The First Condition
Justice is the first condition of humanity.
Wole Soyinka wrote The Man Died after twenty-two months in Nigerian prisons, most of it in solitary confinement, for trying to broker peace between the federal government and Biafra during the civil war. He was jailed without trial by the very state he had warned against catastrophe. This line insists that justice cannot be postponed until conditions are convenient or treated as a luxury to be added later. For Soyinka, acceptance meant accepting justice as the non-negotiable starting point for everything else, not resignation to whatever injustice already existed.
Reflection
Soyinka insisted that fairness could not wait for a more convenient moment. Where can I choose fairness first today instead of convenience?