inheriting our cities

(...still at Schiphol...)

Addis Ababa is one of the few (the only?) capital cities in Africa not built by the colonizers, whether it be the French, the Belgians, the Germans, the British (the list goes on and on). Yeshi, an Ethiopian woman who I met in Dar es Salaam, was outwardly proud of this and emphasized that Ethiopia was never colonized by anyone.

As Yeshi said, “We did not inherit our city.”

An American I know here commented the other night on Ugandan politics. Her claim: Uganda cannot function with a democracy as we know it in the States because the level of education is too low and poor people are swayed to “sell” their votes in exchange for money or other needed commodities. African governments are notorious for suffering from corruption and nepotism, yet I disagree with the notion that democracy is impossible in Uganda. Yes, Museveni changed the constitution so that he could run again in the Feb 23 elections – he’s been President since 1986 – but a level of democratic government still exists 30 years after independence. I think people forget that the US did not have democracy figured out when we gained our own independence from Britain. Instead they see the end result (200+ years later) and don’t understand why the governments of the developing world cannot reach a similar level of sophistication in 1/10^th the time. 30 years after American independence, neither women nor blacks could vote, and people had to pass a literacy exam to vote. Left on our own, we had the luxury (sans meddling by foreign influentials) to figure it out. We made lots of mistakes on the way, but the government we developed was our own. On the contrary, Africa has never been left alone and has been constantly under foreign scrutiny, involvement, and influence. Uganda’s government is a post-colonial, post-dictatorship government. 101africa 101paige