the time of Marley’s release of redemption song in 1980 the abolition of slavery had taken place one hundred and seventy-three years earlier. In between those years came colonialism through the scramble and partitioning of Africa via the Berlin conference in 1884/1885. Colonialism begat the anticolonial struggles and years later African countries and colonized people elsewhere were made to believe that they have been granted independence. For Nigeria and Africa, the year 1960 was phenomenal as a large number of countries got their independence that year. Sadly and unfortunately, it was mere flag independence that was handed these countries. The erstwhile colonial masters left infiltrators in the newly independent countries and soon things began to fall apart for them. Togo, Ghana, Congo and many other African countries capitulated to the whims and caprice of neo-imperialism. Another form of thralldom which is internal colonialism loomed over the continent.

In places where the colonial masters did not quite show their hands in the misfortune of the newly independent countries, the new rulers at independence saw themselves as neo-fascists, while they see the people as serfs. Either way, whether the former colonialists had a hand in the woes of the people or it was their own people who had become leaders that threw shackles around them what matters now was that independence was not freedom. From the African homeland to the Caribbean where Marley’s Jamaica is located, the fate of oppressed people was one. Centuries of slavery and one hundred years of colonialism derailed the people and robbed them of dignity and self-esteem. They simply lost direction and suffered mental ennui. They needed a new consciousness and that was what Marley offered in “redemption song”. Some of the more familiar lines read: “Emancipate yourself from mental slavery/none but ourselves can free our minds/Have no fear for atomic energy/cause none of them can stop the time/How long shall they kill our prophets/while we stand aside and look?/Ooh some say it is just part of it/We’ve got to fulfill the book/Won’t you help to sing these songs of freedom?/Cause all I ever had…..redemption songs, redemption songs”. The abiding theme in the excerpted lines resonate with the all truth that thralldom could be a condition of the mind and that whoever wants to break the shackles of slavery must first of all be mentally liberated. Simply put, the destiny of humanity and the freedom of a people is in their hands. This has been the empowering consciousness for change and freedom all over the world.

Fr. Paschal invoked Marley’s “redemption song” three Sundays ago during his homily. Many years ago it could have been thought of as impossible to invoke Marley from the pulpit. But things have changed and the world is beginning to draw connections across phenomena. Many priests have come to embrace the ideals of liberation theology. Yes, it has become pertinent for the church to take a stand. As a student offering Christian Religious Knowledge some decades ago, we were taught the prophetic revolution led by Jehu in the Bible. The Bible is all about “living well” and it frowns at injustice and many other malaises that have come to define our socio-political and economic crises. Marley’s songs also rail against injustice and all other indices that undermine humanity. It was therefore apropos for Fr. Paschal to invoke Marley’s “redemption song” from the pulpit. Fr. Paschal’s theme that Sunday was an evaluation of the Nigerian situation. The drift towards a one-party state, the poverty and hunger, insecurity and needless death, high cost of living and the harsh reality that Nigeria is on the fast lane of a failed state.

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Fr. Paschal urged citizens to be conscious and rise to the occasion. The country is theirs and they are the country. How come a few men and women take a nation of over two hundred million people for a ride? As Fr. Paschal sang “redemption song” the worshippers sang along with him animatedly. Again, it all ended there. Once the service was over, the worshippers trooped out from the soothing presence of God to the harsh reality that the streets of Nigeria have become in the last ten years. The momentary relief and hope which the homily offered receded as the real reality hit us beyond the walls of the church. Marley’s consciousness, Fr. Paschal’s exhortation no longer matter as nothing has changed. The same week of Fr. Paschal’s invocation of “redemption song” saw many oddities rearing their heads to confound the citizens. Hardship is doubling and more people are dying due to inability to afford food and drugs. Yet, those ruling us are preoccupied with personal survival at the expense of the people. Stories of humungous heist abound in the land. The security forces battling insurgency are holding the wrong side of the stick. Everything that was wrong with us ten years ago had gone from bad to worse. Yet, nobody in government appears perturbed. Government is moving in circles and bereft of what to do to untangle the nation from the bondage of underdevelopment. The ecclesiastical order should do more to embrace liberation theology and arouse genuine revolutionary consciousness in the people. Fr. Paschal got it right with “redemption song” that Sunday. But it should not be a one-off. Nigeria is bound to destruction, but we must not allow that to happen. We have no other country to call ours and we must do all that we can to salvage this beautiful and great country that has been diminished by bad leadership. Henceforth, let “redemption song” echo from pulpits.