"AFRICAN INTELLECTUALS IN THE BELLY OF THE BEAST"

As an African in the Diaspora, are you part of “The Comprador Intelligentsia”, a “Postcolonial Critic”, or a “Progressive Exile”? Or neither of these, or a bit of each?These are probably the questions you will be left with upon reading this article (or perhaps you’ve already read it and made up your mind…) by Francis N. Njubi, Ph.D, a Kenyan Assistant Professor of Africana Studies at San Diego State University.

Professor Njubi presents an in-depth historical analysis of the African Diaspora’s experience through the last century, emphasising such key issues as “The Meaning of Africa” and “The Fact of Blackness”. As an all-encompassing approach to the most pressing challenges facing the African Diaspora, it does not shy away from some of the most controversial issues affecting its communities, including the always controversial debates on race, racism and identity, or the occasional conflicts opposing African-Americans to African Migrants, or non-Southafrican Africans to nationals in South Africa. It also touches on issues raised in some of my previous posts, namely “Africa: What Price A Brain?” and “In a Statelessness State of Mind”.

In spite of not subscribing to all of its arguments, I found the paper to make for compelling reading, even now five years after its publishing.

Here are a few excerpts from it:

'African Intellectuals in the Belly of the Beast:Migration, Identity and the Politics of Exile'

by: Francis N. Njubi, San Diego State University

February 2002

© Francis N. Njubi

When W.E.B. Du Bois wrote of the "double consciousness"of Africans in America he was reflecting on the complex identities of the "talented tenth", the educated minority of a minority like himself who felt the alienation acutely because of their awareness that their qualifications meant little in a racist society. Thus, Du Bois argued that Black intellectuals are gifted with a "second sight", a "third eye" that allows them to gauge the white and the black while seeking to transcend this duality by creating a "better and truer self".

Though written in reference to the African-American intellectual, this duality, this sense of "twoness", is even more acute for African exiles today because they have fewer social and cultural ties to the West than Afro-Europeans and African-Americans. The exiles are much closer to the African "soul" DuBois refers to and are less prepared for the pervasive racism and second-class status that they have to overcome in the West. This duality is intensified by the sense of alienation and guilt engendered by the widespread demonization of exiles as selfish and ungrateful wretches who, as soon as they get their degrees, escape to greener pastures instead of using their education to uplift the poverty stricken societies that educated them at great expense.

This paper examines the "double consciousness" of Black African intellectual migrants in the West. It argues that the migrant is forced to come to terms with Africanity for the first time and that the resolution of this identity crisis is a political act which produces three "types" of migrant intellectuals: the comprador intelligentsia, the postcolonial critic and the progressive exile.

(…)

To complicate matters further, the migrants must also endure alienation from their countries of origin. Academic exiles are likely to be victims of government repression even before leaving their home countries. Many are pushed out of their countries after political disturbances at university campuses. Others are exiled because their political perspectives do not correspond with the dominant ideological dispensation of the time. Yet, these same forces that kept them from achieving their full potential at home demonize them for leaving instead of contributing to national development. These tensions between intellectuals and politicians have boiled over frequently in the postcolonial world, most recently in a shouting match between Ghana's President Jerry Rawlings and eminent Kenyan scholar Ali Mazrui during a conference in Davos, Switzerland in June 1999 (Mwagiru, 1999).

(…)

South Africa's President Thabo Mbeki has also joined the debate by urging educated Africans to relocate to South Africa and neighboring African countries instead of migrating to the West. Yet this option too, is complicated. Many educated Africans do spend some time in neighboring countries before migrating to the West. As stated earlier, Ali Mazrui was expelled from Uganda for his outspokenness. More recent cases have shown that turf battles between the migrants and local scholars make it difficult for the former to thrive in other African countries.

Professor Mamdani is a highly respected African political scientist who has taught at universities in East Africa and the United States for over twenty years. Yet, when he accepted a position as the director of the University of Cape Town's Center For African Studies in 1997, he found it impossible to overcome his image as an outsider in academic turf battles (Thornton, 1998). In spite of his high sounding position as Director of the Center for African Studies and his distinguished record in teaching and publications in the field, his syllabus for an introductory course in African Studies was rejected by an entrenched group of white "Africanists" (Mamdani, 1998, pp. 3-7). When he protested, he was suspended from teaching the course.

In the highly publicized debate that followed it became clear that the problem was one of perspective: Eurocentric versus Africa-centric.

(…)

The Meaning of Africa

Africanity is foisted upon the migrants the moment they arrive in the West. On the continent, most people in the rural areas live under ethnic categories like Kikuyu, Ibo, Hausa and Acholi. Some educated, middle-class and/or urban dwellers may see themselves as members of a nation like South Africa, Kenya or Tanzania. In some countries like South Africa, which has recently emerged from the crucible of apartheid, national consciousness is still strong. For most, however, "national" consciousness emerges only occasionally during Independence Day celebrations, international soccer matches or at election time.

"African" consciousness, however, is a rarity. It is in exile that the Nigerian-Ibo, South African-Zulu, Kenyan-Kikuyu person suddenly and unequivocally becomes an "African".

(…)

Yet, the condition of Africanity both marginalizes and expands Isegawa's horizons at the same time. He is no longer an Acholi or an Ugandan but an African. A member of that mythical race created by the White imagination as a foil and a justification for the holocaust of slavery and colonial exploitation. He is not only responsible for Somalia, Congo and Sierra Leone, but also tied inexplicably to the inner city gang-banger, street hustler and drug addict. In the likely encounter with the police profiler, skin color will trump national origin every time. Color also trumps education, erudition and accomplishment. None of these mean anything in a late night encounter with the police. In the New World, he is no longer an Acholi or even an Ugandan. He is an African, or more accurately, a Black man, thus automatically a suspect and a target for any White racist policeman, waitress, teacher or taxi-driver.

The Fact of Blackness

It would be a mistake, however, to leave the impression that "the fact of Blackness," creates a collective race consciousness, a natural unity among the African migrants and the native Black populations of Europe and America. This race consciousness is a rarity often limited to the politicized Pan-Africanist community. Most African descended peoples continue to see each other, and themselves, "through the eyes of others" as Du Bois put it.

(…)

Thus the migrant African intellectuals, who probably left neighboring African countries because they were unable to overcome their images as outsiders, find that they face the same problem in the United States. In this case the tension is between Diasporic- Blacks and Africans who are forced to compete for the few jobs set aside for Black scholars (African, African-American and West Indian) in the American academy. The problem, therefore, is the segregation of most Black scholars in historically Black universities and African and African-American studies departments. The fact that 49 percent of African immigrants have college degrees while only 14 percent of African Americans graduate from college adds a class dimension to the problem. The Bureau of Census reports, for instance, that the median household income of African immigrants is $30,907 compared to $19,533 for Black Americans (Bureau of Census, 1997).

(…)

Thus migrant African scholars must negotiate new identities that can no longer depend on the security of nationality and ethnicity but are not exactly Afro-European or African-American either. This dilemma of being --not exactly African but not Afro-European or African-American-- is the peculiar challenge of migrant African scholars. The resolution of this identity crisis is a political act that manifests itself in the lives and work of academics, producing three "types" of migrant intellectuals --the comprador intelligentsia, the postcolonial critics and the progressive exiles. This paper examines each of these categories and argues that we can best understand the crisis by drawing on W.E.B. Du Bois's theory of "double consciousness."

