How Beautiful We Were

“How could he appreciate laws that had not been imprinted on his heart?”

This rhetorical question is asked in response to the Leader making condescending remarks about the people in Kosawa’s belief that touching a man possessed by spirits leads to death. The question, emphasized by being its own paragraph, shows how the beliefs that one grows up with become accepted truth. The poetic phrasing of the question reframes the Leader’s condescension, calling his misunderstanding unfortunate.

“When Teacher Penda lectured on the government, we tried not to laugh as he stressed that it was made of the country’s most intelligent men…His Excellency was the smartest man in the world, he said; not many countries were blessed to have a president like ours. We did not argue; we’d lived long enough to know he was simply saying what he was paid to say.”

Living under a dictatorship and imperialism has affected the children; they know both when adults are lying to them and when to hold their tongues. The children tend toward distrust because of the dictatorship and Pexton’s constant empty promises.

“When one of our fathers had asked at a village meeting if he could take his sick child to the doctor there, in case that medicine man had herbs Sakani didn’t have, the Leader shook his head and said that it was best to keep the children separated—why confuse them about how the world works?”

The Leader is so committed to maintaining wealth disparity that he refuses even access to the laborer’s doctor to village residents. In his inability to imagine a more equitable world, the Leader believes it is better to keep people in the dark, where they are less likely to question the system around them than to imagine a world where everyone can access necessary resources.