Africa Union Day - what does it all mean?

Today, March 2nd, is Africa Union Day, which conjures up images of all Africa's people holding hands and singing songs of peace and harmony. Is this actually the case? Are Africa's people united, will they be united in the future, and were they ever united in the past?

A common misconception about the partition of Africa by European colonisers is that Africa was divided into about 50 smaller states. This is not a true reflection of what happened, however, as at the time there was no such thing as "Africa", but rather a scattering of kingdoms throughout the continent that had their own boundaries and areas of conflict.

What the colonial powers did was far worse than splitting a unified area. Instead they forced different tribes and kingdoms to fall under the same rule in places, and split tribes and kingdoms between rulers in others. This destroyed all existing social hierarchy, and caused massive rifts and conflict within the newly-created colonised states. Often these conflicts were encouraged and stimulated by the colonial powers, who used them top their advantage in keeping their "subjects" from taking out their frustrations on the colonisers. When these states then sought and gained Independence these conflicts became even more severe as different factions fought for control of state resources, and explains the constant civil war and violence between groups within the same African countries.

That was a very basic, summarised version of the partition of Africa and of course there is a lot of debate around the extent to which Africa was united or not before the slave trade and colonisation. So going back to today's Africa Union Day, we must again ask the question:

Is Africa united?
Judging by the political instability and cross-ethnic violence that is taking place in far too many countries in Africa, I would say definitely no. Ironically there seem to be far better relationships between countries that within countries. More importantly, does Africa need to become more united? Well, looking at the rise of the East Asian economies during the 80s and 90s, which happened in a very coordinated, collaborative process, I would say that Africa definitely would gain economically from working together more closely in its trade and industry. And it would certainly benefit from not having so much cultural and ethnic conflict, which would improve the majority of Africans' lives considerably.

So let's celebrate Africa's movement towards Unity, and do whatever we can to help to bring peace and stability to our neighbourhoods, communities, countries and, perhaps, our continent.

Brian

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Can the Overstrand set an example for overcoming Xenophobia?

With "that tournament" now done and dusted, it's time for us to get back to our old routines. That means time for us to be innundated with stories of violence, crime, poverty, unemployment and the rampant spead of HIV/AIDS. Those issues didn't just disappear once FIFA rolled into town - they were just knocked out of the headlines by a barrage of Jabulani balls.  the reality is that while most had a great time during the world cup, for many people life has been just as difficult.  And with the recent uprising of xenophobic threats, it's now time again for our country's visitors to wonder if they will be able to just get on with their lives or if their lives are at risk.

I found this definition of xenophobia:
 Xenophobia is the uncontrollable fear of foreigners. It comes from the Greek words ξένος (xenos), meaning "stranger," "foreigner" and φόβος (phobos), meaning "fear." Xenophobia can manifest itself in many ways involving the relations and perceptions of an ingroup towards an outgroup, including a fear of losing identity, suspicion of its activities, aggression, and desire to eliminate its presence to secure a presumed purity. Xenophobia can also be exhibited in the form of an "uncritical exaltation of another culture" in which a culture is ascribed "an unreal, stereotyped and exotic quality".

Now, is it just me, or have we recently had a flood of "strangers" and "foreigners" in our country? you don't get much more culturally different than a Japanese or Slovenian supporter, do you? So with these hundereds of thousands of foreigners in town, why is it that only those who have relatively little money and come from the same continent are being threatened with their lives?  Wasn't the "whole continent" on Ghana's side, willing them to get as far in the competition as possible? It's sad that this sense of unity can degenerate so quickly into irrational and senseless threats of violence against people who were a couple of weeks ago on the same team.

There are many hardships that our Overstrand communities face, but one of the advantages that we have over our big cities is that we have a close and connected society that has the capacity to work through its issues on a human level.  So let's see if we in the overstrand can set an example for the rest of South Africa to follow.  Let's recognise that we can achieve more by working together and talking about our differences than by blaming others for our troubles.  All NPOs, buinesses, the municipality, religious groups and institutions, and community leaders need to take a stand against Xenophobia so that we can avoid a repeat of what happened in 2008.  We've shown the world that we can host people who are spending lots of money - let's show them that we can host and care for those without much at all.

What do changing seasons mean for our communities?

It's just started to rain this morning, and the weather report says that there's going to be a heavy downpour of about 30mm today. I look forward to the coming of winter. For me it means more frequent and larger swells, NW offshore winds, fires in the living room, walks in the drizzle bundled up in many layers and protected by an umbrella. I can get around in my car if it's too wet for my motorbike, and there's always a hot shower and warm bed waiting for me at home.

But for many people living in our communities the coming of winter is not a pleasant occasion, especially here in the Western Cape where our winter rainfall combines with dropping temperatures. Informal housing that has been built on low-lying ground (most of which used to be wetlands before being urbanised) gets flooded year after year, and diseases spread like wildfire. Speaking of fire, unsafe heating heating within shacks frequently cause these dwellings - and all around them - to burn to the ground along with everyone's worldy possessions.


These problems go on year after year after year. What can we do to avoid the constant flooding, burning illness and cold? For me, there is only really one solution: we cannot have a population who are living in shacks. If people are living in formal housing with insulation, weatherproofing, warmth and safety, we will see far less flooding, burning and illness. But we cannot just give houses to those who have none. As any low-cost housing development will show, backyard shacks spring up as soon as the houses become accupied, and they experience the same problems as their counterparts in informal areas. Home-owners without income or means of earning income will also be unable to maintain their houses and pay their rates, and in the end we will be back to square one.

The only way for our wet and cold winters to become somthing that everyone can look forward to is to educate and train our currently disadvantaged citizens so that they can create and obtain sustainable livelihoods, thus lifting themselves out of poverty and being able to purchase/rent and mantain their dwellings. this, of course, may seem obvious. The difficulty lies in coming up with creative solutions to achieve these aims that are long-term. Maybe even 20-30 years before we even start to look at progress? There are just no quick fixes here, and we need to find a balance between long-term outcomes and enabling people to manage in the mean time so that these goals are achievable.

I've left a lot open for discussion, and there is plenty to comment on, so please join the discussion. Can we do it? Can we survive our own organsional and networking threats (funding, mismanagement, skills shortages, infighting etc) and overcome societal threats (drugs, violence, lack of education, unemployment, HIV/AIDS, teen pregnancies etc) to empower and liberate the nation? Is this really possible?

It can be, but that just depends on our approach to the challenge and our communities' responses to our efforts. Please join the conversation, and we can see what we can do.

And if you can, enjoy the wintery weather...

Our first blog!

Welcome to our first blog!  This first post is just to say Hi and to let you know that we're up and blogging. Look forward to more posts soon.  Our website is under reconstruction and will be up and running soon as well. I'll keep you up-to-date as soon as anything happens in the world of HRT...