| THE | ARUSHA TIMES |
ON THE WEB
| ISSN 0856-9135; No. 00211 |
March 9 - 15, 2002 |
ON THE WEB
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Geneva: The Arusha of Switzerland (NOT)!
Just when exactly should we expect this madness to be over? I mean, Arusha is now said to be the “Geneva of Africa”...Tee hee! Mind you, it all started like a joke. Some clever writer of the ‘East African’ weekly, put it in his column, prior to the Clinton’s Arusha visit back in August 2000 . Old Bill, as usual, picked that cue from the paper, then mumbled it in his speech and... hey presto! The chorus caught on...Mind you, Ole Clinton didn’t get the chance to see what Arusha looked like, otherwise he wouldn’t have mimed to that song of blasphemy. Fair enough. After all, Clinton is a self-confessed singer (Not sinner), a rock- and- roll enthusiast, just like Tony Blair...Hey! plug on the electric guitars. But the “Arusha, Geneva of Africa” tune, will never make it to the top 200 of the US Billboard charts, or even the UK Top of the Pops charts and apart from some few, misinformed, local bureaucrats, the tune is not selling here either. It is not even a tune, to start with, but a mere statement which should highly be discouraged as it is now turning to be some sort of an insult ... A cleverly calculated one at that. As somebody once said: “What goes around comes around,” If Arusha is the alleged Geneva of Africa, then Geneva on the other hand, should be the Arusha of Europe. Rather far fetched isn’t it? Okay, let’s settle for Geneva being the “Arusha of Switzerland!” Geneva is not the capital of Switzerland, just as Arusha is not the capital of Tanzania, or Africa for that matter ...Though they are trying to force it into becoming the capital for the alleged East African Community (!). Good Gracious! As we go on, it is actually becoming obvious that, sizing up Arusha to Geneva is like comparing the two ends of Gog and Magog...Still, we shall try. Geneva is located between the Alps and Jura mountains, while Arusha is situated at the foot of Mount Meru and a whooping 100 kilometres from Mount Kilimanjaro. Geneva has more than 30 natural and cultural museums. But by the time you read this, the only one and ailing cultural museum in Arusha would probably have ceased to exist. Over 200 trains commute in Geneva daily, while it may take up to 200 weeks, before a single train ever finds its way to Arusha...And when it finally does, somebody usually ends up dead along the railway line. At least the road drainage systems of Geneva work, and the city has street lights, two of the luxuries which Arusha can only whistle for....Do they charge parking fees in Geneva? There are about 75 domicile banks in Geneva, while in Arusha, we have only six banks all of which apparently, happen to be branches of major banks elsewhere. Mind you, nowadays local robbers are also making sure that not a single cent will ever reach to these banks ... At least, not now that guns are easily available for sale in town. In other words, the writing is on the wall even for these few banks and their days are as numbered as the numbered accounts of those financial institutions in Geneva. Oh! By the way, our local politicians and “statesmen” usually hide their stolen loots, in those secret vaults and numbered accounts found in Geneva....Actually, this is the main source for our state of poverty! The European headquarters of the United Nations (UN) are also located in Geneva, meanwhile on the other hand, the UN- Tribunal for Rwanda is in Arusha ... As if we needed it in the first place. However, despite the last week’s flirting with the idea, Switzerland is not a member of the UN. In fact, there are posters in most public places of Geneva, showing a picture of some rather huge man with a number of tiny men, busy licking his shoes. I guess the huge guy is the narcissist UN, while the little guys are the countries of the world (Tanzania included), naive enough to jump onto the UN bandwagon. Speaking of the United Nations, wasn’t this same monolith the referee in the 1994 Rwanda killings? Then why bother the innocent people of Arusha with a white elephant Rwanda tribunal? Actually, it was due to this funny Tribunal and the alleged; Burundi Peace Negotiations, that prompted some fellows into calling this town Geneva....Genocide would have been the appropriate name. Anyway, the Burundi guys were first to realize that Arusha had a Snowball-in-hell, chance of ever becoming a Geneva of anywhere, so they took their “Peace negotiations” back home. Oh! And Arusha is just about to be split into two regions; Gog and Magog...So much for the alleged Geneva of Africa! Nice insult by the way. |
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Last modified:
March 09, 2002. Webmaster: WDJMallya |
By
Valentine Marc Nkwame