November 27, 2024 • 35 mins
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Our history of migration spans across the world. Join us as we journey with Alya Harding, a community organizer and PhD student, who shares her heartfelt exploration of Sierra Leonean Creole/Krio culture and her personal quest to uncover her Trinidadian roots. We examine the historical migrations that have woven a diverse Creole culture, bringing together Africans, African Americans, and Afro-Caribbean individuals in Sierra Leone. Alya's narrative of growing up in post-civil war Sierra Leone, paired with her newfound connections to her Caribbean heritage, paints a vivid picture of identity and belonging within the African diaspora.
This episode offers a thoughtful reflection on the complex layers of Creole culture, as seen through the lens of "roots versus routes" by scholar Paul Gilroy. We discuss the spiritual connections that bind African and Caribbean people, bolstered by historical movements such as the Haitian Revolution. The conversation also critically examines the romanticized idea of "returning" to Africa. We challenge the commercialization and exclusivity of this concept, advocating for genuine engagement with local communities and learning from past social movements. Alya enriches the dialogue with her personal anecdotes, and together we explore the enduring quest for freedom within Black communities worldwide. Dive into these narratives and gain access to further resources on the Strictly Facts podcast website, as we continue to explore these essential themes in our ongoing series.
Alya Harding, is a community organiser based in East London, concerned with issues of gender-based violence, migration, and agency. Alya’s activism and academic pursuits are deeply influenced by her early childhood in post-civil war Sierra Leone, shaped by the resilience of her Krio heritage and the richness of creolised cultures. She is particularly drawn to storytelling as a means to explore the tensions between theory and practice, grounded in a feminist approach that reimagines identity and freedom at the intersections of race, gender, and empire. Alya’s PhD research through an intergenerational discourse seeks to explore feminised migratory survival modes through the family pathology of African female headed households across Britain. In particular, examining how these practices affect their children, especially how they have shaped their daughters’ views on identity, belonging and healing.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Strictly Facts, a guide to Caribbean
history and culture, hosted byme, alexandria Miller.
Strictly Facts teaches thehistory, politics and activism
of the Caribbean and connectsthese themes to contemporary
music and popular culture.
Hello, hello, wagwan people,and welcome back to another
(00:24):
episode of Strictly Facts, aguide to Caribbean history and
culture.
I'm your host, alexandria, and,as promised stemming from the
discussion in our last episode,I thought it would be great to
continue dissecting differentCaribbean identities in ways we
rarely discuss.
Today's episode focuses on theSierra Leonean Creole people,
(00:46):
who are descendants of freed andself-emancipated Africans,
african-americans and, of course, as strictly facts,
afro-caribbean people.
But before I get too deep intothe conversation, let me first
introduce my lovely guest, who Ihaven't seen in some months, so
it's great to have you on theshow.
Joining us for this episode isAaliyah Harding, east
(01:08):
London-based community organizerand current PhD student
studying migratory survivalstories of British African
families.
Aaliyah, it's such a pleasureagain to have you on the show,
so, especially you know wehaven't seen each other since
UWE St Augustine earlier thisyear.
Before diving too deep into ourepisode, why don't you let our
(01:29):
listeners know a bit more aboutyourself and your connection to
the Caribbean?
Of course, Cool.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Hi everyone, hi listeners, and thanks so much
for having me.
Alexandra, it's a true pleasureto be here.
And so, yeah, yeah, I thinkyou've mainly introduced me in a
nutshell, um, but just to add,I'm first generation,
quote-unquote British, creole,sierra Leonean.
Um, and yeah, I'm sure we'll goon to mention a bit more about
(01:59):
the richness of queer community,but just to say we are a
vibrant, fluid um people and we,um we see ourselves in so many
people and hopefully we'll get achance to talk about that um my
personal connection to theCaribbean, um, so during my uh,
(02:20):
late teens, um, after a trip toSierra Leone, after 10 years, so
last month I was eight, andthen I went back when I was 18
and I was just very casuallyinformed about my paternal
lineage and who originally camefrom Trinidad and Tobago and
came to settle in Freetown.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
so, yeah, really, really excited to be here and
talk more about that and ofcourse, I think you know we were
talking before we kicked offrecording and just, you know the
wealth of and the beauty of,you know migration patterns and
especially, I think, when itcomes to our migrations to
Africa, we often, so often, talkabout how many of us, or many
(03:01):
of our ancestors and things wereleft Africa or, you know, were
forcibly removed from Africa.
Of course, right, but there aredefinite conversations and
peoples, much like the Creolewho we'll be talking about today
, who returned to Africa.
So, before getting too deep, ofcourse, for our listeners who
(03:22):
may not be familiar, Idefinitely want to give a bit of
a background on the Creolepeople of Sierra Leone.
So first off, I think, maybefrom a US perspective at least
in my high school they did tellus about Liberia and not Sierra
Leone, which is interestinganybody who's a bit familiar
(03:48):
with the history of Liberia andfreed Black Americans moving to
Liberia to settle that.
What was you know then?
The state of Liberia, or thecolony of Liberia, originally
the colony of Sierra Leone wasfounded in 1808 as a place to
resettle returning Africans.
Even prior to this founding,free Black people who were loyal
to the British crown began tosettle there as early as the
(04:10):
1700s, with the British crownfounding the settlement, the
Province of Freedom, in 1787,with 400 formerly enslaved
Africans and 60 white colonists.
Over the next century, blackpeople from all over the
diaspora moved to Sierra Leone,and this includes African
Americans who were freed duringthe Revolutionary War in the US,
(04:33):
africans and Caribbean peoplewho were, you know, uk-london
based Black Nova Scotians, 550Jamaican Maroons in 1800, and
several other waves of Africanand Caribbean people proclaiming
their freedom.
And so this mix of people wouldgo on to form the melting pot
(04:54):
that we're talking about today.
And you know the mix ofidentities of people who are the
Creole, and so I guess you know, from your like, familiar
perspective, or you know whatyou know about your family.
In what ways do you, you know,see your family fitting into
that very quick description ofyou know the Creole people and
(05:15):
how your family came to be inSierra Leone?
Speaker 2 (05:26):
that question, um, so I'll start off by kind of
contextualizing my own kind ofexperience of Sierra Leone and,
um, and this started in mychildhood um, my early years of
childhood was in post-civil warSierra Leone.
So we're looking at 2003-2004and during this time, for
obvious reasons, um, I was, Iwas sheltered in terms of where
I could go.
So, as ridiculous as thissounds, um, for half of my life
(05:50):
I grew up believing thatFreetown was Sierra Leone and
Sierra Leone was Freetown.
