Whose House Is This?

Why is North Korea celebrating the African renaissance? Why are Kenyans running to work? How would you dress to impress god? Do you want to die here or at home?

Everyone who can is building a wall.
Everyone who can is outsourcing border control.
Everything is in the name of security.

Introducing South African Guilt tax.
Are we all perpetrators of crimes committed in the past?
And do you get a rebate if you sponsored a freedom fighter’s school fees?
From xenophobia to riots and back again.

What comes after elections?
What will be previous?
What was next?
Are diplomats immune from xenophobia?
From riots to ethnicity and back again.

From EU surveillance towers they all look the same, al Qaeda and boat people.
Everyone who can is taking the plane.
The Gaddafi-EU partnership. Oil against air radar.
Gas against night vision gear.

Who do the borders belong to?
And the space between?
Who benefits from the wealth of the ethno-nation?
Trickle-down effect?

The blackness of the Atlantic.
Post-diamond geography.
Platinum self-sufficiency.
Why gaze at the stars when it’s all underground?
What are the ingredients of Nigerian oil?

What’s the opposite of turning your back on Zimbabwe?
Are there no white shadows falling on Jamaica?
Why is “Sympathize with Gaza” a political slogan?
From ethnicity to religion and back again.

How to keep a city secret –
Make the exceptions permanent.
Look for solutions where there are no problems.

Tricks and trades of cross-border smuggling.
Policies vs practices vs rules vs customs.
The state recognises no other.
There should only be one dispute settlement mechanism.

How much money do you need to fight wealth?
Is poverty more or less visible?
Is poverty sellable?
Who’s got the highest bid right now?
From ZCC to economics and back again.

Why write under the States’ most hated name?
What’s the horror in Middle Eastern science fiction?
Are African writers killing African publishing?

The dignity of South Indians vs the nobility of Jawaras vs the fantasies of Americans.
The feel-good factor of travelling through desperate need.
Tourism is rising on European CVs.

Who pockets Africa’s US$40 billion remittance?
Are there any decent free lunches on the menu today?
Can fish soup save your marriage?
Is the Somali business model going global?
From money-transfers to Amos Tutuola and back again.

What prosthesis will take you to the Olympics?
And what opinions won’t do?
The IOC tells you what is a human.
South Africa tells you who is female.

Second hand smugglers and sacrosanct satire.
The rainforest sound of motorcycles and radios.
The Nollywood factory quality leap.
Why are there so few poems about cricket?
Headlining racist violence and back-paging lesbian killings.

Would you prefer the backstabber to the tourist?
Which ancestors are white sangomas calling?
You won’t get high on anti-retrovirals.
From pharmaphilanthropy to x and back again.

Is the newspaper a time machine?
Have all the images been exhausted?
Have all the words been disinfected?
If all news is old news how do we go forward?

Letters from Kampala.Letters from exile.
A Yeoville eating guide.
Are vegetables the new foreigners?

What is football’s most fictionalised moment?
Why do elephants love the Snake of Fire?
Did Mrs Ransome-Kuti seduce Kwame Nkrumah?
What’s the difference between black porn and white porn?
Everyone who can has a story.

A cry for the World Cup
(And a lie from Winnie Mandela).
A laugh for Abuja.
Africa and the synthesizer – a love story.
And the bass should be handled by the Cameroonians.

Is FIFA the new G20?
Is the ICC the International Colour Court?
If A is for Apple – what about Africa?

Forget tomorrow.
Sun Ra said: Linktime has officially ended.
We’ll work on the other side…
we’ll bring them here
somehowthrough either isotopeinternal
linkteleportationtransmolecularisation…

Maybe newspapers should be written by aliens?