The Meghan interview, Prince Harry and end of a fairy tale

Britain's Prince Harry (right) and Meghan Markle attend a Commonwealth Day Service at Westminster Abbey in central London, on March 12, 2018. Daniel Leal-Olivas | AFP

By Nation. Africa

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“When I was in my late teens, I sat in the back of a taxi zipping through the busyness and bustle of

Manhattan. I looked out the window and saw a woman on her phone in a flood of tears. She was standing on the sidewalk, living out a private moment very publicly. At the time, the city was new to me, and I asked the driver if we should stop to see if the woman needed help.

He explained that New Yorkers live out their personal lives in public spaces. ‘We love in the city, we cry in the street, our emotions and stories there for anybody to see,’ I remember him telling me. ‘Don’t worry, somebody on that corner will ask her if she’s OK…Now, all these years later, in isolation and lockdown, grieving the loss of a child… I think of that woman in New York. What if no one stopped? What if no one saw her suffering? What if no one helped?”

These words by Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex, capture the reality of life in our world today. They ring even truer after her interview alongside her husband, Prince Harry, with Oprah Winfrey. It was supposed to be a fairy tale life for her in the British royal family, but it seems to have been anything but that. Meghan even said that she once contemplated suicide. She tried to find help, but she couldn’t find any, like the lady she saw in a New York City street, languishing alone.

We live in a world where everyone is often too engrossed in their own problems to think of helping others. This happens often in the streets of Nairobi: The look of helplessness on a lady whose handbag has just been snatched in broad daylight as Nairobians mind their own business. Or the beggar who is sometimes shoved too violently as he stretches a begging bowl and he poignantly shuffles to a corner; looking forlorn in sorrowful abandonment

Capitalism

As we reflect on the year that has been, it is clear that modern-day capitalism and the quest for success places a unique burden on individuals that sometimes drives them to the edge of not only loneliness and tears but also insanity. And unlike in the traditional African society, there is no communal solace or even anyone to ask us if we are ok.

This is what the French sociologist, Émile Durkheim, grappled with in his book, Suicide. He was baffled that France at the time seemed to be doing well materially but people were committing suicide in ever-increasing numbers.

He concluded that the modern capitalist society was the problem because the individual now chooses everything unlike in the past when the community was involved in almost everything.

This excess freedom of choice is very good when people make good choices as they take all the credit for it. However, when individuals make bad choices, they take all the blame.

Durkheim claims that failure becomes a terrible burden upon the individual. And this can push some people into depression or even suicide. The results of this are sometimes a public meltdown in the streets like the girl crying in public. Or a mental breakdown.

These struggles are like what we have faced during the pandemic and they are the gist of the new novel, Transcendent Kingdom, by Ghanaian-born writer Yaa Gyasi, a heartbreaking story of loss, grief, depression and addiction. It’s about a woman trying to survive the grief of a brother lost to addiction and a mother trapped in depression.

It examines faith in God, in science and in the family through a character named Gifty; a sixth-year PhD candidate at the Stanford School of Medicine who struggles to know what to do with the evangelical Christian faith of her childhood and the science she has now studied. As a religious person, Gifty is living with contradictions as her life is marred by tragedy – her father abandoned the family, her brother overdosed in heroin in high school and her usually strong mother is suicidal.

This challenges her religious upbringing: “It happened that quickly, a tremble-length reckoning. One minute there was a God with the whole world in his hands; the next minute the world was plummeting, ceaselessly, toward an ever-shifting bottom.”

Stronger

As a scientist, she turns to science to find answers but later finds herself longing for the comfort she once found in God. In the end, as the critic Lance Morgan noted, “Gifty’s challenge is not to find the answers to her questions but to find comfort in not being able to. She beautifully models how faith can change and grow…” The challenges don’t become less daunting but, instead, Gifty becomes stronger.

Published on 1st September 2020, Transcendent Kingdom is the kind of novel with the edifying faith we need as we navigate our Coronavirus-plagued world. We need more faith, stamina and mental resilience. Meghan Markle concludes the earlier story by writing that, “I wish I could go back and ask my cabdriver to pull over. This, I realise, is the danger of siloed living — where moments sad, scary or sacrosanct are all lived out alone. There is no one stopping to ask, ‘Are you OK?’

“So…as we plan for a holiday unlike any before — many of us separated from our loved ones, alone, sick, scared, divided and perhaps struggling to find something, anything, to be grateful for — let us commit to asking others, ‘Are you OK?’… As much as we may disagree, as physically distanced as we may be, the truth is that we are more connected than ever because of all we have individually and collectively endured this year.”

johnmwazemba@gmail.com