But so Freetown as a settlementand what we refer to as kind of
upline, the highlands, uh,anything outside of the capital,
was like this foreign place andland.
So this means that what I knewof Sierra Leonean culture was
(06:11):
very much narrowed, I wouldadmit, through the lens of what
I understood to be Creoleculture at the time.
And so, like I mentioned, I wasvery casually told during my
visit when I was 18 that mypaternal lineage are from
Trinidad and Tobago, and I thinkthis is when the questioning of
(06:33):
oh my god, so everything Ithought was true is not true.
I'm here repping Creoleheritage, proud Sierra Leonean
woman and I I don't know aboutthis Trinidadian kind of roots
or connection and that for me, Ithink up until this point I'm
the only one in my family kindof reckoning with that
(06:54):
connection, um, like I said, itwas said so casually.
So, yeah, my great-grandfather,um, unfortunately I never got
to meet him because he waskilled in the civil war, but
what I have been told is of hisum military service.
He was a soldier.
I've kind of explained histarget during the civil war as
(07:15):
well, him being a target um.
But one thing that I did want tohighlight, that that's kind of
parallel to the migration of mypaternal lineage to the
settlement of Freetown was alsothe West Indian regiment units
of the British army that we usedto expand the empire during
1700s and early 1900s and aftertaking part in the I believe,
(07:40):
the second Ashanti war in 187374, around that period they then
established the base in SierraLeone for the recruitment and
training of African people.
So as much as I don't know howmuch of those two histories are
interconnected for me, I knowthat there's a parallel there in
(08:01):
terms of migration of mypaternal lineage from Trinidad
and Tobago to Settlement ofFreetown and this kind of
military service that they areknown for, and then, of course,
the establishment of the WestIndian regiments in Freetown.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
It's just, I think, a really interesting narrative
that we, you know, know verylittle about, I think, right in
my estimation, and just anawareness of the necessity to
connect and bridge thesehistories a little bit right.
Like you know, if you didn'tsort of casually get that note
that conversation of you knowyour great-grandfather coming
(08:41):
from Trinidadidad, you know youwouldn't personally know this,
um, I know from from us talkingback when we were in Trinidad,
that there are some reallyinteresting ways that you know
the Creole people are.
I won't I don't want to saydistinct in like a negative
sense or anything, but you knowthere are a few things that are
(09:02):
markers of the creole people,particularly because these are
people who are descendants from,as we previously stated right,
black americans, those in the us.
Obviously we have the influx ofbritish colonialism shaping a
lot of these, these movementsright and so, um, in what ways,
(09:24):
in your estimation, are thedistinct you know, cultures or
um ways that you you've seen thecreole people being very
particular to, to the community,whether that's language or you
know, other things like thatyeah, I guess you can start with
language.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
So, yeah, and my last name is Harding.
Where does that come from?
Um?
But I think I'm the only one inmy family with a name that kind
of makes you question oh,where's she from?
Because of my first name beingAaliyah and a lot of my I think
majority of my Sierra Leoneanfamily members um have very,
(10:04):
very colonial old British names,like we're looking at Lawrence
Roderick, regina, matilda,loretta, and I think for me
these names kind of representthe names that we were given
through this process ofdehumanization and then also
(10:26):
names that we may have claimed.
You know, a lot of my workswork looks at um survival mode,
so names that we may haveclaimed through assimilation, um
as a pathway to education, um,you know, gaining social
respectability um, or evenpolitics.
I'll get onto this maybe a bitlater, but when we look at the
(10:50):
local governance of Freetown,it's very um creole dominated um
.
But yeah, but when we look atthe makeup of the creole
language and its influenceacross the nation, creole is
most widely spoken by everyonebut Creole people.
(11:13):
I think we make up less thanthree percent of like overall
population, so it goes to reallysee how we integrated in in the
country.
See how we integrated in in thecountry, um, and our influence,
and so it is a fluid language,um, it's influenced by languages
across the atlantics.
You know, you've got english,you've got, um, some portuguese
(11:37):
language in there, um, of course, the dialect of jamaican patois
, which was, you know, broughtby the marines.
So, for example, say, how areyou howdy body?
So we talk about body and howwe spell body as well.
There's a similarity um, andthen as well, by which is not
really talked about as much, butit kind of speaks to the kind
(11:58):
of last wave of migration, tothe settlement of the recaptives
and liberated Africans, and itis looking at the influence of
Nigerian Yoruba languagefollowing the migration during
the war that was happening inYoruba land at the time during
(12:18):
the 19th century.
So, for example, you've gotwords like bobo, which is boy,
in Nigerian pigeon, and boboalso in Creole, boy.
So there's similarities thereand, yeah, it's just really nice
.
I think we get caught up in all.
Who started first or where didit come from?
But, like I mentioned, I thinkCreole for me is seeing myself
(12:41):
in others, is seeing myself inothers, and then a second one
which it just warms my heart.
Every time I see it I have tostop and take a picture of it
because it's the, it's adeclining kind of architecture
of this, you know, um creolekind of legacy, and these are
(13:01):
board houses, so they're calledbodos and they are wooden houses
that you would see acrossFreetown and but, like I said,
due to the declininginfrastructure, due to fire
hazards, we're not allowed tolike build anymore.
But these houses for me, youknow, provide an intimate
reminder of Creole resilience,especially when you think about
(13:23):
concepts of home and thesethemes of belonging within the
diaspora and these themes ofbelonging within the diaspora.
And so these houses are said tobe a legacy of former enslaved
people from Nova Scotia andthey're actually similar to ones
that I've seen across the eastcoast of America and as well our
(13:44):
recent trip to Trinidad,actually, I also saw some there.
So that was that was quite niceto see.
And I think earlier I mentionedabout the legacy of local
government predominantly beingheld by Creole people.
So when we look at the localgovernance of Freetown, it has
historically been upheld by along history of Creole mayors,
(14:06):
and this is after the firstformation of Freetown as a city,
which was in 1799 and thesecond formation was in 1893 and
usually of course, mayors wereappointed through colonial
governance.
So when we're looking atlanguage and names and
assimilation and what wasacceptable at the time
(14:27):
civilisation, the civilisedAfrican was the Creole person,
unfortunately.
But when we see a shift into amore democratic government in
1948, where you's hard to ignorethe legacies of colonial rule
(14:53):
and these kind of enforcedhierarchies of civilization like
I mentioned, and this is kindof like the colonial mission
right, conquer and divide.
And unfortunately we see thattoday.
We know that there's difference, even within ethnic groups.
There's difference.
Even within ethnic groups.
There's difference.
But I think what colonialismreally weaponized through this
(15:13):
difference was that division andmaking it very clear on who can
and who can't.
