Happy Africa Day to my people

Some call it the dark continent, sh*t hole countries, backward place etc. I can’t help it, I love this place. Seriously, there is no place like Africa. There are many reasons why I love this place. The definition of family in the African culture is much wider than what was taught to us by our European colonizers. In my mother tounge in Shona my father’s brothers are not my uncles but they are simply my fathers, I call them baba munini or baba mukuru. My mother’s sisters are not my aunts, they are also my mothers and I call them amainini or amaiguru. In Shona culture children born from my aunts or uncles are not my cousins, they are simply my brothers and sisters and there is no distinction between them and my blood brothers and sisters. In 2002, my cousin’s husband was being buried in Honde Valley just outside the city of Mutare and I attended the funeral. As the eldest brother attending in the absence of my uncle who died in the 90s, I immediately assumed his place and my cousin’s in-laws some of them already elders had to consult with me even though I was not yet 30. The same happened again in 2004 when the husband of the younger cousin sister was being buried in Wedza.

The definition of one’s relatives in Africa is so much wider. In general any adult who is the same age group as my grandparents or my parents automatically becomes my grandparent or my parent. I am from the Mhofu (Eland) totem, so every person from mhofu/mpofu totem automatically becomes my relative. My in-laws are from the Hungwe/Shiri/Nyoni/Bird totem, so everyone from that totem is my in-law. My paternal grandmother is from the Mbizi/Zebra/Dube/Tembo totem, so all the Tembos are my relatives. My mother is from the Moyo/Heart totem, so all the Moyo Muzukuru people are my mother, infact in Shona culture my mother’s brother and his children are automatically my mothers. My maternal grandmother vaSoko is from the Soko/Monkey/Phiri/Ncube totem, hence people from this totem are my relatives also. African culture values continuity, when my father died in 1990, I knew even though he was gone, his brothers, cousins would also be my fathers. The same when my mother died in 2002, her brothers, sisters, nephews and nieces from her side of the family all become my mothers.

The people in Africa are so friendly, respectful and helpful. Whether I am walking in a street in Harare or Tshwane, if any person wants to ask me for directions, they always greet me first, my favourite form of greeting in Tshwane is, “Askies Papa” before a lady asks me for directions. When I moved to South Africa in 2007, I once tried to ask a taxi driver for directions before I greeted him first and I learnt my lesson. Also as Africans we have now managed to colonise our colonisers’ languages English, French and Portuguese are now part of our languages as much as Shona, Xhosa, Zulu, Chewa, Afrikaans, Swahili, Arabic etc. Why is it so expensive to visit other African countries? Try booking a flight to either Nairobi or Addis Ababa the price will knock you out of your chair. But then when you want to book a flight to Dubai then all of a sudden Kenyan Airways or Ethiopian Airways become very cheap and here is the kicker, they will route you through Nairobi or Addis Ababa!

In Africa there is a belief that there must be a reason for any happening. As Chinua Achebe put it in his novel, Things Fall Apart, “When you see a toad jumping in broad daylight, then know something is after its life”. End of last year, I visited my in-laws at their farm in Zimbabwe and when my father in-law was driving me back to the nearest town we passed through to pick-up one of his friends at his farm. They started a discussion about why it was not raining and they were worried about their maize crop that was wilting in the fields. They concluded that it was so and so who was continuing to work on Chisi. Chisi is along the same lines as a Sabbath day where people in a certain geographical location are not allowed to work on the fields on a certain day of the week. Some locations will have a Chisi on every Thursday or Friday. It is believed that if you work on that day you will bring bad luck to the whole area and if neighbours report you to the chief you will be fined heavily. During the whole discussion, as someone who is western educated and was “corrupted” against my peoples’ thinkings. I kept saying to myself, “but this dry spell is affecting the whole country as well as neighbouring countries and according to the satellite weather maps it would persist for a few more weeks”. I just kept quiet.

As Africans are we true forgivers? People who caused many deaths during colonialism and periods of racial segregations including Apartheid where never tried. After Independence there were many atrocities from civil wars in Mozambique, Angola, Gukurahundi Massacre in the 80s in Zimbabwe, ongoing civil wars in DRC up-to this day, Rwanda Genocide, Sudan massacres and civil wars, 2008 state sponsored violence after Robert Mugabe lost the first round of the elections in Zimbabwe, Somali civil war etc. In other parts of the world, people have been held accountable for their actions an example would be Nuremberg trials.

As Africans we are good at accommodating other people. Some had their native names changed to make it comfortable for the colonizers. My grandfather of whom I am named after, I am told he was working in the kitchen of a white farmer. The farmer could not be bothered to pronounce his difficult Shona name, hence he was given a new name, Dabson. I have also seen here in South Africa among my African and Indian colleagues electing to have another name that people can easily pronounce. As Africans most of us have to observe African religion and traditions and then we are also expected to observe the Western religion and traditions. At times it can be quite funny, for example I celebrate two wedding days every year, one when we negotiated lobola in line with the African custom and the other when we had the Methodist Church wedding. At times it can be very challenging because when you are at work, school or college you have to observe European traditions and when you go back home you have to quickly switch into African traditions and vice versa.

