[Blog] We Are the Land, and the Land Is Us

By Onyekachi Wambu

We are the land, and the land is us.
We emerge from it, and in time, we return to it.
It carries our ancestors’ bones, our harvests, our stories, and our destiny.
When we speak of land, heritage, and reparations, we speak not only of what we possess, but of who we are.

So there is the land that we are custodians of — the land that holds our ancestors, our rivers and mountains, our labour and our hope.
There is us, the people, whose lives are shaped by that land — whether we till it, migrate from it, or dream of returning to it.
And there are the stories we tell about the land, the culture we create from its abundance, the meanings we give to belonging.

These three — land, people, and story — are bound together like roots of the same tree.
And to understand restoration, we must tend to all three.

Land is thus the foundation of African being — a source of livelihood, yes, but also of meaning, memory, and belonging. It is where identity is cultivated, and where justice must ultimately take root.

The Shabaka Stone: A Courtroom of Peace

Over 2,700 years ago, in the Nile Valley, an African ruler, Pharaoh Shabaka, of the Nubian 25th Dynasty, fought to retake ancient Egypt from foreign invaders. As he worked his way up the Nile and retook the temples, he found worm eaten sacred texts on papyrus written nearly 3000 years before which were literally disintegrating. In an act of restoration and preservation, he carved the story, The Memphite Theology, a version of the Egyptian creation story, into stone. What we now know as the Shabaka Stone became preserved so that future generations would never forget the wisdom it held. Shabaka was as far in time from the story he was preserving as we are to him today. What is the memory and story he thought so important for preservation?

Part of the story of Memphite Theology, is a dispute between Horus and Seth, nephew and uncle, over who should inherit the land and rule Egypt, once reigned over by the first king Osiris, until his killing by his brother Seth to acquire the throne and power.  Seth claimed his right through might; Horus claimed his through truth and lineage.

The gods — the Ennead or council of 9 — did not settle this quarrel through war or violence. Instead, they convened a court, a place of deliberation and judgement.
They listened, they weighed the truth, and they ruled that the throne and the land would go to Horus — not because he was stronger, but because he had not shed blood to gain it. And yet, Seth was not destroyed. He remained part of the divine order - a recognition that peace is not a zero-sum game but needs to ensure a balance.

The Shabaka Stone, then, is more than theology; it is Africa’s first record of restorative justice — the earliest human peace treaty carved in stone. The fact that Seth and Horus accepted the judgement was critically important - they did not seek redress in the bush with arms. The peaceful resolution of the conflict ultimately preserved sovereignty, as one definition of sovereignty is the ability to solve your own problems. We see that African sovereignty under threat today, whether in Nigeria, Sudan or DRC, when we can’t resolve our own conflicts, inviting in outsiders, with their own agendas. As the old proverb asserts – when two brothers quarrel it is the stranger that inherits their father’s property and land.

Restoration, Not Retribution

That lesson endures. Therefore, the pursuit of sovereignty, land justice, cultural restitution, and reparations must follow the same path - not of vengeance or exclusion, but of balance and renewal. True restitution, whether of territory or heritage, is not about returning objects or acres. It is about restoring right relationships: between people and land, between the living and the ancestors, between history and the future. It must be guided by the principle that justice without peace is hollow, and peace without justice cannot endure.

A Stone for the Future

We have been asked to generate practical proposals. So what is our practical act of restoration and preservation today that will be remembered in 3000 years? If we are to imagine a new moral geography for Africa — one rooted in dignity and restoration. We should thank the British Museum where the Shabaka Stone is housed and ask them to support peace building in Africa by ending its involuntary exile and returning it from London to Egypt. 

From there, I hope, Egypt would then gift it to the African Union, to stand at the heart of the latter’s Peace and Security Building in Addis Ababa. There, it would serve not only as an ancient artefact, but as a living guide - reminding us that Africa’s first court of justice chose dialogue over destruction, order over chaos, restoration over revenge.
It would stand as a daily witness to the truth that our path to peace begins where our ancestors healed the land and left their wisdom - in the land, in balance, and in story.