TheCreativelyMaladjusted

africasacountry:

Anyone working in international development for non-governmental organizations (NGOs) over the past few years has likely had one of the following experiences: 1) Witnessing an external consultant or boss being flown in from abroad the 'manage' the field office...

AFRICA.

Not only will it always be a part of me,

I will always hold strong to the part that lives within me.

You see,

I have connections with parts of that continent that I never wanna let go.

It’s inside of me.

    My Mum was a beautiful person.

She'd talk to everyone.

Especially those,

Who for whatever reasons 

Everybody else in the world seemed to ignore.

And I was blessed to grow up seeing the effect that that attention,

Connection,

Had on so many lonely souls,

Including at moments

Myself.

    Now I can realise that what she was showing me is UBUNTU.

Humaneness,

Referring to “understanding diversity and the belief in a universal bond and sharing,”

A ‘morality’,

“the significance of group solidarity on survival issues so central to the survival of communities…

Its spirit emphasizes a respect for human dignity, marking a shift from confrontation to conciliation,”

The AFRICAN PHILOSOPHY.

[Quoting Ramose and Justice Yvonne Mokgoro, and also citing Sylvia Tamale]

     Oh yeah we can talk about all the war and discrimination that we see and hear about Africa on TV,

But poverty,

Prolonged oppression,

Exploitation…

Can have that effect on even the most powerful connections between human beings.

    Cos its quite clear to me where my Ma learnt about UBUNTU.

It couldn't be any other place or person,

But Africa.

Even, perhaps more so, in the communities she lived in affected by war and prejudice.

    I have myself seen war in Africa.

    The crazed and senseless bloodshed that is everybody else's war BUT THE PEOPLE'S.

Because we're not talking about the everyday millions of people living in communities in Africa here.

No.

We're talking about a small group of siphoning vultures,

Who are kept in control by the even bigger vultures OUTSIDE,

All based on systems of inciting hate on the broken and weak.

    I myself have seen prejudice in Africa.

    Because of tone or colour of skin,

Because of sex.

Because of age, income, disability,

Because of sexuality.

But I've seen those discriminations driven by fear in EVERY CORNER of this Earth.

And again,

We're not talking about the soul of the communities living in Africa here.

    These are the people who if they see a man hungry,

Will give him food.

If to see a man sad,

Will sit with him... Still sit with him, until his woes will fade and go.

These are the people who SEE other people,

Who connect.

    Because somehow the rest of the world has forgotten how to connect,

The IMPORTANCE of connecting.

    So this isn't about the world needing to give help to Africa.

This seriously is about the very roots of Africa,

UBUNTU,

Needing enough people to understand and share the knowledge that this is about what Africa can give to the world.

    I for one BELIEVE in Africa.

I believe that UBUNTU is fighting strong,

Pulsating at this moment through the very core of this Earth.

And that the world is only just beginning to appreciate the mighty power that Africa holds.

So no, I don’t come from Africa.

But I choose to SHOUT OUT

With pride,

About what Africa has GIVEN to me.

Lol SMACK!!! Check out journalist Tristan McConnell's response to the academic in the ivory tower...

"In "How not to write about Africa," a recent opinion piece for Foreign Policy, Laura Seay, an assistant professor at Morehouse College in Atlanta, describing herself as “an old Africa hand,” bemoaned the foreign coverage of Africa. It makes her “cringe,” she wrote.

Seay, who tweets as @texasinafrica, complained that foreign reporting of the continent is full of “stories that fall prey to pernicious stereotypes and tropes that dehumanize Africans … fraught with factual errors, incomplete analysis, and stereotyping.”

“Why is there so much bad reporting on Africa?” she asked despairingly.

The short answer is: There’s not. Lumping all foreign correspondents together as dumb racists is a quick route to the moral high ground, but it’s also a cheap rhetorical trick.

Of course, some reporters are sloppy with their facts and sloppy in their attitudes. Some do still turn up in Africa with their heads full of misconceived notions of the heart of darkness and atavistic savagery, but to apply this as a generalization of all is lazy nonsense.

Seay is one of several academics who attack the coverage by western correspondents in Africa. The fundamental flaw in their argument is that they are not here: Their views and opinions emanate from an ivory tower long divorced from the reality on the ground.

