Survivor Gabon

I am sitting here, not feeling very well and watching Survivor Gabon. I am slowly getting annoyed at the talisman imagery, the hooting and hollering African warriors sitting on the ground, as idols are burned on the ground. Yet quite interestingly, I am not changing the channel.

Barack's Assignment

God’s Assignment

Maybe it’s our casual disdain
For the epic battles fought for our pain
The simple places we could not go
Or the fountains from whence water would not flow
Perhaps it’s that we have fought, now so much
For a prize that lost its glow

Perhaps it’s that in this infinite story
Our mangled past
Has become what we now want to be cast
For how do we re-write our history?
Or forget the list of atrocities?
For we feel the pain of lashes?
Encumbered by what we so often remember
Of the voyages that ended off-shore
In the bowels of ships, never told

Is this what has left us encumbered?
To roam the land; as if handicapped and hindered?
Perhaps it’s that while we would suffer
We were left lying asunder
Our wilderness has held like a tether
A constant and non gentle reminder
That God’s love had not escaped our encounter

Perhaps we should now simply acknowledge
That there rises a man full of robust regal splendor
Whose words do not fall like gentle raindrops
But beat like the steady drum of thunder
His eyes the vision of fire, his voice committed desire
To make promises of changes from yonder
Where only pain and suffering once held us in corners

Perhaps it time to accept that forever
Will not be a reflection of never
Perhaps we should weep with excitement
That our children will now know power as an enticement
Perhaps even as we cry with excitement
We should revel in God’s prophetic development
That Barack is his chosen assignment

© Soneka K. Kamuhuza 11-5-08

Grave Robber Elections

I have been asked my opinion about another election that matters to me. One that is almost eight thousand miles away in a country in the south of Africa. As I describe it, South Central Africa. You see while everyone here is on eggshells, the Presidential results in Zambia are in.

The new Zambian President is Rupiah Banda of the Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) an old political ally of the past few presidents, Chiluba and Mwanawasa. Wait one minute, if my memory serves me correct, he may have even played a role in Kaunda's government. There seems to be a theme here. In with the old.

What's crazy is that his opponent is a former Kaunda and MMD crony himself. Now a member of the opposition. These guys are both fossils who somehow continue to be able to stoke the flames of pre-independence rhetoric gurgling from their mouths to entice Zambians. So what in essence were our choices? What makes these guys different from say a Chiluba?

What may be different is that during their lives they have both lived way above the average Zambian's means. They have been able to afford nice homes in our most affluent neighbourhoods, luxury cars and sustained the ability to send their children -sizable families- to schools in England and America. They've both had successes as businessmen and political henchmen, enough to load up on the political vitriol over years. So they, unlike Chiluba may be less inclined to make -as their first act of Presidency- a get rich scheme part of their repertoire. Do not bet money on this last inference.

I have heard the lament of continued MMD rule and how some wished Michael Sata had won. Let me remind you that this is the same guy who as a Kaunda front man, closed the entrance to a government building off a major throughfare and used it as a private entrance, got into numerous verbal and physical altercations with other politicians, openly bribed poor people with gifts at election time, threatened to bulldoze whole neighbourhoods (compounds) and was quite unapologetic of his effusive manner and impolite bluntness. There is a breath of fresh air in such a straight forward man, but there is a man just like that, running Zimbabwe.

Now the chosen man, Rupiah Banda, is an enigma. I believe this is more like the Sarah Palin thing. No one really expected -when he was made Vice President- that he would be called on to be President. Extraordinary circumstances require some extraordinary decisions. This is the first time in Zambian history that a sitting President has died and the constitution has had to be followed as it was written.

The rumblings of Mr. Banda's suitability for the job will not cease. This is a man who is still surrounded by the ghosts that his predecessor tried to exorcise. People like Vernon Mwaanga, waiting to grab another opportunity to rob the people. What makes MMD irritating is their parties colluded incapability to close in on itself and root out filth and corruption. Chiluba is still in legal limbo, we know he stole, now then what? Are we just expected to let time go by and forget that he was broke prior to becoming President and then all of a sudden became rich? Well if we are, then it's the very same guys in power now (MMD), trying to pull the wool over our eyes.

There will be no Jedi mind tricks here. No telling us, "MMD is good!", expecting us to repeat it. We are the next generation of leaders, poised and ready to take what is rightfully our inheritance. For too long, we have allowed these old foggies to tell us we were too young, too immature to understand. They have used cultural discrimination to polarize us. "Tawakwata Mushinshi" (You have no respect) is used on us when we question their logic.

