International Black Solidarity
... is alive and well, at least from over here.
This is, if not exactly a surprise, at least notable and interesting, coming from Seattle where one hears regularly of tensions between African Americans and Nigerian immigrants.
It's Nelson Mandela's 90th birthday today. This is a significant event for the whole continent as far as I can tell; my Botswanan colleagues are just as enthusiastic about this as the South Africans, and the Ugandans were likewise big Mandela fans. Now, it may tell you something that the back page of the newspaper section dedicated to this august event features a 2/3 page image of the great man arm in arm with Oprah Winfrey.
Admittedly, Oprah has international stature (apparently she's extremely popular in Iraq) and has recently built a school here in South Africa, but she's also not the only one. One of the fastest and most reliable ways to get into an African's good graces I've found is to mention that I'm an Obama supporter. While the novelty of his nomination has worn off a little in the last few weeks, I was in Uganda when he clinched the nomination, and the whole country was jubilant. Everyone who learned I was an American wanted to talk about him, and identifying myself as a Democrat became the fastest imaginable route from "stranger" to "well-liked companion" whether I was in a bar or on a bus.
The sentiment seems to be that, historically, or at least for the last few centuries, black people have been stepped on all over the world: if you were black and in the U.S., you were a slave or, later, subjected Jim Crow laws and the KKK; if you were in Africa, you were a colonial subject, a victim first of a foreign regime and, later, of your own. To be black most anywhere in the world was to be a stranger or second class citizen, subjected continuously to racist attitudes and institutions.
Therefore, any black anywhere getting ahead in anything (other than, say, the current activities of Robert Mugabe) is to be applauded. That Oprah can become an international celebrity, that Obama can become the Democratic nominee for the most powerful job in the world, these are genuine signs that blacks are not going to remain permanently relegated to the bottom of the international heap.
It's a sentiment I find ... warming, actually. And I don't think they're wrong. I observed a pan-African moot court competition a couple weeks ago after which several speakers suggested that, with a growing body of astute, vocal, legally-educated young people, Africa is now seeing its last generation of dictators.
Perhaps we'll see Africa's nations coming into their own in the coming decades.
This is, if not exactly a surprise, at least notable and interesting, coming from Seattle where one hears regularly of tensions between African Americans and Nigerian immigrants.
It's Nelson Mandela's 90th birthday today. This is a significant event for the whole continent as far as I can tell; my Botswanan colleagues are just as enthusiastic about this as the South Africans, and the Ugandans were likewise big Mandela fans. Now, it may tell you something that the back page of the newspaper section dedicated to this august event features a 2/3 page image of the great man arm in arm with Oprah Winfrey.
Admittedly, Oprah has international stature (apparently she's extremely popular in Iraq) and has recently built a school here in South Africa, but she's also not the only one. One of the fastest and most reliable ways to get into an African's good graces I've found is to mention that I'm an Obama supporter. While the novelty of his nomination has worn off a little in the last few weeks, I was in Uganda when he clinched the nomination, and the whole country was jubilant. Everyone who learned I was an American wanted to talk about him, and identifying myself as a Democrat became the fastest imaginable route from "stranger" to "well-liked companion" whether I was in a bar or on a bus.
The sentiment seems to be that, historically, or at least for the last few centuries, black people have been stepped on all over the world: if you were black and in the U.S., you were a slave or, later, subjected Jim Crow laws and the KKK; if you were in Africa, you were a colonial subject, a victim first of a foreign regime and, later, of your own. To be black most anywhere in the world was to be a stranger or second class citizen, subjected continuously to racist attitudes and institutions.
Therefore, any black anywhere getting ahead in anything (other than, say, the current activities of Robert Mugabe) is to be applauded. That Oprah can become an international celebrity, that Obama can become the Democratic nominee for the most powerful job in the world, these are genuine signs that blacks are not going to remain permanently relegated to the bottom of the international heap.
It's a sentiment I find ... warming, actually. And I don't think they're wrong. I observed a pan-African moot court competition a couple weeks ago after which several speakers suggested that, with a growing body of astute, vocal, legally-educated young people, Africa is now seeing its last generation of dictators.
Perhaps we'll see Africa's nations coming into their own in the coming decades.