Mandela taken off US terror list

I just read here that Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, former president of South Africa, Freedom Fighter, anti-Apartheid Activist, Nobel Prize winner, Humanitarian, etc, etc was just taken of the US’s terror list.

The African National Congress (ANC) was designated as a terrorist organisation by South Africa's old apartheid regime. ...
Under the legislation, members of the ANC could travel to the United Nations headquarters in New York but not to Washington DC or other parts of the United States.

I am amazed. Not so much that the members of the ANC got put on this list. It is somewhat understandable, given the way the West thought of such “insurgents” at the time that they got put on the list. I am however surprised that it took the US this long to get their act together, after all the craziness of apartheid had been resolved (at least the main big political issues) to get these guys off the list. So I can’t vouch for any of the other members of the ANC (some of them have been prosecuted for various offences since the end of apartheid), but really, Nelson Mandela too, really? Only eighteen years after his release from prison, only 14 years after he became president and only 9 years after he was president. Maybe the powers that be thought, what can we get him for his ninetieth birthday present? We know, we will take him of the terrorist list. WOW.

I have very few heroes. But of the few I do, Nelson Mandela is one of my most respected. I want to be just like him when I grow up. :-)

And now I will end with a quote from another well known African leader (although for entirely different reasons than Mandela).

Our economy is a hundred times better, than the average African economy. Outside South Africa, what country is [as good as] Zimbabwe? What is lacking now are goods on the shelves - that is all. (Robert Mugabe)

Please don't get me started on this guy. Maybe some day.
After yesterday's posting, I figured I should lay off the US for a bit and focus on my own continent.

I am a Dreamer

A couple of weeks ago, I had reason to consider which one dream for my life I most look forward to having come true. My response was something like this:

“I dream of a time when no mother will have to watch their child die, of any disease, but particularly of any disease that could easily be cured if they had access to a hospital, or to a few units of currency. I dream of a time when every child will be able to have at least one square meal each day and no child will have to go to bed hungry. I dream of a time when clean drinking water, good sanitation and access to good health care are taken for granted by everyone in this world.”

Big dreams huh? But I always say it doesn’t hurt to dream. It doesn’t hurt to think big. Because everything is possible, if everybody who is able joins to work together.

Here, I think the important question will be how I am hoping to achieve my dream. What am I doing to make sure that these big ideas become an actuality? Right now, not too much. Besides talking to people, about the politics of poverty in the world and particularly in Africa, not a whole lot.

But someday I will. Someday soon.

I am African

Where are you from originally?

I get asked this question or some version of it all the time by people I meet. This subject usually comes up after they hear me speak and realise that I sound different. (By the way, I don’t have an accent, you do!). This sounds like a really simple question. But for me it isn’t. I mean, do you mean where did I live before I move here (i.e. where I live now)? Or before that? Or before that (i.e. before the first that)?

I once told a friend I met here that I was from one of the bigger cities in Massachusetts. That’s true. That’s where I lived during my undergrad (or at least close to it). That is where I lived my first three years in America. That’s where I lived before I moved here. I thought it made for a simple response. But I am not really from Massachusetts.

I grew up in Africa. In one of the western countries. In the capital city of said country. And so I could say I come from there, you know, from that city. And sometimes I do say that. After all, I lived there my entire life before moving here. And so to an American, I talk about my country and maybe the city I grew up in.

But if I was asked that same question at home (i.e. my home country), I could never get away with that. Even though I had lived there all my life, the city I grew up in isn’t where my ancestors are from. My ancestors (my parents’ families) are from someplace else. A smaller town away from where I grew up. And so that is where I am from. Even though I have never spent more that a few weekends there my entire life. This is my response to people from my country.

But where do I think I come from? The world? Planet Earth? The answer is not that simple. I am a woman of the world. Not really from one place but from all over, every place I have lived. Never really at home in any place but not exactly a foreigner either. I believe that when people ask about my origins, they want some idea of what my experiences have been. They wonder what events have shaped my views. I spent my first 19 years in Africa, so a lot of my basic ideals are shaped by my experiences there. But all my mature and more recent thoughts on social, cultural and political issues have been formed in my time living here. These more grown up values were formulated and clarified and tested after I lived on my own. Away from the bubble of “Mum and Dad can fix anything so do not think too much for yourself.”

And why does where I come from matter anyway? Because in subsequent posts, I may discuss African politics, or current American legislation, or whatever. I want you to understand where I am coming from. What my inherent (and so unintentional) biases stem from. Maybe why I have some opinions. Sometimes it is easier to just say I am African. Because I am, and I am proud of that.