Zambia is way past the point where we can allow guys without college degrees and marginal educational backgrounds to run our country. They cannot compete in post-colonial economic and political stages. A good businessman doesn't necessarily make a good President. We are sitting at the cusp of a new millennium looking at the same faces -in positions of power- we saw when we were kids. "Where is our Obama? Where is that fresh face with innovative ideas? Where is that person who does not allow cultural myopia to define the decision making process? Where is that maverick willing to go against the grain? Where is the war cry, It's time for change?"

Until such a time, you may continue to ask my opinion about our current choice for President and his former competition. It will remain the same. They were both unsuitable and I guess people chose the less of two evils. The political zombies who seem to never die haunt both of their pasts and future. We need some refreshment, and it's not from their fountain. So now, Sata threatens unrest because of the results and the army and police remain poised. I can say only this; I know both of these men's children and as the saying goes, "The apple don't fall far from the tree". Good luck to us all, we're gonna need it.

The Last Days

Okay, it's three days till the Presidential election and we're all on edge. We expect Barack Obama to win but down inside, we're all just a little apprehensive about what tricks 'these folks' will try to pull. Please plug whatever name you want into the place of 'these folks'. It's really weird to have this secure insecurity, quite the oxymoron. However, stranger things have happened like George Bush beating Al Gore on votes counted in all places, Florida, where his brother happened to be Governor.

The reason we are wary is simply because we have recently seen exactly how much power the Republicans wield. For what feels like an eternity now we have had to choose between food and gas, or if we wanted both; getting an extra job. We have been forced to choose between activities for our kids and putting gas in the car to go to work. Many of us have limited our social activities, with no long drives to clubs or parties. If the train isn't running, then we're not coming. Our spiritual lives have suffered, having to choose not going to church over burning gas. God forgive us.

I am coming to the realization that we have been bamboozled, bushwacked, led astray by the Republicans. They are in a a panic right now, completely thrown off their game plan. Their Palin gambit back-fired. McCain now sounds pathetic, crying over campaign financing, Barack's tactics, and his credentials. So his friends have stepped in, yes, the Republican gas company owning folks have decided to play their card. I filled my tank up with $20.00 in gas today, gas is almost a $2.00 a gallon. I had to catch my breath.

The Arabs didn't start pumping more gas all of a sudden. Neither did demand didn't suddenly go down. The true players stepped up and decided to manipulate the market. How can the stock exchange go crazy and gas go down? Ask the Republicans. How can the cost of goods still be high and yet gas is down? Ask the Republicans. They have played an integral role in every messed up thing that has happened in the economy. What is their last play before they kiss the White House goodbye? The big gas push.

I would respect their move far more if they were just as blatant as we are in Africa. Just plain buy your way to the Presidency. This subtle Jedi mind trick thing iritates the heck out of me.
Too little, too late guys, "Obama for President! Bye-bye, so long, ..............."

Mbeki The War Criminal

After ten years of denying the connection between HIV and AIDS, the South African government through their new Health Minister Barbara Hogan, has admitted their mistake. For a decade, their former President Mbeki and his puppet former Health Minister Msimang conspired relatively well to deny it. Their intellectual apathy, targeted myopia and general dis-ingenuousness played dangerously to help continue the pandemic. Pushing holistic approaches, which when used singularly, cannot be an effective treatment for the virus, they battered their nation with their fortified and unified ignorance.

It is now estimated that South Africa has the world's highest numbers of people infected with HIV. Somehow, I see Mbeki's hand all over this. Fine, there are all sorts of cultural and ethnic issues that one can interject into this conversation. However, the biggest player in all of this was this President who was willing to stand in some of the most influential arenas in the world, spouting his ignorance. He displayed a critical nonchalance towards what has soon become the primary problem in his country and the continent.

In a country rich with natural resources, he has cheated its most important resource, the people of an opportunity to make a critical head start in the fight against AIDS. Still bruised from the hands of apartheid, South Africa now begins to be battered by this pandemic in epic proportions. As it rises entwined in the cloak of traditional taboos, ethnic stigma has given way to disease segregation. Many have been victimized and vilified for having the virus or dying because of it. Mbeki's refusal to provide the pandemic with its correct place in the national agenda and dialogue created the black sea of death, now the calling card of the pandemic. There is blood on Mbeki's hands.

Therefore I hereby propose that we take his @#$ to the Hague. He deserves nothing less than a trial by jury. He should be tried by a group of HIV positive mothers condemned to death for lack of medication and intervention. His charges? Meticulous foolishness, coupled by wanton disinterest. I would appreciate seeing him respond to prosecution questions about the evidence he had. How he was able to dispute proven medical theories and science. I would pay to watch him wallow as he looks at the pictures of a thin hollowed out soul ravaged by AIDS. All I know is that my dream may never come true and he will have to wait for his trial with God. However I am comforted because I'd hate to be him when the verdict gets read.

Obama a Terrorist?

