The social network

We live in a crazy world today, social media has taken over the world, the Supreme Military Council of Egypt now rules via facebook, delivering edicts and orders via its facebook page. US senators hurl tirades over the budget at each other via twitter, and everyone is at it. It is amazing that no scientist or scholar predicted this, when people imagined today 100 years ago, they imagined us flying without machines but none predicted communication. All man ever wanted to do was communicate; it is why we created art, music, crafts and science. We now often think that social networking is a new concept but it is the basic building block of society. A social network is the fabric that you are woven into, how you define yourself and how you communicate with the world and it does not come easily. I remember the social network we had in exile, we all knew each other by degrees of separation, if you named 3 people then you would know one. The door was always open, any person could get food, any person could sleep over and get transport to move on. There were long held bonds, no act of kindness was ever forgotten even centuries later, my great-grandfather helped a man so his descendants always look to find his descendants. The highest compliment a Rwandan can pay you is to say “we share with that family.” And that meant sharing everything, from problems to brides, to food and hunger. The best gift a father can leave his children is a social network of good righteous people, people to hold you to a high standard but also help you. This social network kept a family grounded over the years.These bonds die over time, especially with modernisation, because the rigmarole is not followed. Families must maintain contact, you must go through the tedious aspects of Kinyarwanda culture, to hear them moan and complain, you have to match their self-pity ounce for ounce. You have to tilt your head to the side emitting slow groans of faintly attentive conscious agreement. “Hmmm…..mmmm, mmmmm, Nibyo koko” but this is the glue that binds us, Rwandans are a people bound by their common misfortune. The story of a Rwandan is a litany of his misfortunes; his allies are those who helped him in his hour of need. Rwandans are lucky to have someone to listen to them; people in the West go crazy because they have no one to listen to them. I am deeply irritated by the characters in my neighbourhood, the charcoal seller shouts at the top of her voice at 6a.m, the drunkard down the road is always locked out by his wife and cries for her to let him in. This people are all part of my social network and I would miss them if I moved Ends