Um, so yeah, I would say thoseare like kind of the three
things that come to mind when Ithink about Creole culture, how
it's maybe emerged with the moreindigenous African cultures and
how it's distinct to themDefinitely.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
I think even one thing I found interesting in
learning about Sierra Leone isin terms of, from the region,
the awareness and numbers of ourindigenous Taino or Arawak
people has been, you know, veryconvoluted.
A lot of the stories are like,yes, you know there are no more
(15:52):
Taino people, which we obviouslyknow.
That is not true, especiallybecause Maroons and the early
Indigenous people definitelywere interwoven, and so, because
of you know, the migrations ofthe over 500 Maroons from
Jamaica to Sierra Leone, youdefinitely can see populations
(16:14):
of descendants, you know, fromindigenous communities there as
well.
I think your point of names andstuff also brings me, on one
hand, to an earlier episode wehad on Aruba, in which our
guests there similarly discussedthat right that you know there
are people whose names are veryBritish sounding or, you know,
(16:35):
whatever is traditional Britishlast names because of the influx
of British colonialism,although you know Aruba is
predominantly a Dutch colony,right, or a Dutch country,
rather, but there are a lot ofdifferent ways that you know we
see our communities being upheldand supported in these
(16:58):
histories, right?
And so my question for you wouldbe, you know, given the varying
backgrounds that we weretalking about these mixes of
people who, all you know, cametogether to form Sierra Leone.
How do you and that you knowcould be from like a personal
standpoint or just you know,speaking for Creole people,
(17:18):
generally see people identifyingculturally really right, and I
know this could, you know, takeus into several different points
, but I remember us together,being in Trinidad and you really
being moved and wanting to, youknow, navigate that
understanding of who you arefrom the perspective of you know
(17:41):
, finally being in a place whereyou know your great grandfather
called home you know yourgreat-grandfather called home,
yeah, yeah, well, that'sactually a beautiful question.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
I didn't mention that I am.
I was born to a mother ofIndian Punjab heritage.
So, with that being said, Istill proudly identify as a
Creole Sierra Leonean woman andI guess each day I'm learning
more and more about what that is, especially because, up until
the age of 18, a lot of what Ithought to be true wasn't um.
(18:15):
So I've gone my life believingsomething that isn't innately
true and trying to now figureout.
You know how can I get closeror closest to the truth?
Um, so, yeah, I would say thatI would identify as a Creole
Sierra Leonean woman.
And you know many scholars inthe diaspora.
(18:35):
You know they write about thetensions of, you know identity,
politics, belonging, etc.
And I think, for me, professorPaul Gilroy I had the privilege
of being supervised by him do mymaster's and I don't know.
I think his concept of rootsversus roots is something that
(18:59):
speaks to this experience, Iwould say, of how I identify.
And so, you know, roots beingto the land and then roots is in
the journey and you know,highlighting that history um
across the transatlantic, umthat has created a, you know, a
unique, um, diasporic kind ofblack culture and which has
(19:20):
created for me, I guess,opportunities for people to
settle, or people who have beendisplaced to to settle.
So when I look at roots, as inthe journey across the
transatlantic and the history ofthat, it signifies this
richness of creole culture andthat I personally see to be
(19:42):
symbolized through naturallandscapes, if I'm honest.
So when you know you shared thatI had expressed on the trip in
Trinidad, you know, this kind oflike deep desire to find out
who I was is because I findmyself in a natural landscape
that seems familiar to me andthere is something quite magical
(20:07):
, or you could say spiritual,about African and Caribbean
people's connection to land.
And so when we even look back tothe Haitian revolution, you
know, and the Maroons, tacticsof guerrilla warfare, and you
know we see this tactic ofguerrilla warfare over the
following hundred years, youknow, know, in resistance to
(20:28):
colonial powers, the forest forme continues to represent this
place of refuge, but alsoorganizing.
And so every time I see thehighlands of Sierra Leone, and
even, you know, like I said, mytrip in Trinidad when we were
(20:49):
driving through the forests ofTrinidad to get to Marrakesh
Beach, it reminds me that Creoleculture is shaped by survival
and the beauty that lies withinresistance, when we are kind of
forced to be in community withone another.
And, like I mentioned, it'ssomething again that just gives
me the ability to recognizemyself and others, and I think
(21:11):
that's why, for me, creoleculture is something that allows
me to reckon with where I havecome from and what has shaped my
identity.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
I think that was so beautifully said because, as
people who are both born or, youknow, grew up in the
quote-unquote global north right, these major colonial powers,
um, and have to contend withthat sort of like, on one hand,
minority status, right, um, aschildren of immigrants of, of
(21:47):
course, right, but then also,you know, as you're saying,
right these roots in both senses, that we have to come to
understand who we are and ourplace in the world.
There are different ways tounderstand that that are not
just nationality-based, right.
I remember my first trip toSouth Africa when I was an
(22:10):
undergrad, um, and at the time,you know, I didn't know anything
about my family's heritage orlegacy beyond coming from
Jamaica, but I just was likethis is not the Africa that they
proclaim on TV, right, like,and there are definite places
where I was, we were drivingaround South Africa and me being
like this could easily be partsof our country, in Jamaica, and
(22:34):
it's very much so the forest,or you know, some of our rural
places and the ways that we'vebeen able to maintain the beauty
of those places, yes, and youknow, sort of free from the
powers of colonization.
So I thought that was abeautiful moment and, of course,
(22:54):
you know us being together inTrinidad and learning about each
other's stories.
It was one for me that I foundparticularly special to just,
you know, be able to be incommunity with you while we were
there and see that likeevolutionary process for you.
There is a question that Ialways ask all of our listeners
right, it comes almost at theend of every episode, and so
(23:18):
what are some of your favoriteways that?
You know, the Creole culturecomes alive through popular
culture in Sierra Leone andhighlights, you know, the
diversity, that is, the manyethnic groups that came to be.
You gave us some examples,which I love, through language,
right, but any others that youhave to share with us I'd love
(23:39):
for you to tell our listeners.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
Yeah, I think one person who I think has helped me
or aided me on this journey ofdiscovering the richness of
Sierra Leonean history wouldhave to be um writer and
novelist, aminata Forna.
Um, and she is a mixed heritage, scottish and Sierra Leonean.
(24:05):
Yeah, her books are justincredible.
I would recommend anyone who,you know, just wants a easy read
but get an insight into SierraLeonean history, especially
looking at the war and justresilience of Sierra Leoneans in
general.
I think I hate that wordresilience, but I'm using it
here, um, but yeah, I wouldrecommend um reading her.
