Tag: Congo

On being African

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Happy Tuesday everyone! What a week this past week has been! It looks like as a generation, we can’t seem to catch a break – there is something tragic happening every couple of days. Regardless, I hope you are all doing ok and trying to see the positive in any given day. Each morning, my routine is to wake up, pray then check social media (because it’s the only thing that can slowly but surely wake me up), then get out of bed. When I woke up today, I was in a really good mood – I went to bed at a reasonable hour the night before and I do not have much to do today. So, I felt relaxed and calm. I prayed and after doing so, I felt very grateful for the day ahead of me. But, already at 7:30AM, my mood was ruined and instead of feeling grateful and relaxed, I started my day feeling extremely angry. When I went on Instagram, the first thing I was reminded of was how absolutely devastating it is to be an African person in this world.

As I am sure you have all seen, racism is at it again and honestly, I cannot help but be angry with what is going on. When Russia invaded Ukraine last week, I was devastated for both Ukrainian and Russian citizens who were all innocent and had to deal with a war because their politicians decided that for them. I saw dozens of other Africans (most of my followers are African), posting about the crisis, sharing donation pages and attending marches. Nothing was strange about this – this is how we are, when there is injustice around the world, we speak out… for all oppressed people without any thought of if those people would speak out for us if the roles were reversed. Let me take you all the way back to the BLM when my mom asked me why I was so adamantly supporting the movement when black Americans would not bat an eyelash at African suffering. Even though I knew it was true, I still continued to do all that I could for the movement – along with many other Africans because wrong is wrong and we should support those who need our help right?

  • In November 2022, the Ethiopian government launched an attack on the country’s Tigray region. There has been genocide being committed in this region since then with an estimation of 2,408 – 2,978 deaths. You tell me if you have seen more than a day’s worth of media coverage on this tragedy? Or if you have seen your American or European (Eastern European included) friends post about the thousands of people dying in Ethiopia? In all fairness, African’s themselves have not been posting about it either but that is a conversation that needs a lot of explaining which hopefully I can do in a follow up post.
  • The Central African Republic (CAR) has been embroiled in an ongoing war from 2012. Ceasefires were signed in both 2014 and 2016 but violence continued to erupt after both. For 10 years, residents of the CAR have been running from conflict with no access to clean water, food, stable homes or healthcare. Since the beginning of the war it is estimated that over 1.1 million people have been displaced. I have not seen a single person post about this or start a ‘the world is tragic’ conversation about it.
  • In December 2013, a violent war broke out in South Sudan, where as many as 50,000 people have died. While many people believe that the violence in South Sudan has ended, a UN report in 2021 showed that there were still violent killings and displacements taking place on a daily basis. But with little to media coverage on this tragedy, I could barely find any recent data on what is happening in 2022 – but it is definitely not peace.
  • Mozambique ongoing war – 800,000 people displaced.
  • Democratic Republic of Congo ongoing violence – 629 people killed.
  • Cameroon
  • Somalia

That is not the end of the list but I think I have made my point. I had to deep-dive on the internet just to find this information because none of it has been important enough to be shown on mainstream media. Out of all of these conflicts, the only ones that I actually knew details about were Ethiopia and Mozambique because just like you, I gobble up Western media and forget that my own continent is struggling to stay afloat. Millions of Africans are dying and no one really cares… So yes, it hurts to see the death and it hurts even more to see us protest for the oppression and violence others face when our own is ignored. And yes, although it doesn’t come as a huge surprise, it hurts to see how African’s are being treated in the Ukrainian conflict right now. Denying someone safe passage simply because they have darker skin?! I will never understand racism so I will not even try and ask for the reasoning behind such inhumane treatment.

So researching all of this and writing it up for you did nothing to alleviate my anger (expectedly). But, I do know what can alleviate my anger – I do it all the time when I see/hear someone being prejudiced towards an African person. I think to myself, “Imagine not being African?”

Contrary to what other people may believe, the thought of not being African is more devastating than being African in this world actually. Yes, there is mass suffering and a lot wrong with our countries but I would never trade my Zimbabweaness in for anything. Regardless of what I have just told you, being Zimbabwean actually feels like one if my biggest blessings and I try to remember that when I look at the way the world treats us. Imagine not having the African-vibe – that we all know we have. I cannot imagine that nor do I want to. So while I know it is easy to get angry and disheartened with the way the world treats us, we need to remember who we are and why we are proud.

I understand that the Ukrainian conflict has the potential to have worldwide consequences but I believe that there is no death on this planet that holds more weight than another. So if we are going to protest and have outcry about this conflict then, so should we about those in the Middle East, Africa, Asia and the Americas. There is enough wrong with the world and layering hierarchy onto tragedy only makes us hypocritical in our cries for change. 

“My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together.”

– Desmond Tutu

The United Nations

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Hello everyone! I am so happy to be doing something recreational on my laptop again after what has felt like the busiest two weeks of my life! It’s graduation season and before I get into the topic for today, I would like to send a huge Congratulations to everyone who is about to or has already graduated! This is an enormous achievement and I hope you savour the moment and bask in your own glory for a while.

Moving on to the topic of discussion today: The United Nations. When I was in high school, we learnt about all the great things that the United Nations has achieved and aims to achieve. We were taught naturally, to look up to the organisation and all that it does for ‘poor’ countries like us. We were reminded of its dedicated peacekeeping missions and selfless donations. It was just the absolute dream of (mine) to work for such a successful organisation such as this one and aid them in helping the peoples of the world.

