Conflicts in Africa: any good news

On the …..i attended a seminar/session on the above mentioned topic organised by the UN reasearch and training agency, the panel consisted of various individuals such as Mrs Fraser-Moleketi – the minister of public service and administration in South Africa, Mrs Sydnes – head of Church Aid in Norway, Mr Edusei – Ambassador of Ghana to the US and Mr Mkandawire – a world acclaimed academic.
I must say…to my surprise, there were more europeans in the room than Africans, any way the points that I highlighted as they impressed me were that:

• For the 4th conservative year, in 2007 Africa’s real GDP growth rate exceeded 5% ….with growth becoming more broad based, of which; 25 countries achieved GDP growth rate of above 5% and 14 countries achieved GDP between 3% and 5%.


• When you talk to the people on the ground, the notion is about getting better….


• Most wars are over, but fear that lingers is that wars will come due to new themes of the world such as terrorism.


• Africa is in good track of most Millennium Development Goals


• Atleast leaders are not comparing medals on the chest but how fast economies are growing, and new definitions were given: Dictators – count civilians who can be put into military use and Democracies – leaders count people in the country and where they can be placed on the needs of country.


• Africa deals with diversity more than anyone i.e. we appear as one during the day and manage tribalism at night, but we do need a platform for diversity management to avoid the kenyan and now recently South African rapture.


• All African wants is fair and free trade and fair press

All this have been due to good policies in recent good time where better economic was managed, there were more competitive exchange rates, better institutions and governance and fewer conflicts – although we do acknowledge that there will always be conflicts as the continent is large with many different tribes and dialects.

Ps: I found diplomats to have no meeting etiquettes despite their job being to attending meetings. In us embracing communication/technology - I still find it offensive for one person to answer a phone in the middle of a session, its disrespectful to the speaker on the floor and/or presenter on the floor. I don’t know if it’s a subtle behavior amongst ‘this’ community or they are just not used to being told if something in inappropriate in a direct manner!

South African (S.A.) xenophobic attacks!

You might have realized the xenophobic attacks that had erupted in S.A. in recent weeks – which made headlines all over the world….they temporarily over-shadowed Zimbabwe’s elections, China’s Olympics and any other disasters around the world. I must say I was not impressed by my country and the violence did not improve our image at all. In Switzerland we are on all communication materials you can think of…from TV, newspapers and even tabloits (20minute is a tabloit!). South Africans need to think about what they are doing, imagine if I had to be chased around in Switzerland with fear that I will be burned to death…. I have had to be the undesignated spokesperson of SA lately with questions fuelling from Canada, Germany, Kenya, Brussels, and mostly Switzerland and I told them that ‘i hate the violence ...i think its plain stupidity of a violent uneducated and unknowledgeable minority’….why didn’t they just march and burn Home Affairs department if they had problems with immigrants and the government….what happened to Ubuntu (humanity)?

…I have been thinking about the whole saga and why it started, and it still comes back to one thing – economic refugees – mainly coming from Zimbabwe, here is the reason why; South Africa has always been a country of immigrants, the countless mines that brew diamonds, gold, platinum and all other metals we have in abundance were not just dug by South African men from the 1900…..they were dug by men from Lesotho, Swaziland, Angola, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Botswana, Zambia – there are even trains and buses from this countries coming directly into South Africa known to have transported mine workers mostly. With history you would know that most settled in especially around Johannesburg and made that home, that’s why joburg is an extremely mixed city….most children actually cannot speak one pure language because they grew up speaking all of them at once…you will find that a typical joburger in a conversation has switched to atleast 3 languages and is still understood perfectly by a recepient.
Listern to the song: Stimela by Hugh Masekela, you will understand what I am saying to you.

So with this in mind, something else must have been brewing behind to have come to this and to me economic refugees made sense… With our next door neigbour’s (Zimbabwe) drama ; with South Africa hosting 2010 soccer world cup and our president refusing to acknowledge there is a crisis in Zimbabwe plus opening our border gates as wide as possible without proper policies for refugees like intergration, status clearance, etc (…for an intellect, he is such an idiot sometimes) – Zimbabweans have found South Africa a safe heaven. Even before I left to come to Switzerland in most restaurants around joburg…most waiters and waitresses were Zimbabweans (…you can hear their proper British English with that unique accent) and I believe this has caused the chaos because there is very little resources in the country even for South Africans hence the high unemployment rate, then you have illegal immigrants treated as cheap labour by most businesses (…and what are the poor people supposed to do in Zimbabwe when there is nothing left to even put into their mouths) and this salad caused the unemployed to march and take out immigrants as they believe they (immigrants) are taking their jobs…..no employed right person who has a proper job can run around during the middle of day in pursuit of immigrants.

As I said; I do not believe in violence, we have come so far in the world to be able to find solutions for problems just by conversing (except for the US), things should never carry on like this…that is why politics are such a bore! And I hope S.A. is taking hold of the situation as competent people should, atleast a majority of South Africans marched to the government to condemn the attackes…. Check out - www.mg.co.za .