The unfailingly abiding emotional investment I have in the wellbeing of common people springs forth from my experiential and mediated identification with the twinge of hunger and misery that poverty breeds. As people who read my columns know, my father, who died on December 31, 2016, was an Arabic/Islamic Studies teacher at a government-owned primary school for almost four decades. His salary was modest and often not guaranteed both during military regimes and civilian administrations.
So, my siblings and I grew up in relative deprivation. But there were choices he made as a father that earned him our unalloyed filial respect, loyalty, and love in spite of our lack. He never ever ate outside for any reason.
Even when he was invited to preside over naming or wedding ceremonies, as Malams of his stature often were, he didn’t eat the food he was offered at the venues of the ceremonies. He would always bring it home to us. When his colleagues would ask him why he didn’t eat outside, he would tell them that he couldn’t bear to luxuriate in outside culinary treats when the children for whom he lived stayed hungry at home or ate inferior food.
He thought it was unjustifiably selfish. He also never had more meat on his plate than we had when we had lunch or dinner. Each time our stepmother gave him more pieces of meat than she gave us children, like clockwork, he would consistently share the extra pieces with us and would watch us like a protective mother hen as we ate.
If he d.