(24:28):
I believe her debut book was amemoir named the Devil that
Danced on the Water, and hereshe speaks about the loss of her
father, her father being takeninto hostage and shortly after
being executed, I believe by thestate, because of his political
(24:50):
stance.
And then, of course, there'sthe memory of love which follows
the lives of three gentlemenduring and post Sierra Leonean
Civil War in the 1990s.
And so, yeah, she's writtenextensively on different
experiences of being in theworld, not just in Sierra Leone,
(25:11):
which I think speaks to me assomeone who lives and navigates
life in the diaspora, but shealso speaks to issues of, you
know, resistance, colonialism,themes of love and friendship
and loss that may be morefamiliar to us, maybe more
familiar to us, but I think forme, one topic that she speaks on
(25:33):
, that kind of speaks to myexperience more intimately, is
how she writes about childhood,and you know I mentioned that I
experienced my early childhoodyears in Sierra Leone,
post-civil War, and so theimpact of the stories that we
hear and how they shape ourexperiences, um, I know I
(25:54):
mentioned about, or we've beentalking about, sorry roots, you
know, and roots um, and she kindof adds to this by saying but
people don't have roots, like asin, like she's thinking
literally like we can't beplanted, which I don't think is
the idea anyway, but she goes onto say that people have feet
(26:15):
and feet are made for walking.
So what defines us is lessabout the place so in my case,
england, where I was born andwhere I currently live but
rather about the stories that wegrow up with, and in my case
it's listening to my grandmother, you know she, she played a
pivotal role in raising me andshe never completed primary
(26:40):
school education and for meshe's the most influential
person in my life and so whenyou think about the things that
would have impact on someonewhen you look deeper at the
surface is actually, you know,the connections that you make
with people and, yeah, so,listening to my grandma's
stories, um, and where she'shighlighting, you know, grief
(27:03):
and pain, but also pride andhope, is definitely those two
tensions that I try to work with.
And I think, just going back tothe work of Amanata, is her
character development throughouther novels is just incredible,
and I think what they representis that two things can be true
(27:27):
at once, that you can exist inmultiple places.
So, for example, you can be avictim of war, um, but you can
also be a survivor in the waythat you go and, um, help
rebuild your country orcommunity or be there for
someone else who's also inmourning, and it really goes
(27:50):
against Black people, africanpeople, caribbean people,
people's histories, you know,and being people that are
ahistorical, and so I just lovethe nuances of her book and I
think it speaks very richly toor very deeply, sorry, to the
richness of Sierra Leoneanhistory.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
You beautifully said, I have not read any of those.
So not only will I be checkingthem out, but I'll be sure to
add them on our Strictly Factswebsite for our listeners who
definitely want to tune in.
And so for my final question,as I have you today, I think you
know, oftentimes, when we thinkof migration, particularly
(28:32):
African and Caribbean peoplemigrating and colonialism and
many of the other topics we'vetalked about, right?
But you know, for this case,particularly especially when it
comes to the return to Africa,most oftentimes people think of
Marcus Garvey, that sort of backto Africa movement, rastafari,
(28:52):
other things like that, right?
What in your thoughts are?
Just, you know, sort of theneed for greater awareness
surrounding the many migrations,right, because those in
particular, as we've noted forour episode today, aren't the
only examples of our peoplereturning to Africa.
And how can we build, you know,sort of better transnational
(29:16):
connections as we come tounderstand these histories?
Speaker 2 (29:19):
Yeah, that's a really good question.
I think I would start off bysaying that we cannot
romanticize this return.
I think that's a mistake that Imade at 18 years old, I think.
Even how that trip came about,my mum was like, what do you
want for your 18th birthday?
And I was like I want to goback home these times.
(29:40):
I hadn't been in 10 years, sowhere was home?
But that's the kind of languageand and how I kind of
romanticized that experience.
And when I got there, oh boy, Igot a rude awakening.
Um.
So yeah, I think for anyone whois looking to return home
wherever home may be, or to theAfrican continent, it's really
(30:05):
doing that.
It's gonna sound so cliche, butthat kind of like reflective
work, like why, why are wemoving and what is our
contribution?
Whether you're in the workplace, whether you're in a different
society or you're working on aproject, a freelance project,
(30:26):
everyone has a contribution.
So I really am against thiscommercialized return that we
see, especially like around Idon't know if you're familiar
with the term like dirtyDecember and we go, we have a
great time and it's veryexclusionary.
But actually what are wereturning to?
We're returning to the diasporaon the continent, like we're
(30:48):
not.
What are we actually doing whenwe return?
So I think it's about having aa real um talk with yourself,
like, what is it that I'm goingto do?
And for anyone who's thinking Iwant to go and open a charity,
please don't.
The NGO sector has highlybranded, like deeply branded
(31:11):
African nations, and I can speakfor Sierra Leone.
Um, I thought it was bad umpost-civil war, as in when I was
there as a child, but goingback, it's just like more and
more streets are branded withdifferent charity names.
Um, and I think as well itfeeds into this idea that we're
(31:31):
taught um, you know, in theglobal north quote unquote where
the helpless african, thevoiceless african these are
narratives that they areenforcing there through their um
, their appearance, you know theparents of ngos.
So really question what you'regoing to do, and does your work
(31:52):
include um getting to know andengage local people, or is it?
I want to feel comfortablebecause in learning, like
learning requires you to beuncomfortable, and so what is
the purpose of our return?
Is it to continue to, you know,out market local businesses?
(32:17):
Like, what is it that we'rereally trying to do and are we
bringing the local andindigenous people along with us
on this story?
Um, because a lot of the timeit's like you know, we'll get a
group of friends and we justwant to go back and see, and
that's fine, but I think themove to live is is something
that requires, uh, yeah, like Isaid, a lot of questioning and
(32:39):
also community.
So what conversations are youhaving with people who are
already living in the continent,um, or people who are also
looking to return?
But, yeah, like I said, justnot to romanticize, I've made
that mistake because in my head,I would be living in Sierra
Leone right now, but it's it'snot possible.
(33:01):
So, yeah, finding community,and community can be a shared
dream, you know, it could belike what would you like Sierra
Leone to look like?
Or what are the people ofSierra Leone doing currently
that you feel you can get behind?
Speaker 1 (33:17):
um, yeah, so I would think about what is your
contribution, what is yourpurpose um, I may add an
awareness or sort of like anunderstanding of what's happened
before, in a very intentionalway, right?
Um, when we think of historiesand movements and things, right,
that have happened socialmovements and what have you it's
(33:41):
not enough to just be like, oh,I know that this happened from
1960 to 1970 or whatever, right,but what were the highlights,
what were the failures?
Right, so that those thingsaren't repeated again.
But, all that being said,aaliyah, I can't thank you
enough for joining me for thisepisode.
