I didn’t have a happy New Year and I am galled because the slaves are in fact elbowing one another to stay in the master's house. My brother Tajudeen in his postcard aptly states that the saturation coverage on the tsunami has more to do with the number of Westerners killed in the disaster! Yet one cannot but cringe at the fact that the catastrophe not only wreaked havoc on its victims but also brought out the baser instincts. Poor orphans watch greedy kin cashing in, bereaved families contend with self appointed "corpse finders" demanding cash upfront!

As an African woman I am not comfortable with the fact that the reporting has been uneven and there is the tendency to obscure certain unpalatable issues. Some of those countries are favourite destinations for the hordes of shameless sex tourists exerting their power on what the Cuban poet laureate Nicolas Guillén termed “dark smiling natives”. Isn’t there the the risk of stepped up trafficking of women and girls with the paedophilia brigade relocating to our look the other way countries? Secondly I am concerned at the lower rung reserved for all things African when it comes to the scale of priorities. Even in disaster relief must we cool our heels awaiting the crumbs from the Annan-Eagland-CNN table of compassion and coverage by affirmative action?

The slaves have not left and in fact are on overtime! I weep for the African casualties who may never be known, for the lone Kenyan boy who died on the beach at Malindi, the coastal resort town famed as a playground of the affluent ranging from rowdy royals like the Prince of Hanover to retired colonial spies, mercenaries, livestock officers and new rich expatriates. The kind who can smuggle in a ton of cocaine labelled personal, purchase a speed boat to transfer the loot onto a waiting liner in the high seas then beat it as a well placed “contact” tips them off on the impending police “raid”! Hollywood? No.Malindi. Where the North shuts out the South using the compliant South, sanitizing itself of its ill gotten gains and unleashing the attack dogs of privilege on the natives they have disempowered with their SAPs and knee pads…

Enter the tsunami. Over one hundred Somalis, ten Tanzanians, one South African and one Kenyan meet their Maker. One statistic at Malindi. All his poor parents could get was a Government vehicle but no fuel. The same day the Chinese Embassy finally located them in the slums of Nairobi and donated 100,000 Kenya shillings towards the funeral expenses, the State donated 100,00 Kenya shillings to the S.E Asia victims, boxes of tea (Boxing day? ) and thirty doctors.. .A case of therefore those that have shall be given!

I beg to differ slightly with Tajudeen and the Gandhi quote. The issue is not just greed for wealth and power in both hemispheres! Those who have held the world in the bondage of debt and abject poverty are ably aided and abetted by our non tsunami compliant ruling elites whose very survival is at stake. Why, their alienation quotient is on autopilot!

The slaves cannot leave the master’s house until we say: Kumepambazuka!