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 The cover of Newsletter N.3
Why Obama is the world's choice
 Creole Cuisine
Why OBAMA!
Random notes on an election in ...
What Obama means to Kenyans
Revolutionary song
Another train ride
Obama, yes you can!
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WHY OBAMA!
My name is Toryimungu Jean-Claude. I was born in Rwanda.
I spare you the details of my uninteresting life in Rwanda. In 1998 I left my country and moved to Luanda, Angola. I met Anjo Negro there, in August 1999, at a friend’s birthday party. That night, I held her by the hand, see this link. And from that night on, I simply went to look for her every evening; I used to pick her up near the Cidadela stadium, at her home, where she lived with her brothers. We had beautiful moments! We went to Maputo and Inhambane together; we travelled to Rome, the Vatican and Venice. We saw Paris and Amsterdam! But our life was in Luanda. Then Clarice came, just the day before September eleven 2001. What a beginning! But nine-eleven is not that important for a Rwandan. Nor it is for an Angolan.
Other dates matter more to us than nine-eleven. Our time is different. On 22.02.2002, after some thirty years in the bush, Jonas Malheiro Sidonio Savimbi (see this) was killed by Brigadier Wala in Lucusse (see this). Peace had eventually come to Angola. At last, we could take the wind in full face, on the ramshackle roads of Kuando Kubango, looking around for fresh game meat, along paths surrounded by tank wrecks and unexploded ordnance. We could admire the dreamy wild garden of Ndalatando and go on to the grand Calandula Falls near Malanje. We could reach Bailundo, pay tribute to King Ekuikui, and hear the story of the ancient Ovimbundu kingdom right in front of Katiavala’s grave. Then, one day, the time came to simply leave Angola and move on.
So we left, without really understanding or believing we were really for good. We left, like in a last dream full of love and friendship, encircled and followed by bunches of white flowers down the stairs of our run-down building, moving to the airport amid smiles and tears, leaving our marvellous Angolan family. That was for us the beginning of many new sweet, and sour, and sometimes bitter adventures. We had a last chance to experience fugitive moments of intense light through Monteriggioni merlons, just before penetrating and touching, again, the thick heart of darkness, the forgotten lands and waters of the Great Lakes of Africa, cursed by riches, raped by devils and haunted by ghosts.
We moved away, again and again, only to reach the distant shores of a faraway lake, Lake Leman, in the cold, sterile land of thousand mountains that has known no war for centuries There, everybody who can afford it may buy his share of peace. And one day, Félicité came to join us. But Anjo Negro had already flown away again, down to a warmer sun. The Mediterranean Sea is actually a much better place to see the light than Geneva’s lake! Félicité was expected only the following day. But impatient as she is, she rushed, and this is why I caught my flight only too late. It was not my fault.
I remember when Clarice was born. I would also have been there – but the nurse just sent me off! It was 2 PM and she said – come back not before 4PM. Don’t worry pa, go have a stroll! So I left, and when I came back, Anjo Negro was still inside laying, resting, and before I could see her again, Clarice was before my eyes for the first time. She was in the arms of a nurse. Two ladies saw her before me; they smiled and said- que bébé fofa, meu Deus!
But the night Félicité arrived, the night she came to offer this world her joy too, the very moment she joined her pure heart to Clarice’s pure heart, making us richer, I was alone in Raj Patel’s tired, filthy apartment. Or better, rather than alone, I was surrounded by Patel’s empty yoghurt jars, his insecticidal garlic leaves, his beautiful but how greasy Hindu idols, his rambling vegetation, his tens of dusty carpets, and all those chairs, like in a Calcutta doctor’s waiting room, where his large family gathered during European summers.
I kept phoning my brother, who was at the hospital, assisting Anjo Negro in her labour. Between one call and another, I was keeping myself busy, writing a story on this never-ending tragedy of mass gang rape in the Congo – as I had to deliver that anyway. Eventually, Félicité came to rescue me from that horror of death and suffering. (see this)
Night of nightmare and night of dream. And thanks God, the dream has won. And it goes on. (see this)
But the nightmare also goes on. Can we simply live our dream and forget other people’s nightmare? No, we can’t. Do we really think other people’s nightmares can be irrelevant to us?
I don’t like the world the way it is going. I am tired of wars. I can’t forget Se questo è un uomo (see this). I can’t forget Rwanda. (see this)
I am tired of intolerance, manipulation, violence, rape, slavery, abuse and everything that leads to genocide. I am tired of lies. I am tired of monsters. I am tired of victims.
