I STILL DON'T WANT TO BE AN AMERICAN!
The statement by Rama Yade, a young Senegal born woman who serves under the French president as a junior minister for human rights, provoked my foray into this mined field that often triggers wrath from the "we love America" camp. Yade was euphoric that Barack Obama got elected US president and said: "This is the fall of the Berlin Wall times ten. America is becoming the new World. On this morning, we all want to be American so we can take a bite of this dream unfolding before our eyes".
Rama Yade is biting a piece of a right wing French dream as Sarkozy's human rights minister and, judging from her record up to now, no tin pot Francophone African dictator is trembling at the possibility of being pricked by her probes or disapprovals. This is how things are expected to be and should be, France riding her puppets in Africa from Cote d'Ivoire in the West to Djibouti in the Horn, no mention of human rights. What makes Yade provocative is her open affirmation that "we all want to be American" and want to have a "bite of the dream". For official America that has great fears that everyone wants a bite of her and everyone in this world wants to be an American, this is a dangerous confirmation coming from a black woman no matter the significance of the Obama victory. "Rogue foreigners" refusing to change have always angered self indulgent America which has been interventionist and consequently missionary and now talks a lot about rogue states even. The contention that the world is flat, to quote Tom Friedman, and that the world is flowing into or can be made to flow into one American dug reservoir of American values and ethos is believed in by America but is dubious at best. Globalization has not erased the differences and levelled everyone into one dreary lot. On the contrary, every assault by the multinational has led to the search for roots, the ethnic is bedevilling us in the so called developing world where nation building has been wobbling for decades. The American dream, itself fuzzed by the materialistic and individualist insistence that accompanies it, is not the envy of all notwithstanding Hollywood and the cultural invasion. The contradictory nature of the American position--on the one hand wanting the whole world to be like America, to dream the so called American dream and on the other falling into the siege mentality of "the hordes are coming to bite pieces of us" (the schizoid mentality of the isolationist as it were) has made this world a tough place to live in as confused American foreign policy metamorphoses friends into enemies overnight (check Bin Laden, Noriega, Sadam) and makes foes into friends (Pakistan and Libya to mention a few) with a jarring double speed and double standard. American altruism or generosity, a credit to its people, is officially accompanied by the desire to control and humiliate. Aid has not been the panacea and America has used and abused its position in the world and caused the hatred against it that we see today in many parts of the world. The praise seeking do- gooder is often a blatant bully.
What has been called the capricious inconsistency of America is at the core of the problem. On the one hand the belief that other peoples and countries have no culture and value, no vision and future of their own worth keeping and that they should be dragged or bombed if need be to the American way. This zeal of a cult leader imbued with his self- worth and eternal correctness then clashes with the notion of "they are jealous of us the chosen people". Ethiopians, and up the Red sea the Israeli and the Chinese afar, are familiar with the notion of the chosen people that considers all others envious (and disadvantaged) and leads to a syndrome that, to say the least, is not healthy throughout. The chosen people syndrome assumes that God or some power is behind "us only" as opposed to the others and it meets a cement wall when it is confronted by a rival "chosen" (Allah is with us and hates the others). As they say, the masquerading saint, often the religious zealot, is more dangerous than the open bully. The consideration of oneself as unique leads to the desire for a special treatment, we are special and you should bend to our will kind of logic. For example, the conclusion that Iraqis wanted an Iraq as seen and composed by America was shattered when "Mission Accomplished" turned out to be a sham and the war continued. Hypocritical from the outset, this has led to the obdurate refusal to accept the cartoon character Pogo's famous saying "we have seen the enemy and it is us". We came to liberate them and to make them have a taste of the American dream but how come they are resisting us? Unable to question the very basic premise that led to the primary act or mistake itself, resort is made to anger at and contempt for the one refusing to be so liberated. The recipe for disaster, for massacres--from Hiroshima to Vietnam, Yugoslavia and Iraq the road is littered with the victims of this fundamental misconception.
Obama aside, the Civil Rights Movement aside, America was, and still is to an extent, a white supremacist society. Change is coming for sure and Obama's victory is an example of it so long as we refrain from taking the symbolic for the real and done deal. The drafters of America's Declaration of Independence owned slaves (Jefferson had 300) and the first American president George Washington had 316 slaves on his plantation in Virginia. Nowadays, the lynching is done differently but the prisons of America hold a big number of African Americans and even the outgoing president Bush had signed and approved the execution of many black men prisoners. The injustices abound and barring the euphoria, to my mind, the road ahead is bound to be tortuous. That is why I will like to assure all Americans that I for one and many others like me do not want to be American just because a half African has made it to the White House and we do not dream of biting a slice off your American dream, no. We know Hitler refused to shake the hand of African American high jumper Cornelius Johnson but it was Roosevelt who did not shake the hand of Jesse Owen when he returned victorious from the Berlin Olympics. Maybe, all this is neither here nor there just now but the praise heaped upon Obama's election (echoes of "Berlin Wall fall times ten" by Yade ) by African dictators makes us worry. The claim by Obama that America will lead and change the world is bothersome. Are we to be dragged and bombed into accepting the American way whatever that may be even if (we may dare not say it along with some others) it represents the "cesspool of morality and religious decay"? A Sudanese official found the election of Obama "inspiring" without clarifying what are the Darfurians to expect from this. Somalia's warlord par excellence colonel Abdullahi stated it was a great moment for Africa (is he hankering for an invasion?), Mwai Kibaki gave Kenyans a day off to celebrate, Luos claimed Obama's father as their own and Sudan said Obama has Sudanese roots given the "fact" that Luos were.......and so and on. The Nigerian president said "we have a lesson to draw from this historic event" without specifying if it has anything to do with fair election or not or treating the Nile Delta people and all Nigerians fairly. President Amadou Toure of Mali said America has given lesson in maturity and democracy without adding that he will try to learn from that if ever. And a Chadian official bluntly stated: it is an example to follow especially in Africa. What? The election? Electing a president who had/has an African father? The same official added that democracy knows no colour, religion or origin? Is this really a Chadian official in a country ruled by an ethnic chauvinist dictator called Idris Deby? And from Congo Brazzaville, the man who rules by the force of his horrible Ninja troops, Sassou Nguesso, said that Martin Luther King's dream "has come true". I do not know what the tyrant in Ethiopia said but I am sure it would be another useless hypocritical statement. The crux of the matter is that if an event makes both tyrants, their victims and democrats euphoric then there must be something wrong somewhere.
Without attempting to steal the thunder and lightning of the Obama victory, reality demands from us to be wary. The appointment of "Madams disaster for Africa", that is to say Hilary Clinton and Susan Rice, by Obama jolts us awake. We want a tamer, gentler and more humane America. Hence, we do not want to spread fear by openly claiming we want to be Americans (to a paranoid country that says every visa seeker is a potential immigrant) or that we want a slice of the apple pie, the American Dream. We want to stay put in our own places to nurture our own dreams and values, to follow our own visions and roads. Americans are as wonderful a people as others are but it is not true that everyone on earth wants to be an American. After all, it may be a historic event for America to elect a half African (half white person) to the presidency. For us, we have had full blooded Africans ruling over us for centuries and it has not meant much in terms of our freedom because, colour aside, they were not really Africans, and more importantly, not gentle human beings at all. Our scepticism on real change in America being around the corner must be excused, perennial victims have the habit of exaggerating their pain--didn't some one say even the American declaration of Independence was a "maudlin list of grievances"? Even the Bible asks rhetorically: Can the Ethiopian/African/ change his skin or the leopard his spots? Will Obama's America ever understand us when we say we do not want to be Americans?
Saturday, December 6, 2008
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
WHY YOUNG CHILDREN SHOULD FIGHT IN WARS
IF THEY ARE YOUNG ENOUGH TO DIE, THEY ARE OLD ENOUGH TO KILL
OR
(WHY YOUNG CHILDREN SHOULD FIGHT IN WARS?)
Hama Tuma
Or, it can be called a timely call to end the hypocrisy over child soldiers. I know my position would draw some fire even from close quarters who had been dealing with the issue of child soldiers. But, let the abscess be pricked and opened-- young boys and girls should take part in wars especially in those wars that can possibly render their lives better. In other words, if they are old enough to die they should be considered old enough to kill.
The hue and cry over the use of children in wars, that is to generally refer to those who are under 15, is currently made against those in the so called developing countries while some have even gone as far as arguing (mostly without basis ) that African traditional society called for the use of children as warriors . Imagine a child carrying (let alone throwing) a spear! Actually, the use of children in wars was very much practiced in the West. Tsar Nicholas I recruited by force Jewish children (called "cantonists") as young as eight years old. In the battle of Waterloo, children were used and many died--they were called "powder monkeys" and carried gun powder and other military items. In the First World War Baden Powell used minors as scouts and later modelled the Boy Scout movement after them. Many 13 year olds enlisted in the British Army to escape the numbing life as chimney sweepers, workers in the coal mines or in the dreary British industry. In the American Civil War, many children were used by both sides and bugler John Cook, who was 15, was among those decorated by the Army. The same happened in the Second World War--- Hitler had his Hitler Youths and young Jewish boys fought in the Warsaw Ghetto and in the resistance against Nazism. Children were incarcerated and sometimes even killed by orders of courts. In 1642 Thomas Graunger of Plymouth was executed for a crime he committed when he was 16. In present day Iran, minors are hanged by the ayatollahs and the Mollahs of Afghanistan were also ruthless. Nowadays, many in America rile against the "lunacy of lenience" and want minors severely punished and many (it must be said mostly blacks and Latinos) are actually executed for crimes they allegedly committed as juveniles. In the face of vindictive States, the child is always a victim.
Children die, children get killed. If you are old enough to be killed why are you young enough not to kill? There is no logic to it. Modern society commits crimes against children. The sanctimonious reference to children losing their innocence in war is empty talk. Victimized at an early age, many of the world's children are old enough before they reach puberty. They are victims of abuse of all sorts before they even reach puberty as the Vatican can adequately inform us. Early marriages are common in many countries. Children are labourers starting from an early age. Thousands of them are street children exposed to all kinds of suffering and abuses, the pain of which the constant sniffling of petrol and glue cannot sufficiently cover up. Of the 2 million deaths every year from dehydration and diarrhoea 95% of the victims are children under 5. Thousands of children die daily from preventable diseases and poverty. All over the world, at least 750 million people are malnourished and the majority are children as is the case now in the famine stricken Ethiopia where a heartless tyrant does take good care of his own three children. We can continue with the grim statistics of Europe and America spending 17 billion dollars on pets while the spending of 9 billion dollars for safe water and 13 billion for basic health and nutrition could save millions of lives, and effective investment in education and fair trade practices could lift 300 million people out of poverty by 2015. After all, life expectancy in most parts of the world is at 40 while it is 80 years in the West. So, what life are we really talking about?
The argument in favour of letting children take part in wars is not only derived from the need to have them fight for their own well being like the Jewish children of the Warsaw Ghetto or like the children of Soweto who fought against Apartheid (how many school children were killed by the racists!) There are other arguments too. Children who become soldiers can be far away from their parents. Many a Western expert has told us that parents in the Third World are uneducated and resort to beatings and mistreatment of children. This is not entirely false by the way and thus children can escape early marriages, brutal beatings and onerous work (especially in rural families) by going off to war. For once, they will be at the other end of the gun or the ones dealing the punishment like the child soldiers of Sierra Leone chopping off hands and arms. The other basic argument is that children have no life, no future to speak of. If they survive to reach puberty, they would still face horrible conditions and odds, starvation, abuse, sleeping on the streets, and can also be shot by trigger happy policemen from Rio to Addis Ababa. So why not go to war and have a fair chance of survival or die trying? Not all children can be adopted by a Madonna or a Jolie. Mercenary as they are, our rulers cannot sell all the children to foreigners. Their blood thirsty, vampire nature demands that they keep the majority for their own savage oppression. On another level, if children do not go war what will all these Save the Children and Protect Children from Violence groups do? Thousands of employed Western youths would be out of work. Do imagine this in the present times of recession. Are African children expected to compound the economic problems facing Barack Obama, a kin, just because he has become American? If no children do the dying in different war fronts where will the charity business be?
Victor Hugo wrote: "the deepest misery, an opportunity for obscenity". The system is obscene; it is responsible for the existence of the child soldiers. All the Bill Gates' and Sarkhozy talk about creative or responsible capitalism is, as they say, hogwash. It is a world where the pets matter more than the child. It is a system that needs "powder monkeys", children to exploit, children to be blown up. Soweto and Intifada showed the result of the injustice. In Ethiopia, thousands of minors were killed by the previous regime and the present one came to power by using child soldiers, both male and female. The road to power and riches is built over young and frail corpses. The obscenity of the system is such that innocent children are exposed to death every second (2000 children are infected by AIDS every day) and millions are already AIDS orphans. Omar Khadr, a Canadian citizen, is 15 but considered old enough to suffer Guantanamo. Old enough for the pain? Old enough to inflict it too. That is how we see the hypocrisy over child soldiers. In Sierra Leone, the government also used child soldiers and chopped off hands and heads of its enemies. Children were not spared this way or that. The movements using children, from Renamo of Mozambique to the Lord's Resistance Army of Joseph Kony have found out that it pays--Renamo shares power and Kony is being prepared for that. Who cares for children when children killers come to power?