The Comprador Intelligentsia

One result of the civil rights movement was to open up employment opportunities to Black people in major universities, corporations and international organizations. African migrant scholars today are well positioned to take advantage of these opportunities by virtue of their education and contacts on the continent. This has produced a new class of migrant intellectual: The comprador intelligentsia. Members of the comprador class use their national origins, color and education to serve as spokesmen and intellectual henchmen for organizations such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

(…)

This strategy depends upon a cadre of Black government functionaries "who, though they are Black, pursue the interests of the Federal government at the table of the Black community"(p. 168). The new "pro-business black coalition ... has been to lead from the weak position of handing over the essential elements of the African agenda to major financial interests and thus, while Africa burns, playing second fiddle to those interests" (p. 169). This unabashedly corporatist institution has attracted high-profile African and African-American scholars and intellectuals. It has transformed Pan-Africanist solidarity into a quest for profit and recruited Black intellectuals and politicians as scouts and interpreters for rapacious corporations.

The Postcolonial Critic

Much like the compradors, the postcolonial critics take advantage of their color, nationality and location in the West to become expert interpreters of the African experience for Western audiences. They also play the role of the middlemen by serving as conduits of Eurocentric thought for African consumption through the adaptation of the latest trend in Euro-American perspectives to "explain" the African experience. This adaptation of Euro-American thought to the African experience has ranged from liberalism to various types of Marxism, to modernization, developmentalism and dependency/world systems theories.

(…)

Appiah's position is not unique. It is merely a re-statement of the doublespeak of the American neoconservatives who conjured up the term "reverse racism" to attack those who fought against White supremacy. This so-called "color blind" ideology has reversed the gains made during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and is actually commonsense among White Americans. It informs policymakers from the White House to the Supreme Court and has been used to justify the retreat from egalitarianism. As Howard Winant put it: “Today the theory of race has been utterly transformed. The socially constructed status of the concept of race, which I have labeled the racial formation process, is widely recognized (Omi and Winant 1986), so much so that it is now often conservatives who argue that race is an illusion."

(…)

In Dusk of Dawn (1940), for instance, Du Bois rejected the notion that "race" had any scientific basis. "It is easy to see that scientific definition of race is impossible", Du Bois stated. Yet he went on to argue that although race does not exist biologically, racism as an ideology does and has had a terrible impact on people of African and Jewish descent during the era of capitalism: “(...) But one thing is sure and that is that these ancestors of mine and their descendants have had a common history; have suffered a common disaster and have one long memory. The actual ties of heritage between the individuals of this group vary but the physical bond is least and the badge of color relatively unimportant save as a badge; the real essence of this kinship is the social heritage of slavery; the discrimination and insult; It is this unity that draws me to Africa.” (DuBois, 1940, 137-138)

Paul Tiyambe Zeleza (1997) argues that Appiah "protests too much" and fails to take into account the dialectical nature of racial oppression. As Zeleza puts it: "Racial discourses and theories are socially constructed ... but repudiating race theory does not make it disappear in politics. Race matters... because it functions as a marker and an anchor to establish and repudiate identity, status and position... Races exist because racism exists" (Zeleza, 1997,503).

The Progressive Exile

In "The Allegory of the Cave" Kenyan scholar-in-exile Ngugi wa Thiong'o discusses the role of exiles in African liberation (Ngugi, 1998). (...) Ngugi's allegory of the cave captures the migrant scholars' political dilemma in stark terms, making it clear that they have a choice of either serving the neocolonial system as witting or unwitting agents or using the knowledge they have gained from their sojourn in the West to liberate their fellows. The progressive exiles resolve the crisis of double consciousness by learning from the experience of exile while maintaining their identity as Africans.

Thus we see the politics of exile determining the perspective and location of African scholars across the ideological spectrum. Kwame Anthony Appiah, a descendant of the Ashante ruling class, who was schooled at Oxford University chooses to associate himself with the conservative, accommodationist strand of Black Studies while Ngugi wa Thiong'o, a descendant of Kenyan peasants, associates himself with the progressive strand of Black Studies.

The fact that they chose to work in the same garden despite their ideological differences demonstrates the power of Africanity in determining the politics of exile, even among the most talented of the talented tenth.

It is this power of Africanity, this "fact of blackness" as Fanon put it, that compelled African exiles and members of the African Diaspora to join Black people on the continent in the successful struggle to liberate South Africa from the jaws of Apartheid.

The theories and activities of exiles and revolutionaries like Julius Nyerere, Amilcar Cabral, Agostino Neto, Nelson Mandela and Eduardo Mondlane heavily influenced African-American activists (Walters, 1995; 59-65). (...) These global solidarity movements demonstrate that a united front of people of African descent as imagined by pioneering Pan-Africanists like Du Bois and Nkrumah is still possible, even critical, in the New World Order of global markets and corporate domination.

{Read Full Article Here}

As an African in the Diaspora, are you part of “The Comprador Intelligentsia”, a “Postcolonial Critic”, or a “Progressive Exile”? Or neither of these, or a bit of each?These are probably the questions you will be left with upon reading this article (or perhaps you’ve already read it and made up your mind…) by Francis N. Njubi, Ph.D, a Kenyan Assistant Professor of Africana Studies at San Diego State University.

Professor Njubi presents an in-depth historical analysis of the African Diaspora’s experience through the last century, emphasising such key issues as “The Meaning of Africa” and “The Fact of Blackness”. As an all-encompassing approach to the most pressing challenges facing the African Diaspora, it does not shy away from some of the most controversial issues affecting its communities, including the always controversial debates on race, racism and identity, or the occasional conflicts opposing African-Americans to African Migrants, or non-Southafrican Africans to nationals in South Africa. It also touches on issues raised in some of my previous posts, namely “Africa: What Price A Brain?” and “In a Statelessness State of Mind”.

In spite of not subscribing to all of its arguments, I found the paper to make for compelling reading, even now five years after its publishing.

Here are a few excerpts from it:

'African Intellectuals in the Belly of the Beast:Migration, Identity and the Politics of Exile'

by: Francis N. Njubi, San Diego State University

February 2002

© Francis N. Njubi

When W.E.B. Du Bois wrote of the "double consciousness"of Africans in America he was reflecting on the complex identities of the "talented tenth", the educated minority of a minority like himself who felt the alienation acutely because of their awareness that their qualifications meant little in a racist society. Thus, Du Bois argued that Black intellectuals are gifted with a "second sight", a "third eye" that allows them to gauge the white and the black while seeking to transcend this duality by creating a "better and truer self".

Though written in reference to the African-American intellectual, this duality, this sense of "twoness", is even more acute for African exiles today because they have fewer social and cultural ties to the West than Afro-Europeans and African-Americans. The exiles are much closer to the African "soul" DuBois refers to and are less prepared for the pervasive racism and second-class status that they have to overcome in the West. This duality is intensified by the sense of alienation and guilt engendered by the widespread demonization of exiles as selfish and ungrateful wretches who, as soon as they get their degrees, escape to greener pastures instead of using their education to uplift the poverty stricken societies that educated them at great expense.

This paper examines the "double consciousness" of Black African intellectual migrants in the West. It argues that the migrant is forced to come to terms with Africanity for the first time and that the resolution of this identity crisis is a political act which produces three "types" of migrant intellectuals: the comprador intelligentsia, the postcolonial critic and the progressive exile.

(…)

To complicate matters further, the migrants must also endure alienation from their countries of origin. Academic exiles are likely to be victims of government repression even before leaving their home countries. Many are pushed out of their countries after political disturbances at university campuses. Others are exiled because their political perspectives do not correspond with the dominant ideological dispensation of the time. Yet, these same forces that kept them from achieving their full potential at home demonize them for leaving instead of contributing to national development. These tensions between intellectuals and politicians have boiled over frequently in the postcolonial world, most recently in a shouting match between Ghana's President Jerry Rawlings and eminent Kenyan scholar Ali Mazrui during a conference in Davos, Switzerland in June 1999 (Mwagiru, 1999).

