FROM THE BRONX TO BERLIN.

All facts and personages of great importance in world history occur, as it were twice: the first time as tragedy, the second as farce. Even though the history of the commodification and dehumanization of Africans by European and American slaveholding societies was a great tragedy whose tremors reverberated and continue to reverberate globally, the incident that is about to be related here may, all the same, sound farcical, joco-serious or tragic-comic. This is not about making a mountain out of a mole-hill, but about taking a leap of faith from the mountain of evolutionary theory and its concomitant racist ideology to the valley of racial amicability where the combined action of the black and white keys in a piano will continue to strike harmony in the symphony of life.

The theory of evolution by natural selection as propounded by Charles Darwin has been highly polemical as different schools of thought have attempted to use it to justify social inequality, racism and imperialism. An offshoot of this theory is the belief for example that Blacks had evolved from the strong but less intelligent Gorillas; the Orientals from the Orangutans; and Whites from the most intelligent of all primates, the Chimpazees.

Nothing can be more convincing to a gourmet than eating the pudding in order to know what it tastes like. In 1904, the American evolutionists under the umbrella of the Anthropology Department of the St. Louis World's Fair set about commissioning one Samuel Verner to hunt for, purchase and bring back to America the most grotesque specimens from the "Dark Continent." The purpose of this forced transplantation was to put these Africans on display as examples of an evolutionarily inferior race. Thus began the journey of Ota Benga and eight others to "God's own country."

In the course of the human exhibition, these pygmies who originated from the Belgian Congo were studied by American scientists who concluded that their intelligence tests proved that pygmies had the same intelligence quotient as the mentally deficient among the Caucasians. After the exhibition, Ota and his cohorts were escorted back home to the Congo where the private army of King Leopold The Second of Belgium had unleashed a wave of terror and violence on the local population. Whole villages were set ablaze and the violations of women and the spittings of children were perpetrated with brazen cynicism, gross perfidy and unprecedented savagery.

Realizing that he was now homeless and bereft of a family, Ota asked Verner if he could accompany him back to America. He got back there in 1906 and was presented to the Director of the Bronx Zoological Gardens who gladly accommodated him within the zoo premises. At the beginning Ota was allowed to roam, explore and have a feel of the landscape, helping to take care of the animals. He was in his elements here and with encouragement from the Zoo Director, he was spending longer hours inside the monkey house. He was even accessorized with a bow and arrow and was encouraged to shoot it as part of an exhibit. One thing led to another and sooner or later, Ota was locked up inside the monkey house only to be let out for the viewing pleasure of the exotic seeking American hedonists who treated him as a curio because of his small size, filed teeth, skin colour and his zoological individualism.

On September 16,1906, suffice to mention that the number of visitors to the Bronx Zoo reached a record high of 40,000, all intent on grabbing, yanking and poking Ota, and because he was in danger of being mobbed, a police guard was assigned to him.

We shall leave the "nappy-headed" pygmy here and fast forward to the year 2006. A hundred years later, in the month of December a young polar bear named Knut made his way into the world, but was rejected by his mother. Seeing that his life was in danger, a surrogate mother was found to nurture and rear him to life. The name of the surrogate mother is Thomas Dörflein, a man who looks like a bear himself. Bearded, tall and strong looking, Thomas has been sleeping in Knut's cage and getting up at unearthly hours to feed him a special fortified porridge. Like Ota Benga, Thomas has become something of a tourist attraction, not because of his persona, but because of his ward who has become a megastar. And like Ota, he helps to take care of Knut, nursing and nurturing him. One might say he is also in his elements here as thousands of visitors now flock to the Berlin Zoological Gardens on a daily basis just to take a look at Knut. And his father. Or surrogate mother.

Just about a week ago, during the Easter celebrations, the Berlin Zoo registered a record high of 120,000 visitors queuing up to worship Knut. "Knut is cute! Knut tut gut!", read inscriptions on T-shirts. The only time such a number of people had gathered together was at the funeral of Pope John Paul The Second. And Knut worship has indeed reached papal proportions. Children and adults armed with cameras and cell phones, professional photographers and visitors from as far away as "the glorious" nation of Kazakhstan and even beyond have made the Berlin Zoo the hottest emporium of all times. And even in this sweltering weather, it is hotter than the New York Stock Exchange. On Easter Monday,some of the visitors who refused to move after taking a peek had to be kept on the move by Knut's barrel-chested bodyguards. The polar bear celebrity.

To whom then can this writer compare Ota Benga? To Knut whom everybody wants to kiss, cuddle, fondle and photograph? Or to Thomas, the surrogate mother, a man with straight hair and of Teutonic origin, who if he were still single would have fifty thousand women begging him to be their husband? Ota was everything that these people weren't, a tragic figure and a victim of Social Darwinism who ended up committing suicide. While in the zoo, he was regarded and treated as a curio. And in Berlin where Knut reigns and where this writer lives, African immigrants cannot help feeling like Ota Benga especially when riding on an overcrowded train and you have a seat meant for four persons all to yourself. You have this consciousness that the whites don't want to sit with you because they feel you belong to the zoo, in the monkey house.

Ota Benga, in your native Congo, you were the salt of the earth. Even though you lost your saltness in America, rest assured that even now man generically, is more of an ape than any ape. Rest in peace, warrior!