The Sterile Motherland

There's really nothing in the world which gets under my skin more than when I look at the conditions of the "dark continent", our land, Africa. Our continent has served as a lowly-paid prostitute for the rest of the planet for as long as anyone can remember. From the times of the great general Hannibal, when Rome razed Carthage to the ground, to present day, Africa has always been associated with war, famine, disease, corruption and every other plague you can think of. It's become common that when a negative event is observed anywhere on the continent, people utter the phrase TIA (This Is Africa), because nothing good can be expected from us anyway.

And the reason why this pisses me off so much is because it is all so unnecessary. And it by no means random. This land has been systemically raped, plundered and left for dead over the generations, by the Europeans, Asians and Arabs, through colonization, being used as bases in times of war, slave trade etc. But, the sad story is, the people who have been most active in the continued rape of the Motherland are the leaders of our countries.

From the times of the slave trade, its the same story over and over again. Do not think for a second that when they came to the continent to collect slaves, the Europeans would just come in, burn everything to the ground, kill, destroy and lead the natives back to their ships bound in chains, while the natives themselves had put up and solid fight and only lost because of inferior weaponry. Sadly, this is not the case. It is not widely documented, but it is a known fact that the European slave traders would generally take slaves from any domestic tribe, after negotiations with the leaders of those tribes!! Why do you think you never hear stories of some great African king or chief who was taken captive and became a slave in the USA or Europe? Why do you think that, more often than not, after the slave traders had come and gone, the kings would be left rich, having sold their land and people for Western wealth? The slave trade would never have gone as smoothly and as effeciently as it did without assistance from the source of the slaves. Of course, it was never explicit, and there were never any signed contracts, or evidence left behind. But even if you use your head, you would see that the trade could not have happened without inside cooperation.*

No, the truth is even centuries ago, African leaders had acquired a taste for European trinkets, and they were not beyond selling some of their own to gain access to those trinkets. That is the unfortunate truth. And sadly, this practice continues today. African leaders still choose personal wealth, security and power over the well-being of the people they lead. This is the reason why most (if not all) of our heads of states hold massive Swiss bank accounts, and their palaces rival anything Europe has to offer, but their people continue in squalor. That is why even the African Union chooses to shelter their buddies, to the detriment of the people.

Our continent has the potential to rival the whole world in every area. We have natural resources, vast reserves which havent even been explored yet. South African trained CEO's are some of the most sought after in the world. African academics hold positions of authority at universities on every continent. Right now, the highest paid footballer in the world is an African. I could go on and on. We are operating so far below capacity it's sad. But we are nowhere near where we could be, because we have been throttled by beaurocracy on every scale. Tribalism, xenophobia, pride. Those are the common threads in all our economies.

Of course, I'm very well aware of the outside influences on our situation. The fact is the western world would rather have a poor Africa, for the sake of preserving their own interests. Case in point: after the end of World War II, the USA put together the Marshall Plan, which was a plan to revive the European and Japanese economies and make them more prosperous than before the war. And it worked!! About 4 years after the initialization of the plan, almost all European economies were stronger than they had been before the war. However, when it comes to Africa, we have USAID which is more concerned about feeding Africans while putting more money into the bank accounts of African leaders. Nothing about economic development and promoting indipendence for the states. This is just one example which most people are not aware of, there are many more elaborate examples. So the influence of the West is there in our poverty.

But, this situation has been allowed to prevail. It isnt random, and the West isnt just taking advantage of an random horrible situation. Our people suffer because of complacency, looking the other way. And it is up to us to end it.

Now, I have not studied history or political science or economics or journalism or any other subject which would make me an expert in the above subject in any conceivable way. I'm just an observer, and I write what I have observed. This one post was just a rant, for now. I have my own views on the way forward.

Till then, ngiyayigoba,
Mzwandile

*(Disclaimer: I'm very well aware that force was definitely used by the slave traders in acquiring slaves. I'm not being naive, most slave traders were also skilled soldiers and generals from their respective countries, and knew the art of bloody coersion. I was just making a point, that cooperation did occur on a massive scale during the slave trade)

Ain't Nothing "Kewl" About It

I've mentioned before, in a previous post on this blog, that I'm not a big fan of slang. The main reason for this (and I might as well confess this upfront) is that I'm not very good at slang. I have no idea why, but my head is just not tuned to the frequency of the street. Just the other day I found out the South African R50 note is called a "Pinky". It's clear enough why people would name the note Pinky (it's pink), but at the time I heard it, I was baffled. And the most embarrassing thing was, I heard this from a pastor, of all people!! But, besides that, there’s other reasons why I’m not a fan of slang, mostly because the majority of slang is stupid and people just play with words… for the sake of playing with words. I’ve actually noticed that most of it originates from bored people who really have nothing better to do with their time than to cull a language of it sincerity. My honest opinion, anyway.

Here’s another confession: I’m not a big fan of SMS shorthand either. However, not to the extent that I’m against slang. See, I can understand the need for SMS text, or at least it originally intended use. Long, long ago, before the inventions of MMS, Mxit, Whatsapp, BBM and the like, there was an ancient form of communication called “Short Message Service” (SMS). That “short” there is a vital word, because you could only fit 160 individual characters into each SMS, and there was a cost to sending an SMS, so if you were on a tight budget, you had to find a way to use as little real estate as possible while telling your ex-girlfriend how much you love her at 03:00 am on a Tuesday. Hence, we all found ways of shortening what we write, and hey presto! LOL was born, along with all her siblings and cousins, and we could text as much as we wanted. Well, that’s the main argument, really. Most people just used shorthand because they were lazy to type out whole words. Yeah, blame OBE for the current state of our education system if you want, I blame the Nokia 3310 and 1100.

So, to an extent, SMS text is justified. I also use it (to a very limited degree) from time to time. But there are instances when it ventures into the realm of sheer stupidity and utter pointlessness. Case in point, the word “kewl”. I hate this word, with a passion. If it existed in physical form I’d throw my wet, stinky undies at it after playing a game of soccer. In case you’ve never come across this monstrosity of a term, this degradation of all of human civilization, this worthless thing which dares to be referred to as a word… consider yourself lucky. I personally believe that this word is the one reason why mankind hasn’t colonized the moon just yet. It’s gained popularity in recent times as a replacement for the word “cool”. Stupid.

Remember how I said earlier that SMS text was used to save space typing on a cellphone? Well, this word achieves absolutely nothing in its quest to save space. Notice that it has 4 characters, exactly the same number of characters as the word that it’s supposed to replace. And it’s pronounced in exactly the same way!! The only difference is in the spelling, and in my view the new spelling is harder to grasp than the original. Kewl, urgh. It’s totally pointless in my eyes, and I have absolutely no respect whatsoever for people who use the term (ja, ngisho wena, ungaphiki nje ukuthi nawe uyalisebenzisa leli gama menemene ndini).

Imagine the implications of the continued use of the word. School would become “skewl”, fool would become “fewl”, tool would become “tewl”…. The extent of the possible corruption is endless! If we allow this trend to continue, our country will continue sinking deeper and deeper into an abyss of rampant foolhardiness until we wake up too late and we can’t reverse the rot. I am seriously considering escalating this matter to the national administration. The future of my children and my children’s children depends on it. Let’s tackle this matter first and once we’ve eliminated it completely, trust me, crime, unemployment and crumbling infrastructure will be child’s play to resolve. This right here is the Goliath we need to bring down before we can pursue the rest of the Amalekites. Let’s all make a pledge to aim a smooth stone right into the temple of the word “kewl”. This, my fellow humans, is for your future. Onezindlebe makezwe.

I rest,

Mzwandile