The nationalists, the first-generation elected leaders and legislators of our semi-independent nation, had begun to visit Great Britain in droves. We watched their preening, their ostentatious spending and their cultivated condescension, even disdain, toward the people they were supposed to represent…. some were stark illiterates, though full of bombast. This strange breed was a complete contrast to the nationalist stalwarts into whose hands we had imagined the country could be safely consigned.
— Wole Soyinka, You Must Set Forth at Dawn
Groundwork 
Hey there,
I just saw your poems on Poetry International and got an update on your from Ghabiba last month in New York. Somehow it has been ten years since we did our walks from UCT to Rondebosh — so long that I can’t even spell it anymore. Congratulations on all the awards — and the book!
I hope you are well ~
Love,
Susan PS ANd if you want a copy of The Cartographer’s Tongue – which you titled for me – just send me your address. I’m about to get my third book to the publisher next month. Yikes! We’re getting old!
Rustum,
Great to run into this blog–and to see your poems out there. I’d love to catch up.
Ben
Fanon says something very similar, saying that this new kind of leader need be overthrown just as much as the previous one.