An Interview with Werewere Liking by Christine Cynn, "If I Had a Hundred Arms, I Would Do Many Things"
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ON THE KI-YI VILLAGE (the Pan-African cultural center co-founded by Werewere Liking):

First, we coined the term, we appropriated the term "village" for our space to emphasize the community. A village is life in a community. People live there; they work there. There are births. There are deaths: it's a space of life. It's a space of life, so we have first and foremost used the concept of "village" in this context, knowing that the village is shared. All those who are in the village can claim to be from this village. They can also demand something from this village. That's what it is.

As for women's place in this village . . .. It must first be said that two women came up with the idea. Also, it is predominantly managed by women. Predominantly. Because women have a lot more commitment and responsibilities regarding life than men do. I think God, or the Creator or Nature, depending on your beliefs, this force that put these things in place, considered that women were in a better position to bear life for nine months before it is born, whereas men can drop it off in a few seconds. This is a great responsibility that makes woman generally, in my opinion, more inclined to favor the continuity of life over momentary power. So there it is, that's why.

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As far as I'm concerned, I am fighting for African youth. I am fighting for children's brains to work better. When I take charge of them, I try to help them use their brain. I force them to use their left hand because we have an entire part of our brain that does not work properly because we use only one part of the body, so there is a side of the brain that is less effective. There are many exercises that I have them do. I want the youth to be more intelligent, more sensitive, more conscious, more responsible for themselves individually. I want them to be aware that each and every one of them is capable of changing the world, changing themselves to begin with. Each time one of us improves, s/he improves the world. And only through the improvement of humanity, inside of us, can the world be improved. So, this is my battle. I am fighting for more love, more intelligence. We are said to use only 5%, the great scientists use a mere 20% of their brain. I wonder, what if we could all use around 20%-30% of our brain? Wouldn't humanity be better? So, what can I do? Work, love.

I try to teach the youths to work more, to love more, consequently to become capable of creating more, to know how to chose and assume responsibility for their choices without always blaming others for them. My battle is for little things and I see myself as a little ant, you know? The tiniest of ants can lift up crumbs ten times its own weight. However, because it [the ant] is so tiny, these are still small achievements. So be it! From my position, what I try to do is to try to lift ten times my own weight. That's it.

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IF I HAD A HUNDRED ARMS, I WOULD DO MANY THINGS:

Actually, if I had a hundred arms, I would do many things. I would do pharmacopoeia. I would do . . .. Because there are so many things to correct or reestablish. So many things to preserve, not only for the benefit of Africa, but of humanity as well, that have been suppressed by colonialism. And, I always say specifically our share in the conception of the divine. Because do you know that our people is the only one today who seem not to have had a personal relationship with God? Who does not have its own messiahs, who does not have its own redeemers, who does not have a God who resembles them? And that, I find, is an enormous loss. The fact that we have lost even our own perception of the divine. Therefore, all humanity is deprived of an aspect of the divine, and that is a shame because nobody can possibly know the divine in its entirety. Each is placed in a particular perspective from where they can perceive only one aspect of the divine. But the divine is enormous; the divine is all. And so, when the vision of an entire people is lost, all of humanity has lost something. So, that bothers me enormously, and I try to dive in, in order to deepen this vision so as to enable mankind to still benefit from one aspect, that aspect. And I think the fact that we have lost it accounts for our being colonized and also why we've been so unsettled by colonialism. So, this is very important for me.

Well, my work, what I try to do, most especially at the training level, is to ask young Africans to keep on listening to themselves, their own inner selves and their own cultures to see how much they can feel a little more consolidated regarding all this . . . and therefore become creators. Because when you are not in the image of a creator, you cannot be a creator yourself. If you are in the image of a God who does not resemble you, your own creation cannot resemble yourself. To me, this is quite common sense.

So my work consists in really going deep into myself, as a native African, and see what can come out and is human and in which each human can recognize himself without making it impossible for me to recognize myself. This is what I try to do, whether I use writing, painting, songs, dance, theater. All goes toward that direction: rediscover a little bit of our own share of the divine in order to benefit ourselves and also to benefit the other humans on earth.

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I think that African women, even they if don't openly say it, are certainly more aware than men are. And that is why they fight so hard for Africa, for the continent not to be lost any more, for us to be able to cope on our own, through our own work, through our own sensibility, through our own intelligence and while maintaining our dignity.

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