Newsgroup: it.hobby.viaggi
Titolo: "The Siren Call of Africa" (dal New York Times di oggi)

The Siren Call of Africa
By KEN WIWA
Port Harcourt, Nigeria -- Whenever I return to my family's home on the 
Atlantic coast of southern Nigeria, I remember the old African saying 
that we return to old watering holes for more than water; we return 
because friends and dreams are there to meet us.
Our myths and proverbs sustain Africans during winters of exile, but 
like so much about Africa, the dream of an idyllic homecoming is often 
the preamble to a rude awakening.
When the writer Ngugi wa Thiong'o returned to Kenya this summer after 22 
years of self-imposed exile, his journey took a familiar arc. Acclaimed 
by thousands on his return, Mr. Ngugi declared in the first flush of 
homecoming that he had "come back with an open mind, an open heart and 
open arms." Dedicating his return to the collective struggle of the 
Kenyan people, Mr. Ngugi humbly confessed that he had "come to learn." 
Less than two weeks later Mr. Ngugi was robbed by gunmen and his wife 
was sexually assaulted. It was a bitter lesson but, unfortunately, a 
very African one.
The idea of returning is a dream that teases and torments many African 
expatriates. I am still trying to find a line through the complex thread 
of reasons that compels me to leave my young family behind in Toronto 
every three months and make the trip to Nigeria, a country that fills me 
with memories I would rather forget. The simplest line runs through my 
sense of duty to my family and in particular to my parents, which is 
strange because my mother lives in Britain and my father died nine years 
ago.
Actually, "died" is a somewhat inadequate description. My father is Ken 
Saro-Wiwa, the author who was hanged by the late Gen. Sani Abacha for 
daring to speak out against official corruption and misrule. But I 
always return to Nigeria, partly in homage to my father's memory and the 
sacrifices he made for me. I also return because, for those whom I have 
left behind for an easier life in the West, my homecoming provides 
emotional comfort and financial support. My coming back confirms that I 
have not forgotten or abandoned them to their fate. Going home is not 
just about me, it is also about those left behind.
There are many like me - second-generation African émigrés or those who 
left as children - living in Europe and North America who feel a psychic 
need to reconnect with the mother continent. It is a strange and cruel 
paradox that, while many young Africans are desperate to leave the 
continent, those who have been lucky enough to escape the harsh economic 
environment of Africa will, at some point, hear the continent calling 
them back.
Among the generations of Africans who came of age during colonialism, 
outspoken writers and artists like my father and Mr. Ngugi are legion; 
Jack Mapanje of Malawi, Ahmadou Kourouma of Ivory Coast and Wole 
Soyinka, the Nigerian winner of the Nobel Prize for literature, are some 
of the more well known. Lucky are the ones who live to relate their 
story and even luckier are those who have been exiled and then are able 
to return for the ceremony of an African homecoming. But for every Ngugi 
wa Thiong'o, there are thousands who make the trip alone and unheralded. 
Mostly the returnees are the old who, like the lions of the Serengeti, 
make the arduous journey to the place of their birth to die.
Mr. Ngugi was hardly an unwary exile, though. He of all expatriated 
Kenyans will have known that Africa, if we can generalize about the most 
diverse continent in our universe, is the land of the paradox, a place 
of astounding generosity and communal spirit with a streak of violence 
and cruelty. Mr. Ngugi has tasted its bitter pill before, in 1977, when 
he was imprisoned without trial for a year. In 1982, Mr. Ngugi, fearing 
for his safety, escaped into exile. The paradox of Mr. Ngugi's physical 
exile was that here was a writer who, even in his prime in Kenya, 
insisted that the African mind had been exiled by colonialism. In works 
like the novel "A Grain of Wheat" and his famous polemic, "Decolonizing 
the Mind," Mr. Ngugi proselytized for African literature in indigenous 
languages.
Mr. Ngugi's devotion to his own language, Gikuyu, speaks to the 
nostalgia for home - the need to locate the authentic self and free it 
from foreign influences; it is this lingering need to reconnect with an 
identity untainted by the complications of a foreign culture that often 
compels Africans to return. After all, this is what Mr. Ngugi said when 
he and his wife had taken refuge in New York after the attack: "Kenya is 
my country and I will come over and over again."
We return even though we know that going home is a journey fraught with 
complications: the sepia tint of nostalgia is pitched against the dark 
memories of one's exit, which was often under traumatic circumstances; 
the euphoric thoughts of homecoming will be punctuated by the guilt of 
having to face those you might have left behind or neglected. Going home 
is like re-entry from a parallel universe, an experience that can leave 
you feeling disorientated and alienated: a native stranger.
The risks for returned exiles are real and self-evident, but we just 
have to take sensible precautions, pour a libation to the ancestors and 
pray that we don't fall foul of the laws of diminishing returns. When we 
have safely negotiated our terms and conditions of re-entry, we can only 
hope that our friends and dreams will be there to greet us when we stoop 
to slake our thirst at the water hole.
Ken Wiwa is the author of "In the Shadow of a Saint: A Son's Journey to 
Understand His Father's Legacy."

Carla Polastro ha scritto:
| The Siren Call of Africa
| By KEN WIWA
CUT
Un bellissimo articolo e un ottimo regalo di compleanno :o)
Per quanto ne posso sapere da occidentale, le sensazioni descritte
corrispondono perfettamente a quelle di tanti africani che da anni
vivono lontani da casa. Stasera lo farò leggere alla mia metà, sono
sicura che gli farà piacere visto che l'autrice è sua connazionale :o)
Ciao e grazie!
--
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www.seshepankhatum.net
per scrivermi togli la SABBIA

 sicura che gli farà piacere visto che l'autrice è sua connazionale :o)
Veramente è un autore... Mi fa piacere che l'articolo ti sia piaciuto.
Un abbraccio forte,
Carla:-)

Carla Polastro ha scritto:
| Veramente è un autore... Mi fa piacere che l'articolo ti sia
| piaciuto.
LOL! Avevo letto solo il cognome, effettivamente se si chiama
Ken non possono esserci dubbi :o)
Ciao!