I look back at my naivety now and find it somewhat hilarious how I had put the entire organisation on a pedestal for being the leaders in peacekeeping and aid. My scepticism for the entire organisation actually started in high school though. I thought back to all the years of torment Zimbabwe had endured and, granted, a lot of our problems are small compared to other countries – we have never had a civil war in my time. But regardless of that, we have people in the country starving at numbers close to what you would see in a civil war. Masses of people have been killed over the years (just not at the same time), by our government. So, I thought back on all of these instances, times where there were serious Human Right’s violations going on in the country and I wondered, why didn’t the United Nations care? I rationalised it by saying our problems were not that big. But our problems have been that big, there have been countless reports made by the UNICEF, WHO and the UN on the disheartening things happening in the country, but reports are really as far as it goes. Still, I thought I was just feeling this way because it was my own country and I desperately wanted all of the abuse to stop but it was not necessarily failure the UN itself.

(https://theconversation.com/why-is-the-united-nations-still-so-misunderstood-59284)

However, I continued to observe the problems/conflicts that the UN gave more attention to and the ones that it seemed to ignore and unsurprisingly, a pattern developed. The conflicts in which the UN took a more involved role tended to be those in which the most dominant members of the UN had a vested interest in. The countries which have nothing to offer seem to get the “advice treatment.” Granted, it is a bit of a dangerous game to play to demand/expect the UN to get actively involved in conflicts around the world. Coming from a formerly colonised country, this idea is extremely contentious. Nonetheless, my problem here stems from the fact that they actually do get actively involved in some conflicts and the premises which they decided to get involved on seem to be extremely corrupt. Looking at how they view themselves, UN says they are:

“the one place on Earth where all the world’s nations can gather together, discuss common problems, and find shared solutions that benefit all of humanity.”

Without getting into the technicalities of misrepresentation of certain regions in the world in the UN, it is safe to say that this statement is grossly misleading. Still, if we take this slogan into account, that their main goal is to provide dialogue on problem solving, still the preferential treatment problem persists. The problems which make it to the main discussion, are those that are regarded as strategically important by an ‘important’ country in the UN. My suspicions continued to get re-affirmed incident after incident. Because even in the conflicts that the UN seemed to care about, the action taken was clearly very biased to people who have full knowledge on the problem at hand. It has been witnessed in Syria, in the refugee crises and in Palestine. Nonetheless, I must add that I do recognise that the UN has made great positive changes throughout the world: they have fed many mouths; facilitated peace negotiations; provided safe drinking water; provided medical treatment etc. But none of these changes negate the fact that the UN works on a preferential basis and sadly for the places in the world that strategically or economically have nothing to offer, we are not a significant topic on the agenda.

Looking at the conflicts they have heavily gotten involved in, there was some sort of political or economic interest at stake. Take Congo for example. The Congolese civil war is an extremely complicated one that I do not even understand myself but it is no secret that the UN (and other international involvement) have all been called out for only getting involved in Congo for the economic gain the country offered. The same can be said for the Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts, which the UN increasingly got involved in because of the political and economic implications of the regions. There are countless examples of where this has happened time and time again and examples on the other side where millions have died (in less important or more politically complicated regions), where the UN has decided to keep their aid at a distance.

(http://www.e-International relations.com)

Looking at the evidence, it is clear that preferential treatment is used when the UN decides on how they will act in a crisis. Looking now, at the devastation in Palestine, which ironically, is a problem that stems back to the UN’s decisions and actions. The UN again is dealing which an extremely troubling conflict by providing ‘advice.’ Advice that peace should be reached soon. The reason that the UN will not go any further than this (regardless of the millions of people dying) is because the Palestinian genocide is loaded with a lot of political implications. And while the entire purpose of the UN is to be a non-political peace keeping body, the truth of the matter is that they are political in all of the action they take or do not take. Now, this post is not just about highlighting the corruption within the UN and the problems certain regions of the world face because if it, it is also to address the people who see such international organisations as saviours. As I did in the past. When we have crises in Zimbabwe, when people are being killed, our internet is being turned off etc., I see people tagging or #UN on all the posts. And every time I see it, I wonder why are people even bothering to do that? If the UN was concerned about the problems Zimbabweans were facing, something would have been done about the genocide that took place in the 1990s, the thousands killed from 2002-2008 and the millions starving. My point is that we should open our eyes to the fact that they -the outside- simply do not care. While as Zimbabweans, we feel like we are out of choices and in that way are looking to the outside for help, we need to face the sad reality that they do not care. It is time for us to look within for change and help. We are also the same ones who would find in very problematic if outsiders came into our country and stared politically ‘fixing’ things so why do we call to them for ‘help’ in times of need? It truly does confuse me. Moreover, looking at instances such as the Rwandan genocide, outside interference seemed to just make the problem much worse, which could most likely be the case in a lot of instances.

Although I do realise the complexity of what I am saying, for me it seems very clear that these Western organisations we turn to for help have already written us off as a lost cause. However, I know many people will have different perspectives to me and I would love to hear these. Be it in on the UN itself or on the idea of seeking international aid, I would appreciate hearing what people think on this topic as it is quite a contentious one.