(…)

South Africa's President Thabo Mbeki has also joined the debate by urging educated Africans to relocate to South Africa and neighboring African countries instead of migrating to the West. Yet this option too, is complicated. Many educated Africans do spend some time in neighboring countries before migrating to the West. As stated earlier, Ali Mazrui was expelled from Uganda for his outspokenness. More recent cases have shown that turf battles between the migrants and local scholars make it difficult for the former to thrive in other African countries.

Professor Mamdani is a highly respected African political scientist who has taught at universities in East Africa and the United States for over twenty years. Yet, when he accepted a position as the director of the University of Cape Town's Center For African Studies in 1997, he found it impossible to overcome his image as an outsider in academic turf battles (Thornton, 1998). In spite of his high sounding position as Director of the Center for African Studies and his distinguished record in teaching and publications in the field, his syllabus for an introductory course in African Studies was rejected by an entrenched group of white "Africanists" (Mamdani, 1998, pp. 3-7). When he protested, he was suspended from teaching the course.

In the highly publicized debate that followed it became clear that the problem was one of perspective: Eurocentric versus Africa-centric.

(…)

The Meaning of Africa

Africanity is foisted upon the migrants the moment they arrive in the West. On the continent, most people in the rural areas live under ethnic categories like Kikuyu, Ibo, Hausa and Acholi. Some educated, middle-class and/or urban dwellers may see themselves as members of a nation like South Africa, Kenya or Tanzania. In some countries like South Africa, which has recently emerged from the crucible of apartheid, national consciousness is still strong. For most, however, "national" consciousness emerges only occasionally during Independence Day celebrations, international soccer matches or at election time.

"African" consciousness, however, is a rarity. It is in exile that the Nigerian-Ibo, South African-Zulu, Kenyan-Kikuyu person suddenly and unequivocally becomes an "African".

(…)

Yet, the condition of Africanity both marginalizes and expands Isegawa's horizons at the same time. He is no longer an Acholi or an Ugandan but an African. A member of that mythical race created by the White imagination as a foil and a justification for the holocaust of slavery and colonial exploitation. He is not only responsible for Somalia, Congo and Sierra Leone, but also tied inexplicably to the inner city gang-banger, street hustler and drug addict. In the likely encounter with the police profiler, skin color will trump national origin every time. Color also trumps education, erudition and accomplishment. None of these mean anything in a late night encounter with the police. In the New World, he is no longer an Acholi or even an Ugandan. He is an African, or more accurately, a Black man, thus automatically a suspect and a target for any White racist policeman, waitress, teacher or taxi-driver.

The Fact of Blackness

It would be a mistake, however, to leave the impression that "the fact of Blackness," creates a collective race consciousness, a natural unity among the African migrants and the native Black populations of Europe and America. This race consciousness is a rarity often limited to the politicized Pan-Africanist community. Most African descended peoples continue to see each other, and themselves, "through the eyes of others" as Du Bois put it.

(…)

Thus the migrant African intellectuals, who probably left neighboring African countries because they were unable to overcome their images as outsiders, find that they face the same problem in the United States. In this case the tension is between Diasporic- Blacks and Africans who are forced to compete for the few jobs set aside for Black scholars (African, African-American and West Indian) in the American academy. The problem, therefore, is the segregation of most Black scholars in historically Black universities and African and African-American studies departments. The fact that 49 percent of African immigrants have college degrees while only 14 percent of African Americans graduate from college adds a class dimension to the problem. The Bureau of Census reports, for instance, that the median household income of African immigrants is $30,907 compared to $19,533 for Black Americans (Bureau of Census, 1997).

(…)

Thus migrant African scholars must negotiate new identities that can no longer depend on the security of nationality and ethnicity but are not exactly Afro-European or African-American either. This dilemma of being --not exactly African but not Afro-European or African-American-- is the peculiar challenge of migrant African scholars. The resolution of this identity crisis is a political act that manifests itself in the lives and work of academics, producing three "types" of migrant intellectuals --the comprador intelligentsia, the postcolonial critics and the progressive exiles. This paper examines each of these categories and argues that we can best understand the crisis by drawing on W.E.B. Du Bois's theory of "double consciousness."

The Comprador Intelligentsia

One result of the civil rights movement was to open up employment opportunities to Black people in major universities, corporations and international organizations. African migrant scholars today are well positioned to take advantage of these opportunities by virtue of their education and contacts on the continent. This has produced a new class of migrant intellectual: The comprador intelligentsia. Members of the comprador class use their national origins, color and education to serve as spokesmen and intellectual henchmen for organizations such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

(…)

This strategy depends upon a cadre of Black government functionaries "who, though they are Black, pursue the interests of the Federal government at the table of the Black community"(p. 168). The new "pro-business black coalition ... has been to lead from the weak position of handing over the essential elements of the African agenda to major financial interests and thus, while Africa burns, playing second fiddle to those interests" (p. 169). This unabashedly corporatist institution has attracted high-profile African and African-American scholars and intellectuals. It has transformed Pan-Africanist solidarity into a quest for profit and recruited Black intellectuals and politicians as scouts and interpreters for rapacious corporations.

The Postcolonial Critic

Much like the compradors, the postcolonial critics take advantage of their color, nationality and location in the West to become expert interpreters of the African experience for Western audiences. They also play the role of the middlemen by serving as conduits of Eurocentric thought for African consumption through the adaptation of the latest trend in Euro-American perspectives to "explain" the African experience. This adaptation of Euro-American thought to the African experience has ranged from liberalism to various types of Marxism, to modernization, developmentalism and dependency/world systems theories.

(…)

Appiah's position is not unique. It is merely a re-statement of the doublespeak of the American neoconservatives who conjured up the term "reverse racism" to attack those who fought against White supremacy. This so-called "color blind" ideology has reversed the gains made during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and is actually commonsense among White Americans. It informs policymakers from the White House to the Supreme Court and has been used to justify the retreat from egalitarianism. As Howard Winant put it: “Today the theory of race has been utterly transformed. The socially constructed status of the concept of race, which I have labeled the racial formation process, is widely recognized (Omi and Winant 1986), so much so that it is now often conservatives who argue that race is an illusion."

(…)

In Dusk of Dawn (1940), for instance, Du Bois rejected the notion that "race" had any scientific basis. "It is easy to see that scientific definition of race is impossible", Du Bois stated. Yet he went on to argue that although race does not exist biologically, racism as an ideology does and has had a terrible impact on people of African and Jewish descent during the era of capitalism: “(...) But one thing is sure and that is that these ancestors of mine and their descendants have had a common history; have suffered a common disaster and have one long memory. The actual ties of heritage between the individuals of this group vary but the physical bond is least and the badge of color relatively unimportant save as a badge; the real essence of this kinship is the social heritage of slavery; the discrimination and insult; It is this unity that draws me to Africa.” (DuBois, 1940, 137-138)

Paul Tiyambe Zeleza (1997) argues that Appiah "protests too much" and fails to take into account the dialectical nature of racial oppression. As Zeleza puts it: "Racial discourses and theories are socially constructed ... but repudiating race theory does not make it disappear in politics. Race matters... because it functions as a marker and an anchor to establish and repudiate identity, status and position... Races exist because racism exists" (Zeleza, 1997,503).