Not only was it great to chatwith you again, having not seen
(34:02):
you in a bit, but also, I think,just like a really expansive
conversation for how weunderstand the confines of
borders and geographic reasonsand things that we label as
Caribbean or as African or, asyou know, whatever else, and for
us to understand that diasporais real in more than just, you
(34:26):
know, like 20th centurymigrations or whatever right,
Like there are, as we map today,generations of our people who
have moved for freedom,especially back to Africa, as we
noted today.
And so, for our listeners, Iwill definitely add the text
that we talked about, paulGilroy's work and a lot of other
(34:48):
texts on Sierra Leone and evenLiberia if you're interested in
learning more about thesemovements of Black peoples from
across the world and moving fortheir freedom.
Aaliyah again, thank you somuch for sharing with us and
sharing your personal stories aswell, and until next time,
little more.
Thanks for tuning in toStrictly Facts.
(35:09):
Visit strictlyfactspodcastcomfor more information from each
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Strictly Fax PD on Twitter.
Welcome to Strictly Facts, a guide to Caribbean
history and culture, hosted byme, alexandria Miller.
Strictly Facts teaches thehistory, politics and activism
of the Caribbean and connectsthese themes to contemporary
music and popular culture.
Hello, hello, wagwan people,and welcome back to another
(00:24):
episode of Strictly Facts, aguide to Caribbean history and
culture.
I'm your host, alexandria, and,as promised stemming from the
discussion in our last episode,I thought it would be great to
continue dissecting differentCaribbean identities in ways we
rarely discuss.
Today's episode focuses on theSierra Leonean Creole people,
(00:46):
who are descendants of freed andself-emancipated Africans,
african-americans and, of course, as strictly facts,
afro-caribbean people.
But before I get too deep intothe conversation, let me first
introduce my lovely guest, who Ihaven't seen in some months, so
it's great to have you on theshow.
Joining us for this episode isAaliyah Harding, east
(01:08):
London-based community organizerand current PhD student
studying migratory survivalstories of British African
families.
Aaliyah, it's such a pleasureagain to have you on the show,
so, especially you know wehaven't seen each other since
UWE St Augustine earlier thisyear.
Before diving too deep into ourepisode, why don't you let our
(01:29):
listeners know a bit more aboutyourself and your connection to
the Caribbean?
Of course, Cool.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Hi everyone, hi listeners, and thanks so much
for having me.
Alexandra, it's a true pleasureto be here.
And so, yeah, yeah, I thinkyou've mainly introduced me in a
nutshell, um, but just to add,I'm first generation,
quote-unquote British, creole,sierra Leonean.
Um, and yeah, I'm sure we'll goon to mention a bit more about
(01:59):
the richness of queer community,but just to say we are a
vibrant, fluid um people and we,um we see ourselves in so many
people and hopefully we'll get achance to talk about that um my
personal connection to theCaribbean, um, so during my uh,
(02:20):
late teens, um, after a trip toSierra Leone, after 10 years, so
last month I was eight, andthen I went back when I was 18
and I was just very casuallyinformed about my paternal
lineage and who originally camefrom Trinidad and Tobago and
came to settle in Freetown.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
so, yeah, really, really excited to be here and
talk more about that and ofcourse, I think you know we were
talking before we kicked offrecording and just, you know the
wealth of and the beauty of,you know migration patterns and
especially, I think, when itcomes to our migrations to
Africa, we often, so often, talkabout how many of us, or many
(03:01):
of our ancestors and things wereleft Africa or, you know, were
forcibly removed from Africa.
Of course, right, but there aredefinite conversations and
peoples, much like the Creolewho we'll be talking about today
, who returned to Africa.
So, before getting too deep, ofcourse, for our listeners who
(03:22):
may not be familiar, Idefinitely want to give a bit of
a background on the Creolepeople of Sierra Leone.
So first off, I think, maybefrom a US perspective at least
in my high school they did tellus about Liberia and not Sierra
Leone, which is interestinganybody who's a bit familiar
(03:48):
with the history of Liberia andfreed Black Americans moving to
Liberia to settle that.
What was you know then?
The state of Liberia, or thecolony of Liberia, originally
the colony of Sierra Leone wasfounded in 1808 as a place to
resettle returning Africans.
Even prior to this founding,free Black people who were loyal
to the British crown began tosettle there as early as the
(04:10):
1700s, with the British crownfounding the settlement, the
Province of Freedom, in 1787,with 400 formerly enslaved
Africans and 60 white colonists.
Over the next century, blackpeople from all over the
diaspora moved to Sierra Leone,and this includes African
Americans who were freed duringthe Revolutionary War in the US,
(04:33):
africans and Caribbean peoplewho were, you know, uk-london
based Black Nova Scotians, 550Jamaican Maroons in 1800, and
several other waves of Africanand Caribbean people proclaiming
their freedom.
And so this mix of people wouldgo on to form the melting pot
(04:54):
that we're talking about today.
And you know the mix ofidentities of people who are the
Creole, and so I guess you know, from your like, familiar
perspective, or you know whatyou know about your family.
In what ways do you, you know,see your family fitting into
that very quick description ofyou know the Creole people and
(05:15):
how your family came to be inSierra Leone?
Speaker 2 (05:26):
that question, um, so I'll start off by kind of
contextualizing my own kind ofexperience of Sierra Leone and,
um, and this started in mychildhood um, my early years of
childhood was in post-civil warSierra Leone.
So we're looking at 2003-2004and during this time, for
obvious reasons, um, I was, Iwas sheltered in terms of where
I could go.
So, as ridiculous as thissounds, um, for half of my life
(05:50):
I grew up believing thatFreetown was Sierra Leone and
Sierra Leone was Freetown.
But so Freetown as a settlementand what we refer to as kind of
upline, the highlands, uh,anything outside of the capital,
was like this foreign place andland.
So this means that what I knewof Sierra Leonean culture was
(06:11):
very much narrowed, I wouldadmit, through the lens of what
I understood to be Creoleculture at the time.
And so, like I mentioned, I wasvery casually told during my
visit when I was 18 that mypaternal lineage are from
Trinidad and Tobago, and I thinkthis is when the questioning of
(06:33):
oh my god, so everything Ithought was true is not true.
I'm here repping Creoleheritage, proud Sierra Leonean
woman and I I don't know aboutthis Trinidadian kind of roots
or connection and that for me, Ithink up until this point I'm
the only one in my family kindof reckoning with that
(06:54):
connection, um, like I said, itwas said so casually.
So, yeah, my great-grandfather,um, unfortunately I never got
to meet him because he waskilled in the civil war, but
what I have been told is of hisum military service.
He was a soldier.
