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Sunday, August 16, 2009

District 6

I'm an alien, I'm a legal alien, I'm an Englishman in New York... (Sting and Police)

I saw District 9 this weekned and at first I wondered, "where are they going with this alien ish"? I was not even sure if I liked it and would have left the cinema if we had not paid for it. After the first 15 minutes however, I started wondering if it might be a satire and decided to think of it as such. Apparently, the eviction and relocation of the aliens is based on District Six, a former inner-city residential area in Cape Town, South Africa. The district was declared a 'whites only' area by the apartheid government in 1966 and the population of 60,000 forcibly removed to Cape Flats, 25 kilometres away during the following years.

This movie really got me thinking about Zimbabwe's current situation too. There are so many individuals and organizations with good intentions but when good intentions go bad, who remains to clean up the mess? Ever heard the saying " the road to hell is paved with good intentions? I think various international aid groups need to watch this movie. Sometimes, I feel like everyone wants to do so much good that they forget about the needs of the people in need.

I also begun thinking about America with it's non-immigrant laws which don't really seem to make much sense to me sometimes. At times, it feels almost as if once you are not born here, you are an inferior breed. I wonder if any of those law-makers have any non-immigrant relatives and if they have ever bothered to ask about the challenges of these people. I almost understand why there are so many illegal aliens! I do! How do you pay for legal fees that run in the $1000s and forms that cost an arm and a leg when you are unable to work legally? hmm... The focus of ones help can never be put above the needs of the person in need. Every now and then, we need to evaluate and re-evaluate our decisions. I'm still in thought. I could be wrong.

ps: If you're Nigerian, you MUST see this movie!...lol...
pss: 50th post! whoop, whoop!