Two of the students in my friday evening class were comparing notes on how high their fevers were earlier in the week, and i guess osmosis rules in the classroom because saturday afternoon i came in at 101.6F. The benefit of being sick on a rainy day is that i felt absolved of guilt at being totally unproductive and catching up on episodes of The Daily Show. John Oliver did a segment on Kenya, 'whose chief exports in 2008 were coffee, tea and american heads of state.' You can watch the whole piece here; it's a bit disrespectful (?) but true to form.
Most of it was an interview with the Kenyan Ambassador to the UN, who clearly did not understand Oliver works for a comedy show. When asked to name 3 non-gloomy facts of the Bush administration, the Ambassor pointed out (1) the US didn't break out into a civil war, and (2) there is no state that seceded (sidetracked, we never heard #3). Although Oliver chided him for being historically inappropriate, i thought it was a poignant reminder of the level of both state and personal insecurity that exists today for a sizable portion of Africans.
Based on my knowledge of Africa - feel free to fact check - i came up with this list of countries which are either having a civil war or significant ethnic/religious violence, have recently had a coup and it's hard to say how long things will remain 'stable', or have experienced measurable political unrest in the past, let's say 2-3, years.
Central African Republic
Nigeria
Chad
Sudan
Angola
Rwanda
Uganda
Somalia
Eritrea
Zimbabwe
Democratic Republic of Congo
Kenya
Western Sahara
Mauritania
Algeria
Cote d'Ivoire
Guineau-Bissau
Liberia
Madagascar
It's worth noting that 3 of these countries share a border with Kenya, so on top of having to deal with up to 300.000 of its own internally displaced people, Kenya is also providing a haven for 265.000 refugees (2007 figures from the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, Norwegian Refugee Council). Large numbers of refugees of course contribute to any political instability already fomenting. For those of us living in countries with at least moderate functionality and security, the comparison to Africa should have a calming effect even if it's not enough to keep you from running to the prescription counter every time the price of fuel or fajitas goes up.
Going back to the Ambassador's comments, it's hard to say whether acceptance of Bush for a full 8 years is a sign of national stability or national apathy. i'm going for Door #2 on this, as i think that while there is a rich and colorful history of protest movements in the US, there isn't much of a revolutionary history (and no, don't say the War Between the States was an attempted revolution because it wasn't; it was a war of secession that accepted the US government for what it was). It's hard to imagine the Congress and White House being stripped of their powers by anyone other than the US military; i can't think of anyone i've personally known who would torch the US Constitution, and i've met some pretty anti-government kinds of people. American Indians - probably the most likely candidates for wanting to see the US govt dissolved - are well-versed in treay law and continue to demand the US be respectful of the same, as is required by.... its constitution.
Well, now there's Obama and a new day is a-dawnin' - however poorly stimulated. Where i live, people are a lot happier thinking about President Barack (translated into hungarian, the name with this spelling means 'peach') than their own no-win elections coming up in 2010. Contemplating the Congo is not going to make them feel lucky - not by a long shot. Thankfully, there is now a Comedy Central/Hungary to help ease both disgust and apathy.
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