There is a line in the movie Blood Diamonds, where Arnold Vosloo says to Leo De Caprio: “Tia, This is Africa”.
This is indeed Africa - a place where some still celebrate lunatics like Robert Mugabe. This is the same continent where mansions and squatter camps stand next to one another.
It is a continent where BMWs are driven on gravel roads and waiters spend their lives serving drinks they would not be able to buy on their monthly salaries.
This is Africa, my homeland. It is the continent of Nelson Mandela’s birth; it is the same continent where Jonas Savimbi lived, killed prospered and was killed. This is my Africa.
It is my continent, where the level of your English, French and Portuguese is equated to your sophistication. Africa is a continent that embraces internationals and frowns upon its own.
I am from the continent blessed in gold, diamond and even oil, but one where its people still survive on less than a dollar a day. Africa is my homeland, despite it’s civil wars brought about by greed, hatred and manipulation. This is Africa, a land of fragile democracies.
I am an African; the Africa of Didier Drogba and Samuel Etoo. I am born of the continent whose men and women have paraded their skills on the highest and biggest sporting fields of the world, yet whose homeland is still divided along ethnic lines.
I come from the continent of Oliver Mtukudzi, a man whose voice is hardly heard in his native Zimbabwe. I am a descendant of a people who were raped of their land, made to strip bare by the poverty they felt as they harvested the lands for their masters.
I am born of these fields, which are now owned by the new black elites, and where the farm worker is still slave and her children are made to believe they have an equal chance.
Africa, I feel you in my tears as I mourn the loss of another son through violence inflicted by another. Young people living without any dreams and possibilities of a better life because politicians are corrupt and trade unionists are still living in the Soviet Union era.
Africa is the very same continent where statures of Colonial European heroes still stand tall in most cities. It is a continent where every second street has an international business in it.
This is a continent where the super rich wear Armani suites and the poor can’t even afford a meal at night.
This is Africa where men come to live out their wild fairytale adventures and pursue their hearts desires. This is Africa, the playground of the rich European aristocrats and their teenage children embarking on gap years. It is an Africa surrounded by beautiful beaches and rich in sunlight almost all year round.
This is the Africa I will one day be buried in. It is the very same continent where one day the children of genocide victims will run for president, and where those displaced by years of civil war will once again farm their lands. Tia, this is Africa.
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