Not that stories recounted by "we were child soldiers"("as told to someone" from the West in most cases) sound true. One Eritrean woman whose tale has been made into a film wrote of carrying an AK-47 at the age of six in rebel ranks and those who have little inking of the size of a six year old female child's hands and arms and the weight of a full fledged Russian or Bulgarian Kalashnikov did believe her. Sierra Leone and Southern Sudanese "child soldiers" have also come out with tales that made them stare down ferocious lions where no lion roamed. No matter, the story, as Blair would have said, has to be "sexed up". The Western media and the NGOs need that. This said, the tragedy of the situation is not to be taken lightly. Ethiopians who do know much about dying say: "may God make my death nice and beautiful"; rather than (to) die in cold streets hungry and diseased it may be better to die with guns blazing and the staccato of machine gun fire accompanying their last breaths. I will not pretend to know the feelings of child soldiers in the face of death--I am no Bernard Henry Levy, the French media man, who wrote in detail about Daniel Pearl's last thoughts before being killed by fanatics. Yet, I do know that the life our children live under the brutal systems is no life at all. Who am I to tell them not to be soldiers? After all, the civilized West worships its armed forces and soldiers. The obscene part of it all is that children are exposed to suffering and death in the first place and not that they die lying under stinking bridges or shot by criminal policemen in a dilapidated City or in a fire fight. Death is death and the child soldier is but a victim of the obscene system imposed on us by greedy child killers who will never admit to their crime.
OR
(WHY YOUNG CHILDREN SHOULD FIGHT IN WARS?)
Hama Tuma
Or, it can be called a timely call to end the hypocrisy over child soldiers. I know my position would draw some fire even from close quarters who had been dealing with the issue of child soldiers. But, let the abscess be pricked and opened-- young boys and girls should take part in wars especially in those wars that can possibly render their lives better. In other words, if they are old enough to die they should be considered old enough to kill.
The hue and cry over the use of children in wars, that is to generally refer to those who are under 15, is currently made against those in the so called developing countries while some have even gone as far as arguing (mostly without basis ) that African traditional society called for the use of children as warriors . Imagine a child carrying (let alone throwing) a spear! Actually, the use of children in wars was very much practiced in the West. Tsar Nicholas I recruited by force Jewish children (called "cantonists") as young as eight years old. In the battle of Waterloo, children were used and many died--they were called "powder monkeys" and carried gun powder and other military items. In the First World War Baden Powell used minors as scouts and later modelled the Boy Scout movement after them. Many 13 year olds enlisted in the British Army to escape the numbing life as chimney sweepers, workers in the coal mines or in the dreary British industry. In the American Civil War, many children were used by both sides and bugler John Cook, who was 15, was among those decorated by the Army. The same happened in the Second World War--- Hitler had his Hitler Youths and young Jewish boys fought in the Warsaw Ghetto and in the resistance against Nazism. Children were incarcerated and sometimes even killed by orders of courts. In 1642 Thomas Graunger of Plymouth was executed for a crime he committed when he was 16. In present day Iran, minors are hanged by the ayatollahs and the Mollahs of Afghanistan were also ruthless. Nowadays, many in America rile against the "lunacy of lenience" and want minors severely punished and many (it must be said mostly blacks and Latinos) are actually executed for crimes they allegedly committed as juveniles. In the face of vindictive States, the child is always a victim.
Children die, children get killed. If you are old enough to be killed why are you young enough not to kill? There is no logic to it. Modern society commits crimes against children. The sanctimonious reference to children losing their innocence in war is empty talk. Victimized at an early age, many of the world's children are old enough before they reach puberty. They are victims of abuse of all sorts before they even reach puberty as the Vatican can adequately inform us. Early marriages are common in many countries. Children are labourers starting from an early age. Thousands of them are street children exposed to all kinds of suffering and abuses, the pain of which the constant sniffling of petrol and glue cannot sufficiently cover up. Of the 2 million deaths every year from dehydration and diarrhoea 95% of the victims are children under 5. Thousands of children die daily from preventable diseases and poverty. All over the world, at least 750 million people are malnourished and the majority are children as is the case now in the famine stricken Ethiopia where a heartless tyrant does take good care of his own three children. We can continue with the grim statistics of Europe and America spending 17 billion dollars on pets while the spending of 9 billion dollars for safe water and 13 billion for basic health and nutrition could save millions of lives, and effective investment in education and fair trade practices could lift 300 million people out of poverty by 2015. After all, life expectancy in most parts of the world is at 40 while it is 80 years in the West. So, what life are we really talking about?
The argument in favour of letting children take part in wars is not only derived from the need to have them fight for their own well being like the Jewish children of the Warsaw Ghetto or like the children of Soweto who fought against Apartheid (how many school children were killed by the racists!) There are other arguments too. Children who become soldiers can be far away from their parents. Many a Western expert has told us that parents in the Third World are uneducated and resort to beatings and mistreatment of children. This is not entirely false by the way and thus children can escape early marriages, brutal beatings and onerous work (especially in rural families) by going off to war. For once, they will be at the other end of the gun or the ones dealing the punishment like the child soldiers of Sierra Leone chopping off hands and arms. The other basic argument is that children have no life, no future to speak of. If they survive to reach puberty, they would still face horrible conditions and odds, starvation, abuse, sleeping on the streets, and can also be shot by trigger happy policemen from Rio to Addis Ababa. So why not go to war and have a fair chance of survival or die trying? Not all children can be adopted by a Madonna or a Jolie. Mercenary as they are, our rulers cannot sell all the children to foreigners. Their blood thirsty, vampire nature demands that they keep the majority for their own savage oppression. On another level, if children do not go war what will all these Save the Children and Protect Children from Violence groups do? Thousands of employed Western youths would be out of work. Do imagine this in the present times of recession. Are African children expected to compound the economic problems facing Barack Obama, a kin, just because he has become American? If no children do the dying in different war fronts where will the charity business be?
Victor Hugo wrote: "the deepest misery, an opportunity for obscenity". The system is obscene; it is responsible for the existence of the child soldiers. All the Bill Gates' and Sarkhozy talk about creative or responsible capitalism is, as they say, hogwash. It is a world where the pets matter more than the child. It is a system that needs "powder monkeys", children to exploit, children to be blown up. Soweto and Intifada showed the result of the injustice. In Ethiopia, thousands of minors were killed by the previous regime and the present one came to power by using child soldiers, both male and female. The road to power and riches is built over young and frail corpses. The obscenity of the system is such that innocent children are exposed to death every second (2000 children are infected by AIDS every day) and millions are already AIDS orphans. Omar Khadr, a Canadian citizen, is 15 but considered old enough to suffer Guantanamo. Old enough for the pain? Old enough to inflict it too. That is how we see the hypocrisy over child soldiers. In Sierra Leone, the government also used child soldiers and chopped off hands and heads of its enemies. Children were not spared this way or that. The movements using children, from Renamo of Mozambique to the Lord's Resistance Army of Joseph Kony have found out that it pays--Renamo shares power and Kony is being prepared for that. Who cares for children when children killers come to power?
Not that stories recounted by "we were child soldiers"("as told to someone" from the West in most cases) sound true. One Eritrean woman whose tale has been made into a film wrote of carrying an AK-47 at the age of six in rebel ranks and those who have little inking of the size of a six year old female child's hands and arms and the weight of a full fledged Russian or Bulgarian Kalashnikov did believe her. Sierra Leone and Southern Sudanese "child soldiers" have also come out with tales that made them stare down ferocious lions where no lion roamed. No matter, the story, as Blair would have said, has to be "sexed up". The Western media and the NGOs need that. This said, the tragedy of the situation is not to be taken lightly. Ethiopians who do know much about dying say: "may God make my death nice and beautiful"; rather than (to) die in cold streets hungry and diseased it may be better to die with guns blazing and the staccato of machine gun fire accompanying their last breaths. I will not pretend to know the feelings of child soldiers in the face of death--I am no Bernard Henry Levy, the French media man, who wrote in detail about Daniel Pearl's last thoughts before being killed by fanatics. Yet, I do know that the life our children live under the brutal systems is no life at all. Who am I to tell them not to be soldiers? After all, the civilized West worships its armed forces and soldiers. The obscene part of it all is that children are exposed to suffering and death in the first place and not that they die lying under stinking bridges or shot by criminal policemen in a dilapidated City or in a fire fight. Death is death and the child soldier is but a victim of the obscene system imposed on us by greedy child killers who will never admit to their crime.
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Goma Darfur--Of Competitions Aplenty
GOMA --DARFUR: OF COMPETITIONS APLENTY
An Ethiopian proverb says: someone who has been out in the rain will not worry of getting wet. Having been out in the rain for far too many times than I care to remember I am presently unperturbed by the slack I may pick when I deal with weighty and sad subjects in what some may consider a lighter vein. Of course, satire being an altogether different ball game, some fail to grasp its core and often accuse me and others of trivializing "serious subjects". Here goes anyway.
I contend that the present mayhem and havoc in Goma and Eastern Congo is caused by jealousy and fierce competition with Darfur. Someone claiming more knowledge than poor me, has authoritatively stated that jealousy first originated in Africa much like human kind-- Dinkinesh or Lucy of Ethiopia being the first one to date. It is evident that this assertion is flawed, as jealousy and the rivalry engendered by it are to be found all over the world. According to Bush junior, the Al Qaeda attack on America was motivated by their jealousy and envy of America which suggests that at least Arabs are also jealous. Huntington's clash of civilizations is really a jealousy theory. Most Ethiopians think the world is jealous of their beautiful country, the Japanese think they are a special race envied by others and the Chinese consider the whole world inferior and jealous of their aged civilization. To come to the mundane or what the French, trying to be Anglo chic, call "people" topics, Madonna was red hot jealous of Angelina Jolie and when the latter adopted a small girl from Ethiopia/not an orphan but poor/ and so she went farther South and adopted a small boy from Malawi/not an orphan but poor/. Will Madonna next go to Asia to compete is not an issue that is riveting anyone's attention but let it be said that even rich pampered dolls are jealous of each other.
That said, the contention that Eastern Congo became jealous of Darfur needs a reminder in that the havoc in the Congo predates the one in Darfur and is not comparable at all. Four million Congolese have perished in a free for all carnage that was ignored even by Kofi Anan and led to the Armies without Borders phenomenon when numerous African countries intervened in the Congo to destroy or prop up a regime and, in the process, rob the mineral rich country blind. The war in the Congo was sponsored or pushed ahead by multinationals like the British Anglogold Ashanti corporation and other gold diggers and Coltan chasers, with rowdy militias being paid by the companies to wreak havoc and assure the mineral extraction. Congo lost its patriotic nationalist son Patrice Lumumba in the same way when Washington and Brussels collided to have him murdered brutally and to bring in puppet Joseph Desiree Mobutu. You are rich and everyone bothers you, you are poor and no one lets you alone to enjoy your poverty--this has been the sad fate of our continent. Did anyone hear the two candidates for the American presidency mention Eastern Congo? The Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise promised to give 20,000 dollars to a charity against hunger if and every time Obama or McCain mention world hunger--they did not. What chance could Goma have had then? Darfur is another matter altogether and there is why Eastern Congo has flared up in envy and jealousy. The problem of Darfur has a whiff of oil in its wake but it hogged the limelight because of the nature of the regime in Khartoum which, if truth be told, is not anymore odious than the mercenary one in Kinshasa. The hatred for the fundamentalists in Khartoum made Darfur very, very interesting. All of a sudden, right wing Christian fundamentalist groups and the White House got interested. Even Britain that has funded and still supports many a murderous group in Africa cried foul at Khartoum. Beshir of Khartoum was cornered and the casualty figures in Darfur went up. Well known actors like George Clooney chimed in. Who talked of Eastern Congo? Maybe Ben Affleck from the actors group, no more. Ghanaian Kofi Anan talked more of Afghanistan than Eastern Congo where his UN troops were not protecting anyone but raping young girls. And so Darfur became a hit song....and every George and Brad was mouthing the word Janjaweed taken by some to mean ganja weed or marijuana. Poor Goma. Poor Kivu. Sad Eastern Congo. 4 million dead and no one to rile and cry-- no one to pull out his or her hair and wail!
