InspireGrow

Fear is illusory; it cannot live...Courage is eternal, it will not die. Perils, calamities, dangers are the certain lot of every man who is a denizen(inhabitant) of this world. Therefore, O Man! Fortify your mind with courage and patience. Fortitude, courage, presence of mind will sustain you through all dangers. Just as a rock on the sea-shore stands firm and the dashing of the waves does not affect it even a bit, even so a man who is endowed with courage is not affected by the dark perilous waves of this world. You can never be perfect, so just take out the fear of making mistakes, use your courage to suppress it. “Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people.” A famous quote by Anne Lamott in her book Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. Like NIKE( the designer) 'just do it'. That particular thing that causes fear should be what you should do. If you’re the kind of person that likes doing things the e...

These days, as we all get older, and responsibilities pile up, and we all face the ‘real’ world, much of the idealism drops – we will hear more of some of the chatter you have been hearing lately: that it is time for ‘us’ young people to either join government or politics. Now, there is nothing wrong with joining government or politics, because government is the most important force for change in modern society (I am almost tired of pointing this out), and politics is the ultimate medium for articulating and driving issues and ideas, but it is certainly not the be all that many position it to be. Society as a construct is a collection of parts, of systems and structures, processes and institutions, that cannot function properly without complementing each other, and strengthening each other; and that is how government also functions. What that means in simple language is that while government is absolutely important – there is a wide misunderstanding of its function; an...

For most people development equals progress, civilization, evolution and in general evokes only positive associations. But what is development? Is our contemporary society a good example of development and how it should be? The progressive thinking has formed the basis for our current selfish and consumption driven society. In no way has it contributed to human progress but solely to a materialist and selfish commonalty. People are formed into uniform producers and consumers in the globalized world economy. Docile slaves, who as long as they can buy, buy, buy, buy, won't rise up against the current neoliberal capitalist order.   Modern Western society evolves around three commandments; Thou shall compete, thou shall achieve and above all thou shall consume. Is this the progress we preach? A selfish society that solely is obsessed with its own consumerism? The whole concept of humanitarian aid is squared on this progressive thinking; possessions and economic growt...

When that day comes their blood we shall Use to quench our test When that day comes their flesh shall be meat for our stomach. Tell it to those who run to hide their follies under their mother's bed Tell it to those coward who Crawl out to fight and after which run away. This struggle has started, the speedtrain has left town Overt was their death, innate where we born those who see our just course as their plight. Sorrow shall be your joy, to them who shall betray our truth Agony shall dwell with them now and forever. Written By Adedoyin Adetutu follow on twitter @9jatalktalk

Ah, there you are! Do come in. Make yourself at home – Opeyemi will take your coat. Please have a seat. Yes, I do apologise, it is rather warm. We’re having a devil of a job with the thermostat. Someone’s supposed to be coming to fix it, but you know how it is with these people, it’s always ‘brohaha’… Now, how about a drink? We’re very proud of our selection here, I’m sure you’ll find something to your taste – just peruse the list and let me know what you’d like… Opeyemi will decant it for you. I beg your pardon? Oh yes of course, you can have just a taster if you want to try it first… Drink List: 1. Lust Ohh, this one is delicious. You have to try it. Just a little sip, I insist! You see, the wonderful thing about creative work is that it’s so damn enjoyable. Noel Coward nailed it when he said “Work is more fun than fun” – once you’re in the creative zone, absorbed in your business, writing, or painting, or making music, or acting or whatever is your interest, ...

They say history repeats itself if its lessons are not learned. The truth of this saying is entirely apparent when one looks at the current events being played out in the arid deserts of northern Mali, an impoverished North African country and former French colony. It is fitting then that the bombs now raining down on north Malian towns are being dropped from French Air Force planes, and the troops now landing on the ground in the country bear the French flag on their sleeves, the flag that only a few decades ago dominated this region of Africa. The narrative in the western media is the usual nauseating one: the French troops are intervening in Mali’s ongoing civil conflict to defeat yet another spectre of Islamist terrorism and oppression, and bring democracy and freedom to its long suffering people. One instantly recalls shades of the Afghanistan campaign that began in 2001 – and the parallels are not accidental. The current conflict in Mali, and the recent French in...

Hypocrisy abounds in the land. From the power-intoxicant and common-sense-dispelling corridors of Aso Rock, to the various Government Houses in the State Capitals, to the streets that snake through the nooks and crannies of Nigeria; palpable hypocrisy is us. We are a peculiar lot. Yes, you and I; the mass of the people and the supposed leaders of thought; led by the pretenders who wield power for their individual interests. We seem to be suffering from a permanence of an intractable pathological condition of selective amnesia. Yes! We are ably led in this abysmal descent by the political class. They are not found wanting, as far as providing leadership in the realm of the absurd is concerned. A few years ago, our own Umar Musa Yar’Adua, who was foisted on us by a vindictive Olusegun Obasanjo, albeit, for daring to scorn his infamous third term agenda; was absent without leave from his duty post. He was missing in action . The Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces of...

The UN Security Council approval of a French-led resolution for military intervention in Africa’s vast Sahel region in the third week of December 2012 which signaled the Western imperialist powers’ laying down a new incendiary marker. While the intervention force being assembled is officially African-led and manned, the Western powers are driving the initiative, something about which there is little doubt. Under the guise of restoring Mali’s national security - following a separatist revolt earlier this year - the real agenda is extending Western imperialist interests in the resource-rich West Africa region. However, this new frontier for neo-imperialist intrigue in a volatile region threatens to become another explosive quandary for the Western powers - one that may set off a conflagration involving several African nations. Not content, it seems, with wreaking havoc in Libya in North Africa, fuelling a covert war in Syria that is destabilizing Lebanon and I...

Malcolm X, speaking at a rally of the Organisation of Afro-American Unity in 1964, described Patrice Emery Lumumba as “the greatest black man who ever walked the African continent. He didn’t fear anybody. He had those people [the colonialists] so scared they had to kill him. They couldn’t buy him, they couldn’t frighten him, they couldn’t reach him.” This was three years after Lumumba was assassinated by Belgian mercenaries in the breakaway state of Katanga (southern Congo). Why was Lumumba killed? Because he was a relentless, dedicated, intelligent, passionate anti-colonialist, Pan-Africanist and Congolese nationalist; because he had the unstinting support of the Congolese masses; because he stood in the way of Belgium’s plan to transform Congo from a colony into a neo-colony. Until the mid-1950s, the nationalist movement had been dominated by the small Congolese middle class. It was not a radical movement; it was composed of clerical workers, mid-level army o...

Patrice Lumumba, was the first Prime Minister of the independent Republic of Congo. He was born on 2 July 1925 in Katako Kombe, in the northern province of Kasai. He was a member of the small Batetela tribe, a fact that was to become significant in his later political life. He was the son of an ordinary farmer. His father wished him to become a teacher, and sent him to a Roman Catholic missionary school, which at that time was almost the only opportunity for Africans to acquire knowledge. At the age of thirteen he moved to a protestant school where he attended a training course for doctor's assistants. Two years later he left these missionaries, to acquire knowledge through independent studies. He was strongly attracted by the ideas of the French Enlightement (18th century) to be found in the works of Voltaire and Rousseau. He read books by Hugo and Moliere. Even at that time he wrote poems, at a later date used his poems as a stirring indictment of the Belgian colonial regime...