Today.....

A few weeks ago my friends and I sat in front of a television screen and viewed as a panel of eloquent speakers delved into contemporary African ideas on homosexuality. Being an educated lot, we listened with horror as a Ugandan member of parliament spilt vitriol and bayed for the blood of perpetrators of this ‘heinous crime’. At the end of this all, his argument had been simple. It was unAfrican. And this word stuck. UnAfrican. And thus it got me thinking what does it mean to be African?

So today I figured it out. I have the answer. It didn’t come to me in a dream or in some ultimate moment of enlightenment. Despite that, it was a moment. There was no shaft of light from the heavens and neither was there an inspiring chorus from some choir. It was simple. I changed the channel. That was the moment.

The news had begun with the same old rubbish. Some MP’s proclaiming Uhuru ‘King of the Kikuyu’s’ while Raila’s party flip flopped over the ICC issue for the 56th time. I’d had my fill of it all. This was Africa. This was what it meant to be African. Dread. Hopelessness. That focus on all that is pointless and irrelevant. And I had had enough of it. And I changed the channel. That was the moment. Continue reading →