I am particularly sympathetic because my country Ethiopia gets little or no attention unless Mr. Famine visits it as it does, lucky us, every few years. Take the Enough Project of concerned Americans--they are concerned about Somalia but not Ethiopia. Take the International Crisis Group--the same. The stars in these bodies from John Pendergast to Gayle Smith were former groupies of the Meles Zenawi cabal who chose to castigate all opposition as Amhara chauvinist and the nostalgic of the deposed military regime. Ethiopia has had its massacres from Arba Gugu, Areka to Water and Gambella but not many bothered. The blood stained regime of Meles is presently dancing with joy at the possibility of Hilary Clinton being named as Secretary of State and with reason as she had hailed in the past the most ruthless dictator in the Horn as a democrat and was only topped by her husband who added the Great Lakes dictators as democrats too. Talk of the short end of the stick! Eastern Congo lost four million--is this comparable to half a million in Darfur? Eastern Congo has many regimes and forces battling over it--is this comparable to Darfur where disparate rebel groups have to confront just one regime? Take any measurement and by all standards eastern Congo deserved the primary attention that Darfur was basking in instead. So, who is to blame if Eastern Congo raises the ante and calls on all of us: "hello, there is a bigger mess here, please take notice"? Does Darfur have flamboyant rebels like Laurent Nkunda of Eastern Congo, who changes chairs and uniforms and attire so often right there in the jungle and tells foreign journalists his idol is Charles De Gaulle of France , the very country accused by his backers in Rwanda of supporting the genocide in Rwanda? So, Eastern Congo had to explode and attract foreign attention away from Darfur. If only....! And then the Somali pirates had to appear, chewing their kat and swaggering in their "shirit" skirt- like wear, brandishing their ordinary Ak-47s. Given the fact that the Somalis have been at it for the last 20 years, Nkunda could not be expected to cope, could he? And where could the rebels around Goma find so many ships and super tankers to sea jack? And to cap it all, most of the Congolese of all hues in the East are not even Moslems !
Life is not fair in Africa. And so we simmer and boil in our jealousy and rivalry and competition and die in millions and not much changes. A half Kenyan has come to power in the USA but who said even full blooded Kenyans were ever sympathetic of anybody else. Obama will surely make some noises over Darfur and Somalia. Eastern Congo? They have to die more and hope for the best. And if Hilary Clinton becomes Secretary of State? Will a dove be hatched from an egg of a serpent? Between Nkunda, Kabila and Hilary... and Darfur and Somalia ....the Congolese will, if we can imagine it, be in a worse mess. Of course they can take solace in the fact that this is Africa as we know it and that there are others worse off than them that are forgotten even more.
An Ethiopian proverb says: someone who has been out in the rain will not worry of getting wet. Having been out in the rain for far too many times than I care to remember I am presently unperturbed by the slack I may pick when I deal with weighty and sad subjects in what some may consider a lighter vein. Of course, satire being an altogether different ball game, some fail to grasp its core and often accuse me and others of trivializing "serious subjects". Here goes anyway.
I contend that the present mayhem and havoc in Goma and Eastern Congo is caused by jealousy and fierce competition with Darfur. Someone claiming more knowledge than poor me, has authoritatively stated that jealousy first originated in Africa much like human kind-- Dinkinesh or Lucy of Ethiopia being the first one to date. It is evident that this assertion is flawed, as jealousy and the rivalry engendered by it are to be found all over the world. According to Bush junior, the Al Qaeda attack on America was motivated by their jealousy and envy of America which suggests that at least Arabs are also jealous. Huntington's clash of civilizations is really a jealousy theory. Most Ethiopians think the world is jealous of their beautiful country, the Japanese think they are a special race envied by others and the Chinese consider the whole world inferior and jealous of their aged civilization. To come to the mundane or what the French, trying to be Anglo chic, call "people" topics, Madonna was red hot jealous of Angelina Jolie and when the latter adopted a small girl from Ethiopia/not an orphan but poor/ and so she went farther South and adopted a small boy from Malawi/not an orphan but poor/. Will Madonna next go to Asia to compete is not an issue that is riveting anyone's attention but let it be said that even rich pampered dolls are jealous of each other.
That said, the contention that Eastern Congo became jealous of Darfur needs a reminder in that the havoc in the Congo predates the one in Darfur and is not comparable at all. Four million Congolese have perished in a free for all carnage that was ignored even by Kofi Anan and led to the Armies without Borders phenomenon when numerous African countries intervened in the Congo to destroy or prop up a regime and, in the process, rob the mineral rich country blind. The war in the Congo was sponsored or pushed ahead by multinationals like the British Anglogold Ashanti corporation and other gold diggers and Coltan chasers, with rowdy militias being paid by the companies to wreak havoc and assure the mineral extraction. Congo lost its patriotic nationalist son Patrice Lumumba in the same way when Washington and Brussels collided to have him murdered brutally and to bring in puppet Joseph Desiree Mobutu. You are rich and everyone bothers you, you are poor and no one lets you alone to enjoy your poverty--this has been the sad fate of our continent. Did anyone hear the two candidates for the American presidency mention Eastern Congo? The Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise promised to give 20,000 dollars to a charity against hunger if and every time Obama or McCain mention world hunger--they did not. What chance could Goma have had then? Darfur is another matter altogether and there is why Eastern Congo has flared up in envy and jealousy. The problem of Darfur has a whiff of oil in its wake but it hogged the limelight because of the nature of the regime in Khartoum which, if truth be told, is not anymore odious than the mercenary one in Kinshasa. The hatred for the fundamentalists in Khartoum made Darfur very, very interesting. All of a sudden, right wing Christian fundamentalist groups and the White House got interested. Even Britain that has funded and still supports many a murderous group in Africa cried foul at Khartoum. Beshir of Khartoum was cornered and the casualty figures in Darfur went up. Well known actors like George Clooney chimed in. Who talked of Eastern Congo? Maybe Ben Affleck from the actors group, no more. Ghanaian Kofi Anan talked more of Afghanistan than Eastern Congo where his UN troops were not protecting anyone but raping young girls. And so Darfur became a hit song....and every George and Brad was mouthing the word Janjaweed taken by some to mean ganja weed or marijuana. Poor Goma. Poor Kivu. Sad Eastern Congo. 4 million dead and no one to rile and cry-- no one to pull out his or her hair and wail!
I am particularly sympathetic because my country Ethiopia gets little or no attention unless Mr. Famine visits it as it does, lucky us, every few years. Take the Enough Project of concerned Americans--they are concerned about Somalia but not Ethiopia. Take the International Crisis Group--the same. The stars in these bodies from John Pendergast to Gayle Smith were former groupies of the Meles Zenawi cabal who chose to castigate all opposition as Amhara chauvinist and the nostalgic of the deposed military regime. Ethiopia has had its massacres from Arba Gugu, Areka to Water and Gambella but not many bothered. The blood stained regime of Meles is presently dancing with joy at the possibility of Hilary Clinton being named as Secretary of State and with reason as she had hailed in the past the most ruthless dictator in the Horn as a democrat and was only topped by her husband who added the Great Lakes dictators as democrats too. Talk of the short end of the stick! Eastern Congo lost four million--is this comparable to half a million in Darfur? Eastern Congo has many regimes and forces battling over it--is this comparable to Darfur where disparate rebel groups have to confront just one regime? Take any measurement and by all standards eastern Congo deserved the primary attention that Darfur was basking in instead. So, who is to blame if Eastern Congo raises the ante and calls on all of us: "hello, there is a bigger mess here, please take notice"? Does Darfur have flamboyant rebels like Laurent Nkunda of Eastern Congo, who changes chairs and uniforms and attire so often right there in the jungle and tells foreign journalists his idol is Charles De Gaulle of France , the very country accused by his backers in Rwanda of supporting the genocide in Rwanda? So, Eastern Congo had to explode and attract foreign attention away from Darfur. If only....! And then the Somali pirates had to appear, chewing their kat and swaggering in their "shirit" skirt- like wear, brandishing their ordinary Ak-47s. Given the fact that the Somalis have been at it for the last 20 years, Nkunda could not be expected to cope, could he? And where could the rebels around Goma find so many ships and super tankers to sea jack? And to cap it all, most of the Congolese of all hues in the East are not even Moslems !
Life is not fair in Africa. And so we simmer and boil in our jealousy and rivalry and competition and die in millions and not much changes. A half Kenyan has come to power in the USA but who said even full blooded Kenyans were ever sympathetic of anybody else. Obama will surely make some noises over Darfur and Somalia. Eastern Congo? They have to die more and hope for the best. And if Hilary Clinton becomes Secretary of State? Will a dove be hatched from an egg of a serpent? Between Nkunda, Kabila and Hilary... and Darfur and Somalia ....the Congolese will, if we can imagine it, be in a worse mess. Of course they can take solace in the fact that this is Africa as we know it and that there are others worse off than them that are forgotten even more.
ቅኔ ከድሮ
ቅኔ ከድሮ
ዋለልኝ መኮንን 1968
ቦረሳው ካሳ መካር አጡ
አንዳይሆን ሆነው ቀበጡ
ብዙ እያወቁ አንደጅል
የማይሆን ነገር መከጀል
ለድሃ እንዳይሆን እያወቁ
ዘውድ እምጡ ብለው ደረቁ
---------
ከለበሱ እይቀር ሱሪ
የጥንቱን ነበር የተፈሪ
ግና እይመችም ለስራ
አጣብቆ ይዞ በቀኝ በግራ
ደንዳር ደንሳሞ (1968)
ባውዳመቱ ዋዜማ
ስሰማ ከርሜ ላህየ ዜማ
በመጨረቫ ሲደክመኝ
ግዋደኞቼ መከሩኝ
ሊነጋ ነው እሉኝ
እሮገ ዘመን ልንቨኝ
ጸገየ ወይን ገብረመድህን (1968)
ነፎ መስዬ እባያ
ባዶ እጀን ቆሜ ከገበያ
እንገበገበኝ ንደቱ
ሲቨጥ ሲለወጥ ማየቱ
ብዙው በርካታው በጥቂቱ
ዋለልኝ መኮንን 1968
ቦረሳው ካሳ መካር አጡ
አንዳይሆን ሆነው ቀበጡ
ብዙ እያወቁ አንደጅል
የማይሆን ነገር መከጀል
ለድሃ እንዳይሆን እያወቁ
ዘውድ እምጡ ብለው ደረቁ
---------
ከለበሱ እይቀር ሱሪ
የጥንቱን ነበር የተፈሪ
ግና እይመችም ለስራ
አጣብቆ ይዞ በቀኝ በግራ
ደንዳር ደንሳሞ (1968)
ባውዳመቱ ዋዜማ
ስሰማ ከርሜ ላህየ ዜማ
በመጨረቫ ሲደክመኝ
ግዋደኞቼ መከሩኝ
ሊነጋ ነው እሉኝ
እሮገ ዘመን ልንቨኝ
ጸገየ ወይን ገብረመድህን (1968)
ነፎ መስዬ እባያ
ባዶ እጀን ቆሜ ከገበያ
እንገበገበኝ ንደቱ
ሲቨጥ ሲለወጥ ማየቱ
ብዙው በርካታው በጥቂቱ
POEMS FROM THE OLDER GENERATION
Poems from the Older Generation
Laureate Tsegaye Gebre Medhin (1967)
VOW
As long as there are morning birds,
To fill the air with songs
As long as there are folk tales
To be told by the fire side
As long as there are offsprings
To kick and riot with joy
I shall bathe in the shimmer of the moon
I shall inherit the sun
I shall follow the rainbow trail.
Baalu Girma (1959)
CROWS
Crows from the south, west and east
Gather round the kitchen for a morning feast
Nature gave them right to share
the crows considered this unfair.
The dove and the sparrows got their alright,
And went their way, content and quiet.
For the crows nothing is enough
Nothing is fair, all is rough.
Crows must have all things their way,
And leave the rest astray.
Over matters trivial they croak and moan,
And make mountains of a mole.
Contented they need fly up and pray
And keep their tempers and dirty play.
Eshetu Chole (1967)
SILENCE
Silence
Is like Infinity
Majestic
Its depth unsurpassed
By talk-glib, gossip, proud talk
And other human trash.
Silence is beauty;
For truth is silent
And truth, they say, is beauty
Silence is peace--
Peace absolute
Peace consuming.
Silence is joy
Unparalleled
Undiluted by the cheapness of our lives.
A tear is silent
A smile is silent
And is too silent.
And death is silent
Oh! If only life were
As pure as silence.
Shiferaw Asfaw (1968)
" "
Yes, between Today's dim light
And Tomorrow's complete darkness
I am.
Rolling naked on a cold wave
Of a vast, indifferent ocean
I live
To observe
My fellow man drown.
