Interabang / ?!

Anyone who knows me will have expected a political rant at some point, so here it goes. These thoughts have been spurred, in part, by my Politics of South Africa class. The class is an excellent one and the professor's enthusiasm and the class' organization have led me to learn more about southern Africa in the past month than I've known in my entire life. What has got me thinking, asking more questions than answering them, has been an in depth look at the international response to the South African apartheid government that ruled the country through bigotry, racism, and oppression from 1948 until 1994. Yes, 1994. A minority-ruled regime, easily comparable to Nazi Germany, was able to rule a country until fourteen years ago. It's mind-boggling.

As we scanned the never ending proverbial pile of UN resolutions on the Union of South Africa, I was forced to read one spineless, euphemistic slap on the wrist after another and found myself asking a lot of questions. The first, being what the hell is the point of the UN if the most they can do is say that they "urge" the apartheid government to change its policies, after dozens of unarmed men, women, and children are sprayed with bullets at Sharpeville in 1960. The second question, that inevitably follows that first one, is that there probably is a point and would it be better if member states could do something more? All you have to do is look at Bush's Iraq blunder to see how terribly wrong unilateral action can go. It's just so depressing to see that no matter what politicians, pundits, and revolutionaries say, vested interests rule everything and pure altruism is so close to being some ethereal construct that we create to make ourselves feel better. So in the 60's and 70's as the West wagged their collective finger at petty apartheid, and the National Party responded with a larger finger of another variety, it's all too easy to look right through the bullshit and see the United States, the UK, France simultaneously protecting their economic investments in a place as strategically important as South Africa. Likewise, as the Soviet Union and China encouraged the national liberation movement with training camps in Angola and Mozambique, they also just played on the ambiguities in Western policy, and slapped the rump of Cold War politics urging it to speed through the world. So the next obvious question - does it matter what a nation's interests are if the result of it as that they are doing good? Should we care that the Soviet Union was only really trying to create another satellite battleground for the Cold War, if through that they were funding and training the ANC's liberation struggle? Probably not, but it is still discouraging to think about, and devastating when vested interests lead the other direction (Iraq...again).

All you have to do is look around the rest of this continent to see the same playground politics at work. France and its sheltering of Hutu Power psychopaths in Rwanda during the '94 genocide, China pouring money and guns into a genocidal government in the Sudan and the Arab League turning their eyes away from the carnage being perpetrated by their "Arab brothers," the United States installing, funding, and supporting dictator after dictator to protect its political and economic interests (Mobutu, for one), and don't even get me started on the World Bank.

Also, where's the rest of Africa when this is happening? Great leader after leader in the region has preached African unity, the need to rebound from the devastation of colonialism together - Nkrumah, Senghor, Mandela, Kenyatta, Houphouet-Boigny to name a few. But where were they when UN blue helmets hid behind red tape and men, women, and children were macheted on the streets of Rwanda, or as chaos ruled and rules the DRC for the past forty years. It's beautiful and inspiring to see countries like Botswana and Zambia speaking out against Mugabe's insanity-fueled government, even as South Africa tries to mitigate a power-sharing deal: it's convenient for a regional hegemony when its neighbor is in ruins and depends on you for everything. Maybe things are changing, and as the nations of Africa begin to find their footing after hundreds of years of being trampled into the ground a difference can be made.

Is total disenchantment any better? Am I doing anything by whining and complaining about the world order and how backward and self-righteous it is? You don't see me dropping out of college and starting up a Save Darfur Army, and getting on the first flight to Khartoum. I keep myself informed, which usually means more bitching and grieving, but what can really be done? I had an interesting, frustrating, and interestingly frustrating conversation with another exchange student on the program here the other day where he expressed his utter disenchantment with the American political system and said that whether he voted for McCain or Obama it wouldn't make a difference. I tried to convince him otherwise, that Bams really could bring some great changes to the country and the world, but found myself second-guessing myself a couple of times. How entrenched are we in a system where money speaks louder than the heart, where 'hope' is another ghostly euphemism fit for a UN resolution? I don't know, but I hope my idealism can keep afloat for a little while longer, can keep me going long enough to figure out some real answers.

In the meantime, I'll apologize for potentially boring or maybe infuriating my readership and justify this rant as an effort for me to rearrange the gibberish of my mind into something comprehensible. I hope the questions I've asked are ones you maybe think about from time to time. I hope that 'hope' is a word that still holds some weight and that maybe it could be our generation that can flip our world order on its head, turning it into something dynamic, loving, and most importantly - real.