Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from May, 2011

TEBA Workers to receive their money

forty years of mining migrations from Malawi to South Africa, it's finally pay day and I'm happy that these men did not risk their lives (under ground) and leave their families behind for nothing....Finally...something for the ex-miners to smile about :-)

The Royal Wedding- from an African development point of view Part 1

Disclaimer-this is a subjective opinion and not a political statement. Let me admit, I had planned to boycott watching the royal wedding on TV. Prior to the broadcast last Friday morning, I kept myself purposely ‘out of the loop’ on anything to do with it. I had taken up the chant ‘why should I bother about a royal family I’ll never meet when I have my own king right in my own Ngoni nation whose title was stripped to the bare-sounding ‘Paramount Chief’? On the morning itself I woke up and found myself house-bound due to a mix of unforeseen circumstances and I thought…’what to do but turn on the telly.’ So, long story short I watched the entire thing (sans the private reception obviously). As I watched, several things became apparent. The first was the recognition of the multiple facets of my own subjectivity. As a child of the 80s, my memories took me back to my mother’s stack of ‘Royal Wedding’ glossy magazines filled with the Prince and Princess of Wales. Without cheating by l

The Royal Wedding- from an African development point of view Part 1 1/4

Disclaimer: this is a subjective opinion and not a political statement ...I was sidetracked at 16, when news of Diana, by then LADY Diana hit Malawi. I was in a Catholic boarding school for girls at the time. We heard all the conspiracy stories as we counted the number of mangos in in the tree or was it during Prep time?...I believed some of them…even heard that some of her jewels had been donated to our school through a charity organisation. I pictured seeing my first royal jewels, I imagined huge orbs draped in gold... I got boils around this stage (don’t be disgusted, it’s part of the story) and went home to my mother to recover. My mother lived in a small town, Kasungu but wouldn’t you know it. A family in my neighbourhood had the VHS of Lady Diana’s funeral. I watched the tape with that family’s kids (they were watching it for the umpteenth time) and wept as Elton John sang the ‘Billy Jean’ song re-written for Lady Diana. In my teen Christian mind I was puzzled and afraid as I

The Royal Wedding- from an African development point of view Part 1 1/2

Disclaimer: this is a subjective opinion and not a political statement ....So, here I was, an African, theology and development adult student, not the young Commonwealth child/teen. What did I think? Let’s make believe that I have four arms. OK? Here goes: on one hand, as a woman, I was mighty impressed by THE DRESS, I was impressed by how the bride and groom turned out (…they are my age by the way, so that was a touching experience), I was impressed by the formalities, by THE DRESS, the simplicity yet sophistication, the homily and of course, THE DRESS! On the other hand, as an African theology and development student, I was not impressed by the opulence that went into the whole thing. I read a few months ago a comment on a website (a habit I have since toned down on); a guy wrote with great zeal: ‘why do we think there is only one pie the world is eating from, there are many pies, the American pie, the European pie, the Asian pie….let the rich get richer…after all, it doesn’t

The Royal Wedding- from an African development point of view Part 1 3/4

Disclaimer: this is a subjective opinion and not a political statement On the third hand I thought about Eurocentrism. It creeps up on you slowly, the fact that you subconsciously watch the parade of global royals with no interest until suddenly there is a European royal and suddenly you are like, ‘who’s that? Doesn’t s/he look wonderful…move over Prince of Benong Beng! I want to see that European, which European country did they say s/he is from?!’ I didn’t catch myself doing this until I was surprised to see two choir boys, one clearly from Asian descent and the other from African descent. And then it suddenly hit me, I was at Heathrow airport a few years ago and definitely there are Brits of Indian, East Asian, African origin aplenty! You get my point. On the fourth hand, and the last hand what impressed upon my mind a few days later is the question of Osama bin Laden. Of course, my African trees and sunlight don’t tell me much but I do wonder about what impact HUGE celebrations