The Other Election
I hope everyone back home can take some time out from the pussy fest that is Hilary vs. Obama to shed a tear for Zimbabwe.
Sometimes I feel incredible anger towards my Zimbabwean flatmate at her attitude towards the elections. She didn't go home to vote, she's basically stopped reading the papers, and every time I ask her about it she just shakes her head and says "I don't know, I can't deal with it!" I know I can't even begin to imagine what this must feel like for her and other Zimbabweans because there's just nothing they can do but watch while this tyrant murders their country. It's just that she acts so pleasantly aloof, and what makes it worse is I feel her faith is what makes her this way. Something in the way she reads the bible seems to have told her that everything will work out in the end, as long as you have faith.
I just don't understand. Maybe it has to do with that whole "if you're in the bush, don't talk about lions" thing. I wish I could understand just an inkling of what it must be like for her. They're saying by the end of the week, Mugabe will have declared a State of Emergency. NGOs and opposition parties are begging the people to remain calm, to stay peaceful, but ZanuPF instigates trouble everywhere it can. How can you sit back and let your country burn, how can you fight knowing it will only make matters worse?
It's funny that people used to say "Mugabe was the rising star of Africa, but Mandela is the light of day". People here look to Mandela to save Africa single handedly, but it's this blind faith in charismatic leadership which has allowed Mugabe, a freedom fighter and a visionary, to become nothing better than a thief and a murderer.
Sometimes I feel incredible anger towards my Zimbabwean flatmate at her attitude towards the elections. She didn't go home to vote, she's basically stopped reading the papers, and every time I ask her about it she just shakes her head and says "I don't know, I can't deal with it!" I know I can't even begin to imagine what this must feel like for her and other Zimbabweans because there's just nothing they can do but watch while this tyrant murders their country. It's just that she acts so pleasantly aloof, and what makes it worse is I feel her faith is what makes her this way. Something in the way she reads the bible seems to have told her that everything will work out in the end, as long as you have faith.
I just don't understand. Maybe it has to do with that whole "if you're in the bush, don't talk about lions" thing. I wish I could understand just an inkling of what it must be like for her. They're saying by the end of the week, Mugabe will have declared a State of Emergency. NGOs and opposition parties are begging the people to remain calm, to stay peaceful, but ZanuPF instigates trouble everywhere it can. How can you sit back and let your country burn, how can you fight knowing it will only make matters worse?
It's funny that people used to say "Mugabe was the rising star of Africa, but Mandela is the light of day". People here look to Mandela to save Africa single handedly, but it's this blind faith in charismatic leadership which has allowed Mugabe, a freedom fighter and a visionary, to become nothing better than a thief and a murderer.