Tamru Gobena (1960)
THE SUNSHINE
The sun shines bright , they say
After a rainy day:
Behold the shooting of the bay
As if it came to say.
O yesterday was grim and cold
Like a rainy day
Yet today is so fresh though old
Older than yesterday.
Yesterday was so dim and dull;
Bleak was life with me:
But yet today I sleep and lull
Though busy as a bee.
Behold that poor old man:
So cold is life with him
But yesterday the Sun did tan
His skin. His fill was to the brim,
Day doth follow night.
And night doth follow day;
Darkness doth follow light
And so we drift away.
to be continued
Laureate Tsegaye Gebre Medhin (1967)
VOW
As long as there are morning birds,
To fill the air with songs
As long as there are folk tales
To be told by the fire side
As long as there are offsprings
To kick and riot with joy
I shall bathe in the shimmer of the moon
I shall inherit the sun
I shall follow the rainbow trail.
Baalu Girma (1959)
CROWS
Crows from the south, west and east
Gather round the kitchen for a morning feast
Nature gave them right to share
the crows considered this unfair.
The dove and the sparrows got their alright,
And went their way, content and quiet.
For the crows nothing is enough
Nothing is fair, all is rough.
Crows must have all things their way,
And leave the rest astray.
Over matters trivial they croak and moan,
And make mountains of a mole.
Contented they need fly up and pray
And keep their tempers and dirty play.
Eshetu Chole (1967)
SILENCE
Silence
Is like Infinity
Majestic
Its depth unsurpassed
By talk-glib, gossip, proud talk
And other human trash.
Silence is beauty;
For truth is silent
And truth, they say, is beauty
Silence is peace--
Peace absolute
Peace consuming.
Silence is joy
Unparalleled
Undiluted by the cheapness of our lives.
A tear is silent
A smile is silent
And is too silent.
And death is silent
Oh! If only life were
As pure as silence.
Shiferaw Asfaw (1968)
" "
Yes, between Today's dim light
And Tomorrow's complete darkness
I am.
Rolling naked on a cold wave
Of a vast, indifferent ocean
I live
To observe
My fellow man drown.
Tamru Gobena (1960)
THE SUNSHINE
The sun shines bright , they say
After a rainy day:
Behold the shooting of the bay
As if it came to say.
O yesterday was grim and cold
Like a rainy day
Yet today is so fresh though old
Older than yesterday.
Yesterday was so dim and dull;
Bleak was life with me:
But yet today I sleep and lull
Though busy as a bee.
Behold that poor old man:
So cold is life with him
But yesterday the Sun did tan
His skin. His fill was to the brim,
Day doth follow night.
And night doth follow day;
Darkness doth follow light
And so we drift away.
to be continued
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
OF ALPHABETS AND DISASTERS
OF ALPHABETS AND DISASTERS
Jean Paul Sartre once said that words are loaded pistols. The same can be said of alphabets, at least where it concerns Ethiopians. Back in the late sixties and seventies, there was tendency within leftist groups and parties of the world to split, with the splitters still keeping the mother name but adding alphabets to it. CP (R), CP (ML), CP (D) and a whole parade of qualified names. The R stood for Revolutionary or Renovated, ML defined true blood Marxist- Leninist, the D stood for democratic, and so on and so forth. There were many times good reasons for the splits but the alphabet soup, as it became known, was like a poor man's soup, short on the meat and just plain water.
In Ethiopia, since the nineties, the D tag has spelt disaster and betrayal, often given to pro-regime or satellite groups that existed in name only. Given the fact that the ruling front was not itself democratic its offshoots or stooges could not deserve the democratic tag. The same can apply to other groups who took up the D to be attached to names that really neither belonged to them nor defined them. That being the case D defined other things like:
• D for disaster;
• D for division like the ethnic politics of the regime, article 39 approving secession, being a faction to weaken the patriotic forces;
• D as in deadly, massacring innocent people, committing genocide;
• D as in deterioration, a catastrophic setback, a fall unto the pit of ethnicism;
• D as in dilapidated, worn out, old, hopeless;
• D as in destruction of a country or an organization,;
• D as in degrading of a country's culture and history, the valiant struggle of an organization;
• D for dismantling of a country or a party;
• D for dissolve, break up and liquidate;
• D for deracinate;
• D for demolish.
D has not stood for democratic, alas. D has often stood in for dog as this is the only friend you can buy for money but then the D tag on groups signifies disloyalty and not the loyalty of even a dog.
And when an R has followed the D it has not been a relief at least in the Ethiopian context. I venture to quote Alexander Pope:
"The bookful blockhead ignorantly read
With loads of learned lumber in his head."
The Drs have become in many instances Disasters Refined, pedants and snobs, elitist to boot. The African intellectual or/and politician , the one castigated by Fanon for his/her black skin and white mask, disappoints as it acts as if bravery or courage are out of fashion. I agree intellectuals are "of their time"; they should be situated within the specific, country and culture, and era too. The demands on an intellectual in Africa and the one in America may not be the same. It is possible to be generous and to define the intellectuals or, as in the Ethiopian case, those who devotedly attach the Dr and PhD tag to their names, as a minority "pursuing knowledge and research", surfing in the realm of pure art, aloof in its own ivory tower, untainted by the mundane that is the reality. There is also what Edward Said called "political trimming, a technique of not taking clear positions but surviving handsomely nonetheless". Most intellectuals of this inclination have proved a curse for Africa, survival becoming their main preoccupation even in/and especially in/exile.
Given our own historical context and problems, it is imperative for us to refer to the public or the real intellectuals, those who are friends of critical discourse, who are committed to justice, who take the side of the weak and the dispossessed, the disadvantaged. This goes beyond sheer exaltation of the national, the identity. Those who not only champion their own culture and national heritage but go above it to "universalize the crisis" as was said, to not fall into national jingoism or narrow ethnic exclusiveness, to seek the alternatives shrouded by the priority of the so called main battle. The task of the intellectual is therefore not to organize what Julien Benda (who wrote "The Treason of the Intellectuals" in 1928) referred to as "collective passions" such as sectarianism and national belligerence. There is often a reference made to the Meji Restoration of 1868 in Japan which brought the monarchy back, abolished feudalism and charted a way towards building a new Japan but the facts show that the process led to extreme and even fascistic nationalism. Shido minzeku, the notion that Japan was a leading/special race (an ideology that justified the massacre of the Chinese and the crimes against Koreans and other peoples) was upheld by intellectuals that championed their national Japanese identity and interest as it were. During World War II, American intellectuals reciprocated with a similar debasing attitude towards the Japanese. In other words, intellectuals who are said to be in tune with their nation and time can also veer off and create havoc. Tagore of India and Jose Marti of Cuba are admired because they were nationalists whose position did not hinder them from being critical. They fought the main battle but did not lose sight of the alternatives. Fanon's critical appraisal of the FLN of Algeria and the struggle against French colonialism is to be seen within this context. That is to say the struggle against the existing malaise (colonialism then or dictatorial regimes now) should always be accompanied with a critical appraisal of the struggle for change and a clear understanding of the substitute for which sacrifices are being paid. This is crucial because the oppressed can become oppressors before the euphoria of victory has even calmed down. The victorious FLN imposed a dictatorship on the Algerian people. The Boers who fought against British imperialism brought apartheid on the South African people. The February Revolution of 1974 in Ethiopia overthrew the feudal autocracy but the military took power to establish one of the bloodiest dictatorships in History. Those who preach liberation will not necessarily be liberators and, alas, every would-be dictator vows in the name of democracy.
During the prevalence of the one party system in Africa any talk of justice or any critic of the regimes was considered as treason. The "national cause and national interest" drum was beaten to silence any critical voice. Parties were not the results of existing class and interest differences but taken as creators of these conflicts. This was how the one party system was justified, through an illusory common interest and identity, with the ruling party embodying the whole nation and the dictator being its symbol. Anyone one who opposed the American war in Indochina was considered a traitor for quite a while. In such a situation and in critical times, the intellectual is called upon to rally to the flag, to be silent on the crimes being committed in the name of the nation. Leave the sixties aside and observe the present reality in which under the cover of national interest or so called national liberation, crimes are being perpetrated. The Rwandan intellectuals who broadcast Radio Mille Collines and championed genocide, the Algerian and Somali intellectuals who expounded extremism and the warlord carnage, the Ethiopian intellectuals who shamed their age old country with ethnic chauvinism, were not patriotic and loyal at all. They sought refuge in their own ethnic or national cocoon to justify their inability to be intellectuals worthy of the name.
The intellectuals need, in the words of Edward said, to "speak the truth to power". This is no easy task, it requires not only transcending the narrow confines of stunted nationalism but also demands courage as the power holders are not keen to hear or heed any criticism. The intellectual must not only question authority but strive to undermine it wherever it is illegitimate. Reciprocating the evils of the system in reverse (fighting ethnic chauvinism by preaching ethnic genocide for example) is not an option. As Edward Said so aptly put it, 'to regress into hand wringing impotence or into muscular reassertions of traditional values, as characterized by the global neo-conservative movement, will not do. I think it is true to say that the critique of objectivity and authority did perform a positive service by underlining how, in the secular world, human beings construct their truths, and that, for example, the so-called objective truth of the white man's superiority built and maintained by the classical European colonial empires also rested on a violent subjugation of African and Asian peoples, who, it is equally true, fought that particular imposed "truth" in order to provide an independent order of their own. And so now everyone comes forward with new and often violently opposed views of the world: one hears endless talk about Judeo-Christian values, Afro centric values, Muslim truths, Eastern truths, Western truths, each providing a complete program for excluding others.... One of the shabbiest of all intellectual gambits is to pontificate about abuses in someone else's society and excuse exactly the same practices in one's own". (Underlining mine --HT).
Aime Cesaire wrote of the need for the "invention of new souls". Beyond the victory over a regime or system, there must be a vision of a new construction, a new society to be born from the sacrifice, new souls to be invented so to speak. It is in this realm that real intellectuals have their role. Not to reboot the same system anew but to forge an alternative. Not to regress back to traditional times (Africa had no golden age before colonialism for example and Ethiopia's imperial past was an unmitigated disaster), nor to seek some "centrism" or ethnic ghetto that excludes others but to soar high and beyond and above mediocrity and more of the same to seek a new and brighter vision, to build the country on a democratic basis that unites the people on the basis of equality. In this the role of the intellectual is to "actively represent the truth", to stand with the people, to look ahead and never to regress back into the pit of a nostalgia of disaster. It is said the "true intellectual is always a secular being", that is to say very much different from the Christian or Islamic fundamentalists that are trying to drag us back to the dark ages of ignorance and intolerance. Morality is defined in the concrete, here and now, in whom it serves and benefits. And the real intellectual should thus find his/her place in the public role, in the upholding of truth, in refusing to be directed and ordered about by the authority in place. Blind obedience to power, to greed, to selfishness, to an arrogant superpower, to harmful and narrow ethnic or sectarian interests will in the end turn the intellectual into a historical coolie of shame and cowardice.
PhD can define knowledge and a continuing search for it or, alas quite often than not in the Ethiopian and African context, it could mean a pile of horse dung. We can struggle to invent new souls or to reboot the rotten ones. The choice is limited and gratuitously labelling oneself democratic or an intellectual is just an exercise in futility.
Jean Paul Sartre once said that words are loaded pistols. The same can be said of alphabets, at least where it concerns Ethiopians. Back in the late sixties and seventies, there was tendency within leftist groups and parties of the world to split, with the splitters still keeping the mother name but adding alphabets to it. CP (R), CP (ML), CP (D) and a whole parade of qualified names. The R stood for Revolutionary or Renovated, ML defined true blood Marxist- Leninist, the D stood for democratic, and so on and so forth. There were many times good reasons for the splits but the alphabet soup, as it became known, was like a poor man's soup, short on the meat and just plain water.
In Ethiopia, since the nineties, the D tag has spelt disaster and betrayal, often given to pro-regime or satellite groups that existed in name only. Given the fact that the ruling front was not itself democratic its offshoots or stooges could not deserve the democratic tag. The same can apply to other groups who took up the D to be attached to names that really neither belonged to them nor defined them. That being the case D defined other things like:
• D for disaster;
• D for division like the ethnic politics of the regime, article 39 approving secession, being a faction to weaken the patriotic forces;
• D as in deadly, massacring innocent people, committing genocide;
• D as in deterioration, a catastrophic setback, a fall unto the pit of ethnicism;
• D as in dilapidated, worn out, old, hopeless;
• D as in destruction of a country or an organization,;
• D as in degrading of a country's culture and history, the valiant struggle of an organization;
• D for dismantling of a country or a party;
• D for dissolve, break up and liquidate;
• D for deracinate;
• D for demolish.
D has not stood for democratic, alas. D has often stood in for dog as this is the only friend you can buy for money but then the D tag on groups signifies disloyalty and not the loyalty of even a dog.
