In 325 BC, troops of Alexander the Great (356-323BC), King of Macedonia (336-323BC) wanted to retreat from their match through India and return home to Macedonia but King Alexander said to them, ‘Difficulties are only steps to a goal; the courageous person calls them challenges.’
They persevered, persisted, overcame their challenges and conquered.
There is a difference between a challenge and a problem.
A challenge is something that you can overcome while a problem is something that is an obstacle or hindrance.
The purpose of any challenge in your life is to strengthen you and make you a better person than you were before.
That challenge could be anything like a loss of a loved one, a loss of a job, a divorce, a disappointment, a betrayal, a lack of a job, a failure to attain a desired goal, abandonment, a lack of promotion, an embarrassment and so on.
Start to count your blessings whenever you are in the midst of any challenge.
This will significantly help you to raise your spirits and inspire you to overcome your challenge. Be grateful to the Lord for all your strengths like your life, health, schooling and education, talents, property, job, income, parents, spouse, children, friends, food, neighbours, good will and connections.
An attitude of gratitude leads to a recovery.
Any problem can be turned into a challenge because in life, what matters most is not what happens to you but how you react to what happens.
A person with courage can always overcome his or her challenge with the help of God.
Andrew Jackson is correct in saying that ‘A person with courage makes a majority.’
Courage is mental fortitude, strength or will to persevere, venture and withstand danger, fear or extreme difficulty in order to meet your desired goal.
Successful courage is based on your faith in God, faith in yourself, faith in other people and faith in your country.
Faith is believing that works of good will come to pass in spite of any challenge.
In other words, if external things can shake you up then you have no faith at all because faith is like Mount Kilimanjaro or Mount Everest, it is permanent.
Early explorers displayed tremendous courage in order to master the seas.
For instance, the response was overwhelming when the British Antarctic explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton (1874-1922) placed the following advertisement in London newspapers in 1900 in preparation for the National Antarctic Expedition which subsequently failed to reach the South Pole: ‘Men Wanted for Hazardous Journey. Small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, and safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in case of success—Ernest Shackleton.’
Later, Shackleton said of the call for volunteers that, ‘It seemed as though all the men in Great Britain were determined to accompany me.’
In Africa, women leaders throughout history have played courageous roles which are often overshadowed by those played by men. For example, about the end of the 19th Century, King Prempeh from the hinterlands of the Gold Coast, the present day Ghana, was exiled by the British in an attempt to take over.
By 1900, the British had not yet taken over. Craftily, the British sent a governor to the city of Kumasi, the capital of the Ashanti, asking for the Golden Stool.
The Golden Stool was the ‘Ark of the Covenant’ of the Ashanti people.
It was the supreme symbol of the sovereignty and independence of the Ashanti people who lived in the dense rainy forests of what is now the central portion of Ghana.
When the governor arrived at Kumasi, a meeting was held between the governor and the Ashanti chiefs.
Yaa Asantewaa, the Queen Mother of Ejisu (1900), was also in attendance.
After the meeting, she privately met with the Ashanti chiefs and said to them in a very clear language and tone, ‘Now I have seen that some of you fear to fight for our King. If it were the brave days of old, the days of Osei Tutu, Okomfo Anoyke and Opulu Ware, Ashanti chiefs would not sit down to see their King taken away without firing a shot.
‘No white man could have dared speak to Ashanti chiefs in the way the Governor spoke to you chiefs this morning. If you men will not go forward, then we the women will. I will call upon my fellow women. We will fight the white men until the last of us falls in the battlefields.’
Queen Yaa Asantewa fought bravely against the British.
The British had to send 1,400 soldiers with guns to Kumasi to capture Queen Yaa Asantewa and other leaders whom they sent into exile.
The war with the British took about 100 years starting from 1805.
Queen Yaa Asantewa’s war was the last major war led by an African woman.
This same war led to the struggle for the independence of the Gold Coast colony on March 6, 1957 as an independent country of Ghana.
The word ‘Ghana’ means ‘Warrior King’ in the Soninke language.
Zambia’s Mary Nsofwa Mulenga Lombe popularly known as Mama ‘UNIP’ Julia Chikamoneka was born in 1904 at Chikutwe Village of Chief Chititmukulu in Kasama, now Mungwi District. She was the daughter of Mr Mulenga Lombe, son of Chief Chitimukulu Ponde of the Bemba and Ms Mutale Mpungwa.
At the age of 14, her uncle Mr Bwalya Lombe, who was serving in the First World War (1914-18) took her to Nakonde where his regiment was stationed.
While there, she was caught up in the cross fire between the British and German backed soldiers. She went to her uncle’s aid passing bullets to him as he fired at the opponents.
Between 1951 and 1957, she got involved in independence politics in Lusaka and joined the Northern Rhodesia African National Congress.
Although she lacked formal schooling, her upbringing in the royal establishment, her early exposure to the whites for whom she had worked as a maid and several travels around the country gave her courage and confidence to speak out without fear.
She joined politics because of the evils of the colour bar and other forms of discrimination to which black people were subjected.
While she was running her eating place in Kabwata Beer Hall, she started attending political meetings with other women.
Her nickname Chikamoneka came about in a strange way.
Three months after joining politics, she was arrested on a charge of leading a protest march of about 200 women without a police permit.
At a police station, she stepped forward as the leader of the group and introduced her surname as ‘Chikamoneka’- a Bemba word meaning ‘It will be seen or victory will be seen’ instead of Mulenga or Nsofwa.
From that time, her nickname got stuck.
Among Julia’s colleagues were Mama Emilia Saidi, Mama Mandalena Mumba and others from outside of Lusaka.
Her Matero house was a meeting place of freedom fighters.
At one incident when Julia was arrested and taken to the police station, she introduced herself as Mutale Mukanya – which meant ‘You will get it thick or you will be sorted out.’
At another incident, Julia slapped a white British District Commissioner.
Julia rose to fame in 1960 when the British Colonial Secretary Ian Macleod visited the country over the Constitution.
When Julia and her friends went to Lusaka City Airport to welcome Macleod, they stripped from their waist up and cried in front of Macleod who also cried.
Traditionally, stripping like this was an ultimate demonstration of anger by African women. Soon the British colonial government changed the Constitution and paved the way for the independence of Northern Rhodesia on October 24, 1964.
Rita Brown is correct to say that ‘People (men and women) are like tea bags; you will never know how strong they will be until they are in hot water.’
If you want to succeed in your life, you should be determined, confident and courageous.
The author is a motivational mentor and consultant in positive mind-set change.
Email:positivemind
power1511@yahoo.com
Facebook: lawrencemukuka.