The Progressive Exile

In "The Allegory of the Cave" Kenyan scholar-in-exile Ngugi wa Thiong'o discusses the role of exiles in African liberation (Ngugi, 1998). (...) Ngugi's allegory of the cave captures the migrant scholars' political dilemma in stark terms, making it clear that they have a choice of either serving the neocolonial system as witting or unwitting agents or using the knowledge they have gained from their sojourn in the West to liberate their fellows. The progressive exiles resolve the crisis of double consciousness by learning from the experience of exile while maintaining their identity as Africans.

Thus we see the politics of exile determining the perspective and location of African scholars across the ideological spectrum. Kwame Anthony Appiah, a descendant of the Ashante ruling class, who was schooled at Oxford University chooses to associate himself with the conservative, accommodationist strand of Black Studies while Ngugi wa Thiong'o, a descendant of Kenyan peasants, associates himself with the progressive strand of Black Studies.

The fact that they chose to work in the same garden despite their ideological differences demonstrates the power of Africanity in determining the politics of exile, even among the most talented of the talented tenth.

It is this power of Africanity, this "fact of blackness" as Fanon put it, that compelled African exiles and members of the African Diaspora to join Black people on the continent in the successful struggle to liberate South Africa from the jaws of Apartheid.

The theories and activities of exiles and revolutionaries like Julius Nyerere, Amilcar Cabral, Agostino Neto, Nelson Mandela and Eduardo Mondlane heavily influenced African-American activists (Walters, 1995; 59-65). (...) These global solidarity movements demonstrate that a united front of people of African descent as imagined by pioneering Pan-Africanists like Du Bois and Nkrumah is still possible, even critical, in the New World Order of global markets and corporate domination.

{Read Full Article Here}

IN A STATELESSNESS STATE OF MIND…

… OU “A FUGA, OU O INSONDAVEL MISTERIO DA NACIONALIDADE SURRIPIADA (Parte 2)”

Following the news of the election of Mr. Lumengo, originally an Angolan, to the Swiss Parliament in the political environment in which it took place, and in the context of some agitation among the Angolan Diaspora over the denial to us of the right to vote in the upcoming Angolan general elections, expected to take place next year, I found it appropriate to bring to your attention the attached paper about the 2003 UN Report on “Denial of Citizenship and Statelessness” from the European Policy Centre.

The first time I came across that report, I was working for an organisation in Africa where at the time I was being made acutely aware, by some whom I’d always seen and related to as ‘fellow compatriots’ or just as ‘fellow Africans’, that in their books I was not as much the “bona fide regional citizen” as I might, could, should and was generally taken for. Ask me why and I’ll see if I can bring myself up to explain… because there’s an explanation… I then circulated the report to those same people, hoping that at least it would bring them to some reflection on their words and actions. Ask me if it was to any avail and I’ll say: no.

Nothing, however, would’ve prepared me for the many different versions of that same hostile attitude I was going to meet in the blogosphere, or more precisely the “lusosphere”… As a matter of fact, it has been not just about some questioning your “bona fide” status as an Angolan citizen, it’s also about naming you a “insignificant non-entity” (stateless therefore…), an outcast “capable of acts of terrorism” and a pariah who “fled with her parents in 1975 for not being capable to withstand your country’s independence”… ask me if there’s any substantiation to these dehumanising insults, claims and accusations – specially when coming, as they do, from people who do not know you personally and whom you’ve never met or ever talked to before – and I’ll simply say: no.

Never mind that the people making them are the very ones who precisely did that (i.e. fled the country, with or without their parents in 1974/75 for, as the word had it at the time, not bearing the thought of “being ruled by blacks” and never went back…) or those who, not having exactly physically fled the country, have always been spiritually absent from it, longing for the land of their ancestors somewhere in Southern Europe, or inventing “lands of their own” by attempting to appropriate themselves, through the most outrageous cultural vulturism, of at least one of the Angolan/African ancestral cultures, while reaping all the privileges awarded to them by state patronage… Never mind if they are citizens of the very countries in Europe, like Mr. Lumengo’s Switzerland, which have political parties constantly calling for the expulsion of African immigrants.

Never mind if the only, or the best, way they find to deal with their own insecurities over their own identity, or lack thereof, is to deprive you of yours… Never mind if the only way they find to assert their “right” over your ancestors’ land, culture and memory is to deny you any claim over, belonging to or even thought about it… or, as they often do, by trying, by all means necessary, to tarnish your personal reputation, mainly by incessantly calling you “racist” for the simple reason that you dare to react against their unprovoked racial, sexual (even if only “virtual”…) attacks and just about every other abuse known to humanity, and by throwing all sorts of stones and dirt at the memory of your ancestors! Never mind if their silly idea of concealing their glaring, deeply rooted, incurable racism is to, vainly, try to transfer and input it on you...

Never mind if all this destructive nonsense happens to you when the country in question has been devastated by war and political violence since independence, is currently experiencing the highest GDP growth rates in the world and is taken by just about everybody as “under-populated” and “under-developed”, thus calling in people from all corners of the earth (apparently provided that it’s not the “likes of you”…) and stating that it’s in dire need of qualified people to assist in its development… Never mind if the very State you are denied any bond to in this appalling way - based in what is generally understood as political and ethnic reasons but are in fact attacks based in sheer ignorance, irresponsibility, incompetence, carelessness, treachery, xenophobia, irrationality, insensitivity, unscrupulousness, opportunism, hypocrisy, amorality, greed, callousness, bigotry, spite, racism and hatred - is the one to which you’ve devoted the very best of your life and talent and is the one ultimately responsible for your very state of statelessness!

This paper deals with the very root causes of “Denial of Citizenship and Statelessness”. I sincerely hope you’ll devote to it the very best of your attention.

Thanks in advance!

… OU “A FUGA, OU O INSONDAVEL MISTERIO DA NACIONALIDADE SURRIPIADA (Parte 2)”

Following the news of the election of Mr. Lumengo, originally an Angolan, to the Swiss Parliament in the political environment in which it took place, and in the context of some agitation among the Angolan Diaspora over the denial to us of the right to vote in the upcoming Angolan general elections, expected to take place next year, I found it appropriate to bring to your attention the attached paper about the 2003 UN Report on “Denial of Citizenship and Statelessness” from the European Policy Centre.

The first time I came across that report, I was working for an organisation in Africa where at the time I was being made acutely aware, by some whom I’d always seen and related to as ‘fellow compatriots’ or just as ‘fellow Africans’, that in their books I was not as much the “bona fide regional citizen” as I might, could, should and was generally taken for. Ask me why and I’ll see if I can bring myself up to explain… because there’s an explanation… I then circulated the report to those same people, hoping that at least it would bring them to some reflection on their words and actions. Ask me if it was to any avail and I’ll say: no.

Nothing, however, would’ve prepared me for the many different versions of that same hostile attitude I was going to meet in the blogosphere, or more precisely the “lusosphere”… As a matter of fact, it has been not just about some questioning your “bona fide” status as an Angolan citizen, it’s also about naming you a “insignificant non-entity” (stateless therefore…), an outcast “capable of acts of terrorism” and a pariah who “fled with her parents in 1975 for not being capable to withstand your country’s independence”… ask me if there’s any substantiation to these dehumanising insults, claims and accusations – specially when coming, as they do, from people who do not know you personally and whom you’ve never met or ever talked to before – and I’ll simply say: no.