And when an R has followed the D it has not been a relief at least in the Ethiopian context. I venture to quote Alexander Pope:
"The bookful blockhead ignorantly read
With loads of learned lumber in his head."
The Drs have become in many instances Disasters Refined, pedants and snobs, elitist to boot. The African intellectual or/and politician , the one castigated by Fanon for his/her black skin and white mask, disappoints as it acts as if bravery or courage are out of fashion. I agree intellectuals are "of their time"; they should be situated within the specific, country and culture, and era too. The demands on an intellectual in Africa and the one in America may not be the same. It is possible to be generous and to define the intellectuals or, as in the Ethiopian case, those who devotedly attach the Dr and PhD tag to their names, as a minority "pursuing knowledge and research", surfing in the realm of pure art, aloof in its own ivory tower, untainted by the mundane that is the reality. There is also what Edward Said called "political trimming, a technique of not taking clear positions but surviving handsomely nonetheless". Most intellectuals of this inclination have proved a curse for Africa, survival becoming their main preoccupation even in/and especially in/exile.
Given our own historical context and problems, it is imperative for us to refer to the public or the real intellectuals, those who are friends of critical discourse, who are committed to justice, who take the side of the weak and the dispossessed, the disadvantaged. This goes beyond sheer exaltation of the national, the identity. Those who not only champion their own culture and national heritage but go above it to "universalize the crisis" as was said, to not fall into national jingoism or narrow ethnic exclusiveness, to seek the alternatives shrouded by the priority of the so called main battle. The task of the intellectual is therefore not to organize what Julien Benda (who wrote "The Treason of the Intellectuals" in 1928) referred to as "collective passions" such as sectarianism and national belligerence. There is often a reference made to the Meji Restoration of 1868 in Japan which brought the monarchy back, abolished feudalism and charted a way towards building a new Japan but the facts show that the process led to extreme and even fascistic nationalism. Shido minzeku, the notion that Japan was a leading/special race (an ideology that justified the massacre of the Chinese and the crimes against Koreans and other peoples) was upheld by intellectuals that championed their national Japanese identity and interest as it were. During World War II, American intellectuals reciprocated with a similar debasing attitude towards the Japanese. In other words, intellectuals who are said to be in tune with their nation and time can also veer off and create havoc. Tagore of India and Jose Marti of Cuba are admired because they were nationalists whose position did not hinder them from being critical. They fought the main battle but did not lose sight of the alternatives. Fanon's critical appraisal of the FLN of Algeria and the struggle against French colonialism is to be seen within this context. That is to say the struggle against the existing malaise (colonialism then or dictatorial regimes now) should always be accompanied with a critical appraisal of the struggle for change and a clear understanding of the substitute for which sacrifices are being paid. This is crucial because the oppressed can become oppressors before the euphoria of victory has even calmed down. The victorious FLN imposed a dictatorship on the Algerian people. The Boers who fought against British imperialism brought apartheid on the South African people. The February Revolution of 1974 in Ethiopia overthrew the feudal autocracy but the military took power to establish one of the bloodiest dictatorships in History. Those who preach liberation will not necessarily be liberators and, alas, every would-be dictator vows in the name of democracy.
During the prevalence of the one party system in Africa any talk of justice or any critic of the regimes was considered as treason. The "national cause and national interest" drum was beaten to silence any critical voice. Parties were not the results of existing class and interest differences but taken as creators of these conflicts. This was how the one party system was justified, through an illusory common interest and identity, with the ruling party embodying the whole nation and the dictator being its symbol. Anyone one who opposed the American war in Indochina was considered a traitor for quite a while. In such a situation and in critical times, the intellectual is called upon to rally to the flag, to be silent on the crimes being committed in the name of the nation. Leave the sixties aside and observe the present reality in which under the cover of national interest or so called national liberation, crimes are being perpetrated. The Rwandan intellectuals who broadcast Radio Mille Collines and championed genocide, the Algerian and Somali intellectuals who expounded extremism and the warlord carnage, the Ethiopian intellectuals who shamed their age old country with ethnic chauvinism, were not patriotic and loyal at all. They sought refuge in their own ethnic or national cocoon to justify their inability to be intellectuals worthy of the name.
The intellectuals need, in the words of Edward said, to "speak the truth to power". This is no easy task, it requires not only transcending the narrow confines of stunted nationalism but also demands courage as the power holders are not keen to hear or heed any criticism. The intellectual must not only question authority but strive to undermine it wherever it is illegitimate. Reciprocating the evils of the system in reverse (fighting ethnic chauvinism by preaching ethnic genocide for example) is not an option. As Edward Said so aptly put it, 'to regress into hand wringing impotence or into muscular reassertions of traditional values, as characterized by the global neo-conservative movement, will not do. I think it is true to say that the critique of objectivity and authority did perform a positive service by underlining how, in the secular world, human beings construct their truths, and that, for example, the so-called objective truth of the white man's superiority built and maintained by the classical European colonial empires also rested on a violent subjugation of African and Asian peoples, who, it is equally true, fought that particular imposed "truth" in order to provide an independent order of their own. And so now everyone comes forward with new and often violently opposed views of the world: one hears endless talk about Judeo-Christian values, Afro centric values, Muslim truths, Eastern truths, Western truths, each providing a complete program for excluding others.... One of the shabbiest of all intellectual gambits is to pontificate about abuses in someone else's society and excuse exactly the same practices in one's own". (Underlining mine --HT).
Aime Cesaire wrote of the need for the "invention of new souls". Beyond the victory over a regime or system, there must be a vision of a new construction, a new society to be born from the sacrifice, new souls to be invented so to speak. It is in this realm that real intellectuals have their role. Not to reboot the same system anew but to forge an alternative. Not to regress back to traditional times (Africa had no golden age before colonialism for example and Ethiopia's imperial past was an unmitigated disaster), nor to seek some "centrism" or ethnic ghetto that excludes others but to soar high and beyond and above mediocrity and more of the same to seek a new and brighter vision, to build the country on a democratic basis that unites the people on the basis of equality. In this the role of the intellectual is to "actively represent the truth", to stand with the people, to look ahead and never to regress back into the pit of a nostalgia of disaster. It is said the "true intellectual is always a secular being", that is to say very much different from the Christian or Islamic fundamentalists that are trying to drag us back to the dark ages of ignorance and intolerance. Morality is defined in the concrete, here and now, in whom it serves and benefits. And the real intellectual should thus find his/her place in the public role, in the upholding of truth, in refusing to be directed and ordered about by the authority in place. Blind obedience to power, to greed, to selfishness, to an arrogant superpower, to harmful and narrow ethnic or sectarian interests will in the end turn the intellectual into a historical coolie of shame and cowardice.
PhD can define knowledge and a continuing search for it or, alas quite often than not in the Ethiopian and African context, it could mean a pile of horse dung. We can struggle to invent new souls or to reboot the rotten ones. The choice is limited and gratuitously labelling oneself democratic or an intellectual is just an exercise in futility.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Lessons of the Obama Victory
Some Lessons from the Obama Victory
I was wrong and as I said before this was one time I was happy to be proved wrong. I was one of those who said America would not elect a black man or a half black man to the White House. America has surprised me and many others by stretching its hands towards hope, daring to swim the current of prejudices and conservatism, looking foreword and defeating the apathy that was said to have gripped the young generation.
Barack Obama will face very hard and difficult hurdles and it is not clear, as he himself admitted, that the jump would be easy. That aside, the lesson of this Obama victory is not, for me, in the bright possibility that Africa would now get a better deal from callous Washington. Those Ethiopians who dream of Obama giving us Ethiopians and Africans the moral and other tools to achieve liberation are still missing the mark. Hail Obama but be real is my message. The gracious concession speech by McCain did show that American democracy for all its failings is still worthwhile to observe and educational in that such a similar situation in Ethiopia would have to be based on years of struggle, sacrifice and experience. The Obama victory gives us the lesson on the primary importance of organization. We now have half baked politicians who rile against political organizations and imagine they can achieve victory over a ruthless enemy like the TPLF by just acting like a movement. The Obama machinery was based on an extensive and meticulous organization, from the grassroots up and in the Ethiopian context this highlights the need for patriotic political organizations to be strong enough to reach out and mobilize as many people as possible for the all round struggle. We do not have in Ethiopia a peaceful democratic situation in which we can go from door to door to rally people. Yet, in our context, this does mean not the dissolution of political organizations but their consolidation, not the adoption of tactics that make the struggle victim to the machinations and whims of the ruling clique but makes the people part and parcel of the final push for radical change--the downfall of the regime. In other words, the lesson is get up/wake up and strengthen the political organizations genuinely fighting against the anti people regime instead of prattling about a non party movement from exile or setting up laughable exile "government" by political nonentities.
The other lesson is that people should put their money where their mouth is. Ordinary people worked hard and donated their hard earned money to Obama. Have we worked that hard to help the struggle advance? In our context, have we done the necessary to push the struggle ahead, to make the people's organizations strong? This is one primary question that must be asked to derive the pertinent lesson from the Obama victory. Of course, the other issue concerns leadership and strategy. Obama doggedly followed a course charted with clarity and was able to go against odds to achieve victory. Do we have such determined leaders with a clear idea of who is the enemy and how to go about defeating it? Or have we been backing false prophets while heaping insults and attacks against those who were and are practically struggling to bring the regime down? The ongoing attempt by some groups to take part in the fake 2010 election of the TPLF is but a wrong strategy and choice and fails to realize that you must know what fights to fight and avoid the wrong path to the wrong destination.
Obama has mentioned a new dawn of American leadership of the world and this is one thing no genuine African can or should accept. We do not need American leadership be it by Bush or Obama as we want to lead ourselves. We do not want a world dominated by one super power however enlightened it may claim to be. We want to lead ourselves; we want to be free and so the new dawn of American leadership that Obama is talking about cannot be ours. In fact, it may be a continuation, albeit softly softly holding the big stick, of the arrogant "I am your leader" stance of Washington. The American assumption that it is the world or the world wants it to lead should be laid to rest. But it is still there and this is yet another lesson that e have to digest in the place of our baseless hope that America under Obama will deliver us wretched souls from pro Washington dictatorships. The election of Obama shows that America has still the capacity to surprise us and we can only hope that it continues to do so pleasantly and not be being more of the same, demagogy notwithstanding. Obama owes his victory to massive vote of the youth in his favor and this was a youth that was said to be deep in political apathy. This has a lesson for Ethiopia too. The politicians who holler at the "apathetic youth" need to rise up and mobilize it for action. Obama showed this can be done with new ideas, hopes and dreams of change that touch the youth at its core. In the Ethiopian context, a replay of the fetid ethnic chauvinism that ruined the country up to now cannot be galvanizing. Elites who recycle worn out political clichés (and badly at that) cannot fire up anybody but their own illusions. Leaders who dare not lead and pay the sacrifice necessary cannot lead the people out of the desert.
We Ethiopians can and will defeat the Meles dictatorship and we can save our country and reclaim it for democratic change. This is the task of the people. Let us not short-circuit ourselves by handling over our destiny to others or by shirking away from the sacrifice that the struggle demands. Obama's victory has this lesson too. We can bring change but we as a people must fight for it. There is no other way.
I was wrong and as I said before this was one time I was happy to be proved wrong. I was one of those who said America would not elect a black man or a half black man to the White House. America has surprised me and many others by stretching its hands towards hope, daring to swim the current of prejudices and conservatism, looking foreword and defeating the apathy that was said to have gripped the young generation.
Barack Obama will face very hard and difficult hurdles and it is not clear, as he himself admitted, that the jump would be easy. That aside, the lesson of this Obama victory is not, for me, in the bright possibility that Africa would now get a better deal from callous Washington. Those Ethiopians who dream of Obama giving us Ethiopians and Africans the moral and other tools to achieve liberation are still missing the mark. Hail Obama but be real is my message. The gracious concession speech by McCain did show that American democracy for all its failings is still worthwhile to observe and educational in that such a similar situation in Ethiopia would have to be based on years of struggle, sacrifice and experience. The Obama victory gives us the lesson on the primary importance of organization. We now have half baked politicians who rile against political organizations and imagine they can achieve victory over a ruthless enemy like the TPLF by just acting like a movement. The Obama machinery was based on an extensive and meticulous organization, from the grassroots up and in the Ethiopian context this highlights the need for patriotic political organizations to be strong enough to reach out and mobilize as many people as possible for the all round struggle. We do not have in Ethiopia a peaceful democratic situation in which we can go from door to door to rally people. Yet, in our context, this does mean not the dissolution of political organizations but their consolidation, not the adoption of tactics that make the struggle victim to the machinations and whims of the ruling clique but makes the people part and parcel of the final push for radical change--the downfall of the regime. In other words, the lesson is get up/wake up and strengthen the political organizations genuinely fighting against the anti people regime instead of prattling about a non party movement from exile or setting up laughable exile "government" by political nonentities.
