Our sacred African anger
I read, with a sense of relief, that Madiba has expressed his anger with the United States of America. Not a moment too soon. However endearing the 330 million individuals who constitute the American people may be, the mindset that this super power has produced is beyond doubt, a serious threat to world peace. Why? Well take a load of the arsenal for starters. Then let us consider this not so small matter of economic imperialism. Such a cool gig: got the bucks, call the shots. Sick last century stuff. Last but not least let us not overlook the danger of arrogant ignorance. When only a mere fraction of a wealthy population (18%) bother to get passports and they vote by virtue of their choices and exert a major influence on global affairs, please forgive this little African woman when she asks a few questions.
I arrived in America a few days after 9/11. I arrived from a small African country and was regarded as a heroine for being so brave as to fly! Perhaps having lived through a so-called terrorist war which was in fact a liberation struggle had immunised me to an extent against hysteria. I didn't feel brave - I was just longing to visit precious friends and there had been tremendous spontaneous compassion for the victims and their families in my homelands. We, who are no strangers to suffering and violence. People who had not even seen the, by now, nigh almost indelible images of the World Trade Towers morphing into Ground Zero. People who when they heard I was about to go to the USA said, "Ah sisi ... please tell America sorry for this terrible thing." People who do not have television sets but had heard, via bush telegraph, of what had transpired. People with heart per chance. African people. All I know is that back home we were horrified and saddened by the disaster. It was not wasted energy for empathy is always of value.
My compassion remains intact. However, the Hollywoodesque flourishes to the aftermath tarnished the bereavement. I heard literally hundreds of Americans say "We were hit on our own soil!" as if this were unique and apocalyptic. Eventually, I found myself saying to one, "Perhaps you could discuss this with the 100 or so countries your army is currently occupying. It could be an interesting bonding experience." My educated friend was clueless about this which I found disturbing. Bombs and refreshments to Afghanistan was a policy that went unchallenged as was the overnight erosion of internal civil and human rights. Right there in the heartland of the free and the brave. Stunning what you can get away with when you declare a unilateral global war against terror.
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OUR SACRED AFRICAN ANGER
Kerry Jane Gutridge
I read, with a sense of relief, that Madiba has expressed his anger with the United States of America. Not a moment too soon. However endearing the 330 million individuals who constitute the American people may be, the mindset that this super power has produced is beyond doubt, a serious threat to world peace. Why? Well take a load of the arsenal for starters. Then let us consider this not so small matter of economic imperialism. Such a cool gig: got the bucks, call the shots. Sick last century stuff. Last but not least let us not overlook the danger of arrogant ignorance. When only a mere fraction of a wealthy population (18%) bother to get passports and they vote by virtue of their choices and exert a major influence on global affairs, please forgive this little African woman when she asks a few questions.
I arrived in America a few days after 9/11. I arrived from a small African country and was regarded as a heroine for being so brave as to fly! Perhaps having lived through a so-called terrorist war which was in fact a liberation struggle had immunised me to an extent against hysteria. I didn't feel brave - I was just longing to visit precious friends and there had been tremendous spontaneous compassion for the victims and their families in my homelands. We, who are no strangers to suffering and violence. People who had not even seen the, by now, nigh almost indelible images of the World Trade Towers morphing into Ground Zero. People who when they heard I was about to go to the USA said, "Ah sisi ... please tell America sorry for this terrible thing." People who do not have television sets but had heard, via bush telegraph, of what had transpired. People with heart per chance. African people. All I know is that back home we were horrified and saddened by the disaster. It was not wasted energy for empathy is always of value.
My compassion remains intact. However, the Hollywoodesque flourishes to the aftermath tarnished the bereavement. I heard literally hundreds of Americans say "We were hit on our own soil!" as if this were unique and apocalyptic. Eventually, I found myself saying to one, "Perhaps you could discuss this with the 100 or so countries your army is currently occupying. It could be an interesting bonding experience." My educated friend was clueless about this which I found disturbing.
Bombs and refreshments to Afghanistan was a policy that went unchallenged as was the overnight erosion of internal civil and human rights. Right there in the heartland of the free and the brave. Stunning what you can get away with when you declare a unilateral global war against terror.
And very soon I got the message that 3000 odd American lives absolutely were more sacred than any African lives and I wondered idly how many people had died in Iraq that week. The events of September 11th 2001 were abhorrent -
but you know what? Hiroshima was no picnic either. Nor the Blitz, nor the destruction of Berlin or the sacking of Rome. These things happen and they are ghastly and have long term repercussions but let us not be confused to the extent that American suffering is an excuse to bring down the whole planet. Clearly if nothing else, what 9/11 showed was that the vanguards of freedom and democracy had a bit of homework and soul searching to do.
And those North American citizens who did were crucified. Susan Sontag's lucid article in The New Yorker had her instantly Judased. Likewise Bill Maher. His crime? To suggest that it took a spot more courage to push a few buttons to launch a few cruise missiles. Well this was serious heresy. Sponsorship for his talk show was immediately withdrawn. Little mainstream media credit was given to the sweet sane souls who drew a protective blanket around their neighbours who happened to be Islamic or "looked like them". Richard Gere was booed for urging compassion for all including the antagonists. This at a concert honouring John Lennon!
