the real africa

jeez its been ages, so long in fact it took me a while to figure out how to write a post let alone post it! and now i have about 3 posts swirling around in my brain!

so, in the last week or so there has been this story on the paper about the british tourists, one of whom was murdered. the husband was quoted as saying that he and his new bride wanted to see the real africa.

WTF is the real africa? who are the real africa's people? the first thing that is important to note is that africa is a continent people. not a country.

lets start there. a continent, made up of between 47 & 54 countries depending on if you are counting islands etc. so lets settle for the 47, still a huge number, see the map here. so 47 countries, most of africa we know has a fairly violent history of fights between tribes etc. just in south africa we have 11 official languages so at least 11 tribes, who is to say one is more african than the next - i'd like to see that tell a zulu they are less african than a xhosa or vice versa, it may be what got anni dewani killed, that or her life insurance policy that her husband desarately needed.

the long winding road to my point is this, there is no epitome of the real africa - everything about africa precludes that there cant be one thing that defines the people who live on this continent. we are all residents of different countries. we speak a huge variety of languages from european languages, french, protugese & german to african languages zulu, xhosa, sotho. the geography of the continent from top to bottom is vastly different, please tell an egyptian that the desert they live in is not the real africa but the fynbos of the cape is. the tribes, that lived on the rolling planes of africa before the evil colonialists came in to conquer them, have traditions that differ from one another.

there is no epitome of the real africa - yes i said it agian - not in the same way as the french all wear stripey shirts, tie bandannas around there necks smoke gitanes and eat only french loaves, or the germans all wear ledehosen and drink beer.

it really annoys me when the tourists get into their airconditioned buses to go and look at township life as though the people that live hard lives there are animals in cages to be stared at. no more so than when they buldoze their way in as though they were bullet proof. surely common sense dictates that when you are in a foreign city you make a point of know where not to go late at night, new york, london, vegas, los angeles, all these cities are have places most people want to stay away from and yet when tourists actively go and look for trouble in a country they dont know (and in and area thats actually not so bad depending on the time of day) and then have their media shove in our faces they were looking for the real africa, which is apprently a war torn country falling apart at the seams. please, for the love of all that is holy piss off. dont think for one second that anyone with half a brain living in sa doesnt think there is more to the story.

a man in a huge amount of debt marries a woman with a great life insurance policy, he takes her to a country renowned for being a dangerous place and doesnt leave anything to chance he then escourts her into a township in the middle of the night so he can cry hijacking. well heres the thing, why did they leave you behind? hands up any south african who knows of a hijacking where they let one party, who has seen their faces go? how cold blooded and calculating are you that you marry someone only for the purpose of having them killed?