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STEEMIT VIRUS CONTEST #8; Awarding Creativity
Thank to the organizer of the contest @steemit-virus for this opportunity.

The picture above clearly illustrates a chess board with some piece. A general chess board has 16 pieces: one king, one queen, two rooks, two knights, two bishops, and eight pawns. Each of the six piece types moves differently, with the most powerful being the queen and the least powerful the pawn.
This article is not to educate us about the chess game rather to illustrate and expanitaite the concept of The Queen and the The Pawn in THE IRONY OF ENSLAVEMENT AND THE DRAMA OF POSITIONING


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The picture above takes us back to a rather absurd point in time of African history: the apartheid reign in South Africa.
Here, we see a chess-like board which symbolises the African land, since it is made from genuine hardwood, and not unnatural plastic. The two lines of chess-like figurines represent two races, two tribes, two peoples in contest for dignity.

We can observe that the backward line, in merit of its position, as in chess, is superior. On it is the king and his knights and eunuchs. In the picture, the figurines on this line look imperial and western by their clothing, hair, and stature. Therefore, they represent the European lords, white infiltrators, and settling colonial masters.

On the other hand, the line in the front is made up of figurines which look African. The cultural weaves on the heads of the busts and their less pronounced statures imply that they represent the African population which was oppressed, repressed, and suppressed.

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Now, in this drama of positioning lies a great irony.

It is the fact that the Africans, who are the true kings and knights of the African land (i.e. the hardwood board) are relegated to the background as mere pawns. As a result, they are expendable, and are made to live as second-class citizens on their homeland.

In marketing, positioning is vital for brands. It is the way by which a product registers itself with or sits in the mind of its consumer. The same applies for the game of enslavement: when true owners are conditioned in their minds to view their land as something that they did not deserve or that they did not even own in the first place.

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In the picture, the Africans are kept in "line" -- a line that they do not belong to -- because an idea has been positioned in the black mind, the idea that its property is nothing but a souvenir; its belief, nothing but a mistake; and its right, nothing but a privilege.

So, here, we see a world of perverted positions. Owners becoming slaves. And visitors becoming landlords. All by the simple politics of position-snatching.

As a lesson to us all, this picture warns us of the danger of not recognising and fighting for our true positions. The apartheid period was resisted, yes, but it lasted a very long time perhaps because the Africans' recovery of their lost position was not sharp and decisive enough.

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""Since my release, I have become more convinced than ever that the real makers of history are the ordinary men and women of our country; their participation in every decision about the future is the only guarantee of true democracy and freedom." ....1990. The Struggle is My Life"

As Africans, and as a people, the strength of our identity is in our positions. Our beliefs and our origins make up our positions and when they are snatched away from us, the resultant effects are confusion, dejection, and an eviction from our true place as the greatest inhabitants of the most natural and gifted continent on the planet Earth.

The picture tells us of History. And this is what History tells us.

[PICTURE TAKEN 09th October, 2017 with a smartphone] These are the El-Bossaa Writers Club (E.W.C) crew that worked on this piece of writing