Never mind that the people making them are the very ones who precisely did that (i.e. fled the country, with or without their parents in 1974/75 for, as the word had it at the time, not bearing the thought of “being ruled by blacks” and never went back…) or those who, not having exactly physically fled the country, have always been spiritually absent from it, longing for the land of their ancestors somewhere in Southern Europe, or inventing “lands of their own” by attempting to appropriate themselves, through the most outrageous cultural vulturism, of at least one of the Angolan/African ancestral cultures, while reaping all the privileges awarded to them by state patronage… Never mind if they are citizens of the very countries in Europe, like Mr. Lumengo’s Switzerland, which have political parties constantly calling for the expulsion of African immigrants.

Never mind if the only, or the best, way they find to deal with their own insecurities over their own identity, or lack thereof, is to deprive you of yours… Never mind if the only way they find to assert their “right” over your ancestors’ land, culture and memory is to deny you any claim over, belonging to or even thought about it… or, as they often do, by trying, by all means necessary, to tarnish your personal reputation, mainly by incessantly calling you “racist” for the simple reason that you dare to react against their unprovoked racial, sexual (even if only “virtual”…) attacks and just about every other abuse known to humanity, and by throwing all sorts of stones and dirt at the memory of your ancestors! Never mind if their silly idea of concealing their glaring, deeply rooted, incurable racism is to, vainly, try to transfer and input it on you...

Never mind if all this destructive nonsense happens to you when the country in question has been devastated by war and political violence since independence, is currently experiencing the highest GDP growth rates in the world and is taken by just about everybody as “under-populated” and “under-developed”, thus calling in people from all corners of the earth (apparently provided that it’s not the “likes of you”…) and stating that it’s in dire need of qualified people to assist in its development… Never mind if the very State you are denied any bond to in this appalling way - based in what is generally understood as political and ethnic reasons but are in fact attacks based in sheer ignorance, irresponsibility, incompetence, carelessness, treachery, xenophobia, irrationality, insensitivity, unscrupulousness, opportunism, hypocrisy, amorality, greed, callousness, bigotry, spite, racism and hatred - is the one to which you’ve devoted the very best of your life and talent and is the one ultimately responsible for your very state of statelessness!

This paper deals with the very root causes of “Denial of Citizenship and Statelessness”. I sincerely hope you’ll devote to it the very best of your attention.

Thanks in advance!

FIRST BLACK CITIZEN ELECTED TO SWISS PARLIAMENT IS ANGOLAN

Switzerland has just elected its first Black MP and he happens to be of Angolan origin!
According to TimesOnline, "the first black MP in Switzerland said yesterday he was worried about the direction of his country after an election that was won by a right-wing party with a strident anti-immigration message."
Ricardo Lumengo, who fled Angola as a student activist in 1982 and was elected to parliament in Sunday’s vote, said he feared that other political refugees would be turned away in the current climate of hostility towards foreigners. Mr Lumengo, 45, told The Times that he felt singled out personally by a controversial poster at the heart of the campaign by the Swiss People’s Party, which showed three white sheep kicking a black sheep off the Swiss flag.
The SVP consolidated its position as the biggest party in parliament in the elections, partly at the expense of Mr Lumengo’s Social Democrats, and is planning to press ahead with tougher immigration laws. It maintained that the poster was not racist but illustrated its proposed policy of ejecting foreign criminals.
“We do not like it that people abroad see us as against foreigners. I am proof that not all of Switzerland thinks like that,” said Mr Lumengo, who trained as a lawyer in Switzerland and completed the tests for his Swiss passport in 1997.
He said: “I have had a good experience in Switzerland for 25 years but the situation has changed and I feel I would have difficulties if I came now. There is a tension, a conflict now between foreigners and Swiss. Other politicians are talking irresponsibly by suggesting that foreigners are responsible for all the country’s problems. We, the Socialists, are worried that this is the wrong direction for the country.”
Mr Lumengo said he hoped that his election as an MP would be “a symbol showing many things”, including that Switzerland was not a racist country. “There are people who are building another Switzerland, a Switzerland of tolerance and a Switzerland of dialogue,” he said.

ALL THE BEST TO MR. LUMENGO IN HIS POLITICAL CAREER ARE MY WISHES!

Switzerland has just elected its first Black MP and he happens to be of Angolan origin!
According to TimesOnline, "the first black MP in Switzerland said yesterday he was worried about the direction of his country after an election that was won by a right-wing party with a strident anti-immigration message."
Ricardo Lumengo, who fled Angola as a student activist in 1982 and was elected to parliament in Sunday’s vote, said he feared that other political refugees would be turned away in the current climate of hostility towards foreigners. Mr Lumengo, 45, told The Times that he felt singled out personally by a controversial poster at the heart of the campaign by the Swiss People’s Party, which showed three white sheep kicking a black sheep off the Swiss flag.
The SVP consolidated its position as the biggest party in parliament in the elections, partly at the expense of Mr Lumengo’s Social Democrats, and is planning to press ahead with tougher immigration laws. It maintained that the poster was not racist but illustrated its proposed policy of ejecting foreign criminals.
“We do not like it that people abroad see us as against foreigners. I am proof that not all of Switzerland thinks like that,” said Mr Lumengo, who trained as a lawyer in Switzerland and completed the tests for his Swiss passport in 1997.
He said: “I have had a good experience in Switzerland for 25 years but the situation has changed and I feel I would have difficulties if I came now. There is a tension, a conflict now between foreigners and Swiss. Other politicians are talking irresponsibly by suggesting that foreigners are responsible for all the country’s problems. We, the Socialists, are worried that this is the wrong direction for the country.”
Mr Lumengo said he hoped that his election as an MP would be “a symbol showing many things”, including that Switzerland was not a racist country. “There are people who are building another Switzerland, a Switzerland of tolerance and a Switzerland of dialogue,” he said.

ALL THE BEST TO MR. LUMENGO IN HIS POLITICAL CAREER ARE MY WISHES!

ZIMBABWEAN SCULPTURE

Whoever lives or travels around Southern Africa has certainly marveled at the numerous ‘informal markets’, normally by the roadsides, where all sorts of works of art, by men and women, are sold by Zimbabwean refugees all across the region. Of these, the most noticeable are sculptures, most frequently in soap-stone, but also in wood, iron and other materials. These elaborated, often sumptuous, works of art, for which one would most certainly pay small or big fortunes in big city art galleries, will cost you ‘peanuts’ in those markets.

This is just one of the many facets of the current tragedy affecting Zimbabwe: thousands of nationals from the country, reputed as not just the “former bread-basket”, but also as possessing one of the biggest reservoirs of qualified people in the region, nowadays try to earn a living in such markets or through menial jobs in neighbouring countries, while being targeted by all sorts of xenophobic attitudes from the authorities and nationals of those countries – something not likely to figure in the agendas of the AU summits, at a time when the buzzword in various continental fora is one “United States of Africa”…

There are, however, as with everything in life, exceptions to the rule, and as much as you will find former Zimbabwean engineers, teachers and other professionals washing dishes as domestic workers in some middle-class household in a neighbouring country, you will also find many qualified and competent Zimbabweans well employed in institutions and companies across the region, the rest of the continent and the world at large.

The sculptures depicted above are just one such example: the work of Shepherd Ndudzo, a Zimbabwean artist based in Gaborone, they’ve escaped the roadside and were exhibited at local galleries and sold, well… not exactly for ‘peanuts’! To my chagrin, I couldn’t buy one, but managed to get from the artist one of the limited series of postcards made out of his fabulous collection of female postures.

Whoever lives or travels around Southern Africa has certainly marveled at the numerous ‘informal markets’, normally by the roadsides, where all sorts of works of art, by men and women, are sold by Zimbabwean refugees all across the region. Of these, the most noticeable are sculptures, most frequently in soap-stone, but also in wood, iron and other materials. These elaborated, often sumptuous, works of art, for which one would most certainly pay small or big fortunes in big city art galleries, will cost you ‘peanuts’ in those markets.

