Nyayo-footsteps
in Africa I felt: no achievements, no successes, the place
is only bigger and darker and worse. I began to fantasize that
this world was often like a parallel universe, the dark star
image in my mind, in which everyone existed as a sort of shadow
counterpart to someone in the brighter world
Goziba Island: no police, no government people, No taxes. Just in
the middle of nowhere.
Some governments in Africa depended on
underdevelopment to survive– bad schools, poor communications, a
feeble press, and ragged people.. The leaders needed poverty to
obtain foreign aid, needed an uneducated and passive populace to
to keep themselves in office for decades, A great education
system in an open society would produce rivals, competitors, and
an effective opposition to people who only wanted to cling to power.
The friction had been necessary, the challenges had made people
think harder, the pluralism had forced people to become
considerate. doris lessing the grass is singing r.k narayan jorge
amado v.s. pritchett shusaku endo naguib mahfouz yasar kemal his
sense of history was immediate and aggrieved you go away a for a
long time and return a different person–you never come all the
way back. Like Rimbaud you think, I is someone else