The other lesson is that people should put their money where their mouth is. Ordinary people worked hard and donated their hard earned money to Obama. Have we worked that hard to help the struggle advance? In our context, have we done the necessary to push the struggle ahead, to make the people's organizations strong? This is one primary question that must be asked to derive the pertinent lesson from the Obama victory. Of course, the other issue concerns leadership and strategy. Obama doggedly followed a course charted with clarity and was able to go against odds to achieve victory. Do we have such determined leaders with a clear idea of who is the enemy and how to go about defeating it? Or have we been backing false prophets while heaping insults and attacks against those who were and are practically struggling to bring the regime down? The ongoing attempt by some groups to take part in the fake 2010 election of the TPLF is but a wrong strategy and choice and fails to realize that you must know what fights to fight and avoid the wrong path to the wrong destination.
Obama has mentioned a new dawn of American leadership of the world and this is one thing no genuine African can or should accept. We do not need American leadership be it by Bush or Obama as we want to lead ourselves. We do not want a world dominated by one super power however enlightened it may claim to be. We want to lead ourselves; we want to be free and so the new dawn of American leadership that Obama is talking about cannot be ours. In fact, it may be a continuation, albeit softly softly holding the big stick, of the arrogant "I am your leader" stance of Washington. The American assumption that it is the world or the world wants it to lead should be laid to rest. But it is still there and this is yet another lesson that e have to digest in the place of our baseless hope that America under Obama will deliver us wretched souls from pro Washington dictatorships. The election of Obama shows that America has still the capacity to surprise us and we can only hope that it continues to do so pleasantly and not be being more of the same, demagogy notwithstanding. Obama owes his victory to massive vote of the youth in his favor and this was a youth that was said to be deep in political apathy. This has a lesson for Ethiopia too. The politicians who holler at the "apathetic youth" need to rise up and mobilize it for action. Obama showed this can be done with new ideas, hopes and dreams of change that touch the youth at its core. In the Ethiopian context, a replay of the fetid ethnic chauvinism that ruined the country up to now cannot be galvanizing. Elites who recycle worn out political clichés (and badly at that) cannot fire up anybody but their own illusions. Leaders who dare not lead and pay the sacrifice necessary cannot lead the people out of the desert.
We Ethiopians can and will defeat the Meles dictatorship and we can save our country and reclaim it for democratic change. This is the task of the people. Let us not short-circuit ourselves by handling over our destiny to others or by shirking away from the sacrifice that the struggle demands. Obama's victory has this lesson too. We can bring change but we as a people must fight for it. There is no other way.
Friday, October 31, 2008
SO WHAT IF OBAMA WINS?
SO WHAT IF OBAMA WINS?
Imamu Amiri Baraka called hope a delicate suffering while someone else called it tomorrow's veneer over today's disappointment. No question that Ethiopia's suffering millions need hope, but then the same Ethiopians say he who lives on hope dies with desire. Very realistic you would say but it won't be correct all the way. Ethiopians, or at least her so called intellectuals, are complicated.
I hear that Ethio-Americans are alive with expectations of an Obama victory. One intellectual who has yet to fathom the evil mind of Meles Zenawi and the complicated situation in Ethiopia has vowed to address all Ethiopians on the spirit and message of Barack Obama. Another promised an Obama victory will give Ethiopians the tools and moral equipment to defeat their enemy-- the same regime of Meles that is being backed by America because it is a foot soldier in Washington's so called war on terror in the Horn of Africa. Hope springs eternal said someone else--hope is the poor man's bread. I am the first one to admit that years of close contact with Ethiopian and African politics has made my cynicism strong. To be fair, of course, I would prefer defining cynicism as sentimentalism on guard, guarded optimism. This requires no prophetic ability but just observing experience and facts. Decades of US foreign policy towards Ethiopia and the region has been cynical, cruel and often mistaken and against the interests of the people. US and Ethiopian interests have hardly ever been synonymous.
I remember many Ethio-Americans contributing money and hoping for a better understanding from America when the Clinton fellow got elected. It was not long before his wife Hilary flew to Asmara, the capital of Eritrea, to praise Isaias Afewerki as a democrat. Clinton himself went on to lable Meles, Isaias, Yoweri Museveni and Kagame of Rwanda as a new breed of democratic leaders for Africa. The Clinton administration backed the repressive Meles regime and aggravated the plight of millions of Ethiopians. Let me say right here that this has not much to do with the American people who are as generous as any other and have helped Ethiopians in their time of need but official America is another thing altogether. True believers of Obama would argue that he is different from Clinton and would chart a better deal for people suffering under dictatorships. Aside from this being a song we have heard so many times before and taking into account that our fate should not be handed over to any foreign power or leader, it is obvious that Obama is first and foremost an American. He may have had a Kenyan father but as the Kenyans themselves say "Mweri mwega umenyaagwo na ngetho" ( the good millet is known at harvest time). Come January, President Obama will first and foremost fulfill the plans and priorities of the US of America. Clinton or Bush, these priorities have not changed much in terms of Africa and are unlikely to change under Obama. The ethnic chauvinist Tigrean regime has served America well and will continue to be a pliant stooge in the coming years. Obama may be black but this would have no weight at all in determining his policy towards Ethiopia and Africa. The rogues and barracudas like Cheney and Rice may be out of power--a good sight to behold-- though the replacements may not warm our hearts in Africa. To let the cynicism ride its dark horse, for those who want more problems and chaos for America it is true that McCain is the right choice. Such people can hope, if he is elected, his adventures into Iran, Syria, more obdurate policies in the Middle East and elsewhere will aggravate the crisis of America but we cannot wish the American people that much pain while wanting our own to disappear.
A realistic appraisal of the weight of Africa in American politics is called for. Take the Congo where more than 4 million people died and American and British companies running after minerals are behind the bloody militias. Who has cared enough to raise a voice in defense of the Congolese people? Ask Kofi Anan for one. Equatorial Guinea is in America's good books because American companies are taking its oil. Ethiopians suffer under one of the most repressive regimes in Africa--does Washington care? Are they not more interested in the mercenary role of the regime? Obama may be black but American foreign policy is, so to speak, white. White in the sense that it has no heart for the suffering peoples of Africa. Those who are experts at discerning the internal political and economic situation in the USA may adequately explain how Obama would be, domestically, an improvement on Bush or McCain but I will bet all the dollars that I do not have that for Africa Obama will be more of the same, demagogy to the contrary notwithstanding. The American comedian Woody Allen said reality is the leading cause of stress for those in touch with it. Yet, stress or not, we have to be realistic (without quotations) and much as it is historic and pleasant to see Obama in the White House his presence there would not change much for Ethiopia and Africa. Let it be said though the enthusiastic reception that Obama got in Germany (a country that wants no blacks on its soil), that he made it this far in America and may even get elected is historic indeed. America may yet surprise us positively and we hope it does.
For those of us who have a country or a continent to save, time presses and the luxury of giving time to our hope to be real is not there at all. No choice but to fight for our own liberation relying on ourselves and knowing full well that this may possibly pit us against president Obama too if he does get there.
Imamu Amiri Baraka called hope a delicate suffering while someone else called it tomorrow's veneer over today's disappointment. No question that Ethiopia's suffering millions need hope, but then the same Ethiopians say he who lives on hope dies with desire. Very realistic you would say but it won't be correct all the way. Ethiopians, or at least her so called intellectuals, are complicated.
I hear that Ethio-Americans are alive with expectations of an Obama victory. One intellectual who has yet to fathom the evil mind of Meles Zenawi and the complicated situation in Ethiopia has vowed to address all Ethiopians on the spirit and message of Barack Obama. Another promised an Obama victory will give Ethiopians the tools and moral equipment to defeat their enemy-- the same regime of Meles that is being backed by America because it is a foot soldier in Washington's so called war on terror in the Horn of Africa. Hope springs eternal said someone else--hope is the poor man's bread. I am the first one to admit that years of close contact with Ethiopian and African politics has made my cynicism strong. To be fair, of course, I would prefer defining cynicism as sentimentalism on guard, guarded optimism. This requires no prophetic ability but just observing experience and facts. Decades of US foreign policy towards Ethiopia and the region has been cynical, cruel and often mistaken and against the interests of the people. US and Ethiopian interests have hardly ever been synonymous.
I remember many Ethio-Americans contributing money and hoping for a better understanding from America when the Clinton fellow got elected. It was not long before his wife Hilary flew to Asmara, the capital of Eritrea, to praise Isaias Afewerki as a democrat. Clinton himself went on to lable Meles, Isaias, Yoweri Museveni and Kagame of Rwanda as a new breed of democratic leaders for Africa. The Clinton administration backed the repressive Meles regime and aggravated the plight of millions of Ethiopians. Let me say right here that this has not much to do with the American people who are as generous as any other and have helped Ethiopians in their time of need but official America is another thing altogether. True believers of Obama would argue that he is different from Clinton and would chart a better deal for people suffering under dictatorships. Aside from this being a song we have heard so many times before and taking into account that our fate should not be handed over to any foreign power or leader, it is obvious that Obama is first and foremost an American. He may have had a Kenyan father but as the Kenyans themselves say "Mweri mwega umenyaagwo na ngetho" ( the good millet is known at harvest time). Come January, President Obama will first and foremost fulfill the plans and priorities of the US of America. Clinton or Bush, these priorities have not changed much in terms of Africa and are unlikely to change under Obama. The ethnic chauvinist Tigrean regime has served America well and will continue to be a pliant stooge in the coming years. Obama may be black but this would have no weight at all in determining his policy towards Ethiopia and Africa. The rogues and barracudas like Cheney and Rice may be out of power--a good sight to behold-- though the replacements may not warm our hearts in Africa. To let the cynicism ride its dark horse, for those who want more problems and chaos for America it is true that McCain is the right choice. Such people can hope, if he is elected, his adventures into Iran, Syria, more obdurate policies in the Middle East and elsewhere will aggravate the crisis of America but we cannot wish the American people that much pain while wanting our own to disappear.
A realistic appraisal of the weight of Africa in American politics is called for. Take the Congo where more than 4 million people died and American and British companies running after minerals are behind the bloody militias. Who has cared enough to raise a voice in defense of the Congolese people? Ask Kofi Anan for one. Equatorial Guinea is in America's good books because American companies are taking its oil. Ethiopians suffer under one of the most repressive regimes in Africa--does Washington care? Are they not more interested in the mercenary role of the regime? Obama may be black but American foreign policy is, so to speak, white. White in the sense that it has no heart for the suffering peoples of Africa. Those who are experts at discerning the internal political and economic situation in the USA may adequately explain how Obama would be, domestically, an improvement on Bush or McCain but I will bet all the dollars that I do not have that for Africa Obama will be more of the same, demagogy to the contrary notwithstanding. The American comedian Woody Allen said reality is the leading cause of stress for those in touch with it. Yet, stress or not, we have to be realistic (without quotations) and much as it is historic and pleasant to see Obama in the White House his presence there would not change much for Ethiopia and Africa. Let it be said though the enthusiastic reception that Obama got in Germany (a country that wants no blacks on its soil), that he made it this far in America and may even get elected is historic indeed. America may yet surprise us positively and we hope it does.
For those of us who have a country or a continent to save, time presses and the luxury of giving time to our hope to be real is not there at all. No choice but to fight for our own liberation relying on ourselves and knowing full well that this may possibly pit us against president Obama too if he does get there.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Invading Somalia to Save It!
INVADING SOMALIA TO SAVE IT
Those who have failed to understand the real reasons that prompted Meles Zenawi to send troops to invade Somalia are not few in number. As usual, self declared experts wax lyrical trying to explain to us on why and how Meles had to obey the American diktat, how he is scared of a few thousand hard core Salafist fanatics who may invade and wrest off the Ogaden that a full sized Siad Barre army could not, or how Meles, who is said to graze or chew Khat every afternoon, saw during one of his highs that taking over Mogadishu is the way to a cleaner skin and Nirvana.
Obviously, none of the above reasons hold any water. To put it frankly, none of the so called experts like David Shinn and John Prendergast, former eulogizers of Meles and the TPLF, have the morale high ground to preach now on the realities of the Horn. Yet, they and all the others have failed to understand why Meles sent troops to invade Somalia especially since he was attacking the former dictator Mengistu of wreaking havoc in Somalia. Meles was backed by Siyad Barre in the past and feels indebted towards Somalia. This is the basis of his undying concern for that Stateless country and its battling clans. Meles may not have a fondness for Mogadishu that rivals the one he had for Asmara but here again the Somali capital was said to be brimming with the Eritreans he sincerely loves to frequent with no matter the circumstances. Those who say Meles sent non- Tigrean soldiers to the invasion with the hope that the Somalis may finish them off are also off mark as Meles is jealous of guarding his victims all to himself. Yes, the little fellow is insatiable. Moreover, the invasion cannot be explained away by the allegation that Meles was told that a plant cure for his newly developed skin problem (his face and hands just to talk of the visible parts) is to be found in the gardens of the Somali presidential palace taken over by Sheikhs Ahmed and Aweys. The invasion had in fact deeper and profound motives that I will attempt to reveal here below.
