I love you. Not the kind of love that Cardies sells on Valentine’s Day, but in that fraught and knotted way that grips my gut and won’t let go, that tangled mess of love and fear, guilt and longing that characterises all those relationships that mark us most deeply, the ones that truly shape who we are.
Like a lot of relationships, this one is totally fucked up. (I know that will have caused some of you to wilt in horror – to quote Jack Parow at Melrose Arch last night: “Ek vloek baie. Sorry.”)
But it’s true. There is no other way to say it and be honest, because this love will never be comfortable. It will always be contested. There will always be this angst over the unfixable wrongs of the past and the frustration and anger of the present. Even talking about “Africa” as though you’re a single definable concept is meaningless, when you’re a collection of a bewildering array of societies and cultures ordered by indifferent bureaucrats into camps on either side of lines drawn on a map in Berlin in 1884.
But I wanted to say something anyway, especially because today, Africa Day, also happens to be one where you go up against an old adversary to win the right to host the SKA – which in its commitment to science and knowledge stands as a refutation of all the stereotypes of a dark and savage land. (Australia was always that annoyingly perfect prefect, the one going up to win the trophies while South Africa, the tik addict, lurked behind the bicycle sheds. It would be nice to win.)
We could add the SKA to other markers of improvement – who would have thought a couple of years back that McKinsey would be so into you? The mess in the rest of the world has put you into perspective, and we’re seeing leaders like Joyce Banda making changes for the better. There are pockets of real innovation, especially in mobile technology. The ideas that will change the world will come from you, if we create conditions that allow them to flourish. Above all, you can lay claim to the most achingly beautiful places in the world, places which inspire the kind of love that passes all understanding.
But let’s be honest. You still tolerate a hell of a lot of unbelievably awful leaders. You’re still host to far too many wars of terrible cruelty. You treat many of your women and children badly and instead of focusing on alleviating poverty, you devote your energies to worrying about who consenting adults choose to love and desire. (A lot like America, in fact, which is pretty sad – embarrassingly, a lot of your politicians have more in common with the Republicans than we’d like to admit). You’re infested with corruption and you’re still being colonised, by stealth this time.
This letter is strange, I know. Why do I feel the need to talk about love in the same breath as Africa? It’s not as if continental affiliations make sense anywhere else. We have the EU but nobody talks about loving Europe. People love America, but not North America.
You are indifferent to my love, and to the love expressed by so many on this day. You don’t need us, don’t need this endless compulsion – the neediness is so obvious – to declare some kind of emotional connection to a continent with a history of rejecting its transplanted inhabitants. In talking about love for Africa, I probably only add to that profitable and growing collection of what I like to call Zim porn (angst-ridden elegies to childhoods on impossibly beautiful farms, lost forever to a looming tide of chaos).
It is not possible to be a descendent of visitors who came unbidden and unwanted, and stayed, and not worry about these things. If I were African in the sense that they mean on the census forms, I would not be cogitating on this divide between me and the place I love, because I would simply be.
I know I can expect to get shot down in flames by pretty much everyone who comments here, but I’ll say this: I’d love to see you show the world what you’re made of. That you’re not a continent that needs rescuing or supervision, but one that leads the way, and on your own terms. A place on a map, an idea in our minds, a space in our hearts that maybe, just maybe, will become (dare I say it?) a little easier to love.
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You’re like the typical lovesick puppy, Sarah. After falling in love with Africa, you want to change her!
Just accept her sights, smells, sounds…and all her peculiarities for what they are and you will have the most beautiful relationship. Try looking at things from a different lens for a change and you will see the beauty of a rich culture that’s as old as time itself.
ah, tis a myth. it is wasn’t for continental drift, we’d all be one land mass. in time I guess, all the continents will converge again.
by the way, the Zim farms are more beautiful – wild and uncropped, biota multiplying once again in the soil where pesticides once reigned. It is all a matter of perspective. I am sure mother-earth Africa prefers her soil recovering.
If I’d not met Jesus – I’d still be a hell-bent love-sick mess over Africa – til death do us part. The Africa Bug is very powerful. I even have a dear friend of Puerto Rican origins (who has repented now but) who had been a violent career criminal from New York City, done like 15 years in US penitentiaries – but read something about Jane Goodall in the 1970′s and has had the Bug ever since. It defies explanation. (does anyone know which countries might easily admit repented felons? he’d love to visit.)
Lovely article!
Just sad that Harris wants you to accept the “peculiarities” such as mistreatment of women, corruption, etc.
All of us transplants love Africa. I too feel sad that I am not completely welcome here.
But, what to do……..?
I salute you for echoing my sentiments and I am sure that of most of ‘right thinking’ people.
Africa has won my heart too.
I love Africa too and you dear Sarah has put into words what a lot of us would like to be able to say.
Yep … totally fucked up… (your words) it seems that the only reason whites want to be in Africa is because that’s what it is … a place where they can live their dysfunctional relationships and attitudes out in real life.
Boring Aussie, bland Europe, kitsch America … who needs those dumps, when here we can be true to our arrogant, primeval, egotistical selves and f**k the rest …
Fortunately nobody needs your kind of love. You know, mosquitos love us too, but for the wrong reasons. If you could find any other place to take your love – we would be more than obligated.
Beautifully said, Sarah. Love without schmaltz.
@Just Saying
If you want to speak about “mistreatment” of women, take a look in the mirror and you will see the underbelly of society where trafficking, violence and commercial exploitation of poor women and children by the richest countries in the world are hidden and not covered by mainstream media – who instead, continue to hype female genital mutilation and head scarves but ignore male genital mutilation and degradation of females in western culture.
If you want to speak of corruption, then just look at Europe where entire countries are collapsing and generations are suddenly enslaved into economic servitude by a financial system that favors the 1%.
Then tell me again with a straight face of African’s “mistreatment” of women and “corruption”. Lets not mention the continued rape of the earth by the usual suspects while blaming China and India for “overpopulation”…just saying…LOL
So what you are really saying, is that Africa is the perfect holiday destination. Have you considered having a long distance relationship?
Well said, I have so much love for Africa, it hurts.