I've kind of explained histarget during the civil war as
(07:15):
well, him being a target um.
But one thing that I did want tohighlight, that that's kind of
parallel to the migration of mypaternal lineage to the
settlement of Freetown was alsothe West Indian regiment units
of the British army that we usedto expand the empire during
1700s and early 1900s and aftertaking part in the I believe,
(07:40):
the second Ashanti war in 187374, around that period they then
established the base in SierraLeone for the recruitment and
training of African people.
So as much as I don't know howmuch of those two histories are
interconnected for me, I knowthat there's a parallel there in
(08:01):
terms of migration of mypaternal lineage from Trinidad
and Tobago to Settlement ofFreetown and this kind of
military service that they areknown for, and then, of course,
the establishment of the WestIndian regiments in Freetown.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
It's just, I think, a really interesting narrative
that we, you know, know verylittle about, I think, right in
my estimation, and just anawareness of the necessity to
connect and bridge thesehistories a little bit right.
Like you know, if you didn'tsort of casually get that note
that conversation of you knowyour great-grandfather coming
(08:41):
from Trinidadidad, you know youwouldn't personally know this,
um, I know from from us talkingback when we were in Trinidad,
that there are some reallyinteresting ways that you know
the Creole people are.
I won't I don't want to saydistinct in like a negative
sense or anything, but you knowthere are a few things that are
(09:02):
markers of the creole people,particularly because these are
people who are descendants from,as we previously stated right,
black americans, those in the us.
Obviously we have the influx ofbritish colonialism shaping a
lot of these, these movementsright and so, um, in what ways,
(09:24):
in your estimation, are thedistinct you know, cultures or
um ways that you you've seen thecreole people being very
particular to, to the community,whether that's language or you
know, other things like thatyeah, I guess you can start with
language.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
So, yeah, and my last name is Harding.
Where does that come from?
Um?
But I think I'm the only one inmy family with a name that kind
of makes you question oh,where's she from?
Because of my first name beingAaliyah and a lot of my I think
majority of my Sierra Leoneanfamily members um have very,
(10:04):
very colonial old British names,like we're looking at Lawrence
Roderick, regina, matilda,loretta, and I think for me
these names kind of representthe names that we were given
through this process ofdehumanization and then also
(10:26):
names that we may have claimed.
You know, a lot of my workswork looks at um survival mode,
so names that we may haveclaimed through assimilation, um
as a pathway to education, um,you know, gaining social
respectability um, or evenpolitics.
I'll get onto this maybe a bitlater, but when we look at the
(10:50):
local governance of Freetown,it's very um creole dominated um
.
But yeah, but when we look atthe makeup of the creole
language and its influenceacross the nation, creole is
most widely spoken by everyonebut Creole people.
(11:13):
I think we make up less thanthree percent of like overall
population, so it goes to reallysee how we integrated in in the
country.
See how we integrated in in thecountry, um, and our influence,
and so it is a fluid language,um, it's influenced by languages
across the atlantics.
You know, you've got english,you've got, um, some portuguese
(11:37):
language in there, um, of course, the dialect of jamaican patois
, which was, you know, broughtby the marines.
So, for example, say, how areyou howdy body?
So we talk about body and howwe spell body as well.
There's a similarity um, andthen as well, by which is not
really talked about as much, butit kind of speaks to the kind
(11:58):
of last wave of migration, tothe settlement of the recaptives
and liberated Africans, and itis looking at the influence of
Nigerian Yoruba languagefollowing the migration during
the war that was happening inYoruba land at the time during
(12:18):
the 19th century.
So, for example, you've gotwords like bobo, which is boy,
in Nigerian pigeon, and boboalso in Creole, boy.
So there's similarities thereand, yeah, it's just really nice
.
I think we get caught up in all.
Who started first or where didit come from?
But, like I mentioned, I thinkCreole for me is seeing myself
(12:41):
in others, is seeing myself inothers, and then a second one
which it just warms my heart.
Every time I see it I have tostop and take a picture of it
because it's the, it's adeclining kind of architecture
of this, you know, um creolekind of legacy, and these are
(13:01):
board houses, so they're calledbodos and they are wooden houses
that you would see acrossFreetown and but, like I said,
due to the declininginfrastructure, due to fire
hazards, we're not allowed tolike build anymore.
But these houses for me, youknow, provide an intimate
reminder of Creole resilience,especially when you think about
(13:23):
concepts of home and thesethemes of belonging within the
diaspora and these themes ofbelonging within the diaspora.
And so these houses are said tobe a legacy of former enslaved
people from Nova Scotia andthey're actually similar to ones
that I've seen across the eastcoast of America and as well our
(13:44):
recent trip to Trinidad,actually, I also saw some there.
So that was that was quite niceto see.
And I think earlier I mentionedabout the legacy of local
government predominantly beingheld by Creole people.
So when we look at the localgovernance of Freetown, it has
historically been upheld by along history of Creole mayors,
(14:06):
and this is after the firstformation of Freetown as a city,
which was in 1799 and thesecond formation was in 1893 and
usually of course, mayors wereappointed through colonial
governance.
So when we're looking atlanguage and names and
assimilation and what wasacceptable at the time
(14:27):
civilisation, the civilisedAfrican was the Creole person,
unfortunately.
But when we see a shift into amore democratic government in
1948, where you's hard to ignorethe legacies of colonial rule
(14:53):
and these kind of enforcedhierarchies of civilization like
I mentioned, and this is kindof like the colonial mission
right, conquer and divide.
And unfortunately we see thattoday.
We know that there's difference, even within ethnic groups.
There's difference.
Even within ethnic groups.
There's difference.
But I think what colonialismreally weaponized through this
(15:13):
difference was that division andmaking it very clear on who can
and who can't.
Um, so yeah, I would say thoseare like kind of the three
things that come to mind when Ithink about Creole culture, how
it's maybe emerged with the moreindigenous African cultures and
how it's distinct to themDefinitely.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
I think even one thing I found interesting in
learning about Sierra Leone isin terms of, from the region,
the awareness and numbers of ourindigenous Taino or Arawak
people has been, you know, veryconvoluted.
A lot of the stories are like,yes, you know there are no more
(15:52):
Taino people, which we obviouslyknow.
That is not true, especiallybecause Maroons and the early
Indigenous people definitelywere interwoven, and so, because
of you know, the migrations ofthe over 500 Maroons from
Jamaica to Sierra Leone, youdefinitely can see populations
(16:14):
of descendants, you know, fromindigenous communities there as
well.
