Skip to main content

Meeting Africa in Europe (2012)





We managed to catch the last few weeks of Summer in Germany.  We were warned of the approaching Winter and the weather is starting to change now. There are more groups of people from different places that are hosted by our hosts GIZ.

It is interesting how I had to come to Europe in order to deal directly with Africans from the north of South Africa. Since I have been here I have met people from Swaziland, Malawi, Zambia, Zimbambwe, Congo (Brazaville), Congo (Kinshasa), Cameroon, Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya and Equitorial Guinea.  My Facebook contact list is becoming Pan-African. We have interesting meetings as, consciously or unconsciously, they are punctuated with checking each other out.  Some of the things that happen on the continent and how our countrymen had treated each other sometimes raise their uncomfortable heads. 

A Zambian guy cornered me and a fellow South African who works at Treasury in Pretoria and reminded us about the `xenophobic' attacks that took place in South Africa.  He shocked us when he told us that in a number iof African countries South Africans are persona non grata.  We were taken back and did not expect that we would have to lie about our South Africannes in order to be safe in certain places in Africa.  This was more so as we both believe that the thugs who committed those attacks belong in jail.  This particular guy refused to let us get off that easily and insisted on our culpability based on being South African.  I was to later learn that could be related to the character of this individual than on the feelings of other Africans.

At some point I nearly hated BBC News which I used to rely on to get news in English (almost all other Television stations broadcast in German).    This near hate was caused by the massacre of the Marikana mine workers.  I could not believe my eyes when I saw on BBC police shooting and many people falling down. I had to read some more on the internet about what was going on.  I felt ashamed when almost every news bulletin on BBC kept on beaming this shame of my country to the world.  It was also denying me the ability to hide and insulate myself from what was going on at home.  My African brethren picked up on it and I heard no end of it.  I was taunted on how we claim to be a democracy that observes human rights and now we butcher people for only protesting.  The people who made this noise refused to listen to any information that tried to show a bigger picture.  They had found something to use to beat up on South Africa that has always claimed to be better than the rest of Africa.   BBC kept on showing the scenes and I kept on trying to position our democracy as an example for Africa, needless to say it was not easy.
It was around this time that we had an international evening.  Many people from Southern and Central African countries were in attendance.  There was also a group of University students from the United States of America and also Germans from our host organisation and neighbors in attendance. People had to present for about ten minutes about their country.  It was difficult to boast a lot when Marikana was still in the air.  I just knew that we can say nothing about human rights.  We focused on the motto of our country ǃke e: ǀxarra ǁke (United in diversity).  We moved on to talk about the beauty of the country.  I wanted to talk more about us being the leading nation and an example of democracy and human rights in Africa.   We mentioned that we were the biggest economy on the continent and said nothing about who benefits from that wealth. I was afraid that someone would ask us questions that would prove that as a country we were slipping from the position we were in after 1994.

The Southern Africans in our group are also keenly watching what is happening around the upcoming Mangaung Conference.  I pray that nothing will happen that will make me want to hide that I am South African.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Mandela I celebrate Public Friends Friends except acquaintances Only Me Custom Close Friends Hi Phaphs See all lists... Department of Science and Technology Drakenstein Municipality Pretoria, South Africa Area Drakenstein municipality Hamburg, Germany Area RED TRADE Impala Platinum Cape Winelands District Municipality Stellenbosch, Western Cape Area Family Acquaintances Go Back The former president of South Africa Nelso n Rolihlahla Mandela is no longer physically with us but his memory lives on.   South Africa still become abuzz with celebrations to honour the great man on his birth date.   Many people commemorate what is known as Mandela day by spending 67 minutes of doing good on that day.  The campaign is based on the 67 years Mandela spent in the service of his fellow man.  I see that the new Cape Town Mayor Patricia De lille got what led to former Mayor Peter Marais fired right.  She named a street in Cape Town after Nelson...
2 comments
Read more

Paarl Uprising 1962

Growing up in Mbekweni I got used to being associated with the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC/Poqo) when visiting other townships. This is because Paarl has been viewed as a PAC stronghold since the 1962 Paarl uprising that was led by that organisation. The history of the PAC struggles can not be told without mentioning Paarl 1962. That was when a mass uprising consisting of hundreds of men took place. They marched in the morning of November 22 from Mbekweni and Langabuya to town with the intent of attacking the police station and prison. The Late Minister of Justice in the ANC led government Dullar Omar recalled this event when accepting an award for Human Rights in 2004. Omar who, in 1963, was one of the lawyers who were to defend the men recalled that: “ The PAC was particularly active in Paarl. Suddenly hardly without any notice the so-called Paarl riots (the Poqo uprising) exploded on the South African scene. These poor migrant workers had had enough. They marched through...
Post a Comment
Read more

Arriving in Germany

I left South Africa on July 31, 2012 and arrived in Frankfurt, Germany on the morning of August 1 on what was my first trip overseas.      I went there as part of a group eleven professionals from Southern Africa.    There were four South Africans, three Zambians, two Zimbabweans, one person each from Swaziland and Malawi.    I was the only one from the Western Cape and the other South Africans were based in Gauteng.     The majority in our group, seven in total, were economists.    The group varied in age from just over twenty years to just over fourty.    We were part of a one year program called the International Leadership Training in Regional Economic Development and Trade.    Four months of our time in Germany was to be spent as interns in different companies and organizations.    The program is organized and hosted by the Deutsche Gesselschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GI...
2 comments
Read more