And a year later we had possibly one of the most evolved statesmen on the planet getting uptight with the leaders of our American cousins and friends. Has Oprah raised this thorny matter on her chat show or will this thorny issue prevent her from leading her "best life"?
God bless Nelson Mandela for his customary clarity. Baba Mandela, you said that for the struggle you were prepared to die. And your guts and honesty resonated. A few decades later, all I can say is that at this stage of the African struggle, I am absolutely not prepared to die. For the total emancipation of Africa I am prepared to live. I know you understand.
We need as many living healthy Africans as possible. Not in order to dominate the planet and spit forth metal and chemicals and create wastelands but simply to be and to experience this pilgrimage called life. We have had enough sacrificial African lambs and that is that.
My reservations are with a mindset - not with human beings. Especially not American people who are in my experience so sweet and warm. Would that their government reflected them. There used to be a cliché to the tune of "Behind every great man stands a great woman”. That in itself bears examination on another page. Alongside every great woman come a few good men and we must be careful not to equate spurious powerfulness with greatness.
However, in terms of current luminaries and major stakeholders in global matters, I have this to say to the spouses of men who belong to a troublesome team: Mrs Bush - as a teacher, so concerned with education, why have you failed to educate your husband? And Mrs Cheney - you are as problematic for our gender as was Baroness Thatcher when she was a Mrs and in her prime.
The point about liberation is that it liberates and women who imitate the Tarzan tactics of our men are not where it is at. May I run that past you again, Mrs Cheney? May I give you a reading list? One that will liberate you from your egoism and addiction to control? Will you allow me to teach you how to read with heart? How to read your environment? How to exercise responsibility with humaneness?
Possibly what you need to take into account, Mrs Cheney, is that extra-American people and territories are not specimens under some microscope. Any more than our resources exist to advance your already excessively virile economic and military cause. I don't know precisely what it would take to conscientise the two of you. If 9/11 wasn't a wake up call and you are still allowing your men to crank out the same old stuff, per chance you are a lost cause. This is not a time for Southern belles to sweet talk themselves through critical responsibilities, Mrs Bush. I mean give me a break! An apolitical First Lady?! And as for you, Mrs Cheney - we all know where the right has taken us in our past. See footnote Hitler, think Holocaust. Just for starters.
I am a Southern African and live in Zimbabwe. Perhaps you have heard of us. We enjoy the status of being one of the pariah nations. We have a very cheeky African dictator for a president and more than a few complex matters with which to deal. It is part of a process called history. Mostly, at time of writing, it is horrid. I don't expect either of you to empathise with women who bear children only in order to bury them. I don't expect your empathy because the myopia of the circles in which both of you are prominent is so acute that we could expect naught more than cheap sentimentality. We are very clear that our bereaved mothers would have to be American before you could so much as imagine, let alone feel the pain or have the first clue about our realities.
Oh, I could wax long lyrical and fierce with both of you. You lie with two very powerful men and absolutely are not exercising your wifely duties in a way that is either amiable or planet friendly. When you have sorted out the Ku Klux Klan, have a female president sans hype about her gender, then perhaps we will consider you morally fit to talk to us in Africa about democracy. Until then, know we trust your poets and your musicians and that your money is useful and we have observed the many laudable achievements of the American endeavour. We know that global prowess is neither an overnight sensation nor something that was handed to you on a plate. We respect your work ethic and so much more besides. However, do not expect Africa to grovel with gratitude for the petty cash you hand out as aid for development.
We are not confused about the identity of the true beneficiaries of this so called development and over our dead bodies are we going to suffer the same fate as native Americans in order to facilitate the next soulless new world. Been there, done that, got the T shirt and sold it. You have enough lion skins and your days of cheap safaris and trophy hunting are over.
We are a very dark and scary continent and quite capable of disappearing into ourselves and going back to the trees if it is appropriate to our survival and trust me, dears, we can do chaos like nobody else. And as primitive as you deem us, we are not unaware of the fact that we possess 68% of the worlds natural resources and if it is okay with you, we do have both a stake and say in our own destiny. We have had five centuries of disrespect form our warmly welcomed visitors from elsewhere. So the buck stops here. Period. We may not have our strategic ducks in a row and heaven knows we are not in denial about our own self-inflicted problems. But what we simply cannot afford is externally inflicted genocide, intentional or otherwise. It is that simple. Bomb any of us and you will find the Kharmic consequences beyond your wildest nightmares.
So please, ladies, try and wrap your minds around these matters and when you have, kindly be good girls and communicate your findings to your husbands. And know that until your society has evolved a little further, to many, many Africans, Americans on our soil are tolerated but not especially welcome. Know, too, that we mean it.
* Kerry Jane Gutridge is a freelance writer based in Harare, Zimbabwe
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