Things Got Violent

Aiden Hartley’s book "The Zanzibar Chest" is done and I’m so glad I made it past the silly blurbs on the cover comparing it to “The English Patient.”  The two narratives of the book, the father and his father’s friend’s tale connected with his own tighten to a snapping point as this Oxford intellect disguised as a looser descends into the final rung of the Inferno, there in Rwanda.  As with his chapter on Somalia when the American’s arrive, I lived through this time as an adult, who read the papers and considered himself informed.  And I knew nothing.

I had a look at what Mr. Hartley’s been up to since then.  He lives in Kenya and is still writing for the Spectator.  There were pictures of him with his wife and children.  As I suspected, given some of his musical references, we are the same age.  One gets the sense after reading about his intimate engagement with the genocide in Rwanda that he’s earned a bit of quite time to reckon with the hauntings, he says he shares with his late father.  I suppose it is great for the region and bad for reporting that things have been relatively quiet since the crescendo of that slaughter. I read his article about his family, leaving town to skip the elections there in Kenya because the last time things got violent.  Reading many of his glistening sentences I was reminded that people who are paid to write all the time often get very good at it.

The tribal violence, the electoral violence of Kenya seems a world away here in Tanzania.  Am I just missing things beneath the surface or is it really a testimony to Nyerere’s work at Ujamaa family style socialism.  Influenced but Maoist China, but fortunately not unduly, the way say Cambodia was, Nyerere’s socialism left the country among the poorest in Africa, heavily indebted by the time he stood down from office in 1985.  However efforts to educate and provide health care and unite the country may have given them a stronger base to defend themselves against tribalism, now that economic reforms have taken place.

Today we’re driving out to the beach, Pagu Pagu.  Our driver is a handsome gent in a long white robe and a skull cap to match.  His name is Zafar which he explains means “best.”  Among the different drivers we’ve had this name I somehow manage to remember.   He appreciates the questions about what we are seeing: “That’s just a block of flats.”  And manages interesting answers about which crops dominate.  But I’m sleepy and soon I’ve drift off to nod, where I play some chess with my little one just like I might in the cognizant world.



Friday, 07/07/16