Some are skeptical of possible incoming South African President Jacob Zuma. His somewhat lengthy list of corruption and rape charges were all dismissed just two weeks before elections. Zuma has fought strenuously against all allegations stating that they stemmed from political foe and former South African President, Thabo Mbeki. Unfortunately, outside of African countries, most of us just hear of the corrupt leaders and the poor Africans they are oppressing.
Since I began researching countries in Africa, I began to grow more and more cynical. I was for the first time forming a distrust of my country. I began looking at everything differently and assuming there was a conspiracy with everything if it didn’t make sense. I began to heed my parents theories on the death of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. I started fine tuning my listening about our government – went back and reviewed our American history beginning with the slave trade. I found a trail of corruption, oppression, conspiracy and just plain evil. Once I moved from my American history to African history I grew more upset. I grew upset the more I read about the colonialism and corrupt dictators. But what was most upsetting was learning what is apparently the American government rule: Unless we have a stake in something we turn a blind eye. I realize its not feasible to help everyone across the globe, but why must we pretend that third world countries do not exist unless they have something we want? I found myself becoming a person I’m not – a person so distrusting in anything good and right. I was becoming a person that didn’t believe. My frame of thought always was to believe in something – anything and everything. If we don’t believe how will things change?