I think your point of names andstuff also brings me, on one
hand, to an earlier episode wehad on Aruba, in which our
guests there similarly discussedthat right that you know there
are people whose names are veryBritish sounding or, you know,
(16:35):
whatever is traditional Britishlast names because of the influx
of British colonialism,although you know Aruba is
predominantly a Dutch colony,right, or a Dutch country,
rather, but there are a lot ofdifferent ways that you know we
see our communities being upheldand supported in these
(16:58):
histories, right?
And so my question for you wouldbe, you know, given the varying
backgrounds that we weretalking about these mixes of
people who, all you know, cametogether to form Sierra Leone.
How do you and that you knowcould be from like a personal
standpoint or just you know,speaking for Creole people,
(17:18):
generally see people identifyingculturally really right, and I
know this could, you know, takeus into several different points
, but I remember us together,being in Trinidad and you really
being moved and wanting to, youknow, navigate that
understanding of who you arefrom the perspective of you know
(17:41):
, finally being in a place whereyou know your great grandfather
called home you know yourgreat-grandfather called home,
yeah, yeah, well, that'sactually a beautiful question.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
I didn't mention that I am.
I was born to a mother ofIndian Punjab heritage.
So, with that being said, Istill proudly identify as a
Creole Sierra Leonean woman andI guess each day I'm learning
more and more about what that is, especially because, up until
the age of 18, a lot of what Ithought to be true wasn't um.
(18:15):
So I've gone my life believingsomething that isn't innately
true and trying to now figureout.
You know how can I get closeror closest to the truth?
Um, so, yeah, I would say thatI would identify as a Creole
Sierra Leonean woman.
And you know many scholars inthe diaspora.
(18:35):
You know they write about thetensions of, you know identity,
politics, belonging, etc.
And I think, for me, professorPaul Gilroy I had the privilege
of being supervised by him do mymaster's and I don't know.
I think his concept of rootsversus roots is something that
(18:59):
speaks to this experience, Iwould say, of how I identify.
And so, you know, roots beingto the land and then roots is in
the journey and you know,highlighting that history um
across the transatlantic, umthat has created a, you know, a
unique, um, diasporic kind ofblack culture and which has
(19:20):
created for me, I guess,opportunities for people to
settle, or people who have beendisplaced to to settle.
So when I look at roots, as inthe journey across the
transatlantic and the history ofthat, it signifies this
richness of creole culture andthat I personally see to be
(19:42):
symbolized through naturallandscapes, if I'm honest.
So when you know you shared thatI had expressed on the trip in
Trinidad, you know, this kind oflike deep desire to find out
who I was is because I findmyself in a natural landscape
that seems familiar to me andthere is something quite magical
(20:07):
, or you could say spiritual,about African and Caribbean
people's connection to land.
And so when we even look back tothe Haitian revolution, you
know, and the Maroons, tacticsof guerrilla warfare, and you
know we see this tactic ofguerrilla warfare over the
following hundred years, youknow, know, in resistance to
(20:28):
colonial powers, the forest forme continues to represent this
place of refuge, but alsoorganizing.
And so every time I see thehighlands of Sierra Leone, and
even, you know, like I said, mytrip in Trinidad when we were
(20:49):
driving through the forests ofTrinidad to get to Marrakesh
Beach, it reminds me that Creoleculture is shaped by survival
and the beauty that lies withinresistance, when we are kind of
forced to be in community withone another.
And, like I mentioned, it'ssomething again that just gives
me the ability to recognizemyself and others, and I think
(21:11):
that's why, for me, creoleculture is something that allows
me to reckon with where I havecome from and what has shaped my
identity.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
I think that was so beautifully said because, as
people who are both born or, youknow, grew up in the
quote-unquote global north right, these major colonial powers,
um, and have to contend withthat sort of like, on one hand,
minority status, right, um, aschildren of immigrants of, of
(21:47):
course, right, but then also,you know, as you're saying,
right these roots in both senses, that we have to come to
understand who we are and ourplace in the world.
There are different ways tounderstand that that are not
just nationality-based, right.
I remember my first trip toSouth Africa when I was an
(22:10):
undergrad, um, and at the time,you know, I didn't know anything
about my family's heritage orlegacy beyond coming from
Jamaica, but I just was likethis is not the Africa that they
proclaim on TV, right, like,and there are definite places
where I was, we were drivingaround South Africa and me being
like this could easily be partsof our country, in Jamaica, and
(22:34):
it's very much so the forest,or you know, some of our rural
places and the ways that we'vebeen able to maintain the beauty
of those places, yes, and youknow, sort of free from the
powers of colonization.
So I thought that was abeautiful moment and, of course,
(22:54):
you know us being together inTrinidad and learning about each
other's stories.
It was one for me that I foundparticularly special to just,
you know, be able to be incommunity with you while we were
there and see that likeevolutionary process for you.
There is a question that Ialways ask all of our listeners
right, it comes almost at theend of every episode, and so
(23:18):
what are some of your favoriteways that?
You know, the Creole culturecomes alive through popular
culture in Sierra Leone andhighlights, you know, the
diversity, that is, the manyethnic groups that came to be.
You gave us some examples,which I love, through language,
right, but any others that youhave to share with us I'd love
(23:39):
for you to tell our listeners.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
Yeah, I think one person who I think has helped me
or aided me on this journey ofdiscovering the richness of
Sierra Leonean history wouldhave to be um writer and
novelist, aminata Forna.
Um, and she is a mixed heritage, scottish and Sierra Leonean.
(24:05):
Yeah, her books are justincredible.
I would recommend anyone who,you know, just wants a easy read
but get an insight into SierraLeonean history, especially
looking at the war and justresilience of Sierra Leoneans in
general.
I think I hate that wordresilience, but I'm using it
here, um, but yeah, I wouldrecommend um reading her.
(24:28):
I believe her debut book was amemoir named the Devil that
Danced on the Water, and hereshe speaks about the loss of her
father, her father being takeninto hostage and shortly after
being executed, I believe by thestate, because of his political
(24:50):
stance.
And then, of course, there'sthe memory of love which follows
the lives of three gentlemenduring and post Sierra Leonean
Civil War in the 1990s.
And so, yeah, she's writtenextensively on different
experiences of being in theworld, not just in Sierra Leone,
(25:11):
which I think speaks to me assomeone who lives and navigates
life in the diaspora, but shealso speaks to issues of, you
know, resistance, colonialism,themes of love and friendship
and loss that may be morefamiliar to us, maybe more
familiar to us, but I think forme, one topic that she speaks on
(25:33):
, that kind of speaks to myexperience more intimately, is
how she writes about childhood,and you know I mentioned that I
experienced my early childhoodyears in Sierra Leone,
post-civil War, and so theimpact of the stories that we
hear and how they shape ourexperiences, um, I know I
(25:54):
mentioned about, or we've beentalking about, sorry roots, you
know, and roots um, and she kindof adds to this by saying but
people don't have roots, like asin, like she's thinking
literally like we can't beplanted, which I don't think is
the idea anyway, but she goes onto say that people have feet
(26:15):
and feet are made for walking.