When I write that the people of the Nuba Mountains are terrified of Khartoum’s Antonov bombers, it’s not because I have read an article on the psychology of air raids or trawled through academic tomes weighed down with footnotes and references. It’s because I’ve lain in the dirt with them when the bombs fell. I’ve seen the terror on their faces and I’ve felt it myself.

Most foreign correspondents write with knowledge that is rooted in on-the-ground experience.

A pre-emptive point of clarification, since Seay takes particular issue with recent coverage of the conflict in the Nuba Mountains: when I recently visited that conflict zone I went with the SPLA-North rebels, not with Ryan Boyette whom I met by chance while there, and the extent of facilitation by US charity Samaritan’s Purse was sharing one of their tents in the Yida refugee camp in South Sudan, which I paid for.

I have lived and worked in Africa since 2004; many of my colleagues have been here for similar lengths of time, or longer. By contrast Seay spent eight months over a two-year period in Congo, a country that is her key area of specialization. Another country listed as one of her “areas of expertise” is Somalia yet according to the CV posted on her website, she’s never been there."

I am a firm believer in the power of stories and personal experiences so thank you to Pambazuka News for giving us the opportunity to share in these...

"The following letters are part of a moving and insightful exchange between two women who have been respected leaders of citizen movements in West Africa for decades. These two friends are known for their wisdom, courage, creativity and unfailing commitment to justice, peace and the well-being of their respective countries, Guinea Bissau and Mali. This week, Pambazuka is pleased to share some of their personal correspondence following the coups d’état first in Mali in March and then in Guinea Bissau in April. The letters have been translated from French and are signed with pen names due to concerns for the safety of the women, their comrades and families during these very difficult times."

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"We would like to share our personal correspondence not because we find our story original or special. No, it is rather because we know that it is in fact commonplace – but it is taking place in the shadows. We would like to make visible these simple exchanges between two citizens of Africa who share their dreams, their pain, their hope and civic action to ensure that our continent becomes our promised land, the land where our children and our children’s children can live in peace and justice, solidarity and prosperity. And we want to encourage more exchanges and more demonstrations of solidarity among citizens of Africa, so the warmth and the embrace of friendship and fraternity among us are stronger and more perceptible, as those of other people throughout the world who already show us their sympathy and solidarity. 

If the heads of African states are meeting in summits of ECOWAS and the African Union to seek solutions for our countries to the coups that have come back with force to our continent, bringing all kinds of violence and dirty business, and above all the deprivation of the civil and political rights of our peoples, then intellectuals and ordinary citizens of Africa should, in turn, find visible and tangible ways to demonstrate our own solidarity and commitment to take the lead and speak with one voice. To say loud and clear that NO ONE HAS THE RIGHT ON ANY GROUNDS, UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF ANY IDEOLOGY, OR OF ANY RELIGION, TO TAKE THEIR PEOPLE HOSTAGE OR TO MAKE THEM A SCAPEGOAT!"

Binyavanga Wainaina, Kenyan author and a past winner of the Caine Prize for African Writing, argues that the world has got its image of Africa very badly wrong...

This is seriously dope. I started following the backlash of this on twitter caught by the tags #occupynairobi and #occupycentralpolicestation when the graffiti artist behind this, Boniface Mwangi was 'summoned' by police.

The Guardian wrote a nice piece on the murals creation:

"It's after 2am and Boniface Mwangi and his crew are ready for action. A portable generator roars into life, a projector balanced on a stack of cardboard boxes clicks on, and a sketch of bald-headed, big-beaked vultures in suits appears on the blank wall of a public toilet on Koinange Street in central Nairobi.

"Let's start this thing," says Mwangi. Five men in yellow fluorescent jackets, the kind city council workers wear, pick up spray cans and start tracing the sketch they prepared earlier.

The chemical smell of the paint is nose-ticklingly sharp but the message the young men are spraying is even sharper. The mural depicts members of Kenya's parliament as vultures, with one carrying a briefcase labelled "stolen loot". The text reads: "Describe your MP vulture" but the word "MP" has been crossed out with red paint. A list of options is given: thieves, irresponsible, selfish, pathetic, missing in action.

This is the team's latest strike in a dead-of-night graffiti revolution they hope will encourage Kenyans to ditch politicians widely viewed as corrupt, ineffective and divisive at the next elections, likely either in December, or at the latest, in March next year."

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