depressed about africa
I just started reading Tim Butcher's Blood River, based in the ruins of the Democratic Republic of Congo, formerly Zaire and formerly the Belgian Congo.
It depressed me. Especially when I read this article this morning.
I talked to B yesterday about taking the boys home to South Africa for Christmas this year and the conversation turned, as it does, to the stability of Africa. He says South Africa is like Zimbabwe was 12 years ago when we left. I don't know, I can't really tell. He mentioned rolling blackouts of electricity, which only started in Zimbabwe in 1997 or so I think, but which are common in South Africa now. Hearteningly, wikipedia has no entries for human rights abuses under the South Africa entry.
I try not to follow African news at all. Sokwanele is the only media I read about Zimbabwe and M reads the BBC and tells me what has been happening in Zimbabwe. He is always surprised that my attitude to the news of atrocities, shootings, mutilation and murder is indifferent at best and blase at worst. It's not that I don't care, it's that I have African apathy. No optimism = no disappointment.
My mom, on the phone last week, told me that she thinks that if South Africa cuts power to Zimbabwe something 'might happen'. I heard this irrational hopeful tone in her voice and my heart sank. How, after 28 years of watching Zimbabwe stumble, falter and fail can she have any kind of optimism at all?
People ask me all the time, 'why don't your parents come and live here?' as though removing one's parents from their home country, the country of which you are a third generation citizen, is that easy.
On that note, my citizenship exam for the Netherlands will be on 11 July. Shortly after that I'll bury my past and say goodbye to my heritage, while I embrace orange culture and a world removed from steamy Africa.
I think it's impossible to say goodbye to one's heritage - it will always be within you. It's great that you're embracing a new culture, but it will never completely replace the land you were born and grew up in. p.s. I still say you should write a novel relating to Zim (or if you're already writing it, hurry up and finish it) ;)
I'm with you on not reading the media. I used to read my local Port Elizabeth paper online ever day as well as News24, but when one day I realised that there was not a SINGLE story on the front page of News24 that day that did not involve rape, murder, some other violent crime, government corruption/incompetence... I decided to take a step back.
What is going on in Zimbabwe makes me cry on a daily basis. I think the peopel in the tube think I'm very odd as I stand with a terrible frown on my face looking at Mugabe's crazed face in the article and wiping tears from the corners of my eyes. And SA's refusal to do anything about it is a crime against humanity - both Mugabe and Mbeki have blood on their hands as far as I'm concerned.
I took my citizenship exam here in the UK last year, swore allegiance to the Queen and got the red passport. But I certainly don't feel like I've said goodbye to my past or my heritage! I feel probably more South African now than I ever did when I was living in SA.
I also avoid any media about Zimbabwe, because I feel too sad, but I caught some TV footage of Mugabe speaking at a rally and what freaked me out was the dead expressions on the faces in the crowd. They looked like they had lost all hope. It was heart-breaking.
Mugabe will go down in history as the man who ruined a beautiful country, and Mbeki as the man who stood by and let it happen. My absolute worst about both men is that they have no compassion for their own people.
I am starting to consider German citizenship, but that won't change what I am in my heart: always an African. Just a sad one.