This is just one of the many facets of the current tragedy affecting Zimbabwe: thousands of nationals from the country, reputed as not just the “former bread-basket”, but also as possessing one of the biggest reservoirs of qualified people in the region, nowadays try to earn a living in such markets or through menial jobs in neighbouring countries, while being targeted by all sorts of xenophobic attitudes from the authorities and nationals of those countries – something not likely to figure in the agendas of the AU summits, at a time when the buzzword in various continental fora is one “United States of Africa”…

There are, however, as with everything in life, exceptions to the rule, and as much as you will find former Zimbabwean engineers, teachers and other professionals washing dishes as domestic workers in some middle-class household in a neighbouring country, you will also find many qualified and competent Zimbabweans well employed in institutions and companies across the region, the rest of the continent and the world at large.

The sculptures depicted above are just one such example: the work of Shepherd Ndudzo, a Zimbabwean artist based in Gaborone, they’ve escaped the roadside and were exhibited at local galleries and sold, well… not exactly for ‘peanuts’! To my chagrin, I couldn’t buy one, but managed to get from the artist one of the limited series of postcards made out of his fabulous collection of female postures.

A “FUGA”, OU O INSONDAVEL MISTERIO DA NACIONALIDADE SURRIPIADA…(Parte 1)

« (...) Os países comunistas excomungavam a emigração, considerada a mais odiosa traição. Todos os que permanecessem no exterior eram condenados in absencia no seu país de origem e os seus compatriotas não se atreviam a ter qualquer contacto com eles. (…) Se um país não é independente e nem sequer o quer ser, quererá alguém ainda morrer por ele? « (Extractos de «Ignorancia», por Milan Kundera)

Uma vez que estou em mare’ de peneirar as “riquissimas experiencias” que venho colhendo com este blog, impoe-se que fale de mais uma. Concretamente, dessa inusitada (embora nao inedita, porque desde que retomei um contacto mais directo e frequente com Angola nos ultimos anos ela vem-se repetindo com igual frequencia) vaga de ataques a minha nacionalidade. Confesso que e’ uma dessas coisas que se me afigura tao absurda que, apesar da frequencia com que se manifesta, das mais diversas origens e direccoes, nao consigo racionalizar.

Fala-se, no ambito da psicanalise, de “inveja do penis” ou de “inveja dos seios” por parte de quem nao tem uma coisa ou outra. A primeira condicao talvez explique alguns dos comportamentos que referi no meu post sobre “mulheres…” (este). Quanto a segunda, nao sei, dentre os meus mais abnegados detractores, quem a tera’, mas sei certamente que eu nao a tenho em relacao a ninguem… E parece-me tambem que qualquer desses tipos de inveja se assemelha muito ao que me parece ser “inveja da nacionalidade”.

E isto porque dificilmente se encontrara’ neste momento nacionalidade mais cobicada em Africa, ou em varias outras partes do mundo, do que a Angolana. Por todas, mais do que sabidas, razoes atinentes a extensao territorial, as riquezas naturais, as aparentemente vertiginosas taxas de crescimento economico, ao bom clima e belezas paisagisticas, a dita baixa densidade populacional, as fragilidades e carencias (materiais, sociais, espirituais e psicologicas) de uma sociedade ainda confusamente a procura de si propria e de um “futuro brilhante” num pais que se tenta reinventar, depois do mais estrondoso falhanco de uma tentativa mal-parida de invencao… enfim, por todas as conhecidas razoes. Acontece, porem, que nem toda a gente que a cobica, merecida ou imerecidamente, a tem, mesmo que possa ostentar um qualquer forjado, ou comprado, B.I.. Dai a inveja de quem, obviamente, inquestionavelmente e sem qualquer necessidade de comprovativos, em forma de documentos, bandeiras, ou mascaras, a tem… dai a necessidade compulsiva por parte de muitos de, nao so’ a tentarem obter “by all means necessary”, mas tambem de negarem, invalidarem, enfim, roubarem a nacionalidade Angolana de quem legitimamente a possui…

Dai os ataques cegos, as falas de “fuga” do pais, curiosamente por parte de criaturas que fugiram de Angola antes ou por altura da independencia e que nunca mais la’ voltaram, ou que, tendo-se la’ mantido, viveram la’ sempre em ilhas insuladas de todos os ventos e tempestades que durante os ultimos 32 anos afectaram a esmagadora maioria dos Angolanos… Disso ja’ falei extensamente no meu post sobre a musica do Bonga (entretanto editado, apenas por razoes que teem a ver com o meu caracter…), mas como, desde entao, tais ataques voltaram e continuam a verificar-se diariamente, como que brotando de uma fonte absurdamente inesgotavel de obtusidade, vejo-me forcada a voltar disso falar. Nao porque me sinta sob qualquer obrigacao de “prestar contas” a quem quer que seja sobre o meu “paradeiro”, ou sobre os ques, porques e aondes da minha residencia, nao que tenha que pedir desculpas a ninguem por ser IRREMEDIAVELMENTE ANGOLANA… Apenas, e tao so, porque gostaria, muito honesta e sinceramente, que certas pessoas ganhassem um pouco (uma vez que o “full monty” em tais casos se demonstra manifestamente impossivel) de nocao de ridiculo e vergonha na cara.

De resto, bem feitas as contas, na verdade nunca estive “fora” de Angola: se as minhas idas ao pais, anuais durante a primeira decada de residencia fora, menos frequentes, mas realizadas, durante a segunda decada e as sucessivas visitas que fiz, a intervalos de meses, nos ultimos cinco anos nao sao suficientes para o demonstrar, a minha participacao em diversas actividades e frequentes publicacoes sobre questoes Angolanas em varios “media outlets”, nacionais e internacionais, durante esse periodo de “ausencia”, para ja’ nao falar do permanente contacto com familiares e amigos na terra, atestam-no de forma inequivoca. Se, de todo esse tempo, algum periodo pode ser tido como de “ausencia total”, ele nao tera’ sido certamente maior do que o de qualquer das fulanas e sicranos que por ai andam a despejar bilis sobre a minha suposta “fuga” neste e noutros blogs… Direi apenas que e’, no minimo, aviltante, pretender-se ignorar, no meio de todos esses maus figados, que Angola nao foi um pais normal nos ultimos 30 anos… que, ‘a semelhanca de praticamente todos os paises Africanos, Angola tem contribuido com milhares, senao milhoes, dos seus nacionais para as vagas de emigracao para os paises vizinhos, a Europa, os EUA e um pouco para todo o mundo. Que tais ataques partam, via de regra, de nacionais, ou seus descendentes, de um pais, Portugal, conhecido historicamente como “pais de emigrantes” e que nunca teve uma guerra como a que Angola acaba de viver nas ultimas tres decadas, torna-o ainda mais aviltante e diz tudo sobre o (ou a falta de) caracter dos seus perpetradores e das suas verdadeiras motivacoes. E nao deixa de ser particularmente interessante que sejam os mesmos que recorrem bastamente ao “Angola da’ para todos” para justificarem os seus gritos de “todos para Angola e em forca”… Obviamente “todos” menos Angolanos como eu, que o unico crime que cometem e’ exporem objectivamente factos, historicos ou correntes, que essas criaturas nem sequer se atrevem a discutir ou contradizer, preferindo, muito vil e cobardemente, atacar a pessoa e as suas circunstancias, por manifestamente nao conseguirem “derrotar” as suas ideias! Mas… palavras para que, se o odio e a inveja, principalmente se acirrados pela cobica, sao cegos, como ja’ dizia S. Tomas de Aquino!

