As I walk into the bathroom and see small, tiny, little pieces of toilet paper strewn across the floor I asked, for what sounds like the gatritzillion times in my two year old son's life, "What have you done?" How does he manage to do such things in the 3 minutes that he is out of sight? Anyways, the despair in my face clearly did not sway him as he gives me a shy cute smile that melts my heart away. And then gibberish comes out his mouth with “mama” somewhere thrown in there… *shaking my head* I then go through a psychological mess as I attempt to calculate how much the 2-ply paper cost and why the hell I bought 2-ply when life is so expensive now and my a$$ can't tell the difference. Why the hell is it always at a point that he can reach it, anyways?
*shaking my head* and this is the same reaction I seem to have with our president Thabo Mbeki. Every time I see his name blazoned across the TV or the paper and I pay attention to it; I know he is gonna mess up. I end up with my face in the same toddler dilemma despair and the question "What have you done?" comes out of my mouth. The response I get is not even a cute smile; I get this grey haired face staring blankly into space looking smug. Why? Why? Why? Why does he keep doing all these things?
I keep wondering what and how I will remember him in my old age. Will I be proud to name him as one of the presidents in my time or will I shamefully, in my dentures and grey hair, say "That Thabo Mobeki messed up. I used to have a job in a thriving company, a home in a great suburb and look at me now. This country is in the state that not even that great man Manellow fought for" AND I am sitting under a fig tree back home in Bophutatswana.
How will you remember our president? I know he is giving me a lot of sleepless (not sexual) nights worrying about if my children will live in the country I love. Or will they be in a similar situation as people in Rwanda, DRC and Zimbabwe. Oh puhlease! Don't give me the "this country is not going to the dogs, it will not be like Zimbabwe". Those are the same words that were uttered by some of the "great" leaders in Africa.
Look at most of our African countries, they never saw it coming. I watched an Oprah exclusive on the women in the Bukavu region in the DRC, and the special assignment report a couple of weeks ago on the same area - the warlodrs from the neighbouring countries in that region have taken over and government can't do squat to them. They rape, torture and kill at will. A couple of days from now on, the weapons shipment from China will arrive (or it already has) in Zimbabwe to what Zanu-PF calls "war rebels". What will happen then? The people are already starving and suffering. How often do you see the Zim bus filled right to the top with huge luggage and the people squished into it looking like sardines? What did Thabo say? "Crisis? What crisis?"
Aren't those the same words he said when the DRC election results were being contested and bullets were flying everywhere in Kinshasa? Yep, and now Jean-Pierre Bemba is in exile. Will Morgan Tsivangarai have to get the same plight? Aren’t those the same words the Belgians and the French uttered when the Rwandans were being massacred in what is now known as "the genocide of our time"? Aren’t those the same words that were uttered by some people when the Kenya election squabbles started and people started dying?
I look at my son with his fake cry as he yells “mama” because he knows he messed up and I am not saying anything. At that moment all I can really believe and do is hope he grows up to be a respectable and responsible young man; and that is all I have. I hope. For Mr President I just can’t seem to bring myself to hope that he will leave a legacy that we will remember proudly. As I ponder Mr President’s tenure I wonder if he actually cares. What will he leave for future generations?
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