So what defines us is lessabout the place so in my case,
england, where I was born andwhere I currently live but
rather about the stories that wegrow up with, and in my case
it's listening to my grandmother, you know she, she played a
pivotal role in raising me andshe never completed primary
(26:40):
school education and for meshe's the most influential
person in my life and so whenyou think about the things that
would have impact on someonewhen you look deeper at the
surface is actually, you know,the connections that you make
with people and, yeah, so,listening to my grandma's
stories, um, and where she'shighlighting, you know, grief
(27:03):
and pain, but also pride andhope, is definitely those two
tensions that I try to work with.
And I think, just going back tothe work of Amanata, is her
character development throughouther novels is just incredible,
and I think what they representis that two things can be true
(27:27):
at once, that you can exist inmultiple places.
So, for example, you can be avictim of war, um, but you can
also be a survivor in the waythat you go and, um, help
rebuild your country orcommunity or be there for
someone else who's also inmourning, and it really goes
(27:50):
against Black people, africanpeople, caribbean people,
people's histories, you know,and being people that are
ahistorical, and so I just lovethe nuances of her book and I
think it speaks very richly toor very deeply, sorry, to the
richness of Sierra Leoneanhistory.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
You beautifully said, I have not read any of those.
So not only will I be checkingthem out, but I'll be sure to
add them on our Strictly Factswebsite for our listeners who
definitely want to tune in.
And so for my final question,as I have you today, I think you
know, oftentimes, when we thinkof migration, particularly
(28:32):
African and Caribbean peoplemigrating and colonialism and
many of the other topics we'vetalked about, right?
But you know, for this case,particularly especially when it
comes to the return to Africa,most oftentimes people think of
Marcus Garvey, that sort of backto Africa movement, rastafari,
(28:52):
other things like that, right?
What in your thoughts are?
Just, you know, sort of theneed for greater awareness
surrounding the many migrations,right, because those in
particular, as we've noted forour episode today, aren't the
only examples of our peoplereturning to Africa.
And how can we build, you know,sort of better transnational
(29:16):
connections as we come tounderstand these histories?
Speaker 2 (29:19):
Yeah, that's a really good question.
I think I would start off bysaying that we cannot
romanticize this return.
I think that's a mistake that Imade at 18 years old, I think.
Even how that trip came about,my mum was like, what do you
want for your 18th birthday?
And I was like I want to goback home these times.
(29:40):
I hadn't been in 10 years, sowhere was home?
But that's the kind of languageand and how I kind of
romanticized that experience.
And when I got there, oh boy, Igot a rude awakening.
Um.
So yeah, I think for anyone whois looking to return home
wherever home may be, or to theAfrican continent, it's really
(30:05):
doing that.
It's gonna sound so cliche, butthat kind of like reflective
work, like why, why are wemoving and what is our
contribution?
Whether you're in the workplace, whether you're in a different
society or you're working on aproject, a freelance project,
(30:26):
everyone has a contribution.
So I really am against thiscommercialized return that we
see, especially like around Idon't know if you're familiar
with the term like dirtyDecember and we go, we have a
great time and it's veryexclusionary.
But actually what are wereturning to?
We're returning to the diasporaon the continent, like we're
(30:48):
not.
What are we actually doing whenwe return?
So I think it's about having aa real um talk with yourself,
like, what is it that I'm goingto do?
And for anyone who's thinking Iwant to go and open a charity,
please don't.
The NGO sector has highlybranded, like deeply branded
(31:11):
African nations, and I can speakfor Sierra Leone.
Um, I thought it was bad umpost-civil war, as in when I was
there as a child, but goingback, it's just like more and
more streets are branded withdifferent charity names.
Um, and I think as well itfeeds into this idea that we're
(31:31):
taught um, you know, in theglobal north quote unquote where
the helpless african, thevoiceless african these are
narratives that they areenforcing there through their um
, their appearance, you know theparents of ngos.
So really question what you'regoing to do, and does your work
(31:52):
include um getting to know andengage local people, or is it?
I want to feel comfortablebecause in learning, like
learning requires you to beuncomfortable, and so what is
the purpose of our return?
Is it to continue to, you know,out market local businesses?
(32:17):
Like, what is it that we'rereally trying to do and are we
bringing the local andindigenous people along with us
on this story?
Um, because a lot of the timeit's like you know, we'll get a
group of friends and we justwant to go back and see, and
that's fine, but I think themove to live is is something
that requires, uh, yeah, like Isaid, a lot of questioning and
(32:39):
also community.
So what conversations are youhaving with people who are
already living in the continent,um, or people who are also
looking to return?
But, yeah, like I said, justnot to romanticize, I've made
that mistake because in my head,I would be living in Sierra
Leone right now, but it's it'snot possible.
(33:01):
So, yeah, finding community,and community can be a shared
dream, you know, it could belike what would you like Sierra
Leone to look like?
Or what are the people ofSierra Leone doing currently
that you feel you can get behind?
Speaker 1 (33:17):
um, yeah, so I would think about what is your
contribution, what is yourpurpose um, I may add an
awareness or sort of like anunderstanding of what's happened
before, in a very intentionalway, right?
Um, when we think of historiesand movements and things, right,
that have happened socialmovements and what have you it's
(33:41):
not enough to just be like, oh,I know that this happened from
1960 to 1970 or whatever, right,but what were the highlights,
what were the failures?
Right, so that those thingsaren't repeated again.
But, all that being said,aaliyah, I can't thank you
enough for joining me for thisepisode.
Not only was it great to chatwith you again, having not seen
(34:02):
you in a bit, but also, I think,just like a really expansive
conversation for how weunderstand the confines of
borders and geographic reasonsand things that we label as
Caribbean or as African or, asyou know, whatever else, and for
us to understand that diasporais real in more than just, you
(34:26):
know, like 20th centurymigrations or whatever right,
Like there are, as we map today,generations of our people who
have moved for freedom,especially back to Africa, as we
noted today.
And so, for our listeners, Iwill definitely add the text
that we talked about, paulGilroy's work and a lot of other
(34:48):
texts on Sierra Leone and evenLiberia if you're interested in
learning more about thesemovements of Black peoples from
across the world and moving fortheir freedom.
Aaliyah again, thank you somuch for sharing with us and
sharing your personal stories aswell, and until next time,
little more.
Thanks for tuning in toStrictly Facts.
(35:09):
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