By Alemayehu G Mariam
June 24, 2013
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Shudi: By the way, have you heard?!
Duma: What?
Shudi: Obama is coming!
Duma: Where? Here. To Africa?
Shudi: Here. To Africa! How cool is that?
Duma: For summer vacation?
Shudi: No, man. To make glorious summer of the winter of discontent in the dark continent! Ha ha... ha…
Duma: Who was that African prince in “Coming to America”? Eddie Murphy?
Shudi: That’s right. American President Obama is “Coming to Africa”.
Duma: Ah! Xi Jinping was here.
Shudi: Who?
Shudi: He is coming to...
Duma: Wait, wait, don’t tell me! He is coming to go on a safari?
Shudi: Yes, but that was cancelled. In Tanzania. But he is going to Robben Island!
Duma: But Nelson Mandela is no longer there? Long Live Nelson Mandela!!!
Shudi: Of course he is not.
Duma:
Let me guess. He is coming to visit Nigeria and Ethiopia? And Kenya,
his “father grew up there herding goats in a tiny village…”
Shudi: No, no. Not that.
Duma: Tanzania, South Africa? Big partners in the war on terror?
Shudi: No, man.
Duma: Why is he going to Cape Verde and...?
Shudi: To “reinforce” how much Africa means to America.
Duma: Africa means something to America?
Shudi:
He wants to tell Cape Verdeans, Tanzanians and... he will be working to
“expand economic growth, investment, and trade in Africa.”
Duma: China has that locked up! A day late and a dollar short again.
Shudi: But not for “strengthening democratic institutions and investing in the next generation of African leaders.”
Shudi: Sort of...
Duma: What is the population of Nigeria and Ethiopia, Shudi?
Shudi: Don’t know.
Duma: 255 million.
Shudi: That’s a quarter of a billion people.
Duma: And Cape Verde, Senegal, Tanzania and South Africa?
Shudi: Maybe 70 million.
Duma: Barely 100 million.
Duma: Seventy percent!
Shudi: Hmm! Oldest continent. Youngest people?
Duma: No, Shudi. Africa is the Continent of Young People.
Shudi: What are you saying, Duma?
Duma:
If Obama wants to talk to the "next generation of African leaders",
wouldn’t it be better to go to a place where you have the largest number
of young Africans?
Shudi: Or talk to your best and closest partners in Africa?
Duma: That's right. Preach the gospel of democracy in the jungles of African tyranny.
Duma: Ethiopia, Nigeria. He can do business with them, but can’t be seen in public with them?
Shudi: If you must put it that way… Well, can’t be seen going into a bordello.
Duma: Aah! Obama is coming back to his African roots, that’s good Shudi.
Shudi: No, coming to talk to Africans.
Duma: Talk...
Sweet talk. Tough talk. Small talk. Talk peace. Talk war. Walk the
talk. Don't walk the talk. Talk the talk. Talk sense. Talk
nonsense. Talk is cheap. Money talks, bull_ _ _ _ walks. Talk, talk,
talk…?
Shudi: What do you want him to talk about, Duma?
Duma: Talk about… no. Talk to us.
Shudi: Us. Who is “us”?
Duma:
We, the young people of Africa. We, the future of Africa. We, the next
generation of African leaders. We, the 70 percenters.
Shudi: He promised "us" in Accra? "This is a new moment of promise..."
Duma: We Africans say, “A promise is a cloud; fulfillment is rain.”
Shudi: But he…
Duma:
He promised to “support strong and sustainable democratic
governments.” He promised to support “strong parliaments and honest
police forces; independent judges and journalists; a vibrant private
sector and civil society.” Where is the rain?
Duma: And sing and dance with them too.
Shudi: That don't make sense.
Duma: Obama prefers silent diplomacy.
Shudi: What’s that?
Duma: Silent diplomacy, Shudi, is like expecting rain without clouds, without thunder and lightning.
Shudi: It's the diplomacy of silence.
Duma: With your friends and partners, Shudi, you speak in the language of silence?
Shudi: Only when you speak with them behind closed doors and the light's off.
Duma: In the end, we will remember not the words and promises of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.
Shudi: Or those who say are our friends? Who said that?
Duma: Martin Luther King.
Duma: No free expression, unending press suppression, religious persecution, dissident intimidation, detention... in Africa.
Shudi: Gender discrimination, tribalization, ethnic subjugation...
Duma:
Didn’t we chant “Oh! Bama, Oh! Bama” when he told it like it is:
“Africa doesn't need strongmen, it needs strong institutions. Make no
mistake: history is on the side of these brave Africans, and not with
those who use coups or change Constitutions to stay in power.”
Shudi: If history is on the side of few brave young Africans, who is on the side of Africa’s strongmen?
Duma: Obama? Did he make a mistake?
Shudi: Who is on the side of the millions of frightened Africans living in misery and quiet desperation?
Shudi: What?
Duma:
“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the
side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a
mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate
your neutrality.”
Shudi: I know somebody said that.
Shudi: What should he tell Africa’s elephants, I mean strongmen?
Duma: Shudi, to tell or not to tell Africa’s strongmen to take their foot off the mouse's tail, that’s the question.
Duma: Fighting terrorism, of course.
Shudi: Not fighting corruption, human rights violation?
Duma:
Fighting the independent press and winning a crushing victory. Smashing
civil society organizations. Trashing elections, how about that?
African strongmen are doing a great job!
Shudi: But is history on the side of Obama?
Duma: History is on the side of the brave...
Shudi: I don’t understand.
Duma:
Shudi. There is nothing to understand from history. To learn or not to
learn, that's the question with history. “Those who do not learn from
history are doomed to repeat it.”
Shudi: Promises?
Duma: Forgetting mistaken promises.
Shudi: Don’t you care about what Obama has to say when he comes to Africa?
Duma: I care only about what he does. Let him speak with his actions.
Duma: That’s JFK. Kennedy said something like that to Americans.
Shudi: What do you say to Africans.
Duma: Make a choice.
Shudi: Like Obama?
Shudi: Obama has made his choice?
Duma:
Might trumps human rights. Wrong is right if the choice is between
brave young Africans who march for the love freedom and African
strongmen who chase terrorists for the love of power. Only the strong survive, the brave...
Shudi: I think the brave survive and thrive more than the strong. You know why Duma? There
is a brave new young Africa rising, rising like the sun on the dark
continent. When the sun rises and shines on the brave new young Africa,
right shall make might, Duma.
Duma: “I dream of an Africa which is in peace with itself.”
Shudi: Like Nelson Mandela?
Duma: Yes, Nelson Mandela, the Dreamweaver of Africa. I dream of a brave new young Africa at peace with itself.
Shudi: Peace, truth and reconciliation for Africa. May he live a thousand years!
Duma: A thousand long years! Long Live Nelson Mandela!!!
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