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.
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