Overheard at McCain & Palin rallies recently has been the term "terrorist". This has been chanted enthusiastically referring to Barack Obama. Sarah Palin has used her platform to extend the following olive branch to her radical right friends; "Obama is pals with terrorists". Wow! Now that's truly American spirit. In the middle of two wars with some real terrorists trying to kill Americans and in order to get into the White House you stoop to calling the other candidate a terrorist?

A terorist is defined as; "a person, usually a member of a group, who uses or advocates terrorism." Now, we all know this rationale doesn't make any sense. However, when you take into account Governor Palin's educational background -which reads like the credits of a movie;

• Hawaii Pacific University (Fall 1982),
• North Idaho College (Spring 1983 & Fall 1983),
• University of Idaho (Fall 1984 - Spring 1985),
• Matanuska-Susitna College (Fall 1985) and
• University of Idaho (Spring 1986, Fall 1986 and Spring 1987 ).

it is plain to see why the republicans are content to have her be the front runner of this foolishness. They need a fall guy/gal and she presents the perfect excuse if they have a bad showing.There are certain things that senator McCain cannot say given his experience and background. So, you have to have someone in your crew that can utter plain idiocies and get away with it. Good strategy on their part.

What's unfortunate is that Obama and Biden can't call her what she is without risking the wrath of empathetic voters. You see it would be seen as attacking a woman. How gallant would that be? So they have to stick to the issues. She cannot be termed a redneck, or a hick. The fact that she has been shooting game since she was three and has a lifetime membership to the National Rifle Association is immaterial. Her moose/elk burger, fisherman, snow-mobile background appeal to those that have 'red-neck' stenciled on their forehead.

That's where those of us that write come in. You see we can see past the facade of evil rhetoric, and vile vitriol. We can smell the false assault on our sensibilities. We can hear the wind whistling through the republican teeth as they pass the equivalent of verbal gas. We refuse to be appeased by people that have never had our best interests at heart.

Senator Palin's best chance of consistently visiting the White House is to do what we all do, get on the guest list.

Closing Statement

In his closing statement in the Presidential debate yesterday, John McCain said something like, "the country needs someone with experience with their hand on the tiller." Well like many, I was a bit confused. You see for a short moment there it sounded like he had meant till and just used a colloquialism. It would have been an appropriate word given the fact that -while supporting special interest groups- he and his party have robbed the American public for years.

I had to look it up and found the following in Wikipedia, "A tiller or till is a lever attached to a rudder post (American terminology) or rudder stock (English terminology) of a boat in order to provide the leverage for the helmsman to turn the rudder. The tiller is normally used by the helmsman directly pulling or pushing it, but it may also be moved remotely using tiller lines." So it appears that Mr. McCain was actually saying something quite deep. You need to be pausing for my however. Here it comes. However, who exactly did he think he was talking to? His boating friends, as they discussed their next yacht ride? His senate friends who commune in the summer on the waters off Florida's coast? Or was it the Harvard club types who meet for a brew after a day of crew? Exactly how does the common man connect with a tiller? Tell me John, how does Ms. Anna Mae Robinson from East Baltimore identify with your tiller?

It is for small reasons like this, that Senator McCain continues to exhibit why he is not fit to lead this country. Big statement coming, hold for it. He can't even speak regular English to regular folks. He has to use a word that emphasizes how polarized (distanced and disengaged) he is from the common American. I am a pretty educated fellow and even I -having inferred the meaning of tiller- still had to look it up. So now that you know what Mr. McCain was talking about, "what do you think?" Do you buy his analogy? Senator McCain believes that we need one of his hands, hopefully the one on the good arm, to be directing this country. His jabs at Senator Obama's experience and naivete -as he calls it- are becoming more common. Add Sarah Palin's country accent and annoying voice and you have a venom concerto with "Obama's naivete" its refrain.

Of course I had to look up the word naivete. I like words to be attributed and utilized correctly. Conjecture and inferences that are not rooted in directional proportion annoy me. Make any sense to you? Don't worry, me neither. The dictionary refers to naivete as, "The state or quality of being inexperienced or unsophisticated, especially in being artless, credulous, or uncritical." This description, if you may allow me to infer, sounds like Sarah Palin on her best day.

It would be naive of us to believe that Sarah could fill-in as president in Mr. McCain's stead. It would be naive of us to believe that John McCain does have four more good years ahead. We would be naive to envision that somehow the republican party has mustered a new strategy to dig us out of the black economic hole they have created. We would be naive to believe that the politics as usual stance will change -all of a sudden- when McCain is in office. It would be the height of naivete to actually believe that Sarah Palin is respected by conservative republicans. This country would be naive to imagine that after all these years in office, McCain suddenly is getting epiphanies about how to change the course of our economic, social and foreign affairs.

No, we need something just a little more radical than that, something that shows we are thinking outside the box. Something more than an African American running for president. That my friends, is an African American president.