Rhodes has fallen, so must Mandela??!

So, one of my weaknesses is that when I seat around idling, my ears have a strange way of listening to other people's conversations... bad habit I know... but I have discovered a lot about human beings through these listening in sessions. The highlight for me this week is a conversation I over head between two young men. One was arguing, "Since the University of Cape Town (UCT) has ceded to taking down the Cecil John Rhodes (CJR) statue, then other countries, like Britain which have erected a statue of the great Nelson Mandela must also follow suit.

I nearly jumped out of my skin at this stream of thought because to me, Rhodes and Mandela do not represent the same thing at all!! This young man was arguing that what happened at Cape Town was diplomatic suicide for South Africa. I began to ask myself a few questions: does this young passionate fella actually understand the difference between the two men he was so easily equating.

To the British during the colonial era, maybe CJR was a great man because he had a vision, you know the whole Cape to Cairo stuff we were taught during our early years in primary school. I dare say he did his country proud with all the mines, land and acquisitions he obtained in Africa. He was also, a visionary because he provided the seed money which led to the birth of the University of Cape Town (UCT). Surely a man who did all this deserves the greatest honour at the university he helped to build!

This is however not true for a continent such as Africa and South Africa in particular where the effects of apartheid are still a reality because of the inequality which exists. It could be possible that whilst the people who erected the statue put it there in honour of the gift CJR had given to South Africa, to the young South African who has lived through, read, and heard about the downside of colonialism, CJR's statue was a representation of the past he would rather forget.

So from where I am sitting, CJR fell yesterday because of people like Mandela who stood against inequality and demanded that every human being living in South Africa be allowed to enter the UCT gates regardless of their race. That Britain and other countries have chosen to honour Mandela by erecting his statue is actually the greatest victory in the fight against inequality and imperialism the world has seen in a while and should be commended!

The other side of the coin for me however is that I do think Rhodes and colonialism are a part of our history and we should erect monuments and places where we keep this part of our African history. We have seen different countries erect museums for the Rwanda Genocide, the Holocaust, the Slave Trade, and other such painful elements which make up the world's history and which have shaped policies and perceptions in the world. So we do not need to destroy the CJR statue and all other statues associated with the African colonial past, let's preserve them because they will help us in answering a lot of questions the future generations will have.

In my view, the falling of the CJR statue yesterday was very symbolic! It said let's decolonise the way we do things not only at UCT but across South Africa and the rest of the African continent. It told me that we potentially have a new breed of African leaders being born in Africa who will do things differently.... whether their approach is good or bad is a debate for another day... The erecting of the Mandela statue in different parts of the world is also a symbol of the importance of standing up for what is right (to the extent of spending 27 years in prison) and most importantly it reminds us that when the battle has been won,  we need to be the better man and choose forgiveness and reconciliation rather than bitterness and revenge......

Watch out, I might be writing about your conversation next :)

The sins of the fathers catching up with the children

I have had the privilege of living in the 20th and 21st century,  in an era where my people have migrated extensively. I have heard people remark that my people are like the Chinese, they are everywhere. I have had the opportunity to live through an era where xenophobia raised its ugly head on not only my people but many other people living in this South Africa where I live.

I have heard others saying to my face that women who come from my country are ugly and dirty. It surprised me because until then I hadn't noticed that I was any different from them.

I have listened to tall tales of how all witches and sorcerers came from my country and how my brothers were cheaters who used local women to get documentation.  I have been there, that annoying remark when people tell you that they know a Zimbabwean, ... their hardworking poor maid is a teacher from Zimbabwe.

I have sat through conversations with very respectable people who knowing I was a Zimbabwean still went on to remark with a straight face that the crime rate in Gaborone has sky rocketed since "amaZimbabwe" started migrating. I have jokingly laughed these off and told them that they had better hold on to their wallets because I am a Zimbabwean.

I have facilitated discussions on xenophobia where I have been asked to talk to my brothers and sisters who have messed up border towns like Musina because of crime and prostitution.

  

I have also seen a woman from Limpopo, a province of South Africa, breakdown when a Zimbabwean colleague made a joke about how Limpopo is a province of Zimbabwe. Until then, I actually hadn't realised how bad it was to be associated with Zimbabwe. The poor lady cried...

All this however seems trivial when you think of the many people who lost their lives due to xenophobic violence in the country. I remember being afraid to even go to the shopping mall after seeing the images of "the burning man", Enersto, whose crime was purely that he was a Mozambican at the wrong place at the wrong time. He is just one of the many who also fell victim to this injustice....

But you know what, i have never felt anger towards these beings. All these things happening around me got me thinking. Could this be some form of karma? I mean I am one of those "born frees" and I am not too sure how my fathers treated the foreigner when the sun was shining on my country. My earliest memory of the treatment of a "foreigner" was during the land reform in my country. (I am arguing here that this could be part of the reason  why those people lost their land because it was easy to identify them as non-native because of their skin colour so although they might have been citizens of my country, something about them stood out and made them appear foreign).

I am hoping there is someone out there with better memories of how we treated people from other countries.

So i ask my brothers and sisters to please take me back to the 80s when my Zimbabwe was young and her people were excited about independence. I want to know how my black government initially related with non-natives...

Take me back to my motherland then but put me in the shoes of a Mozambican refugee who had come to my country because of the civil strife in his country. You know those days when Matsanga and Alfonso Dlakama were always making regional news.... Put me in the shoes of that young boy who had walked many kms on an empty stomach and remind me what we used to call him, what kind of work he did and if we paid him a fare wage. Did we provide psycho social support to him, were we in any way kind to me?

Take me back to the Zimbabwe of the 80s, remind me of what we said about Zambia, Malawi, South Africa. What did we say of Zambia when they had hyperinflation and how did we accommodate them? How did we treat the South Africans in exile? Did we accommodate them with kindness? What did we call the migrant workers, were we kind to them?

I am hoping by answering these questions I will be able to appreciate why my people face so much stigma. A part of me tells me it could be the sins of the father catching up with the children....

If this is true, then this might be a good time to warn our current hosts all over the world of this thing called karma and how one day one of their children will find themselves in the shoes I am today and ask them how they treated the Zimbabwean :)