E, para finalizar, direi tambem isto: em termos legais, pelo menos ate’ 2012, vao ter que me “aturar” a falar e a comportar-me como ANGOLANA! Aqui e noutros espacos, reais ou virtuais – o que, na verdade, mais tem contribuido ultimamente para o acirrar de tais ataques: se outras provas nao bastassem, as doentias e vergonhosas reaccoes a minha recente entrevista ao blog Szavanna e, mais recentemente, ao meu post no GVO sobre o blog Serra da Chela, sao, quanto a isso, suficientemente elucidativas… Noutros termos, fiquem sabendo que a minha nacionalidade nao me foi “concedida” por nenhum Estado ou ser vivente: foi-o pelos meus ancestrais – todos enterrados em Angola! E, ja’ agora, mais direi: toda esta nefasta experiencia (com toda a sorte de sabotagens e hostilidades abertas ou veladas) apenas me tem demonstrado onde e’ que eu “NAO estaria” e o que “NAO teria sido” de mim, como mulher, como profissional e como ser humano, se nao tivesse encontrado a tempo este “safe heaven de Sua Magestade Britanica” – onde, que fique aqui registado, prefiro permanecer ate’ ao fim dos meus dias, do que regressar a uma Angola recolonizada ou neocolonizada!



[P.S.: Para complementar (encerrar?) esta conversa, deixo aqui em anexo mais uma cronica por mim publicada no SA ha’ 5 anos]

« (...) Os países comunistas excomungavam a emigração, considerada a mais odiosa traição. Todos os que permanecessem no exterior eram condenados in absencia no seu país de origem e os seus compatriotas não se atreviam a ter qualquer contacto com eles. (…) Se um país não é independente e nem sequer o quer ser, quererá alguém ainda morrer por ele? « (Extractos de «Ignorancia», por Milan Kundera)

Uma vez que estou em mare’ de peneirar as “riquissimas experiencias” que venho colhendo com este blog, impoe-se que fale de mais uma. Concretamente, dessa inusitada (embora nao inedita, porque desde que retomei um contacto mais directo e frequente com Angola nos ultimos anos ela vem-se repetindo com igual frequencia) vaga de ataques a minha nacionalidade. Confesso que e’ uma dessas coisas que se me afigura tao absurda que, apesar da frequencia com que se manifesta, das mais diversas origens e direccoes, nao consigo racionalizar.

Fala-se, no ambito da psicanalise, de “inveja do penis” ou de “inveja dos seios” por parte de quem nao tem uma coisa ou outra. A primeira condicao talvez explique alguns dos comportamentos que referi no meu post sobre “mulheres…” (este). Quanto a segunda, nao sei, dentre os meus mais abnegados detractores, quem a tera’, mas sei certamente que eu nao a tenho em relacao a ninguem… E parece-me tambem que qualquer desses tipos de inveja se assemelha muito ao que me parece ser “inveja da nacionalidade”.

E isto porque dificilmente se encontrara’ neste momento nacionalidade mais cobicada em Africa, ou em varias outras partes do mundo, do que a Angolana. Por todas, mais do que sabidas, razoes atinentes a extensao territorial, as riquezas naturais, as aparentemente vertiginosas taxas de crescimento economico, ao bom clima e belezas paisagisticas, a dita baixa densidade populacional, as fragilidades e carencias (materiais, sociais, espirituais e psicologicas) de uma sociedade ainda confusamente a procura de si propria e de um “futuro brilhante” num pais que se tenta reinventar, depois do mais estrondoso falhanco de uma tentativa mal-parida de invencao… enfim, por todas as conhecidas razoes. Acontece, porem, que nem toda a gente que a cobica, merecida ou imerecidamente, a tem, mesmo que possa ostentar um qualquer forjado, ou comprado, B.I.. Dai a inveja de quem, obviamente, inquestionavelmente e sem qualquer necessidade de comprovativos, em forma de documentos, bandeiras, ou mascaras, a tem… dai a necessidade compulsiva por parte de muitos de, nao so’ a tentarem obter “by all means necessary”, mas tambem de negarem, invalidarem, enfim, roubarem a nacionalidade Angolana de quem legitimamente a possui…

Dai os ataques cegos, as falas de “fuga” do pais, curiosamente por parte de criaturas que fugiram de Angola antes ou por altura da independencia e que nunca mais la’ voltaram, ou que, tendo-se la’ mantido, viveram la’ sempre em ilhas insuladas de todos os ventos e tempestades que durante os ultimos 32 anos afectaram a esmagadora maioria dos Angolanos… Disso ja’ falei extensamente no meu post sobre a musica do Bonga (entretanto editado, apenas por razoes que teem a ver com o meu caracter…), mas como, desde entao, tais ataques voltaram e continuam a verificar-se diariamente, como que brotando de uma fonte absurdamente inesgotavel de obtusidade, vejo-me forcada a voltar disso falar. Nao porque me sinta sob qualquer obrigacao de “prestar contas” a quem quer que seja sobre o meu “paradeiro”, ou sobre os ques, porques e aondes da minha residencia, nao que tenha que pedir desculpas a ninguem por ser IRREMEDIAVELMENTE ANGOLANA… Apenas, e tao so, porque gostaria, muito honesta e sinceramente, que certas pessoas ganhassem um pouco (uma vez que o “full monty” em tais casos se demonstra manifestamente impossivel) de nocao de ridiculo e vergonha na cara.

De resto, bem feitas as contas, na verdade nunca estive “fora” de Angola: se as minhas idas ao pais, anuais durante a primeira decada de residencia fora, menos frequentes, mas realizadas, durante a segunda decada e as sucessivas visitas que fiz, a intervalos de meses, nos ultimos cinco anos nao sao suficientes para o demonstrar, a minha participacao em diversas actividades e frequentes publicacoes sobre questoes Angolanas em varios “media outlets”, nacionais e internacionais, durante esse periodo de “ausencia”, para ja’ nao falar do permanente contacto com familiares e amigos na terra, atestam-no de forma inequivoca. Se, de todo esse tempo, algum periodo pode ser tido como de “ausencia total”, ele nao tera’ sido certamente maior do que o de qualquer das fulanas e sicranos que por ai andam a despejar bilis sobre a minha suposta “fuga” neste e noutros blogs… Direi apenas que e’, no minimo, aviltante, pretender-se ignorar, no meio de todos esses maus figados, que Angola nao foi um pais normal nos ultimos 30 anos… que, ‘a semelhanca de praticamente todos os paises Africanos, Angola tem contribuido com milhares, senao milhoes, dos seus nacionais para as vagas de emigracao para os paises vizinhos, a Europa, os EUA e um pouco para todo o mundo. Que tais ataques partam, via de regra, de nacionais, ou seus descendentes, de um pais, Portugal, conhecido historicamente como “pais de emigrantes” e que nunca teve uma guerra como a que Angola acaba de viver nas ultimas tres decadas, torna-o ainda mais aviltante e diz tudo sobre o (ou a falta de) caracter dos seus perpetradores e das suas verdadeiras motivacoes. E nao deixa de ser particularmente interessante que sejam os mesmos que recorrem bastamente ao “Angola da’ para todos” para justificarem os seus gritos de “todos para Angola e em forca”… Obviamente “todos” menos Angolanos como eu, que o unico crime que cometem e’ exporem objectivamente factos, historicos ou correntes, que essas criaturas nem sequer se atrevem a discutir ou contradizer, preferindo, muito vil e cobardemente, atacar a pessoa e as suas circunstancias, por manifestamente nao conseguirem “derrotar” as suas ideias! Mas… palavras para que, se o odio e a inveja, principalmente se acirrados pela cobica, sao cegos, como ja’ dizia S. Tomas de Aquino!

