The British High Commissioner
Gaborone
Botswana
Your Excellency,
I feel sick. Sick to the pit of my stomach. I just don’t have the words to describe what I am going through. It is not a nice feeling. I swing between anger and melancholy. Ultimately, I think I have seen the light. For far too long I was in denial. Not any more. I have decided to leave Africa. Hence my request for political asylum. I am no longer prepared to listen to lame excuses and engage in the blame game where everything wrong with this continent is attributed to the white man. The events of this week finally convinced me that Africans are to blame for many of their problems. Full stop.
I have grown tired of the polemics, which never, at any point, say we too are responsible. I will be the first to attest that some whites are indeed nasty. But for as long as we refuse to accept just a small share of the blame for the rot afflicting our continent, the problems will just escalate. From their ivory towers, the intellectuals say all sorts of drivel about how colonialism or apartheid is to blame. I am waiting to hear one of the talking heads say that Africans simply hate one another. End of the story. That much is fact when you consider the mayhem and chaos tasking place next door. I saw some of it on television and just could not believe it. The orgy of hate and violence by one group of Africans against another was just too much to bear. It left some of us embarrassed because we could imagine those whites, who refer to themselves as old Africa hands holding court, drink in hand, sagely telling newly arrived whites, we told you so. This time I can’t blame them. They have every right to gloat and celebrate. For me the madness in South Africa also revealed that the oft repeated mantra of Pan Africanism, African solidarity and all the other empty slogans is just propaganda coined by the ruling elites to loot and then cover for each other. The people on the ground are honest. They don’t buy that propaganda.
It is a fallacy. They loathe other Africans and it ends there. They hate them so much they are prepared to set them on fire, steal their belongings and warn the survivors to go back from whence they came and never ever contemplate returning. The do-gooders can condemn all they want, but these folks don’t care. They don’t like other Africans. They want them out of their country. I know many are shocked that of all people it is the South Africans who are committing such atrocities. They point out that black South Africans were only freed from the yoke of apartheid by the assistance and solidarity of their African brethren whose countries were often desperately poor. It is true that were it not for the sanctuary and meagre hospitality extended by many in this part of the world, many black South Africans would still be in exile. In hundreds of years to come they would still be telling their great grand children of how they left home to wage a struggle against the evil system of apartheid. But today, because of the help rendered by fellow Africans, they are able to tell stories of victory and freedom. Now all of a sudden the oppressed of yesterday see the deprived of today as criminals. They accuse them of taking their jobs. They accuse them of taking their women. It is shameful.
I am waiting to hear what sparked the violence. I won’t be surprised if we are told the whole thing started over a woman. Although the barbarity of those xenophobic South Africans has shattered my notion of African solidarity, their behaviour must not detract from the fact that even in other African countries, citizens have at some time or other taken up arms and spears against one another in a bout of blood letting. Some of the people weeping on television were just a few months ago urging their tribes people to kill rival tribes over a disputed election. My take is that if we can kill each other in our own countries, perhaps we shouldn’t sound too righteous when we are killed by others who consider us aliens. Like I said, the explanation is simple. As Africans, we don’t like each other. In submitting my request for political asylum, I have concluded that though grateful for being spared all the strife we often witness in other countries, I cannot sit and pretend it will not happen here one day. I don’t want to be around if anything resembling what is taking place next door were to erupt in my own country. The events of the past few days have convinced me that, as Africans we are all the same.
No African is better than the other. No African is lesser than the other. In recognition of this fact, I think it’s time to up and leave. Okay I might stick around for a few days to see how the situation in South Africa pans out. I am sure there will be lots of Zimbos flooding into our country. I mean, it wouldn’t make sense for them to go back home. The exodus won’t be such a bad thing either. For one, the price for illicit intimacy in the red light district will plummet. Local girls and ladies who had cornered the market were charging crazy prices. That is set to end and many married men will be whistling and singing in the shower every morning. And coming to think of it, the Mozambican girls might also come this way to provide some variety.
They too have been targeted in the violence. Consequently, they might decide to accompany their Zimbo friends and cash in on the local currency. Whichever way you look at it, the violence in South Africa will benefit many married local men. I wish them fun. I know I will miss my friends and family. But on account of the images I saw next door, I think it’s time to leave Africa. Goodbye Africa.
Awaiting Your Excellency’s response with keen anticipation.
Yours sincerely,
Loose Canon.