We are the victims. (see this) That’s why we left Africa as we managed to move to Europe. If Africa is doomed, if we are supposed to be the victims in this world, I felt it was better to try our luck elsewhere. Our final destination was Italy. Italians have reputation of good people, good food, good life; I have an Italian friend, Tullio, who is a nice fellow. He told me so much about Italy, that he convinced me… I remember when the US invaded Iraq. We were in Angola, and Tullio started telling me, and told everybody: - now, as Italy, we have no other option left, we have to make official request for adhesion to the USA. But most people, and all the southern Americans in particular, sent him vaffanculo straight away. Personally, I smiled; I did not know what the fuck he was talking about!
But today, five years after, I see he was right. In 1994 the US President did not judge it appropriate to intervene in Rwanda, and he ordered his administration not to pronounce the word “genocide”, not to be obliged to rescue those primitive Africans slaughtering each other… Then from 2001 on he could instead wage any war he wanted in the ass of the whole world to save white people from “weapons of mass destruction”! But if the American political system still gives US citizens the right to send this guy back home and pick another, and hopefully a better one, every four years, then, me too, no matter if I’m Rwandan, Italian, or Angolan, I want to have the same right to vote!
If I don’t like Mr. and Ms. Clinton, if I don’t like Mr. Bush and Ms. Palin, then I should be allowed too to vote for another! And after Bush, anybody else! I always remember Franck Zappa who, some years ago, ran for the US presidency, and when journalists asked him, why you, a musician, are running for President? He answered – I bought the book containing all the stories of all the previous US Presidents. And when I finished reading it, I told myself: how could I do worse? (see this)
But my Italian friend’s proposal to put Italy in line after Puerto Rico did not really gather momentum. He was commenting with me, not so long time ago: you see, Italy remained miserably Italy, food is still good maybe, but more expensive; democracy is vanishing, even at our small provincial level, and how many dozens atomic missiles do we have in the US military bases on our territory, aimed at Moscow? And still nobody has no fucking right to vote about it! Italians, he insisted, would have all interest in becoming Americans. With 40 million voters, if the damned US presidential candidates want our ballot, then they will have to pay for it!
And actually, if Berlusconi had understood that too, today Italy would be richer than California, and Berlusconi probably richer than Rupert Murdoch. He might even running for the US presidency by now! Like Frank Zappa, but probably worse see this. But ok. The rest of the world seems not to really understand it, but the fact is, only US.
citizens have the right to vote. The real one I mean. It looks like –hey, there is no space for both of us in my democracy! And all of a sudden, here are the US elections again. And thanks to his wars here he comes for another term: Bush again! Meanwhile, we who live in Italy, the foreigners like the Italians; we are all getting worse and worse under these tragicomic fooliticians, and all their Gomorra. The average people too are becoming a bit weird.
Something has changed; it looks like a bad force has been freed. Italians look lost. And I remember I recently saw Bush on TV, he was so friendly slapping Berlusconi’s shoulder, and Berlusconi smiled ecstatically, while paying Bush his tribute: his favourite Italian ice-cream!
And Tullio to tell me: Silvius Bananicus, the colonial proconsul from Bananistan, received by the Emperor Georgius Bellicus Silva Bananarum. He had found this video on YouTube he played often, see this. And while our leaders eat their ice-cream together, the world keeps on burning, Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Pakistan, Somalia, DRC, Sudan, Uganda, Ivory Coast, Colombia, Haiti… see this. And Darfur, of course see this. Nobody bothered. Until even the “safe haven” of Kenya was given to flames! Terrible news for the world’s investors, and for western tourists. Not to mention the people of Kenya... see this
And today, it’s eventually the US election day. While Americans decide alone about the world’s future, the Democratic Republic of the Congo is being raped again. Again and again. For the last 14 years, and nobody moved a finger to stop it. Congolese even had to invent the word to define what happens there: reviolée. Re-raped see this and this one
That’s something I have seen with my eyes in my country too. But I don’t want to talk too much about Rwanda. Another time, maybe, I will tell you more. Just be aware for now, that genocide against men, women and children continues today, in Africa and in many parts of the world.
This is why I have a request for you, Obama.
I want you to stop it. Stop genocide!
Toryimungu Jean-Claude, 4.11.2008
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Newsletter N.1 English Version