The invasion of Somalia was prompted by the deep love Meles Zenawi has for that country. There they were the Somalis enjoying clan warfare, flooding, all the miseries of the world without even a decent State and Meles could not just sit back and deprive them of an invasion. He had to do his share to make their life as Horn citizens worthy of the region. Somali had invaded Ethiopia when the latter was deep in the grip of a political crisis and Meles had to reciprocate. The Somalis needed an invasion to complete their pain and needed an invasion to seek some unity against a foreign enemy. Meles has obliged and given them the opportunity. Will they take it or waste it? You can lead the horse to the water but you cannot make it drink--and thus no one can blame Meles if the Somalis failed to unite. Another reason is the search for physical contact with Eritreans. With the northern front patrolled by UN soldiers, direct contact had not been easy and Meles, who used to spend his vacations in Asmara and likes nothing more than physical contact with his cousins, had been suffering from what his Chinese doctors have diagnosed as Lack of Contact with Eritreans Anxiety (LACEA). This could only be cured by going to Mogadishu and by making physical contact, even by proxy, with the Eritreans rumored to have been there en masse. Maybe he found none there and this could explain his sadly chauvinistic assertion that the Eritreans were hiding in the skirts of Somali women. As a confirmed coward, Meles knows of course where the best hiding place could be though he could have said Kismayo instead.
Some would surely ask what Ethiopia has got to export to Somalia by the invasion. Not bananas for sure. Of misery and bloodshed Somalia had plenty too. What then? The Bible? Meles is a closet Albanian Stalinist and he has rejected his only God, the son of Afewerki. AIDS through General Bacha Dabale? The Somalis have their own sick fellows with warlords and Islamic court Sheikhs on the verge of insanity from the blood they have spilled. Some lesson on unity? The man is the epitome of division but the clanish Somalis can learn little from him. Delusion of grandeur? But what do you gain showing off with aged Russian jet fighters and tanks against a small force that had none of both? Meles has in fact appeared as a bully, hiding behind a bigger bully, using a battering ram against a fly, burning the gojjo/tukul to get rid of the tuhan/bed bug. Bad bully. And that, alas, is what has also prompted him to invade knowing full well that, at least in the first round, he will roll over the relatively poorly armed and outnumbered Islamic court fighters while getting the chance to strut and parade like a peacock, a victor-- I warned them, they did not listen, I came, I saw, I conquered. A pathetic Caesar on the Horn, a tin pot dictator, a remote control commander, a coward playing at warrior, a fool rushing into the marsh. Meles loves disasters so long as the misery of peoples is assured. And he expects a thank you from the world at large.
The invasion of Somalia is also provoked by the Ethiopian opposition. Those in Kaliti and elsewhere are all to blame. They isolated and hounded Meles so much that even former friend are shunning him and beginning to call him authoritarian. And the opportunist Americans could dump him like they dumped the Shah, Mobutu and even Sadam. Which meant he had to bend backwards to oblige these powerful fellows. A camp in Hurso? Take it please! Action in Somalia? Whatever you say! Washington is looking for three “terrorists” hiding in Mogadishu—no problem, I will invade the whole country and try to find them. Meles was forced to obey the Americans because the opposition, disloyal elements to their core, isolated and exposed him as a dictator. The Opposition could have been charged for this crime too. But, given the situation, what else could he do but bootlick! Let the Americans back the opposition and cause his demise? Over your dead body is the Meles response. A few thousand dead in Somalia is hardly a sacrifice worth talking about. Didn't a hundred thousand perish in the Badme front only to lose Badme and other areas in a World Court ruling later on? Moreover, the Islamic Court was threatening to end the anarchy of Somalia in its own way and no one can expect Meles who relishes division and anarchy to fold his arms and watch as Somalia overcomes clan divisions and casts a bad light on his own ethnic policy that, let us admit it, has failed to fragment and destroy Ethiopia.
Somalia had to be invaded to be saved from its own newly developed delusions. Thanks to Meles, it has now been given the chance of anarchy and more warfare, perhaps the chance to unite against a foreign enemy and wage more war, a chance to avoid an Iraq type massive American invasion by being victim of a poor man's invasion by Meles instead, an opportunity to invite Eritreans and others for the free for all like in Eastern Congo, and the golden occasion to be the victim in the eyes of the world. Why blame Meles when all he wanted to have was physical contact with his Eritrean cousins and to extend a helping hand to the fraternal people of Somalia? The Islamic Court desired to kill as many Ethiopian infidels as possible and Meles has paid the transportation cost to bring the potential victims to Mogadishu--he should be thanked. A home delivery for a Jihad, if you want. Meles had also to test the American trained counter terrorist soldiers in Blattein. If not in Somalia, where? Moreover, after feeding America all the intelligence about the vile terrorists lurking in Somalia, Meles could not shy away from the invasion called for by the situation. Be fair and be in his shoes all of you critics, though he may be as nasty as the bearded Sheikhs or even worse. You can destroy a country to save it-- that is one American concept that Meles has understood ever since Dedebit. That is why Meles is sabotaging the interest of Ethiopia in order to safeguard it.
So in the end, why did Meles send troops to invade Somalia? The desire for mayhem and anarchy? for murder and bloodshed? Out of love for the Somalis in need of a foreign invader? To prove that he is his own man and can invade any country? To use his rusty jets and tanks and get rid of some of his troops? To throw Ethiopia into a mess? All and anything-- except to please Bush. Mogadishu is taken, Kismayo will fall. It is “mission accomplished” Meles style. What next? We have to await the coming Meles session with khat and the revelations he may have on the way out of the mess.
Those who have failed to understand the real reasons that prompted Meles Zenawi to send troops to invade Somalia are not few in number. As usual, self declared experts wax lyrical trying to explain to us on why and how Meles had to obey the American diktat, how he is scared of a few thousand hard core Salafist fanatics who may invade and wrest off the Ogaden that a full sized Siad Barre army could not, or how Meles, who is said to graze or chew Khat every afternoon, saw during one of his highs that taking over Mogadishu is the way to a cleaner skin and Nirvana.
Obviously, none of the above reasons hold any water. To put it frankly, none of the so called experts like David Shinn and John Prendergast, former eulogizers of Meles and the TPLF, have the morale high ground to preach now on the realities of the Horn. Yet, they and all the others have failed to understand why Meles sent troops to invade Somalia especially since he was attacking the former dictator Mengistu of wreaking havoc in Somalia. Meles was backed by Siyad Barre in the past and feels indebted towards Somalia. This is the basis of his undying concern for that Stateless country and its battling clans. Meles may not have a fondness for Mogadishu that rivals the one he had for Asmara but here again the Somali capital was said to be brimming with the Eritreans he sincerely loves to frequent with no matter the circumstances. Those who say Meles sent non- Tigrean soldiers to the invasion with the hope that the Somalis may finish them off are also off mark as Meles is jealous of guarding his victims all to himself. Yes, the little fellow is insatiable. Moreover, the invasion cannot be explained away by the allegation that Meles was told that a plant cure for his newly developed skin problem (his face and hands just to talk of the visible parts) is to be found in the gardens of the Somali presidential palace taken over by Sheikhs Ahmed and Aweys. The invasion had in fact deeper and profound motives that I will attempt to reveal here below.
The invasion of Somalia was prompted by the deep love Meles Zenawi has for that country. There they were the Somalis enjoying clan warfare, flooding, all the miseries of the world without even a decent State and Meles could not just sit back and deprive them of an invasion. He had to do his share to make their life as Horn citizens worthy of the region. Somali had invaded Ethiopia when the latter was deep in the grip of a political crisis and Meles had to reciprocate. The Somalis needed an invasion to complete their pain and needed an invasion to seek some unity against a foreign enemy. Meles has obliged and given them the opportunity. Will they take it or waste it? You can lead the horse to the water but you cannot make it drink--and thus no one can blame Meles if the Somalis failed to unite. Another reason is the search for physical contact with Eritreans. With the northern front patrolled by UN soldiers, direct contact had not been easy and Meles, who used to spend his vacations in Asmara and likes nothing more than physical contact with his cousins, had been suffering from what his Chinese doctors have diagnosed as Lack of Contact with Eritreans Anxiety (LACEA). This could only be cured by going to Mogadishu and by making physical contact, even by proxy, with the Eritreans rumored to have been there en masse. Maybe he found none there and this could explain his sadly chauvinistic assertion that the Eritreans were hiding in the skirts of Somali women. As a confirmed coward, Meles knows of course where the best hiding place could be though he could have said Kismayo instead.
Some would surely ask what Ethiopia has got to export to Somalia by the invasion. Not bananas for sure. Of misery and bloodshed Somalia had plenty too. What then? The Bible? Meles is a closet Albanian Stalinist and he has rejected his only God, the son of Afewerki. AIDS through General Bacha Dabale? The Somalis have their own sick fellows with warlords and Islamic court Sheikhs on the verge of insanity from the blood they have spilled. Some lesson on unity? The man is the epitome of division but the clanish Somalis can learn little from him. Delusion of grandeur? But what do you gain showing off with aged Russian jet fighters and tanks against a small force that had none of both? Meles has in fact appeared as a bully, hiding behind a bigger bully, using a battering ram against a fly, burning the gojjo/tukul to get rid of the tuhan/bed bug. Bad bully. And that, alas, is what has also prompted him to invade knowing full well that, at least in the first round, he will roll over the relatively poorly armed and outnumbered Islamic court fighters while getting the chance to strut and parade like a peacock, a victor-- I warned them, they did not listen, I came, I saw, I conquered. A pathetic Caesar on the Horn, a tin pot dictator, a remote control commander, a coward playing at warrior, a fool rushing into the marsh. Meles loves disasters so long as the misery of peoples is assured. And he expects a thank you from the world at large.
The invasion of Somalia is also provoked by the Ethiopian opposition. Those in Kaliti and elsewhere are all to blame. They isolated and hounded Meles so much that even former friend are shunning him and beginning to call him authoritarian. And the opportunist Americans could dump him like they dumped the Shah, Mobutu and even Sadam. Which meant he had to bend backwards to oblige these powerful fellows. A camp in Hurso? Take it please! Action in Somalia? Whatever you say! Washington is looking for three “terrorists” hiding in Mogadishu—no problem, I will invade the whole country and try to find them. Meles was forced to obey the Americans because the opposition, disloyal elements to their core, isolated and exposed him as a dictator. The Opposition could have been charged for this crime too. But, given the situation, what else could he do but bootlick! Let the Americans back the opposition and cause his demise? Over your dead body is the Meles response. A few thousand dead in Somalia is hardly a sacrifice worth talking about. Didn't a hundred thousand perish in the Badme front only to lose Badme and other areas in a World Court ruling later on? Moreover, the Islamic Court was threatening to end the anarchy of Somalia in its own way and no one can expect Meles who relishes division and anarchy to fold his arms and watch as Somalia overcomes clan divisions and casts a bad light on his own ethnic policy that, let us admit it, has failed to fragment and destroy Ethiopia.
Somalia had to be invaded to be saved from its own newly developed delusions. Thanks to Meles, it has now been given the chance of anarchy and more warfare, perhaps the chance to unite against a foreign enemy and wage more war, a chance to avoid an Iraq type massive American invasion by being victim of a poor man's invasion by Meles instead, an opportunity to invite Eritreans and others for the free for all like in Eastern Congo, and the golden occasion to be the victim in the eyes of the world. Why blame Meles when all he wanted to have was physical contact with his Eritrean cousins and to extend a helping hand to the fraternal people of Somalia? The Islamic Court desired to kill as many Ethiopian infidels as possible and Meles has paid the transportation cost to bring the potential victims to Mogadishu--he should be thanked. A home delivery for a Jihad, if you want. Meles had also to test the American trained counter terrorist soldiers in Blattein. If not in Somalia, where? Moreover, after feeding America all the intelligence about the vile terrorists lurking in Somalia, Meles could not shy away from the invasion called for by the situation. Be fair and be in his shoes all of you critics, though he may be as nasty as the bearded Sheikhs or even worse. You can destroy a country to save it-- that is one American concept that Meles has understood ever since Dedebit. That is why Meles is sabotaging the interest of Ethiopia in order to safeguard it.