E, para finalizar, direi tambem isto: em termos legais, pelo menos ate’ 2012, vao ter que me “aturar” a falar e a comportar-me como ANGOLANA! Aqui e noutros espacos, reais ou virtuais – o que, na verdade, mais tem contribuido ultimamente para o acirrar de tais ataques: se outras provas nao bastassem, as doentias e vergonhosas reaccoes a minha recente entrevista ao blog Szavanna e, mais recentemente, ao meu post no GVO sobre o blog Serra da Chela, sao, quanto a isso, suficientemente elucidativas… Noutros termos, fiquem sabendo que a minha nacionalidade nao me foi “concedida” por nenhum Estado ou ser vivente: foi-o pelos meus ancestrais – todos enterrados em Angola! E, ja’ agora, mais direi: toda esta nefasta experiencia (com toda a sorte de sabotagens e hostilidades abertas ou veladas) apenas me tem demonstrado onde e’ que eu “NAO estaria” e o que “NAO teria sido” de mim, como mulher, como profissional e como ser humano, se nao tivesse encontrado a tempo este “safe heaven de Sua Magestade Britanica” – onde, que fique aqui registado, prefiro permanecer ate’ ao fim dos meus dias, do que regressar a uma Angola recolonizada ou neocolonizada!



[P.S.: Para complementar (encerrar?) esta conversa, deixo aqui em anexo mais uma cronica por mim publicada no SA ha’ 5 anos]

ANOTHER TAKE AT THE AFRICAN "BRAIN DRAIN"

I found this document the other day at the Air Botswana check-in counter at the recently renamed O.R. Tambo International Airport, Jo'burg. It reads:

NOTICE TO AIR BOTSWANA PASSENGERS & STAKEHOLDERS

Air Botswana apologises sincerely to passengers who are affected by the current disruption to its services.

This temporary situation is caused by factors relating to flight crew.

In common with many airlines in Africa and elsewhere, Air Botswana has experienced a loss of pilots, whose skills have been recruited by carriers in the Middle East and Asia where the civil aviation industry is growing rapidly.

This has resulted in a diminished capacity to maintain a full timetable for services, necessitating a rescheduling of some flights.

In seeking the understanding and patience of our customers, Air Botswana also assures them that the situation is being effectively addressed, in order to bring about a speedy return to normal services.

Issued by office of the Brand Manager.

AIR BOTSWANA - Going Your Way

I found this document the other day at the Air Botswana check-in counter at the recently renamed O.R. Tambo International Airport, Jo'burg. It reads:

NOTICE TO AIR BOTSWANA PASSENGERS & STAKEHOLDERS

Air Botswana apologises sincerely to passengers who are affected by the current disruption to its services.

This temporary situation is caused by factors relating to flight crew.

In common with many airlines in Africa and elsewhere, Air Botswana has experienced a loss of pilots, whose skills have been recruited by carriers in the Middle East and Asia where the civil aviation industry is growing rapidly.

This has resulted in a diminished capacity to maintain a full timetable for services, necessitating a rescheduling of some flights.

In seeking the understanding and patience of our customers, Air Botswana also assures them that the situation is being effectively addressed, in order to bring about a speedy return to normal services.

Issued by office of the Brand Manager.

AIR BOTSWANA - Going Your Way

AFRIKA: WHAT PRICE A BRAIN?

The attached two articles report on the on-going International Labour Organisation’s 11th Africa Regional meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. While the first puts a price on the brain drain affecting the continent, the second blames the International Financial Institutions (IFI) for the poverty caused by lack of jobs in African countries.

Are the two interrelated? One would think so, although the causality links are not as clear cut as it might seem at a first approach. In fact, it is not entirely clear that stemming the brain drain is an item, let alone a priority, in both the IFIs and African governments agendas. And this is so because while much is made of the brain drain, little is seriously investigated about its root causes in the societies where it occurs – and these are a complex mix of social, political, economic and cultural factors that cannot be exclusively blamed on the IFIs' policies.

Interestingly enough, in the first article, a UNDP Administrator says that "African institutions are increasingly dependent on foreign expertise"... Has anyone ever cared to look closely at the recruitment practices of African institutions such as the AU, the ADB or any of the regional organisations spread across the continent? Has anyone asked why is it that such organisations (just like the member states that constitute them) are so reluctant, if not absolutely averse, to recruiting Africans in the diaspora, giving absolute preference to expatriates from other regions of the world, even when such Africans are more qualified both technically and culturally for many of the internationally advertised posts both in their headquarters and country or regional offices? Even when such posts are subsidised, or fully paid for, by institutions such as the EU, within programmes specifically aimed at repatriating Africans in the diaspora?

No one can truly understand the full dimension of this problem until they experience the institutional (or, in some cases, casual but not less hard-hitting) levels, open or disguised, of xenophobia and active systemic exclusion practices - to the point of denying them their own nationality of origin, even when they were forced by the very systems that institute such practices to leave the country and remain abroad - directed at African expatriates by the residents in their own country of origin, the self-entitled "insiders", all self-justified in their self-righteous "more african than thou" attitude... their fellow nationals or not! Clearly indicating that the average African brain, even if under-used and also treated as an "outsider" in the host countries, might be more valued/valuable, or just better preserved, out of Africa, particularly if it does not belong to someone clearly affiliated to the prevailing political system in their country of origin. And so the brain drain goes!

The attached two articles report on the on-going International Labour Organisation’s 11th Africa Regional meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. While the first puts a price on the brain drain affecting the continent, the second blames the International Financial Institutions (IFI) for the poverty caused by lack of jobs in African countries.

Are the two interrelated? One would think so, although the causality links are not as clear cut as it might seem at a first approach. In fact, it is not entirely clear that stemming the brain drain is an item, let alone a priority, in both the IFIs and African governments agendas. And this is so because while much is made of the brain drain, little is seriously investigated about its root causes in the societies where it occurs – and these are a complex mix of social, political, economic and cultural factors that cannot be exclusively blamed on the IFIs' policies.

Interestingly enough, in the first article, a UNDP Administrator says that "African institutions are increasingly dependent on foreign expertise"... Has anyone ever cared to look closely at the recruitment practices of African institutions such as the AU, the ADB or any of the regional organisations spread across the continent? Has anyone asked why is it that such organisations (just like the member states that constitute them) are so reluctant, if not absolutely averse, to recruiting Africans in the diaspora, giving absolute preference to expatriates from other regions of the world, even when such Africans are more qualified both technically and culturally for many of the internationally advertised posts both in their headquarters and country or regional offices? Even when such posts are subsidised, or fully paid for, by institutions such as the EU, within programmes specifically aimed at repatriating Africans in the diaspora?

No one can truly understand the full dimension of this problem until they experience the institutional (or, in some cases, casual but not less hard-hitting) levels, open or disguised, of xenophobia and active systemic exclusion practices - to the point of denying them their own nationality of origin, even when they were forced by the very systems that institute such practices to leave the country and remain abroad - directed at African expatriates by the residents in their own country of origin, the self-entitled "insiders", all self-justified in their self-righteous "more african than thou" attitude... their fellow nationals or not! Clearly indicating that the average African brain, even if under-used and also treated as an "outsider" in the host countries, might be more valued/valuable, or just better preserved, out of Africa, particularly if it does not belong to someone clearly affiliated to the prevailing political system in their country of origin. And so the brain drain goes!