Not everything is rosy among us Africans, we are not united and we are our worst enemies. This reminds me of the title of this book I saw many years ago, “We met the enemy, the enemy is us”. As research has shown, during the slave trade, other Africans would catch their brothers and sisters and sell them to slave traders. The current borders we have in Africa are imaginary lines drawn up during the Berlin conferences of 1884/85. The strange thing is that a European who has settled in Africa is presumed to be more of a citizen than another African who crosses these imaginary lines. On both sides of Limpopo river along Zimbabwe and South Africa border there Venda people yet these Africans treat each other as foreigners. The same along the Plumtree border between Botswana and Zimbabwe you have the same people separated by these imaginary line and they now treat each other as foreigners. The same thing along the border of Zimbabwe and Mozambique and many countries such as Rwanda, DRC, Burundi, Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya. A person of European origin who left countries such as Kenya, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Angola, Namibia etc. when they got their independences and decided to settle in South Africa, will be recognised more as a citizen than say an African who left those countries and also came and settle in South Africa and will forever be labelled as a foreigner no matter how many years they have been in South Africa.

I was in South Africa during the first Xenophobia attacks of early 2008 where even some South African citizens where murdered because they looked like foreigners! It was so bad and people were so worried, I remember one white work colleague pleading with me to come and stay at his house until the government had the issue under control. As has become the norm whenever people are not happy for any reason and start to demonstrate, the first thing they do is to loot the spaza shops owned by Somalis or foreigners of Asian descent. It's as if people has made their minds that these foreigners do not matter and they are sub-human. To be fair there is a case to be made that Somalis only assist their fellow countrymen with expertise on how to run spaza shops and yet they don’t partner the locals and also impart the same knowledge and support to local citizens.

Our reality as black people is that we still suffer the most and we do not fare very well on economic indicators such employment levels, promotions, education levels, property ownership etc. It is even worse if you are African and female as you are more likely to be left to fend for children on your own even though you will be at the bottom in terms of accessing economic opportunities. One gets the impression that the life of a black person does not matter. Even in the diaspora things are not looking rosy for people of African decent for example in United States of America a black male is most likely to be killed by police without consequence to the perpetrators and also black males constitutes the largest population in the prison sytem even though they are a minority in the population.

In DRC millions will die in poverty even though their country has one of the biggest deposit of minerals. Many in DRC might never own a smart phone even though coltan used to make I Phones and Samsung Galaxy phones is mined right in their country. Maybe it is the difficulties associated with being labelled as black that drives people from trying to run away from their black identity. For example beauty is normally defined in European terms, our sisters use dangerous chemicals to try and lighten their skins and also they even go to the extent of wearing hair from strangers just to look European. Identity is very complicated especially here in Southern Africa. Many black people celebrated the accent of former president Barrack Obama into office and also only last week we were celebrating the marriage of Meghan Markle into the British royal family. The reality is that if both individuals where staying  in this part of the world, would they classify themselves as being black? Steve Biko once said, “The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed”

Today we pay homage to our leaders who championed our struggles for liberation from colonialism, segregation and apartheid. We remember all of them from Nkwame Nkrumah, Patrice Lumumba, Joshua Nkomo, Nelson Mandela, Robert Sobukwe, Winnie Mandela, Bram Fischer, Chris Hani, Walter Sisulu, Oliver Tambo, Robert Mugabe, Samora Machel, Julius Nyerere, Eduardo Mondlane, Fidel Castro, Sir Seretse Khama, Antonio Agostinho Neto, Jomo Kenyatta and many more. We must acknowledge that like all of us human beings they were not perfect but they did did their part. One of the things I have continuously heard from many of my black brothers and sisters here in South Africa ever since I settled in this country is the same saying, “Nelson Mandela did nothing for the black people” and I have respectfully disagreed with that view. Just as you cannot blame the founding fathers of United States of America for the election of a toddler like Donald Trump, you can’t blame Nelson Mandela for the ills especially during the Zuma years.

Our founding fathers did their part and gave us the right to vote, it is up to us as citizens of Africa to take our responsibilities seriously. Across Africa, people still vote along ethnic, racial and gender lines and they do not put in power competent man and women who can take this continent forward. Next time you want to blame someone for the current state of affairs in Africa, look in the mirror and see the culprit. Next time you see boats capsizing off the coast of Libya with fellow Africans desperately trying to get to Europe and want to blame someone, please just save it. Remember what president John F Kennedy said many years ago, “.... ask not what your country can do for you---ask what you can do for your country.” I ask you the same question, what are you doing for your African country? We have immense challenges right now and some people are doing something about it. I think of Advocate Thuli Madonsela who had the courage to stand up for the truth during her years as the Public Protector of South Africa. I also think of former finance Minister Mr. Mcebisi Jonas who refused to sell his country on a silver platter. I also think of our MEC for education in Gauteng province Mr Panyaza Lesufi who is doing all he can to eradicate racial segregration in public schools in our province.

I believe this century belongs to Africa.

Happy Africa day to all my friends who considers Africa their home after all Africa is the original home of mankind.

God bless Africa!

PS. When is the black ANC government going to declare May 25 as a public holiday? Hopefully it will be in our lifetime.