So in the end, why did Meles send troops to invade Somalia? The desire for mayhem and anarchy? for murder and bloodshed? Out of love for the Somalis in need of a foreign invader? To prove that he is his own man and can invade any country? To use his rusty jets and tanks and get rid of some of his troops? To throw Ethiopia into a mess? All and anything-- except to please Bush. Mogadishu is taken, Kismayo will fall. It is “mission accomplished” Meles style. What next? We have to await the coming Meles session with khat and the revelations he may have on the way out of the mess.
Monday, October 27, 2008
REMEMBERING ESHETU CHOLE
Here are some poems in English written by the late Dr. Eshetu Chole:
The Traveler (1962)
It was a cool and starry night
As I lay back upon the dark grass
That a thought passed through my mind
Amidst te blaze of the heavenly stars
I felt at (a)loss
the loss of a traveler in a strange land.
A sudden fear flashed across my heart,
A thought of thing long-gone and things to come
And my weary body shook and froze.
For I knew the world was no man's land
Strange, unexplored and always young.
I thought at once of the distance I had gone
And the distance yet to come.
And with the sigh of tired traveler
I let these words go forth.
" I am a traveler in a very strange land".
A traveler without guide,
A land without a gun.
DARKNESS (1963)
Dark was all--
Darknes I fear
Evil though it evokes
Sad memories it recalls.
I sat in a dark room
Seeing images of things that never were
Hearing sounds that were not made.
I sat there silently,
Waiting, hope ever increasing
For light to replace darkness
And relieve me of my pains.
RETROSPECT (1963)
Far are those days,
Far in a distant past
But their memories still shine.
Gone are the days of youth,
The days of mirth and laughter;
Weak are those eyes that once glowed with fire
With their flame burnt out;
ime has whitened the hair that was once black
Wrinkles have invaded that smooth and shiny face.
Gone are those days when we were innocently playful--
Gone too with them is the vigour of life;
Cold is the heart that once was warm with love,
And the hot and lively blood
Has given way to coldness,
The coldness that heralds
The nearing of the end.
It was a cool and starry night
As I lay back upon the dark grass
That a thought passed through my mind
Amidst te blaze of the heavenly stars
I felt at (a)loss
the loss of a traveler in a strange land.
A sudden fear flashed across my heart,
A thought of thing long-gone and things to come
And my weary body shook and froze.
For I knew the world was no man's land
Strange, unexplored and always young.
I thought at once of the distance I had gone
And the distance yet to come.
And with the sigh of tired traveler
I let these words go forth.
" I am a traveler in a very strange land".
A traveler without guide,
A land without a gun.
DARKNESS (1963)
Dark was all--
Darknes I fear
Evil though it evokes
Sad memories it recalls.
I sat in a dark room
Seeing images of things that never were
Hearing sounds that were not made.
I sat there silently,
Waiting, hope ever increasing
For light to replace darkness
And relieve me of my pains.
RETROSPECT (1963)
Far are those days,
Far in a distant past
But their memories still shine.
Gone are the days of youth,
The days of mirth and laughter;
Weak are those eyes that once glowed with fire
With their flame burnt out;
ime has whitened the hair that was once black
Wrinkles have invaded that smooth and shiny face.
Gone are those days when we were innocently playful--
Gone too with them is the vigour of life;
Cold is the heart that once was warm with love,
And the hot and lively blood
Has given way to coldness,
The coldness that heralds
The nearing of the end.
Friday, October 24, 2008
Books by Hama Tuma
Books by Hama Tuma
- "Democratic Cannibalism":African Absurdities III, Infinity publishing, 2007
- " The Case of the Criminal Walk and Other Stories (Outskirts Press,May 2006)
- Give me a Dog's Life any Day: African Absurdities II [Essays, Trafford Publishing, 2004]
- African Absurdities: Politically Incorrect Articles [Essays, First Publish, 2002]
- Kedada Chereka [Novel in Amharic] , 1999
- To Eat an America and Other poems (in English), 1995
- Case of the Socialist Witchdoctor and other stories [Short stories, Heinemann, 1993]
- Of Spades and Ethiopians [Collection of Poetry in English, Free Ethiopian Press, 1991]
- Habeshigna #1 & #2 [Two collections of Poetry both in Amharic (1999)
Message
There was once upon a time a www.hamatuma.com but the server collapsed and the web site vanished with it. Awaiting a savior, this blog has been launched.To post the articles and also to raise points of discussion. Can and will other writers come aboard? We shall see. I plan to review books of all sorts and share a certain reading experience with others. I will try to invite writers from Ethiopia to use the space to have their say. To present the stories and poems of many others denied spaces or publication. Ambitious? Perhaps. But it is good to dream, to aspire to push the mountain aside.As the Chinese say, books do not exhuast words and words do not exhaust thoughts.
Laughing at Africa
Laughing at Africa has been a favorite pastime of many people in the West since time immemorial. The "dark continent" as some chose to call it was the target of derision by self declared experts who had little credentials other than their mountain high prejudice against black people. Aristotle defined wit as an educated insult but Africa often got coarse buffoonery, cruel, cutting, demeaning, exclusive and more than often racist.
No wonder then that the two master buffoons, Idi Amin and Emperor Bokassa, became the darlings of the West. Amin was the subject of several documentaries as he proudly showed his plan to conquer the Golan Heights, to help the famished in England, to greet crocodiles "who know him personally" and more. By ridiculing Amin who was brought to power by the British authorities themselves a whole continent was made fun of and ridiculed to the delight of the West. For the antics of one Amin, a whole continent was lambasted and the accusations of cannibalism directed against him and Bokassa shed a suspicious light on all black skinned fellows with white or yellow but strong teeth. Grotesque stories of the West, including incidents of cannibalism, did not get that much coverage at all. The latest and quite horrible jab at Africa involved a goat called Rose and a Southern Sudanese, hornier than brainy, assisted by careless elders taking grain to the mill of the West that loves laughing at Africa. The story goes as follows: a certain Mr. Charles Tombe was quite drunk somewhere in Juba, Southern Sudan, a war torn place where you could be expected to do much more worse things than just getting drunk, and mistook a goat called Rose for a lady. He was caught by the goat's owner while having an improper relation with Rose. The owner sought justice from the elders and they, thereby pushing you to conclude that with elders like these no wonder the people had so many social problems, decided that Tombe should pay a $50 dowry and "marry" the goat.
The BBC picked up this story and the news was sent all over the world. Send the BBC vivid stories of the carnage in the Congo in which Britain is involved or on atrocities of the Meles Zenawi army and the stories will die on their desks but anything on Mugabe and what will ridicule Africa is their cup of favorite tea. And, hence, this story of an African and a goat (as if such acts are unheard of in Europe and America) and the verdict of the improperly funny elders hit the world at large. In the words of the BBC itself (Focus on Africa): "the short amusing story we wrote about on the BBC News website soon turned into the most emailed story we have done and it quickly spread around the world...Over time, it has received several million hits--making it historically one of the biggest hitting stories the BBC has ever published...Every few weeks, it would reappear as the BBC's top emailed story of the day....A Google search on the Sudan and goat now uncovers more than 1 million different web pages, based on the same story". Subsequently Rose gave birth to a male kid and died and the BBC did report that too. What made the story such a hit was not that a man tried to bed with a goat ( bestiality being no strange thing in the West), nor was it because some elders with, evidently, time in their idle hands wanted to have a laugh at the expense of poor Mr. Tombe, but only because it happened in Africa. There go those "darkies" getting into bed with goats and marrying them no less! Anything to laugh at
We are also to blame if truth be told as we Africans position ourselves to be the butt of crude and cruel jokes. We all know the Western media enjoys having a roaring laugh at our misery--that is why they always report the disasters of Africa and very rarely the good and positive side of this great continent. The self portrait of Africans is not what is found in major Western newspapers and magazines that revel in our so called malaise which is often caused by the West itself. The carnage in most places like the Congo/Zaire/ has its root in the Western companies' voracious greed to rob that country's mineral wealth. It is grim and the likes of Mr.Tombe and his irresponsible elders are only light interludes. Chadian rebels may say they called off their offensive against President Idris Deby because they suddenly realized that they had not agreed on who may replace him (ho ho ho!) but the real story is that French armed interference saved the skin of the tyrant in Ndjamena. Chad's first dictator Tombalbaye used to claim that dead ancestors talked to him over national radio but he was a stooge of "civilized" France. There may be more elephants than whites in Zimbabwe as one correspondent of The Economist noted in an attempt to attack Mugabe but the Zimbabwean leader has become Satan in the eyes of the West not for his dictatorship but for infringing on minority white farmers who owned the bigger share of the country's land. This same correspondent argued that those African leaders who blame "Whitey" are not actually good at balancing the budget while glossing over the fact that "Whitey" likes and supports those who do not balance the budget but steal from it. Mobutu, Bongo, Meles, Arap Moi, clowns but thieving clowns nonetheless and the West laughed and still laughs at
The West laughs at Africa and some blacks applaud or join the laughter. An African American (he may not like being called that for that matter) I cited before in another article has joined those who laugh at Africa by praising his ancestors for being slaves and for having left Africa. The Western media likes such fellows. He is
Keith Richburg, a former Nairobi based correspondent for The Washington Post, and in a book he published in 1997 and that was hailed by TIME and other magazines he stated: "I am an American, but a black man, a descendent of slaves brought from Africa...If things had been different, I might have been one of them (The Africans) - or might have met some... anonymous fate in one of the countless ongoing civil wars or tribal clashes on this brutal continent. And so I thank God my ancestor survived that voyage (to slavery)... Talk to me about Africa and my black roots and my kinship with my African brothers and I'll throw it back into your face, and then I'll rub your nose in the images of the rotting flesh (of the victims of the genocide of the Tutsis of Rwanda)... Sorry, but I've been there. I've had an AK-47 rammed up my nose; I've talked to machete-wielding Hutu militiamen with the blood of their latest victims splattered across their T-shirts. I've seen a cholera epidemic in Zaire, a famine in Somalia, a civil war in Liberia. I've seen cities reduced to rubble, because their leaders let them rot and decay while they spirited away billions of dollars - yes, billions - into overseas bank accounts... Thank God my ancestor got out, because, now, I am not one of them." For once, I am tempted to blame the machete- wielding Hutu militia for being magnanimous! Self hate is a by product of the colonial oppression or of the brain washing by the establishment so much so that the pathetic journalist, who will be consistent if he votes for McCain come November, praises the slavery of his ancestors. He should go and check the carnage in Iraq for one. No wonder they laugh at us poor and confused black dupes.
So called democracies in Africa are caricatures and there you have a serious laughing matter. The new Nigerian President, Umaru Yar'Adua, almost kneeling before George Bush in the White House ("This is a moment I will never forget in my life" said Umaru) is a real joke. And as
THE RAMPAGE OF THE MORAL BRIGADE
OR
MUCH
The authorities in
The moral aspect of the issue brings to mind one Algerian official of the sixties who ordered all men to grow a moustache or else. In this same country, grown up men who called themselves policemen drove black Peugeot cars and kidnapped young girls from the streets, shaved their hair, manhandled them and brought them back to their districts. These were the "brigade des moeurs", the Moral Brigade, and the girls were punished for being "improperly dressed", "having boy friends" and the like. The zealous policemen did not have much else to do. Macias Nguema of
One wonders where the politicians get the time to be so ridiculously busy. They must have turned into expert thieves of the national treasury as it seems to take not much of their time. The man who called
The rampage of the moral brigade is ruining the continent. The very ones who preach the respect of "our" culture are the very ones sold out to foreign powers or foreign habits. The moral high ground they seek is illusory and at best repressive. Bush would have called it the "fallacy of humans" meaning their fallibility of course. But then, this is the fellow who said of his dog Barney "he is a good man". The Iranian president denies there are gays in his country while Mugabe vows to stamp them out and the
As Bob Dole said life is very important for Americans. He may not know this, but life is very important for all peoples of the world. Yet, this is not a fair world we live in. Take the Saudi Sheik Abdul Aziz who said "the earth is flat and anyone who disputes this is an atheist who deserves to be punished". Give him the chance and the Saudi Sheikh who has his orgy in the
Moral police are often suspect. The hankering to the past usually indicates a present that is troublesome. African despots hanker to the past that is at most less than idyllic. We are hungry today and they tell us we were the beginning of humanity and we introduced farming to the world. Does it really matter? The suit that Southern Sudanese men wear and the big hat that the Southern region president wears are not "native" but then again who cares? Our busy politicians are machos as are the moral brigades called Taliban, Islamic Court, mullahs, etc...They are all forces of regression, nostalgic of the dark times of ignorance and savagery. We should be glad that Southern Sudanese girls have trousers to put on unlike millions other destitute Africans who have no decent clothes at all. Alas, those in power have lost all perspective just as they have no notion of decency and democracy. They are busy chasing after irrelevancies and shaming
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