 Hama Tuma, Ethiopian author, poet and journalist, has been active in the political and human rights struggle in Ethiopia and Africa since the sixties. His satirical essays under the general title of African Absurdities have gained support from many quarters. Some of his books (English and Amharic) have been translated to French, Italian and Hebrew.
The Other Afrik
- Panafrica
- Corruption - Satire
Will Castrating Tyrants Help?
The rest of the world has not got it yet. Many still think that Africa’s major problems concern famine, AIDS, conflicts and wars, poverty, rigged elections, nepotism and corruption, fevers of all types that are said to originate from the continent and more. How wrong. No one knows Africa like its cruel tyrants and they have time and again told the world that Africa’s problems are elsewhere.
Tyrants in Africa are often considered as lazybones but this is also very wrong. Our tyrants are very busy souls, often burning the midnight oil to find ways and means of making our lives more miserable. They are hardworking busy bees. Bringing famine to a country with fertile land and a hardworking peasantry requires not only talent but diligence. Organizing rigged elections is not child’s play even if it has been done before and experience gained. Getting money out of the tight fisted World Bank requires finesse and persistence. Even if the West wants to go along, convincing it that a one party regime is basking in a multi party system requires not only shamelessness but also hard work. Siphoning off the revenues from oil and minerals to one’s private bank accounts demands not only perfidy and greed but vigilance and diligent activity as it is a 24 hour undertaking, seven days a week and tolerates no slackening. Contrary to photos of overfed dictators dozing or napping at international meetings, our tyrants are addicted workaholics, as dictatorship and laziness do not go together. Oppression is no joke and exploitation demands indefatigable energy.
Robert Mugabe is a man of many problems, some made by himself and others by the good offices of London and Washington, ranging from the economic to the political and you name it. Naive observers would of course conclude that with all this on his old lap he would have no time to focus on gays or chemical castration of rapists. Wrong! He continues to rile against gays and his ministers want to imitate the Czech Republic and decree castration laws in Zimbabwe. Up north in Uganda where Museveni has sadly turned into the usual African corrupt power monger, the government wants to decree homosexuality a crime and to punish gays by severe imprisonment (not less than 7 years) as if Uganda does not have several insurgencies to contend with along with economic and political problems of all sorts. In Somalia, where carnage and chaos have built castles, the hardliners are busy destroying graves and cutting hands and feet of petty thieves while the country remains without a State and a trace of peace. In power or aspiring to take it, Africa has so many busybodies watching over its misery and continued suffering. NEXT PAGE
|
